Jay Passer

Eve

Unlike the first rib cracked I wore a raggedy black cape and plastic fangs even to midday snack. Snack was cold pancakes left over from the dogfights. Technically we had to wash out our mouths with chlorine before meals. Eve had the teeth of a cross-eyed shetland pony which everyone agreed was adorable. The both of us were prescribed plastic specs we coulda been freaking cousins as per our mutual Ashkenazi ancestry. The hippie cult in charge put on these funky dances for the pubescents featuring the local AM radio hit parade which every year only differed according to tech advances in autism. Since I never removed my black velvet shroud I was basically shunned. The nerd element hadn’t entered our current chrysalis status especially with the girls so it was kept secret that I was their adorable little fiend. Despite my fits, fainting spells, spasms, seizures, tantrums and frequent bouts of hyperactivity, indispensable prerequisites for a growing young evil empath, ahem. Eve was a little tramp in training, she had that heroin-chic look going on at age 10 even a diet of potato chips and peanut butter cups couldn’t solve. The dance floor was a rickety wood-slatted platform built in the pioneer days doubtlessly by slave labor or at the very least indentured servant hicks. Oak trees, pine, sequoia and acacia, dirt paths and dented metal garbage cans. Very pissed-off birds. Supervised by drop-out vagrant chaperones whose filthy feet and underarm values were based on what psychotropics they happened to lift from the village pharmacy. Polar opposites of our guardian-captor-kapo parents. The discerning eye overall winking like a volcanic asshole at the mere mention of our existence. Crocodile Rock, Love Will Keep Us Together, Night Fever, Mamma Mia, Shining Star, Livin’ Thing, will it never end will I ever kiss a baby toadstool will the sneezing ever abate did I just trip over my fangs could a fiend be more of a danger to himself than any ol’ idjit biting off his own tongue. I moved quirkily and shuffled around elbows in ears, caught Eve right in the tit or the makings of one. My intricate plan to ask her to go steady shoved to the back burner as she crouched and rocked, arms hugged across spindly chest, painful mortification creasing her features. I poked her gently as if at a dead bird on the sidewalk. I tried soothing words without actively opening my mouth: struck dumb in her moment of crisis I attempted a sort of rudimentary telepathic sequencing. Best as I could muster. And failed. My literary trauma began with cribbed letters to Eve, an admixture of fluff and insult upon which my inevitable troubadour internship relied. Meanwhile I muddled through the motions of enduring activities meant to achieve fun. Ping-pong, softball, archery, water polo, tennis. Despicable acts of useless competitive vanity. Horseback riding wasn’t entirely appalling, though; I vibrated  to the sharp smells of the barn. It seemed to harden my baby walnuts which stirred and crackled for the wrangler, a husky strawberry blonde lesbian. Miniature brains cavorting, I put two and two together, Eve riding sidesaddle with the dyke. However, any attempt to tug synthetic designer cowboy boots on her dainty Semitic feet and that asthmatic tart would probably drop dead. Certain heavily edited teleplays in my head developed in time with the whiffs of cheap Mexican grass being smoked by the dirty hippie counselors. But was it? Was it all in fun? Our smooth, prepubescent, white, unadulterated bodies could’ve been manufactured by Mattel. I yearned to kiss Eve but it was a struggle to muster the courage to simply grasp for her hand between dances. When I finally did it was like plunging my digits into a damp hole full of worms. Gross. My future self advised me to get used to it. Because it gets nothing if not worse, once you venture inside the body, exploratory-like, in the heat of things. But it ended suddenly, like a knife attack. Out of nowhere the buses pulled up raising dust while suppressing pheromones. The first camp session was over. Belongings packed as per my astrological predisposition: fanatically minimal, neurotically organized. But at the last moment I was held back; a call made, the message received, as if a stay of execution: I was to remain for the second session. The parents were adjusting verily to my lack of presence. They’d sooner frequent the tennis club where avoiding each other with practical emotional detachment was vogue. The cultists locked me in a closet for two days while reconciling the camp grounds to Talmudic specifications. I enjoyed the privacy. When it started again I concentrated on swimwear trends and chlorinated waters. Lush minnow, river porpoise, I failed as neither when a streamlined entity joined my piscine frolic. Mermaid in training? I think not. Just another preteen heeb cutie helping me reduce drag. All smiles. She did the work as I pantomimed my best dog paddle. So what if it wasn’t Eve. Eve had left the garden to return to the big bad city. The serpent in my ear with a direct connection to the baby eel in my swim trunks had some pertinent advice: Get wet filthy thing!