13 December 2000 ~ Nine years...

Nine. Three to the second power. The average time in seconds that it takes a sixteen-year-old virgin male to get off while staring at his first naked woman. The number of hours it takes me to download a three-minute song from Napster. The number of dollars it costs to buy a quarter of a pound of cheap Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee.

...The number of years since the fateful day Helena Thomas was formally introduced to Aaron Jesús Leroy...

I was 11. It was Friday the 13th of December, 1991. Lucky day. Aaron asked me to a dance that night. I didn't think my parents would let me go, so I turned him down. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them, and began trying to think of ways to sneak out of the house and walk to the dance, but it was about eight miles from my house, and I just wasn't ingenius enough to come up with a real plan. Besides, Aaron called me a prude and wandered away.

So I asked my friend Jill what a prude was. She said it was somebody who was afraid to have sex. So, it seemed to me that Aaron wasn't just, you know, asking me to a dance... In retrospect, I kind of doubt either Aaron or Jill really knew what a prude was. I decided though, that Aaron was a pretty worldly 12-year-old. I also decided that he had a nice mouth and I wanted to kiss him.

So I followed him around for a few years. He fascinated me. I'm not sure quite WHY he, above all other boys, fascinated me, but he did, and I wrote little notes to him and never sent them. I watched him in choir. I made up excuses to sit next to him in choir, although I never did very well as a tenor...

One day, Aaron passed me a note: "Roses are red, boogers are green, I like your legs, and what's in between." I was shocked. And a little scared. I didn't suppose boys, particularly Aaron, should really be thinking about what was between my legs. I was 11 for gahd's sake. Of course, Aaron had just found that little message scrawled in one of his science textbooks, and probably just wanted to see what I'd do if he wrote it down for me, but I honestly had no idea what to do. So I glared at him and ignored him for awhile. I still followed him around and thought he was fascinating, and decided I was probably in love with him, but I still glared at him a lot. Had we been a few years older, he would have called me a cocktease and a prude, but in middle school, he just called me a prude and told me I was gross. I decided I hated him. He decided he hated me.

Eighth grade: "would you get AWAY from me, Helena?"

Ninth grade: "Um.... hi, Helena..." "Um, hi, Aaron..."

Tenth grade: "Will you give me head?" "Here?" "No, come with me!"

Eleventh grade: "Remember that time you gave me head in the faculty bathroom? Heh... That was cool."

Twelfth grade: "Aaron... I'm typing this from my music theory class... It's in the distance-learning room and I've got internet access through a computer with a screen under the desk... Listen, dude, I need your help... Dude, what the fuck is the difference between a minor chord and a major chord? And hurry -- I've got a test tomorrow... I'll check my email from this room tomorrow. HELP!"

And thus began a beautiful friendship...

So Aaron and I were friends when we had no one else. We were friends when we had plenty of other people. We decided that we WOULD be in love with each other, only... well, that'd be too weird. So instead of dating, or fucking, or being non-sexual soul-mates, we took long drives in the middle of nowhere, emailed each other at college, bitched at each other about each other's respective lousy relationship choices, bitched out each other's respective bad choices of lovers, went to Denny's on a regular basis for chicken wings and raspberry iced teas, listened to a lot of Lynyrd Skynyrd, listened to a lot of Philip Glass and Steve Reich and Carl Orff, bitched a lot about our respective parents, and made a plan to, before we died, see a ghost, see a spaceship, find a dead body, and have sex. That would be weird though...

We fell in love with Stanley Kubrick together. We saw "Eyes Wide Shut Together." We fell in love with southern rock together, and learned every Allman Brothers song by heart (hint: they're ALL the SAME; some just have different words). We got lost in a lot of hills, and peed in several parking lots, and screamed at each other about a number of relationships that were going nowhere (hint: never get involved with a married person or a person who doesn't like persons of your gender... gahd, the things Aaron and I should have learned from each other's advice and never did...) We decided our fathers sucked, and that it must be something about dads who listen to Bruce Hornsby a lot. We also decided that we like Bruce Hornsby, but just a little, and that we'd never admit that to anyone but each other...

We decided once that we were apathetic about death. That we weren't actively looking to commit suicide or anything, but that we didn't really care whether we lived or died. That night, we accidentally -- maybe -- got into a car accident: plowed into a snow bank at 20 miles an hour during a bad ice storm. A few more feet and we would have hit a tree. A nice cop dug us out of the snow and told us to get home safely. We didn't tell her we were apathetic about death. We just rode silently, our eyes a little wider and maybe a little astonished at ourselves.

Once, Aaron and I didn't have enough money for coffee at Denny's, so we dug through recycle bins and garbage cans until we found enough redeemable bottles and cans to afford a cup of coffee. Another time, we went to a Denny's Diner, and played "Captain Jack" on the jukebox over and over several times because Billy Joel says the word "masturbate" in that song, and we thought it was hilarious to hear "masturbate" over a Denny's loudspeaker.

Once, I took a picture of Aaron's dick so that he could scan it and put it online. Who the hell else can you trust to take naked pictures of you but the only person you've ever told that you sort of like Bruce Hornsby?

Tonight, Aaron made me close my eyes and take off my glasses. "We're going on a secret mission," he told me. We stopped at a recycling shed in an apartment complex: the same one we'd gone to for bottles and cans. "We're gonna look for magazines here to cut up for Christmas cards!" said Aaron. So we dug around. Nobody but Aaron really understands the fine art of garbage-picking.

"We're NOT garbage-picking," he said. "We're Christmas shopping!" So we found an old math book, a couple catalogues, a book about depression, and a "Men's Fitness" magazine. We'll cut them up next week maybe to make Christmas cards. Only Aaron and I could come up with this kind of nonsense. Only Aaron and I could make it so freaking fun.

...Then, of course, Aaron and I went to Denny's...

...And as I was getting out of the car, I hugged him -- which was a little weird -- and kissed him on the cheek -- which was also a little weird -- and said, "happy nine years." Of course, he knew what I was talking about. He'd remembered.

So... happy nine years, Aaron Jesús Leroy. In the morning, I'll have a shot of Wild Turkey for you. Here's to another nine.

Love Always,
Helena Thomas, the prude.

"You know what would suck? If Moses was a firefighter, and put out the burning bush. Dude, he'd KILL GOD!" --Aaron Jesús Leroy.