STEAMPUNK3

I went to a private school between 3^rd and 4^th grade. I had a really good time. It never felt like school. I think the school was focused on the individual’s progress at their own pace. Much like Montessori. For the most part, all of the classes were mixed in. I was friends with some of the older kids, who would educate me about bulling, drug abuse, and sex.

I remember Gabe and Luis. Brothers who taught me all the vulgarities in the world. I didn’t know this at the time, but they must have been traumatized from something fucked up – because at 8 and 10 years old, their morals were totally depraved.

Even at 8 years old, Gabe was incredibly intelligent. He was closer to my age than his brother, who was 2 years older. Gabe was describing to me what Rockabilly was, and very into music, like myself. He also explained to me about talking in tongue when Def Leopard did it in Rock of Ages (on their album Pyromania). Both of us listened to Stray Cats and Thompson Twins.

Luis would talk sex all the time. Nothing was taboo or off limits. Where to stick it and lick it. What was the literal meaning of the middle finger. What the parts of girls were called. His mind was stained.

In my 3^rd and 4^th grade private school we had the opportunity to learn from things like horseback riding, swimming, canteen, most of what I remember were outdoors. I didn’t have the same adversity to the outdoors as I did only a few years younger. I am not complaining, the location was scenic, in the Malibu hills. Those days we had rivers, evergreens, beautiful trails, all of it was healthy for a growing child.

One time, I was in a horse riding group and we crossed a steady stream. I was on my pony, but couldn’t lead him worth a damn.

Unless you knew the trail, at a certain point while crossing the stream, you wouldn’t know that there was a quicksand trap. No joke, really, there was sinking sand (in Los Angeles, none the less). My knees were under water and my horse was starting to panic. He gave a jerk as he climbed out of it. I, however, fell off the horse and the group thought I was under the horse’s hoofs. It really scared me.

My instructors made me late to the bus because I had to clean the horse and brush off the dirt. I was scared into believing that I couldn’t leave, I was their prisoner, until the horse was completely cleaned. The bus ride was 60 minutes away and I just wanted to go home. I was crying. They were laughing.

But not everything ended badly at this school.  I met my true best friend, in fourth grade. It was my second year there, but his first. He was a grade older. Our friendship grew out of a single incident on the bus. I threw up.

At that time, the bus was picking up the kids for school. I had a sour stomach, and threw up. The driver of the bus, asked one of the kids to get a soda from his parents house. From this incident, our friendship grew. Before, I would make fun of him because I wanted to be cool, and teased him for wearing glasses and his name sounded funny.

But he was genuinely concerned about me getting sick. And we’ve been friends ever since.

If you were to take a cross section of teenage boys in America and asked them about pornos, most would probably say they got sex educated from them. I am no different. Yet, why do I feel like I was a weird kid growing up? None of my friends really talked about it. I was a frustrated kid. I thought love was in the skin flix, and translated into love in real life. I was a romantic. In my late teens, I had an abundance of self worth. I think that was the attraction when I started dating. You wouldn’t know it by looking at my current self, but, I had dated several fashion models. In my freshman year of college, I was a catch and the girls knew it. The only thing that I couldn’t understand, at that time – was why didn’t they stay? Perhaps, it was drugs. The thing is, that it was the drugs that the girls dated, not me. I am a very meek person without them. It is only now that I understand. I need the drugs. Therefore, I chase the drugs.