The Men and the Boys: Asad, part 1

Of course, sometimes we do hit the rocks. The weather has nothing to do with it, either. I was saving this for another time, but lately it’s been pestering me. Maybe it just wants to be told, this story of the first boy who ever gave me his heart freely, and how I threw it away.

I met Asad in the summer of ’92, a few days after my 17th birthday, and a couple of weeks after the prom. I was a girl in love, and a girl hurting from the love she could not have. Sandy had his girlfriend, so I’d decided to back off. I didn’t like my decision, but thought it best.

I was also a girl in summer school. Being trapped in a junior art class wasn’t my ideal choice for a perfect weather July, but I still needed that credit and thought, no time like the present. I enrolled at a Catholic school a half-hour from home, a school where the students wore uniforms by day, but were blissfully free to do as they liked in summer time.

Asad started the class three days late, walking in one morning when the seating arrangement had already been decided, and everyone had formed their cliques. I still remember the minute I first saw him. We’d all just gotten our textbooks and I was wrapping mine, when the door opened and there he was.

My height, dark hair, deeply tanned Egyptian skin. Huge brown eyes. Killer body. If there was anything I noticed about Asad from that first glance, it was that he wasn’t striking in the conventional way of your high school god, that is, all talk no walk. He was more intense, exotic. Different.

I didn’t have to wait long to speak to him, either. Not five minutes after walking into our classroom he quickly became all thumbs trying to wrap his textbook. “I’ll wrap it for you,” I said, not totally sure why, and took his book and wad of the brown paper to my desk to make pretty.

After I’d returned it to him he told me, “Thank you,” in a moderately accented voice and then, very briefly, touched my hand and smiled.

Did I take the hint? Nope. Like I’ve said, I wasn’t used to boys feeling these things for me. Besides, from the moment Asad had stepped into the room, it was painfully obvious that he was never at a loss for admirers. Girls from every which corner were staring at him, goggly eyed and lips a lickin’. When it came to scenarios like that, I followed my usual pattern of lackadaisical nothings. Really, what was the point?

The hint started to find me though, over the weeks that followed. Asad came over to talk to me every single day, during every single break, and asked my opinion on every single assignment. For the first still life drawing project he drew my sneaker, while my foot was still in it. He asked for my phone number, which I reluctantly gave only after we’d developed a system that wouldn’t sound the parental alarms: he would let the phone on my end ring once and hang up, a sign for me to call him back. Thank goodness call display was a non-factor back then.

I started taking the hint more when he told me that he loved looking into my eyes. Even more so when, on the bus ride home he would ding the cord every minute, making the driver pull over at all stops. He said this was so we could spend more time together.

I really started to take the hint when Asad asked me to be a part of his big project, the one that was worth 30% of our mark. We were either to make a mask, a big honking mask with spray paint and tons of detail, or a bust. Not boobs bust, but head bust. Like the statue of Beethoven’s head you always see on Schroeder’s piano in the Peanut Gallery comics.

I made a gigantic mask of the sun, complete with cotton stuffed rays to give it a more cartoony appearance. Asad chose to make a bust of the Eqyptian queen Nefertiti, but soon ran into problems with face creation and the limited materials of the high school art room. Our teacher informed him that in this case a live model would be required to shape out the face and with that, they both looked directly at me.

“You have a classical face,” the teacher said, and while I won’t pretend that didn’t stroke my ego more than a little bit, I wasn’t crazy about the other details.

I love art. I love Renaissance, Baroque, Cubism, Pointilism, and anything by Chagall sends me to a deeper place. Being a part of art is another thing altogether. When I found out that the part of the bust I was needed for involved a plaster of paris mask made of my face, I balked with an, “Uh, no!”

Think about it. Strips of gauze dipped in icky, stinky, gloppy, drippy mess and then pressed down over your eyes, nose and mouth. I’m not one for disgusting and had made up my mind that there was no way in hell I was going to do this, not ever, when Asad came over, took my hand, looked deep into my eyes and said, “Please? Now I can have your face forever…”

Dammit.