Besides teasing me for wearing makeup, my weight was another area that Eric loved to harass me about. I wasn’t much overweight, but I wasn’t that thin, either. My biggest area of fat was in my chest, which I referred to as my “chubby pecs.” Eric once said to me, “Oh, so how many rolls do you have again?” I decided to lose weight by exercising a lot and occasionally lifting weights; sometimes I chose not to eat, which was my favorite way to slim down. I lost fifteen pounds when I was fourteen, which upset my mother. Fourteen-year-old boys are supposed to be gaining weight and building muscle instead of starving themselves. My mother and I kept my weight loss a secret, since my mother thought that only girls had weight issues. I quickly found out that almost everybody, boys and girls alike, has body image problems.
Later that spring, Dan had a small gathering at his house and Eric and some of his other friends were in attendance. Eric and his new friends didn’t like Dan that much; they mostly used him for free cigarettes. They also liked playing tricks on me. They thought it would be hysterical if they pinned me down when I wasn’t looking and sprayed me with Dan’s mother’s perfume. I wanted to go home immediately and wipe it off, but the boys made me go to the mall with them instead.
Another time when the same group was hanging out at Dan’s house, we had a bicycle race. After the race began, I remember riding my bicycle and thinking, “Wow, I don’t see anybody in front of me. I’m killing this race—for the first time, I’m winning something!” Then I realized that the only reason I won was that when Dan said, “Start,” everybody ran into the house and locked me out. The only way I was allowed to reenter was to yell that I desperately wanted to make love to Janet Reno.
Still, the most entertaining time Dan and I ever had together was at a nightclub called Secrets, a teen hangout on the other side of town. Secrets would often advertise on the local radio that they would be throwing an awesome party with the “water cannon” and that there would be “no dress code.” Anybody who ever lived in the Capital District as a teenager probably spent a Saturday night or two at Secrets. It was the coolest place for a thirteen-year-old to be. The bouncers at the door would mark everybody’s hand with a magic marker. I would never wash my hands on Sunday or Monday because I wanted everybody at school to know I was at Secrets over the weekend. All of the cool kids at Sand Creek Middle School went to Secrets every Friday and Saturday night. Still, even though my friends and I were always there, we were never considered part of the cool crowd.
One night when just Dan and I were at Secrets, a girl approached me and asked if I was Carmen Missmo’s little brother. I decided to say yes just to see what the girl’s response would be. Did she love Carmen Missmo’s little brother and want to find out what he was up to, or did she secretly hate Carmen’s brother and want to be mean to him? Well, when I answered in the affirmative, the girl was actually delighted. For the entire night, I pretended to be Carmen’s little brother, Chris. The girl who asked me about Carmen was named Christine. “So, Christopher, how are you now?” she asked. I responded, “Well, actually I go by Chris now.” Christine asked me what Carmen was up to, and I made up some silly story. Christine wondered why Carmen didn’t accompany his little brother to Secrets. Pretending to be Chris, I told Christine that he was out bowling with some friends. Christine said, “Oh, I didn’t know Carmen liked to bowl.” I said, “Well, he does now.”
Dan decided to intervene in my conversation with Christine and ask her, “Didn’t Carmen say that you two had sex?” I was definitely annoyed that Dan had made such a rude remark and tried to neutralize the situation by telling Christine that Carmen would never say anything like that. The funniest thing about that night was that Christine and I actually danced together. I told Christine to call me (Chris) the following day and asked her, “Oh, you still have our number, right?” The truth was I wasn’t Carmen Missmo’s little brother, but I was attracted to Christine and it was a shame that because of my lie the two of us could never be together. Dan would later ask me why anybody would want a girl who would go out with her ex-boyfriend’s brother. However, the night I pretended to be Chris Missmo was one of our favorite outings at Secrets. Dan was my closest friend when I was fourteen. We went to the shopping mall every day that summer to play video games in the arcade and play jokes on people in the mall. When we weren’t at the mall, we were probably watching the movie Mallrats, which was a personal favorite of all of my friends. One time Dan and I, along with our friend Al, got
