When I was a young teenager, every June, sometime around the solstice, I was over summer vacation. I’d gone to the pool and swum with my head above water (as to avoid the black girl Brillo Pad) too many times. I’d worked Storytime with kids at the library and done the necessary community service. There were only so many Blockbuster movies to bootleg.
The days were so much longer than the nights, longer than possible. Between that and the Maryland humidity, I was ready to get all Midsummer Night’s Dream when the sun finally went down — to find a fairy with magical flower juices strong enough to make someone fall in love with a donkey. That didn’t happen.
What happened was the magic of Skinemax. Back in the day, before cable went digital, if you didn’t subscribe and wanted to see, you had to work to find a way through the scramble. By July, I’d squinted myself out of 20/20.
The local TV guide gave up the names: Emmanuelle Goes to [insert location here], Shannon Tweed in Bimbo Bash. I could hear the talking and squeeze out a thigh from black and white, an occasional pink. Then, Comcast introduced pay-per-view, where, sometimes, you’d watch the channel showing Bun Fun long enough it thought you’d bought the movie. Good lord.
I never did anything but watch, whatever that means when you’re essentially watching nothing. But it was bad, and I was the private school good girl. I wasn’t supposed to like bad, and I liked it. It was something like watching those early episodes of In Living Color. I didn’t get the jokes, but knew they weren’t for prime time.
I’ve grown up. I’ve paid for Cinemax. I actually feel bad for teenagers with the Internet, HD, and ways around the always-useless parental controls. It’s too easy. Where’s the dedication?
No pain, no gain, right?
The bored, curious teenager is so standard, she has no choice but to turn cliché. And that’s what summer is. It’s fried pies at a 4th of July parade. It’s Pilgrim-worthy turkey legs at a music festival, and that festival trampled to mud. Summer’s a stock image.
Toss a quarter, win a prize. The temperature? Hot or hotter. In Florida, especially, summer’s all excessive and fertile, begging for attention. I can go outside, sit on a curb, and let a swarm of gnats entertain me.
My adolescent boregasms are retro now, like a TV console with wood paneling. The distance between me and the glass, and the distorted images’ strobe lights, let me not get something I wanted. I haven’t outgrown that. I’ve wanted guys I can’t have, lives I can’t have. Rejection. Rejection feeding desire. Desire telling you you’ve got to lack something if you ever want it to satisfy you. No different than a June thunderstorm — a blue sky is only sweet after clouds.
This article appears in May 9-15, 2013.