Heart Over Head

A short young boy dreams of love

So, this tall, lovely, lovely, brown-haired girl whom I’ve just now — and only just now for some ineffable reason — whom I’ve just now noticed standing around during recess looking absolutely lovely by one of the temporary school-room trailers — the northernmost one, one of three, as I recall; well, this absolute angel of a girl is just about to cross the street by our new cinema building (named Saga appropriately enough, since Saga is another word for fairy tale), is about to cross the street when yours ever vigilant and observant truly sees an approaching-at-speed car not noticing her and sees her not noticing the car and sees this car about to run her over.

It’s icy and I realize that the car will not be able to stop in time so I dash, Superman speed, and throw myself at her and push her away to safety and she does fall away (unhurt) to exactly that (safety) while I, not so fortunate, do not follow suit. I sustain heroic injuries: my right leg is broken, though not so badly that I won’t walk again or anything, just badly (and heroically) enough, so that this slim, lovely, lovely brown-haired angel of a girl will finally notice me, and thank me, and hug me, and perhaps even kiss me…

No, no, no, that’s no good.

So, this lovely, lovely, brown-haired girl whose name I don’t even know, and whom I’ve just noticed (why on earth haven’t I seen her before today?) is just about to cross the street… No, I just did that one, what’s the matter with me?

So, this lovely, lovely girl, tall, sweet, brown hair falling to her shoulders but not farther, and I’d say a little shy, though she does have friends and she talks to them and I’ve just noticed that she does indeed exist and she is the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen and this swimming angel of a girl has just caught a cramp in one of her legs, the left by the looks of it, and she’s flailing in the deep and now choppy waters too far from land to make it back to safety. She’s going to drown, I realize that — and I don’t hesitate.

Of course not. Not only am I a hero, I am also a very good swimmer, and in seconds I’m in my swimming trunks and in the water powering my way towards her, and in just a flash or two I’ve towed her back to land and safety and she cannot believe how brave I am and she cannot thank me enough and she smiles at me whenever she sees me again and I’m invited to her house to meet her rich parents who thank me over and over and over and so does she and her sister and her brother — no she doesn’t have a brother, but she does have a kid sister who has very big admiring eyes that she looks at me with and she’s happy that I’ve rescued her sister and my angel, well, she’s just amazingly amazing and cannot help but love me. The hero, the brave one. Shortish, but brave.

That’s better. Yes, much.

Not perfect though. Let’s try this:

She’s tall, her brown hair barely reaching her shoulders, seems a little shy, but in a very delicate and understanding way — by which I mean that she will understand me like no other, better than anyone else in the whole world, and I will understand her like no other, better than anyone else in the whole world.

And she stands there talking to her friends during first or second morning recess and then the bell rings for second or third class and she turns and goes back inside. She doesn’t notice me at all. But that, of course, is all about to change because within twenty-four hours she’ll be about to drown… no, I just did that one… she’ll be just about to fall through the ice and if she does she’ll drown surely, in the freezing water — freeze to death or drown, one of the other. I’m some distance away from where she is, but I see what’s about to happen for I can hear the ice beginning to crack (ice sounds like pistol shots when it’s about to kill you — should be a clue, and a not very subtle one); and as I see what’s about to happen I shout at her to stop and stand still and lie down on the ice (to distribute her weight) but she doesn’t hear me so I — Superman speed, again, nothing less — charge in her direction and dive and push her away from the now breaking and opening ice and onto a stronger section where she’s safe while I, bad luck but not really (all part of the plan, you see), fall through and into the freezing water.

By now others have seen what’s going on and while I fight for my life (though not really, I knew I would survive) they manage to find a lifeline and throw it to me and then haul me up and out and to safety. I fall gravely ill, of course, from my dip in the freezing waters, and must spend several touch-and-go days in bed, but she visits me, does this angel whose name I didn’t even know, for she knows that I’ve saved her life and now she wants nothing more than to marry me when we’re old enough.

Someone tells me that her name was Birgitta.

Birgitta what? Birgitta Andersson.

Yes, that’s her name. Was her name. Is her name? Though she’s probably married by now.

I was in seventh grade. Our classroom was housed in the third of a row of three identical temporary trailer-style buildings along the northern edge of the venerable school’s large, sandy yard. A similar row of three temporary classrooms edged the eastern side of the yard.

Our homeroom teacher, though married, had a reputation as a ladies’ man and had one glass eye that looked amazingly real, but always straight ahead. Some sort of accident. I never got that one clarified. And how his reputed infidelity(ies) had become the topic of boy-teenage discussion, I don’t know. Scandal (especially of that variety — whether true or not) seems to clear its own, wide path through the jungle of everyday gossip.

I do remember this first time I saw her very clearly. It really was a surprise. She must have been there all along, but then suddenly scales or some such fell from my eyes, and there she was in her lovely she-ness.

Back in class, I’m musing on this while trying to catch up with my heart somersaulting down imaginary heroics.

I’m parked in the first row of desks, right in front of the teacher. This is because I had been branded — from my previous school, I presume (they must document you and pass the intelligence on to the next set of teachers) — yes, I had been branded a “talker.” Sitting within easy reach of the teacher would make it easier to keep me quiet, or so the philosophy went. I don’t know what it was with me, I just liked to comment on things and I was apparently pathologically and irreversibly deaf to these three words: “please” and “be” and “quiet.”

To be honest, I still hadn’t worked out the proper impression-idea-think-and speak only if appropriate sequence; to me it was still just one short jump from impression to speak, leaping across both idea and think in my eagerness to be heard. Once I learned how to think before I spoke, things calmed down and my teachers grew friendlier.

This morning though, not a peep from the branded talker. My head was brim-filled with girl, with this one lovely, tall, shy, brown-haired angel.

I really have no idea why I had not noticed her before — this was late fall semester after all and this was the first time I had seen her; well, the first time as far as I’m aware, and for the next few weeks, while I kept an eye out and now spotted her at almost every recess, I dreamed myself her hero in a dozen different ways and scenarios.

I had never been short of imagination, and here it came in very handy, for there was no question of me walking up to her or anything, not me, not then. Short, smart, impetuously talkative: those were my call signs. Math-smart, not girl-smart. But heroes can be any size, at least in my universe, and this short but smart boy grew very heroic over the next few weeks.

In my head, I saved her (yes, Birgitta Andersson was her name, I think my friend Lars found out, or already knew, and told me) from a host of precarious and dangerous situations, always getting hurt myself (though never fatally or with long-term effects) in the process: inviting, of course, her gratitude and sympathy and admiration and, yes, yes, of course, of course, Love, capital-L Love.

Was I working up some kind of nerve to approach her? Nah, I don’t think so. I was too short, I was too smart, I was way too much what a girl her age does not look for in a boy. At times I wore a vest and a bowtie for heaven’s sake — Mom insisted. Water-combed hair.

So my courting Birgitta was strictly limited to the imaginary, but there I courted her with grace and courage and I won her heart over and over and over again.

Here’s the strange thing. Fast forward to early spring semester and I don’t see her anymore. I don’t remember seeing her at all. She must have left town.

Or, perhaps she was run over by a car or drowned or something, this Birgitta Andersson. No hero around to save her.

© Wolfstuff