I Spent the '80s Trying to Outrun Being Alone

I romanticize the ‘80s. I can’t help it.

Fat laces. The birth of hip hop. Back spins on flattened cardboard. BMX bikes. Depeche Mode leaking out of somebody’s boombox. Arcades that smelled like carpet and quarters. Rolling over trash cans. Chasing girls from the block and staying out until the streetlights came on. Stealing snacks and stealing kisses.

When I tell it like that, it sounds like one long magical cruel summer. And some of it was.

But that’s the highlight reel. The version I hand people because it’s easier than the other one.

The other one is a kid letting himself into an empty house. Making ramen. Turning the TV on so the apartment wasn’t so loud with nobody in it. Parents working, parents fighting battles I was too young to understand, and nobody asking how I was doing — because back then nobody asked that. Especially not boys.

So I found places to disappear.