Once Upon a Time in Casper, Wyoming...

A particular Friday afternoon has just come to pass in the middle of January 1979. The next few hours are about to reveal the impending doom for one young lad’s affairs of the heart. . .

The ringing of the noon bell tolled the end of the fall semester of 6th grade for Scott Shields and his classmates. Scott was glad; and he wasn’t. He would be separated from Lisa Compton, the first girl he really loved, but since he was so afraid of Lisa, it would also be a relief to be away from her a few hours earlier than normal.

Lisa had been Scott’s heart, soul, and bodily obsession for some time now. He became fully spellbound over her just days after the New York Yankees clinched the World Series title, as he awoke one cold November morning sick to his stomach. Scott, alternating between wake and sleep consciousness, began singing lines from a Debby Boone ballad, whose refrain mentioned someone special lighting up one’s life.

Being in love with Lisa was creating new problems for Scott. He was extremely awkward in actions and words, and self-conscious about himself and anything having to do with his family or home; talk of which he deemed off limits to fellow classmates because his domicile was cluttered and didn’t contain the nice, matching furniture that he saw in the homes of his friends. One chum, Troy Wolfe, even went so far as to criticize Scott for living in such sub-standard conditions. After that, Scott became afraid that anyone who saw his home would think less of him. Scott’s mom was overweight, too. He had witnessed kids of obese parents being singled out to be objects of scorn; as a result, Scott would go to great lengths to distance himself from his mother, even hiding on the floor of his parents’ station wagon when she drove him to school, lest he be spotted with her.

On the other hand, Lisa Compton seemed to be in the exact opposite position. She was blessed with well-to-do, nice-looking, and thin parents. Her father was a prominent architect in town, designing half the new buildings in the city of Casper, which was growing like a healthy adolescent. It wasn’t surprising that she lived in the biggest house in the neighborhood, a street corner mansion four blocks north of the school they attended.

With half of 6th grade over, Scott at least knew he was doing academically well. The other students razzed him for being the smartest boy in the class. In 5th grade, Lisa had even written in his annual “To a smart boy who couldn’t be smarter”. Scott would sometimes purposely make mistakes on his quizzes and tests to prevent getting the business for achieving yet another 100 per cent, since test scores and grades were openly discussed among the other students.

As Scott was hurrying out of the classroom, his best friend Doug intercepted him at the doorway and asked, “Would you like to come over and have lunch, then mess around?”

“Sure”, Scott said with a touch of enthusiasm in his voice, “But I need to go home and change into some play clothes first”. He was glad that his afternoon wasn’t going to be so boring.

Scott parted from Doug temporarily, and alternated between running and walking back to his home on South Grant. Some lingering snow remained on the ground from the previous week’s storm, but this particular day had gotten quite warm, hitting the mid-50’s. He changed into an old pair of jeans and a white FRUIT OF THE LOOM t-shirt. During this interval, he thought of Lisa a million times. Her hair was short and thickly brunette. Lisa’s eyes sported a khaki radiance about them, and she was a bit taller than Scott. Yet her athletic body possessed a very sensual quality to it. He felt so unworthy to love a girl like this!

Scott headed toward Doug’s house, which, like Scott’s, was painted white and had green trim. It wasn’t immaculate, but it was better furnished and better kept than Scott’s. In Scott’s mind, a hobo’s shack rivaled his family’s place for attractiveness.

Doug possessed a duo combination of primary physical characteristics: tall and plump. He also wore horn-rimmed glasses that featured an Italian label on the inside of one of the stems. Scott had a taken an instant liking to Doug, for it was Doug who took Scott under his wing after he arrived at Morgan Elementary School the previous year from Reno.

Just before Christmas break, Scott had revealed his big secret to Doug, and to him only: He was in love with Lisa. Given his continuous state of self-consciousness, Scott dreaded being out-ed publicly about his feelings. The kids in Miss Brewer’s class were always on a witch hunt to tease anyone who showed any interest towards a member of the opposite sex.

