Middle Years

A tribute to young love

If asked what school years I wish I could redact the most, I would not hesitate to respond with middle school.

The puberty years, when the body changes and realization hits we’re no longer children. We become ravenous wolves, desperate to regain our perch in the social pecking order.

It’s also true that there’s something uniquely special about this period. That precious bridge from innocence to adulthood. A film genre I obsessed over many years after. Maybe like a Bruce Springsteen song. However, I think I preferred Mellencamp then.

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I met Isaac in 7th grade, perhaps midway through. We went together for about two years. He set the bar for many relationships that followed. This seems strange, given our ages then, but I swear we embodied 30 year old skin suits.

Ike was different than other boys. He wore a jean jacket decorated in markers touting band names I was only slightly familiar with. Not necessarily current - Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, etc. - but kind of deep cut for kids that popularized Debbie Gibson and NKOTB.

He had musical legacy; his father and mother played in a band in Minnesota before they divorced.

He was confident and clever, a whacky daredevil. And for that he was popular.

Isaac wore aqua socks to school and nobody batted a lash. He hopped a train sometimes with friends to get to school.

Ike was cool in the most genuine expression of the word and people loved being around him. While not traditionally handsome, in my eyes, he was perfectly chiseled.

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When not playing class clown, or distracted by adventure, he was audaciously sincere.

He walked me home most days. Even though my house was at least a half mile out of the way for him.

We also talked for hours on the phone most nights. Sometimes while he serenaded me with his guitar.

Isaac was a real gem.

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His mom was a bartender at an Irish pub downtown. I recall her having long dark hair and a perfectly raspy voice. She was known for her singing and beloved by bar patrons.

She was often gone by the time we were out of school. However, her sister lived with them, so the apartment was not always empty.

Occasionally it was. We spent a lot of time after school with friends there. From time to time, we were left to our own devices.

The first time we made out, Chuck Berry was playing in the background. The memory is seared in my brain.

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There are many sweet memories I culled during that period of my life. Music always decorated the space.

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After he moved across town, I remember evening visits, drinking his mom’s White Zinfandel, our clothed sweating bodies spilling across the kitchen table.

Or the time we went camping with the adults and I learned about camping knives. While not the most notable part of the trip, it stood out in memory because it was an inside joke unveiled to me. I knew about pot - its existence and usage. I did not know of its prevalence, or how people made do without typical instruments to ingest its heady tonic.

Two impressionable memories remain with me from that trip - I’ll share the appropriate one:

On the way to our destination, a Steve Miller song came on the radio that I’m sure I’d heard a few times. Isaac knew all of the words and sang them out loud with the windows down and the sun and wind streaming in. He was so in his skin. I was both envious and full of a strange pride.

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Months after we broke up for the last time, I remember making out with abandon in his basement stairwell, while friends of ours milled about. It was in our freshman year, and we were in different schools. A girlfriend passing us on her way down the stairs said, “I thought you didn’t like him anymore”. She remained a bitch as long as I knew her.

But I’ve skipped over a sobering event.

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Before we started high school, although I’m not exactly sure how long before, Ike called me on the phone, or I called him, and in a quiet voice he told me that his mother had gone missing. She’d left for a weekend getaway with a friend to B.C. Canada and hadn’t returned as expected. I was not sure what to do with that information. I don’t think he was either.

Perhaps a day or two later, he was dropped off at my house while his aunt joined others to search for her. I don’t think he was with me for more than an hour before his aunt appeared at the front door in dark sunglasses. It was the last time I saw him for what felt like a long time.

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They found the truck parked along a highway, keys and purse left behind, with no sign of foul play. It was parked next to a hillside.

The bodies were found at the bottom of a cliff on the other side of the hilltop.

The theory is they pulled over for a bathroom break. I believe it was still snowy in that area, and police speculated she may have been the one that initiated the stop and slipped on ice when she was out of sight in the trees, and when her friend heard her scream, he followed after.

Isaac struggled much following his mom’s death, and we ended up drifting apart.

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I ran into him years later, when I was engaged to be married, and was out for a friend’s bachelorette party during the annual lilac parade downtown.

We talked on the phone once after that and pieced together a few memories. Bittersweet closure.

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Going through old pictures tends to pull some of these things to the forefront, yeah?

As always, thanks for reading.

Melanie❤️