It was eighth grade CCD class…those were the classes we went to at church on Wednesday nights. We never knew what CCD stood for, but it turns out it’s “Confraternity of Christian Doctrine”, something established in Rome in the sixteenth century. Basically, it’s religious ed for those of us who weren’t attending a Catholic school.
That year, they split us up into small groups and we met in the basement of the school. I was in a class of about six kids, all of them from another school. Our instructor was the owner of Fast Eddies, a drive-through carryout store, where you didn’t even have to get out of your car to buy your beer and wine.
There was a boy in that class who was acting out a bit; let’s call him Brad. He’d make outrageous comments during class, and would draw elaborate depictions of pills and syringes on his class handouts. The other kids in the class made fun of him and informed me that he liked me. I didn’t really like him, but the idea of any boy liking me was such a novel thing, I went along with it. I drew mustaches and devil horns on pictures of the pope on my own handouts to show solidarity.
They had a retreat for junior high school kids that year, on a day when our schools were all closed for a teacher in-service day. This was 1977, and the folks running the retreat were the same folks who made the hippy banners for the church and struggled to strum their way through guitar mass. 1977 might seem a little late for that, but this was small-town Ohio…we were always behind.
During a break at the retreat, I was swinging on the swings. Brad wandered over to talk to me. As he talked, I pumped my legs harder and harder, flying higher and higher on the swing, full of nervous energy. I don’t remember what he said, but I remember not wanting anyone to see us talking.
Later, during the retreat, they split the boys and girls up, took us to different rooms for a sex ed type of session. It was painful for me; they didn’t really teach us anything, just encouraged us to ask questions. I didn’t know enough to have any questions. I felt humiliated when we were asked who had gotten their periods already; I felt that the girls who raised their hands already knew how much wiser and more sophisticated they were than me. I can’t remember what was actually discussed, but I remember being shocked by some of the candor. I couldn’t imagine not being ashamed to talk about my body so frankly.
A couple weeks later, there was a dance planned at my school. I usually went to the dances with my friends, holding out hope until the very end that a boy would ask me. I figured that this boy from CCD liked me, so I’d ask him to the dance, and somehow I managed to do that. Funny, I can’t remember how. Maybe a note? I was a coward, so probably it was a note. The year before, I’d given the boy of my obsession a note:
Do you like me? Check one and send this note back to me:
The first time I put the note in his locker, he ignored it. The second time, he checked the dreaded box #2, and gave it to his friend to give back to me. I saw them talking, then the friend walked down the row in study hall and flipped the note onto my desk, saying something nasty and hateful to me.
I’m sure I was no less elegant with asking Brad to the dance.
I remembered when he did answer, it was after CCD class. He came up to me on the playground while we were going to our car in the dark October night, and I was with my brothers and sisters. I was in a panic that he would talk to me around them. They mustn’t know! I let out some horrible tirade about him being gross and of course I didn’t like him. It was if I couldn’t help myself, like I was watching myself do it from outside. I am still miserably ashamed of myself when I think about it now.
The next Wednesday, I talked to him again, and explained that I was around my family at the time and was sorry I’d said all that. He didn’t seem to mind…the poor guy was probably used to it, to be honest. But we arranged for him to go to the dance with me.
On the night of the dance, I waited in the lobby of school for him. Word got around and some of the other kids waited around also, to see who would possibly go to the dance with me. When he came in the door, of course, they all laughed. But we made a quick escape into the dark gym, and went to the top of the bleachers to sit.
He held my hand, and we talked. I felt frozen with fear and tension. There was no punch bowl at this dance to alleviate my edginess; those appeared later, in high school. My best friend and her new friend, Cindy, came to talk to us. Cindy never hid her loathing for me. They stood and talked to us for a while, then Cindy suddenly grabbed my hand and shoved it into Brad’s crotch. I was angry, but Brad didn’t seem to mind.
We slow danced during the slow songs and talked during the fast songs. He brought up the retreat and when they split up the boys and the girls and said that he thought it was wrong that they did that. He thought they should have kept us all together and that it would have been much better. I tried to change the subject.
The dance ground down to the bitter end of the evening. Brad tried to grind his erection into me while dancing, and I pretended not to notice and shifted away each time. Right here in the junior high school gym? Ew.
My dad came to pick us up at the end of the dance. We climbed into the back seat and sat next to each other, maybe holding hands. The radio in the car was broken, so we tried to make conversation all the way back to Ayersville. (My mom said later that Dad vowed to get the car radio fixed right away after that.) I can’t remember…when we dropped him off, did he give me a kiss on the cheek? I just remember being horrified by the whole experience, there with my dad. We drove away, and I climbed over the seat to sit in the front on the way home.
I didn’t really talk to Brad much during the rest of the year. Later, I noticed him in church because he became an altar boy and seemed to find religion and got more involved with the church. But we never really had conversations or were even friends after that. And for the rest of junior high and high school, I never did go to a dance with a boy. Eventually, I just didn’t go to them at all.
Despite the feelings of humiliation and shame that I still feel when I remember this story, I laugh at myself more. I’ve become an adult who’s still quite awkward in social situations. Most of all, I’m struck by the sense of isolation I felt and how I didn’t feel like I could talk to anyone then about my real feelings. I’d like to time-travel back to the person I was, and to tell her, “Hang in there. You’re going to be fine. It’s going to get better. It’s going to get much, much better.”
