Jail bait.

I was really bored the summer of my fifteenth year (I don't really write like that but I wanted to, ya know, sound all literary n' shit) (OK, I don't write like that, either...but you knew that already) because everyone I knew seemed to have a boyfriend or girlfriend or a life of some sort.  Meanwhile, my main interests were: watching TV, writing poetry (I wrote good poems...you know, the kind that don't have to rhyme), playing with my Black Lab Tarzan, or some combination of the three (i.e., writing free verse poetry about Tarzan and me watching Brady Bunch reruns...and both having a crush on Greg).  I wasn't into sports, I was too young to drive and there didn't seem like anything else for a lonely gay teenager to do in suburban Freehold Township, NJ.

So, I turned to a life of crime.  (Does a week count as a "life"?)

There was actually no devious plan.  I just decided to take a bike ride down to Pathmark, which was the closest store that sold records, which were the only things I ever purchased.  It was after dark and the register in that section was closed, so I had to go buy my album at the regular supermarket checkout.  But then I innocently remembered that there was another record I'd forgotten to look for, so I went back to the record dept. and on a whim, decided to slip it into the bag with the other one.  I got a kind of a rush and thrill when I got outside to my bicycle.  I mean, I, Richie Cohen, honors student and eternal "good boy," had just done something bad.  I was like one of those mustachioed villains on Charlie's Angels.  Or better yet, like one of those tough bad-ass boys at school who smoked pot and talked back to teachers and got in fistfights.  I was one of those cool kids now.

Then again, the second record was a Diana Ross 12" disco single.  But nobody had to know that part.  For all they knew, it was Black Sabbath. And the first one was KISS!  (Actually, no, it was Supertramp's Breakfast in America.)

Oh wait, let me back up a bit.  I did get into a sort of fistfight in 4th grade with Richard Johnson.  You see, my father had been making my brother and me take karate lessons, which I really dreaded because they forced us to do push-ups on our knuckles, whereas I could barely do a normal push-up on my palms.  To me, it was just cruel torture in a room that smelled of stinky bare feet, when I would have much rather been in Coleen's dark, dank basement playing Secret Barbies.  But my father insisted it was important to learn self-defense, and I must admit it sure came in handy that day in class when Richard Johnson, who sat next to me, started a fight.  I remember how it began...I was bragging to him that I was a karate expert (with only 3 lessons and a white belt to my credit) so he started punching me, telling me to "prove it."  Well, the one thing I had learned really well was blocking.  I'm not even sure if that's the proper term (I tried googling but couldn't find it) but it's where you sort of flip your arm up at an angle to knock the other person's punching arm out of the way.  I loved that move, because it seemed so Wonder Womanly. 

 The Karate Kid

Anyway, Richard Johnson was punching at me and I was blocking and deflecting and knocking his arms out of the way.  These were not subtle moves, btw.  It was all big and theatrical and exaggerated.  So, of course, Mr. Haynes (our tough-guy former-military teacher) noticed and demanded, "Richard Johnson and Richie Cohen, what are you two doing?"  Richard Johnson did the smart thing and in his most innocent, Eddie Haskellesque voice, answered, "Nothing, Mr. Haynes!"  While I, in my quest to show everyone how tough and macho I was, loudly & proudly proclaimed, "We're FIGHTING!!"  And off we went to the principal's office.  Richard Johnson thought I was a real jerk to do that, but man, I was proud!  Richie Cohen was fighting with boys and being sent to the office!

And that pride stemmed from what had happened the year before.  My 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Holitowsky, had sent a note home to my parents saying that she felt I needed psychiatric counseling because, at recess, I preferred to be on the swing set and seesaw with the girls instead of playing football and other aggressive games with the boys. Or, in other words, your son's a fag and needs to be cured.  (I never actually understood that thinking, because to me, a boy that prefers to be surrounded by girls as opposed to getting physical with other boys seems more straight than gay, no?)  But my father, to his credit, informed Mrs. Holitowsky that she was the one who needed counseling and that I was just fine as I was.  And I agreed.

Still, the following year, it sure felt good to be in a "fight" (even if it only involved a few blocked punches) and a few years later, to be a criminal for a couple of days.  It felt so...I don't know, kind of butch.
 

James Richie at Fifteen

Anyway, back to the record-taking tale.  It was so exciting to get away with it that I went back to Pathmark the next day and repeated the exact same scenario (buy a record, then go back to the music dept. and slip a second one into the bag).  At home, I already had all the albums and disco singles I wanted so I really just grabbed whatever was the nearest one in the bins.  It wasn't a matter of need or desire and I certainly had enough money saved to be able to buy them.  I really just wanted a thrill and since I wasn't interested in drinking or drugs or smoking (those health class films really had an effect on me and to this day, I still have no interest in any of the above), this was gonna be it.

The third day, I decided to see if I could get away with slipping two extra albums into the bag.  And the fourth day, I took three extra.  And the fifth day, I went for four.  But on the sixth day, it was the weekend and the hours were different, which meant the register in that music section was open, with a cashier and everything.  So I took the five extra albums over into a nearby aisle and did my bag slipping trick over there.

But when I exited the store to get on my bike, I was grabbed from behind by a big burly security guard (don't go there....this isn't porn!) and shoved into a tiny little brightly-lit cinder-block-walled room to be interrogated by somebody (manager? head of security? the janitor?  I had no idea...I was too terrified).  I do remember that I kept saying, "Isn't there just something I could sign?  Like, a promise never to enter the store again?  I feel like I've seen that on TV, on One Day at a Time or an After-School Special or something..."  But then the police arrived and they tossed my bike into the trunk of their squad car and took me to the jail, where my parents were called to come pick me up.

My parents arrived and I was shocked to see my mother with her hair in curlers (she was always styled and "camera-ready" in public).  My father was really pissed off, but not for the reason you'd think.  "Dummy!  If you're gonna do it, don't get caught!"  Hey, he was a self-described "juvenile delinquent" as a kid, so maybe he felt this was a rite of passage.

I had a hearing before the Juvenile Court a few weeks later, where my father put on a tour de force performance for my benefit.  It was sheer genius, but it took a bit of persuasion on his part to get me to go along with it, because I didn't like how it made me appear.  You see, he invented this imaginary gang of tough kids I'd supposedly been hanging out with and trying to impress, and how this whole thing was a dare on their part to see how tough I was.  It worked, and the judge admonished me not to bow to peer pressure (this is the part I hated...I have never in my life followed the pack!), and I bowed my head in solemn remorse and repentance (it was real; I didn't want to ever go through this again).  And my sentence was a fine of $100 to be paid to the charity of my choice.  Isn't that kind of cool?  I chose the American Cancer Society, in honor of my grandparents. 

And that was the end of my life week of crime.  I was still bored after that and desperately wanted a boyfriend, but I'd have to wait two years before I'd meet Duane.  That was a long two years, and poor Duane didn't know what hit him when he met me because I was really hungry!

 Hungry Richie eyes his prey.