The Lost Boy

I was going to begin my review of men with my first serious boyfriend, but my cousin noted that it would be remiss of me to forget my first "love," Chas. Chas, also known to us as El Hijo con los Ojos Azules, had straight blond hair long enough to fall into his blue-green cat eyes, and a sly smile.

Chas was the first authentically cute boy to have a crush on me, skinny bones jones that I was. He liked me enough to come uninvited to my batmitzvah and grin at me while I carried the Torah through the sanctuary. He brought me a rose on my 14th birthday that died in his locker. He gave me my first french kiss during a game of truth or dare that, to be honest, I accepted with a mixture of disgust and relief. (I was relieved to be kissed; rather disgusted by what it entailed.) He sent me letters when I lived in Spain. The following summer Chas would be the first boy to really kiss me during an evening picnic. It didn't matter that he went on to kiss several of my girlfriends, each one with a incrementally larger bosom and proclivity for drug use. I was the first, and that carried some weight. Maybe I didn't fit his teenage beauty ideal, and I was the queen of Just Say No (I actually joined SADD in middle school), but Chas always liked me just a little bit.

The sad news is that Chas disappeared, and I'm pretty sure he's had problems with drug or alcohol addiction. I don't know if he went to college, and a Google search pulls up nothing, which is quite unusual today.

I don't think about Chas that often, certainly not like I think about the college years, which hardened my heart against hipsters and sensitive male singers. But unlike the later boys, Chas is still a kid in my head, and as such he elicits a sympathy and worry that originates deep in my gut. I want him to be okay, and to be alive, and to be happy.

For this reason I'm using his real nickname. It may trace a more definable path to my identity, but I kind of doubt it. Even less likely, but more importantly, if he ever stumbles across my blog, he can leave a message. This post is a little blinking light out at sea. A mooring for a man whose boyhood I hold dear.