Do you remember where you were on January 14, 1973? Elvis
was performing Aloha from Hawaii
via Satellite. I know what I was doing, besides watching it, of course, with
Gracie. I was writing letters of apology with a red felt tip pen on paper
napkins, to a girl on whose roof I had pooped the previous week. Yes, you heard
that correctly. I pooped on her roof.
Ok, so there was this girl, Sabin Pildas, at my progressive
alternative school, Play Mountain
Place, who I had my very first puppy crush on. She
had blonde hair and was cute as a bug, or a button, or a rainbow sunflower, whatever. I
was in love. I liked-ed her so much I invited her to my 7th birthday
party. We played at school and sometimes after school, as she was my neighbor.
She lived in West Hollywood, just across
the Sunset Strip from the house my mom was renting on Larabee.
One night, I was eating dinner over at her house. They were
having “busgetti.” Somewhere between the appetizers and the main course we were
offered water to drink in a choice of glasses. I really wanted to drink out of
the blue glass. It had a neat swirly texture and a blue tint that got really
dark at the bottom, like a tequila sunrise, only with indigo. As soon as I saw
it, I knew that it was the glass for me.
I was denied that glass, however, as it was her father’s
glass and was “special.” I didn’t take it well. First, I pouted, which provided
no results. Then I locked myself in the bathroom and proceeded to crawl out of
the skylight and onto the roof. I’m not sure when the plan developed, but right
then and there I dropped my pants and crapped on the roof. Right next to the
skylight, with birds and sun and sky silently aghast at my action.
It was a messy, peanut buttery affair, which left my
backside in need of a good washing. Alas, I had neglected to bring any toilet
paper. So, there I was squatting, my little undies and pants all akimbo and
becoming soiled from the mess.
I cried. And yelled. “Help! Someone!”
Eventually, someone heard me and determined that I was on
the roof, above the skylight in the locked bathroom. Somehow they got the door
open, and someone handed me a roll of toilet paper. Yes, there were questions.
Possibly starting with “What the….” I was crying, so they tried not to yell at
me, but I could tell they were really pissed. After getting cleaned up and
climbing back down, my mom was called, and I was soon picked up. I was never
invited back there again.
I was forbidden to play with Sabin. This didn’t sit well
with me. I still had my puppy crush on her, although I knew I had fucked up.
So, on January 14th, when everyone was watching 70s Elvis doing his
thing, I was writing these notes to my lost love. Later, I snuck across Sunset
Blvd. in the middle of the night to slide them under her door, the midnight
postman, delivering his message of love and regret.
I’m not sure if she ever got to read them, but her parents
did. They contacted the school and lodged a formal complaint, which could be in
some permanent record somewhere, if those hippies kept records of that kind thing
back then. I was later kicked out of that school for pushing a kid out of a
tree house, but that’s another story.
Me and Sabin are friends on Facebook (I think) and I don’t
guess she was scarred for life by my misdeed. Let me just check my friends list
real quick. Yep, still there. So, that was the start of my awkward love letter writing
career which endures to this day. If I could just find those napkins, I’d try
to redeliver them just to be sure she knows that I was really sorry back then and
that my feelings of puppy love were true.
