The Loss of Innocence
My seventh-grade year was the
first time I knew I was going to be one of the cool people. Over the summer I’d
bought a surfer’s cross at Panama City Beach, and my cousin Carole had bleached
my hair blonde—something all the cool kids were doing that year. I was even
getting close to the age when I hoped my dad would finally let me pick my own
hairstyle.
Between sixth and seventh grade,
he gave in and let me graduate from a GI cut to a flat top. I’d go down to
Vernon Lovell’s barbershop, plop down in the chair, and say, “Give me a flat
top!” Then I’d slick the front with a dab of butch wax to make it stand tall.
Man, was I cool? Maybe—but not Shane Fox cool.
For the sake of honesty, I’ll
admit that “Shane Fox” isn’t his real name, but it fits the story. Shane was a
rebel straight out of a James Dean movie—jeans cuffed at the bottom, leather
jacket over a white T-shirt, and an ever-present scowl that told the world he
didn’t care. In seventh grade he even smoked Marlboros, hanging out in the
school basement with the janitor, who, rumor had it, let him smoke down there.
I was never friends with Shane. He was one of those kids who carried an edge wherever he went, the kind of boy who looked like he had something to prove. I don’t recall him ever having any real friends.
One morning, I decided to wear my surfer’s cross to school. As I passed my dad on the way out, he looked at it and said, “You ought to leave that at home, son. You’ll lose it if you take it to school.”
I told him not to worry—it wasn’t
coming off my neck for anything. Confident and feeling just the right amount of
cool, I headed to the bus stop.
Once I got to school, I met up
with my buddies for a few rounds of marbles. Every day, a bunch of us boys
would gather in the dirt before class, draw a circle, and toss in a marble
apiece. That was the pot. From an outer ring—the lag line—we’d take turns
shooting, trying to knock marbles out of the circle. If you hit one out, you
kept it. Simple rules, high stakes.
I was pretty good at it, too. I’d
built up quite the collection: Steelies, Oilies, Pearlies, Chinkies, Cat’s
Eyes—you name it. I loved them all.
There was a younger kid named
Jonathan who used to pester us. He’d run right through our games, kicking
marbles every which way, then take off like a shot before we could grab him.
He’d swing his metal lunchbox if you got close, and that thing hurt when it
connected. We called him The Lunchbox Kid.
Anyway, that morning while we
were playing, Shane spotted my surfer’s cross. He walked over, gave me that
hard look of his, and said, “Hey, I want to wear that cross today. Give it to
me.”
I told him my dad had said not to
take it off, but Shane just leaned in close, tapped me on the forehead with his
finger, and said, “I don’t care. I said I want it.”
So, I handed it over—nervously,
reluctantly—and begged him not to lose it. He promised he’d give it back at the
end of the day.
All day I worried about that
cross. When the final bell rang, I made a beeline for Shane and told him I
needed it back before catching the bus. He shrugged and said, “I lost it,” with
no apology in his voice.
I told him I didn’t believe him,
but he raised a fist and said, “Back off, punk. I told you I lost it.”
I spent the next hour combing the
schoolyard, checking classrooms, even sneaking down into that basement where
Shane liked to hang out. No luck. I missed my bus and had to walk home, already
dreading the talk I’d have with Dad.
When he came home from work, I
told him what had happened. He didn’t yell, just gave me that look that said, I
told you so, and a few words to make sure the lesson sank in.
After that day, I think I truly
hated Shane Fox. I kept my distance, though I never stopped watching for him to
show up wearing that cross.
Then, several months later,
tragedy struck Shane’s home. Word spread fast. His parents had been fighting
again—worse than usual. One night his father came home drunk from Royster’s and
started beating on his mother. When it looked like his dad was about to do real
harm, Shane grabbed his father’s shotgun. He yelled for his mother to run—and
then he pulled the trigger.
Killed him on the spot.
By the next morning, the whole
town knew. The talk around school was a mix of shock and disbelief. The
authorities ruled it justified, but we never saw Shane again.
Something changed in me after
that. I couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to kill your own father, no
matter the reason. I didn’t hate him anymore. I just felt sorry for him—sorry
that life had handed him something no kid should ever have to face.
I don’t know where Shane and his
mother went after that. Maybe they moved away, maybe they just disappeared into
another town, another life. The house they lived in has been gone for decades
now, torn down long ago.
Sometimes, though, I still think
about Shane Fox. I wonder if he ever found peace, if he managed to build a
decent life after all that pain.
I’ll probably never know. But I
do know that the day he took that surfer’s cross was the day I lost a little
piece of my own innocence—and maybe, in a way, so did he.
