Sunday, June 08, 2003 8:19:15 AM Joe Coluccio

Wait for me, Wild Bill!

Art and I were friends all the years and summers that I struggled for my PA State Driver's License. I went to the State Police Barracks at Washington Boulevard twice. Crushed by my first defeat, I managed the loops and backwards logic of parallel parking on the follow-up test a few weeks later. Freedom! As long as I could manage to talk the keys of the car out of my old man's hands.

By the tenth grade Art was gone. A runaway to New York City, heartache to his parents and sociopath to the rest of us. Live fast, we thought, die young, we fantasized and have a good looking corpse. Art came the closest to emulating Nick Romano.

He was a good looking guy, a clone of his father, his mother a clone of Barbara Billingsly caring for the Beaver, perfectly coifed, sexually repressed and suburban dressed. She tolerated me but despised the bulk of his other friends. It was a house where you left the assumption of your dirty shoes on the rug at the back door and walked in uncomfortable socks over splendid carpet that carried immaculate furniture poised on plastic leg coasters. He had a sister who was dark and voluptuous but too budding young to pay close attention.

Art's black hair swept back heavy was glued to the side of his head with the grease that passed for gel in that time. When he didn't carry it as a carrier top in the summer, it waved casually to his forehead so that he could push it back with his fat flat fingers. His nose was small straight and his lips were heavy, slightly feminine. He had a big laugh that never failed to lead us to trouble. He would start with a twisted grin, grab my arm, open his mouth and work his way up to a maniacal breaking decibel. That laugh was meant to draw me into a friendly intimacy as if to say we know, wink, a lot better than this Joe. Don’t we? Eh?

He loved to run with what passed for the rough crowd. It was in the rarefied air of Sturm und Drang and desperate scholarship that our friendship flourished. We were rebellious, outlaws, and disdained the notions of a morality being foisted upon us by the school district, the church, our parents and the President of the United States.

We imagined ourselves as a river boat gamblers, wise in the hard intentions of the world but initiates in the truly great dimensions of literate culture. He knew and quoted Annabelle Lee at the drop of a scanned meter. Was more intimidating playing pool than good. Gave hard looks at all night poker marathons and lost poorly. Our heroes were all the bad guys. But we loved the border character the best. The one that could turn terrible bad in an instant and leave all goody two shoes posturing in the dust.

Girls flocked to him with an ease that left me breathless and jealous. I drove. He made out loudly in the front passenger seat, the girl pushing passion against my legs and arms making the vehicle a lethal weapon in my inexperienced hands. Occasionally there was a double date, but the girl I was with really wanted Art and was probably as put off as I was by the loud sexual sounds that issued from often as not her sister in the rear of the car. I never made the moves. So I guess I'll never know.

One Thanksgiving Art and another friend left home. For good. This was episode one.

I remember feeling a peculiar bleakness as we walked through the cold past glowing Christmas decorations and gift displays at the then prospering East Hills Shopping Center. My friends talked of Chicago like it was the grand salvation of all their miserable existence. Come along, they said. But I never felt that I had it that bad. I would miss the warmth of my family, close and extended, during the coming vacation. The rebellion that I felt had nothing to do with the world around me. It was a heat that I carried in the center of my being that makes allowances for the imperfection of situations. I never really lost it. Carry it to this day. And I knew that Chicago could do nothing to make it better.

One night I drove them to the bus stop. Watched as they checked a bag each with the driver and stepped up on to the bus heading west dark into America. I went home, listened to the radio until I fell asleep.

Con'd on the next blog post.