One of Doug’s more notable traits was this tendency to ramble on and on about pop rock groups such as Electric Light Orchestra and Boston. Scott had been under the impression that Boston was a quintet of Black guys who sang like the Commodores until Doug played one of their records, imitating their music with his mouth, unabashed and confident. Music was just the tip of the ice berg of Scott’s naïveté over many things that were of importance to pre-teen boys.

For an eleven-year old kid in 1979, Scott surmised that Doug knew all there was to know about sex. Scott was basically frozen in a state of innocence about the subject, thanks in part to his strict Fundamentalist upbringing. Doug constantly reminisced about some article or comic from his dad’s enormous Playboy collection. This made Scott feel uncomfortable and even sinful, given that he listened intently to Doug on such subjects. As he was walking to Doug’s, his mind drifted back to a conversation they had only a couple of days earlier:

“Scott, how old were you when you found out the facts of life? I was five when I found out.”

Scott remembered answering in a shaky voice, “Ah…..seven, I think”. In reality, Scott had just learned about where babies came from in early December, thanks to an ABC After School Special.

Doug was so open about discussing the subject of sex that he had no problem talking about his pubic hair sprouting up. Scott reacted by quickly changing the subject to the Denver Broncos’ disappointing season after appearing in the Super Bowl a year earlier.

Scott’s father was another item on the “Why My Life Is So Terrible” list. His dad never seemed to get around to educating him about the things in life he was going to have to deal with as a teenager. Mr. Shields was gone from home most of the year because of his job in sales. When he was in town, Scott felt that his father was the prime contributor to the house being messy. Mr. Shields rarely picked up after himself. Once, Scott had asked his father to be neater, but Mr. Shields reacted angrily, threatening to whip him with a belt if he brought up the subject again.

It was Doug whom Scott looked up to for being more worldly-wise; the perfect best friend who’d shape him up when need be since his father wasn’t doing the job, and given that Scott lacked an older brother. On the negative side, Scott was fully aware that Doug loved to blab things off. So he was quite hesitant about telling his best friend about his newfound feelings for Lisa, fearing that it would soon make the front page of the Casper Star-Tribune! But Scott needed to tell somebody, and who else but one’s best friend should this be shared with, despite the risk? He only wished he could’ve gone up to Lisa to share this revelation with her, and then win her heart. If only he wasn’t so inferior, Scott kept telling himself.

The day Scott shared his secret with Doug, after much verbal beating around the bush, including saying things like, “…Ah, her name has an ‘L’ in it…” Doug would also reveal that he was smitten over the smartest girl in the class, a Filipino cutie named Kim.

After the revelations, Doug would be a sounding board for daily rhetoric like, “I’m not good enough for her. She’s rich. I’m poor. She’s popular. I’m not”. Over and over again.

Scott would also get similar jive from Doug to the tune of, “I’m too fat, dumb, and ugly for Kim”. Over and over again.

Scott arrived at Doug’s house, which happened to be only two blocks east of Morgan Elementary. They ate lunch, and then collectively decided to venture outdoors for some afternoon goofing off. A minute into their foray, Doug decided that he was still thirsty.

He offered to treat Scott to a COKE from the nearby grocery store.

After coming out of the store, Scott suggested to Doug, “Let’s go down West Fourth”. Lisa happened to live on that street. Scott was scared and intimidated by the thought of undertaking such a course of action, but the daredevil in him wanted to go through with this self-imposed stunt. Anyway, Doug was along, so that emboldened Scott.

“All right,” Doug said without emotion, just glad to be heading somewhere. They turned onto West Fourth toward Lisa’s house. The duo stopped two houses away on the opposite side of the street, in front of a building full of doctors’ offices. Scott noticed that no one was at the Compton palace. They stayed put and talked.

Simultaneously, feelings of anxiety, fear, and love started to become strong within Scott. Anything having to do with Lisa would create the same emotions as being in the presence of Lisa herself; for instance, when Scott saw someone wearing a I LOVE NEW YORK t-shirt, he would think of Lisa because she wore a shirt that proclaimed those exact four words every few weeks.

As Scott and Doug began discussing who they thought would win the upcoming Super Bowl, a red jeep pulled up into Lisa’s driveway. Lisa got out and looked towards the direction of where Scott and Doug stood. As if acting on some kind of moronic urge in reaction to Lisa’s glance over, Scott arched backwards in front of his sweetheart and her mother of all people!

