Dear Mr. Deprado,

How come you never explained to us that there would be times when all we knew would seem suddenly transparent—eggshells instead of steel or even cardboard—why didn’t you tell us that even in the very year, just after 8th grade, that we would start to see things that would lure us from what had driven us so far?

I am remembering Innocent days like when Todd and I spent 8 hours clearing rubble and garbage from your garden. I remember how at the end of the day you walked down with lemonade in your hands, and you asked us what we learned. This seemed crazy to us. The whole time we weren’t thinking of lessons learned. No. We were more interested in how we might finish the job in the shortest amount of time. We stood there with you looking over us—and do you remember your nod of approval when you slipped twenty bucks into each of our hands? It was heavier than gold. Did I ever tell you what we did with that money? We jumped on our bikes and rode with dirt-caked hands to MacDonald’s and ate two quarter pounders with cheese, large fries, strawberry shakes—and with the rest—we played Galaga until we had each clocked the game twice.

That was the easy part of life–eating precious junk food after a hard day of work, but it was what happened while we were eating that changed us. Diana Pompeii walked in with her sister and her Mother. It wasn’t even more than a look she flashed us from her dark eyes. It was little more than her smile that made us gush. Mr. Deprado, you never warned us about girls. Or at least, we didn’t know the kind of role they would play in our lives; how they would control us with some kind of mental telepathy and psychic power unknown to men. It was as if there were two worlds now, the world of the "boy" and the world of the boy who thinks about girls but wouldn’t know what to do with one if she looked at him in that way girls do.

But this wasn’t the absolute beginning; it really started for me in an even earlier time of growing up--in Manhattan, at P.S. 6. This was where I first noticed that a girl was more than just a boy with long hair, but I still went about my business.

And school was like it was everyday--Walking onto the concrete landing pad where a green field should have been, the urban field where morning Dodge ball lined up. Carlos was a huge kid. Huge and round like the red Spalding he launched at us mercilessly before homeroom. Dodge ball was his world, and for whatever reason we were in it. We went voluntarily even before we understood what it meant to have a right of passage. It was one of the ways a white kid could be a part of the schoolyard. Carlos had ownership. We would just practice our survival skills out on the concrete, 20 by 20 square where sometimes, especially Sasha Mirsky—would head inside to homeroom, his face, a giant, red pock-mark.

Why did we do this to ourselves? What was in it for us? Honor? Skill? Or... Anything to get even the mousiest, neon tetra darting looks from Rebecca Mendel. Rebecca Mendel. Ever since she gave me a valentine—a little paper lion with the richly colored words: "My heart roars for you"—I was hers. Even though she put her finger to her mouth when she saw me open it and told me to shhhh! Don’t tell anyone--We still had that knowing glance toward each other. I would walk by her and merely hope for a wink, or a look, or something that would make it real.

From then on, After school I would sneak away from our baseball games at Dog Hill in Central Park, usually recruiting one friend or the other, and go the 87th street playground. Rebecca would be there on the monkey bars, her friends gathered around her playing games and sitting in circles. We would head in the top of the huge metal rocket ship peering at her through the thin metal bars in the nose of it. She knew we were there, and she even knew that we liked her, but we still didn’t know what that meant. It wasn’t like playing "Atari" where you were completing levels, or going for the high score, I mean at least there you knew what you were going for, at least there was a hope that maybe you could actually win and walk away. We didn’t understand what was driving us, but we just knew it felt strange and good. The girl stuff was just imprinted in us from something deep down or something far away. We didn’t know how to react. We just reacted.

If anything, Rebecca Mendel got me in more trouble by doing nothing than anyone ever in my life. I was too busy hoping she would take her hair down to even consider that Mrs. Winters, my English tutor would be waiting for me with her English textbooks and workbooks and diagrams explaining "which and which," "there, their and they’re." Waiting at the wormwood table in our living room at 4:30 next to my afternoon grilled cheese that I had to eat no matter what.

I really only wanted to see Rebecca, but I never ever talked to her—she was my first—"untouchable" there have been many since, but she was the first of the unreal—the unreachable—the perfect beyond perfect that you judge the others by. I thought I would never shake the essence of her—her funky, toothy smile.

But luckily, God has given us diverse interests so…

In third grade, Mrs. Goldberg gave a blue sticker for every book we read, and she gave a green sticker after we had read ten. After that, it was pink. In my class, it was a race for the pink. We actually started reading all the time. I found Narnia that grade. I rode through the whole series on the back of Aslan. That was approximately two pinks and a blue. I was ahead. Damon figured out that an actual report could be written by reading the back cover and picking out the main points, but even other fourth graders realized that a book a day was just a little quick.

Narnia lasted for me. I knew it was real. Just outside my heart, somewhere in the city, was a doorway that lead there. I was desperate to find it. The thing about Manhattan is that I never felt alone, or it’s the opposite, I was surrounded by so many people that I truly was alone. Almost homeless. Even as a kid, I could feel the vast weight of the city crushing the walls of our apartment. This might have been the first time I realized that my journey might not be about a single person, a single place, a trite idea or ideology, but that maybe we are meant to be involved in this grand adventure doing all things at once.

That’s why, Mr. Deprado when you asked us what lesson we learned from hauling your garbage all day long—we weren’t ready to answer you—we weren’t ready for a right of passage like you were expecting us to have because we were more interested in the immediate satisfaction of MacDonald’s and not the awesome sense of having that money—or even spending it on someone else. In fact, we didn’t even learn the lesson of giving a favor, we practically demanded the cash—earn earn earn—it’s like we were born with it—In fact, when I think back--$20 for 8 hours—were you crazy? But I can see that you paid us by strengthening our hearts and our backs because you knew that we were already on this journey, and that there would plenty of time in our life to understand the truth about giving, and of girls and of their power over us.

I remember how the thought of Rebecca holding my hand—her subtle look or smile in my direction actually made me feel like—ANYTHING was possible—I can’t explain it—like after I saw that first far-away star and dreamed of reaching it. I knew that if this "other world" existed, than all of the other far away worlds must exist too.

After that I pounded on so many closet doors looking for that one wardrobe that would bring me up and out of here and into there. It wasn’t so much to escape, as it was the knowing that there was something beyond my everyday experience. I started to realize that there were things happening that made us go beyond ourselves.

Pretty soon Rebecca Mendel gave way to Francine. She lived across the street from me, I used to ride my bike in front of her house and tell her that the only reason I was riding there was because the jumps were really good on her street. We became friends. She was reading some book called the "Hobbit". She told me it says that there is a grander place —even further away than Narnia."

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