Kerry Allen

I was asked by a fellow blogger to reminisce about when I fell in love.

Me: “I’ve never been in love.”
FB: “But… but you have a child.”
Me: “Oh. Okay.”

So I wrote something about my love for my daughter. Judging by the resultant string of consternated smileys shot into my inbox, that wasn’t what FB had in mind.

This got me thinking about Men Who Changed My Life, even if they didn’t win my love. It was a long, ugly list. Looking at it, I marveled that I’m not blogging from prison while serving a sentence for multiple homicide or, in some cases, being set up to take the blame for someone else’s criminal indiscretions.

I retitled the exercise Men Who Changed My Life For The Better and started over. This time, it required some thought. Days later, I’ve been able to produce only one.

Dave.

I transferred schools a month or two into the tenth grade. Not ony was I the New Kid, but I was painfully shy, an honors student, and completely nondescript in appearance, the latter of which was surely my greatest weakness. If you can’t be glanced at, categorized, and assimilated into the appropriate clique within your first sixty seconds on campus, you might as well paint a target on your forehead because you’re fair game for torment from all directions. You are the lame wildebeest left behind by the herd, and the lions, jackals, hyenas, cheetahs, leopards, and vultures, in a heartwarming display of cooperation, are in a huddle plotting your demise and distribution of your carcass. 

Dave was at the opposite end of the spectrum from me.

He was beautiful. Tall. Lean. Dark, dark eyes solemnly observing the world through the hair perpetually falling in his face. Lips no female ever looked upon and didn’t think of kissing. He didn’t have a whole lot to say, so he had the Man of Mystery thing going for him. When he did speak up, he had one of those rich, velvety, deep voices that could turn a reading of the phone book into an erotic event. He had a band—sang, played guitar/bass/drums/piano, wrote music/poetry. (He could have looked like a troll, and the creativity alone would have been sufficient to make him a hunk in my eyes.)

He was self-aware enough to know he was something special, so he exuded confidence, but without the arrogance to make him a dick about it, like every other teenage boy who thinks he’s hot stuff.

He was King of the goth/metal/drama club set, but he was often seen in the company of jocks, cheerleaders, student council members, chess club geeks, skaters… My recollection of adolescent spheres of influence fails me, but you get the idea. He was the guy who was so cool, he transcended the clique structure because everybody wanted to be around him.

At the time, he was larger than life. In memory, he has attained mythical proportions.

The only reason I appeared on his radar was because we had French together. (I vividly remember the teacher calling him “Dah-veed” in her fake French accent. She called him a lot, her favoritism certainly based on something other than his mastery of the language, because I recall that being abysmal…)

I was sitting at lunch one day, alone, huddled against a wall with my nose buried in a book, which some jackal snatched out of my hand and ran off with. Being the dumbass I am, I gave chase, leaving all my worldly possessions behind. I soon realized my folly and returned to see if there was anything left worth salvaging.

Dave was crouched beside my bag in a position I have since dubbed The Watchful Predator. Being a realist even then, I figured he was helping himself to my French homework rather than guarding it from the jackals (hey, nobody’s perfect).

Instead of pinching my homework, though, he had my portable-personal-CD-player in his hand (this was back in the day when they didn’t send you to jail for taking such things to school, and it was approved for study hall usage). As I came to a halt some ten feet away, he gave me what can only be described as an “inscrutable” stare.

He murmured (oh, yes, he did), “You like Nine Inch Nails.”

Was I flattered to be receiving attention from the primest specimen of masculinity I had ever beheld? No. Realist, remember? More like waiting for a bucket of pig’s blood to fall on my head.

I squeaked something articulate like, “Yeah.”

He examined me like I was under an electron microscope. I felt like he stripped me naked, read my diary, and had a long talk with my mother about my childhood. (Some people groan when they read about a “look that laid bare her soul.” I don’t. I know how it feels—not good, if you must know.)

On the basis of my sparkling conversation skills and this extensive scrutiny, he came to some sort of decision about me. “My band is rehearsing later. You want to come over?”

There were witnesses. Word spread. In the ensuing hour, no fewer than twenty people—none of whom knew I was alive before that point—informed me what a coveted invitation this was. Sitting in on a rehearsal was a privilege reserved for lifelong buds and long-term girlfriends. Everybody else was a paying customer. (And yes, his band had gigs. They were way beyond the garage band stage.)

For the rest of that semester, Dave sat behind me in French class. He would periodically lean over my shoulder to check out what I was writing, laying his hand on the back of my neck, rubbing me with his thumb, breathing on my ear.

I periodically stumbled out of French class on Jell-O legs with drool running down my chin.

No, I never became one of Dave’s girlfriends, even the short-term ones, though I did get The Kiss That Spoiled Me For All Others. We didn’t hang out much after that. Probably because on a scale of 1 to 10, my making out skills were in the negative triple digits, but I do fantasize about his noble intentions, his aversion to hurting my tender feelings because I meant so much to him, blah blah blah. (This delusional streak is well suited to a career in fiction writing.)

One day post Apocalyptic Kiss and Dave’s drifting away, my shy, geeky 15-year-old self was being harassed by a couple of jackals as I tried to retrieve something from my locker. Dave happened to be passing. He didn’t break stride. He didn’t look at the jackals. He said, “She’s a friend of mine,” and kept right on walking. The jackals dispersed without a word.

No one ever hassled me again.

Dave graduated that year. I had two years of high school left to survive. In my junior year, some new bully arrived and barely began to say something rude to me. One of his peeps who knew me from the year before grabbed him by the shoulder, shook his head, and said, “Dude, no.”

No one EVER hassled me again.

Such was The Influence of Dave.

I had kind of a fend-for-yourself upbringing. Those episodes with Dave are the only times I remember anyone being protective of me, and that’s why he has such a prominent place in my memory. Attractive men tend to be forgettable as soon as the next one catches your eye, but the ones who hit your emotional soft spot are rare and stay with you long after they’re gone.

Who’s the guy who stands out most in your memory (in a good way!)? Did you keep him, or is he no more than a fond memory?