Doug waved at Lisa and her mom, and they waved back as they headed indoors. Scott and Doug left moments later and wandered about the neighborhood.

“Why did you arch backwards like that when you saw Lisa”, Doug inquired. “You looked rather dorky, you know.”

“I know. I just can’t do anything right. I am always screwing stuff up.” Scott felt even lower than usual.

As the afternoon raced by, dark clouds began to linger over Casper. Scott and Doug had walked all over, even venturing into the downtown area, mostly filibustering back and forth about each other’s hapless chances with the girls of their dreams. They decided to return to Doug’s home, but on the way back, Lisa’s mansion came directly into their view. This time, kids of all ages were playing around the intersection that was adjacent to the home, including Lisa, who was wearing a light green sweatshirt. Scott’s eyes didn’t descend any farther down her body, for he was totally fixated upon seeing her face in the distance.

Scott and Doug approached the crowd. Then out of the blue, without any warning, Doug shouted, “HEY YOU GUYS, COME HERE! SCOTT HAS SOMETHING HE WANTS TO TELL YOU ALL!”

Terrified, Scott screamed at Doug, “Shut up!” An eerie quiet, save the approaching footsteps of the kids, fell over the intersection.

Lisa, roughly ten feet way from the duo, dashed up to them both. She stood directly in front of him, and wore a grin on her face as though Scott was about to make her the next Irish Sweepstakes winner. Lisa had stared at and smiled a lot at Scott during class time. Scott had thought that maybe she did feel the same way that he felt for her, but once Lisa got an inkling of how his family and home were, he knew she’d hate him.

Scott’s intelligent mind further deduced it would be a major error to tell Lisa how he felt about her while she was sporting such a cheerful mood. Anyway, if Lisa wasn’t interested in him, then he risked making a spectacle out of himself in front a bunch of kids always on the prowl for an opportunity to heckle some poor victim.

Doug broke the silence by becoming even more specific, “Lisa, Scott has something he wants to tell you!” The city of Casper fell silent, obviously awaiting Scott’s earth-shattering proclamation to Lisa.

“SHUT UP!”

“C’mon Scott. TELL her.”

“SHUT UP!” Scott was on the verge of tears. He stood on the corner of West Fourth and North Lincoln frozen in thought, hoping he could make up something plausible. His heart was beating a mile a minute.

“Okay, he won’t tell-”

“Ah, ah Doug’s going tooooo-to bring so-some Chicago. . .CHICAGO RECORDS TO SCHOOL on Monday, right Doug?”

“Oh Scott, I wanted it to be a surprise”, Doug said with a mild rebuke in his voice.

The crowd began to break up with disinterest. Lisa stood there with a confused look on her beautiful face, and then left without a word.

Scott and Doug headed back towards the school. The frightened lover wannabe felt a sense of relief, but was also very angry with Doug, “You dang idiot, why did you do that to me? Why? Why?”

Without any kind of sensitivity in his voice, Doug spouted, “Because you should tell her how you feel."

“And you should tell Kim, Doug!”

“That’s entirely different.”

Scott’s voice turned threatening when he interjected, “Okay then, I will tell her!”

“Go ahead Scott. I don’t care.”

Immediately, Scott went from tough-sounding to pleading like a beggar, “Promise me that you won’t tell anyone. Promise!”

“I don’t know if I will or won’t, Scott. I don’t know.” A question then began to run through Scott’s mind as to why his best friend had turned on him.

They didn’t say anything else as they headed back to the school house, and parted from there with half-hearted good-byes. Scott stood looking at the front entrance of Morgan Elementary, the place where a certain girl named Lisa Compton had shaken his world to the core.

Scott wished, as he was walking back to what he perceived as his inferior house and family, that he could just reveal to Lisa how he really felt about her. Yet he was so, so afraid of the consequences. Her rejection would shatter all his hopes and dreams. Doing nothing would at least keep them intact for the time being.

By the time Scott reached his front yard, he noticed that the temperature outside was much cooler. The heavens began to lightly shower snow upon him. To Scott, this symbolized the conclusion of an ominous afternoon.

THE END