David Joseph, or DJ, was the bad boy of bad boys, according to me—a pre-teen girl from the Virginia suburbs. At first glance, he was everything I was not but wanted to be; a perfect foreshadow to my entire romantic life. I can’t tell the story of DJ without telling you that it was the 80's—I was 12, he was 13. My memories of him are closely associated with the 80's: his music, his smell, his hair, his denim jacket.
As with much of my life, I can judge my emotional state by the musicians I emulated. That year it was a mix of Edie Brickell, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. You can imagine, to my mother’s dismay, I was not the 8th grade, cheerleader-to-be. I was, in her eyes, a few mistakes shy of serious jail time. I dressed in black and wore my brunette hair in a too-long, unruly, wavy, mess down my back. I was too skinny, too tall and too boyish for the boys with popped collars from the Gap. I was a rockstar before there were rockstars, or so I thought. I suppose a lot of this I owe to my father—he raised me, as the son he never had, on old school vinyl records and a brooding, edge-of-reason demeanor. I’m uncertain to this day if my father’s attitude toward me was his personality or a reaction to my difficult nature. Either way, it was, in one word…difficult.
Within a week of entering 8th grade I’d heard about DJ—in looks alone, he was a cross between the Sex Pistol’s Sid Vicious and Dee Schneider from Twisted Sister. DJ made an impression when I first met him, as he did with most people. He was wearing chucks—5 years after no one wore chucks—full of stains and holes, each one telling a different but equally unbelievable story. Stories more suited to a 25 year old man than a 13 year old boy. His black jeans were painted on, his KISS t-shirt old and dirty, his denim jacket smelling of smoke, sweat and cars he shouldn’t be driving. His front left tooth was chipped, I never knew why. I suppose our discussions never focused much on the important things like chipped teeth and arrest records—it was more of a Bonnie and Clyde type of relationship. Subsisting on bucking the system and adrenaline, well, as much adrenaline as my 12 year old body could muster.
I don’t remember much about how it happened, but DJ and I were officially a couple within a few weeks. Our relationship generally consisted of late night phone calls (me on my Princess phone and he on the wall phone in his mom’s outdated kitchen), after-class chats at my locker, and secret meetings on the school playground. I say our relationship generally consisted of these events—but there’s a lot more to say there. Within another few weeks we solidified our bond with a real kiss—even just writing that now makes me cringe a little. I suppose that cringe factor is why, after 22 years, our kisses are burned into my brain and are still entirely too vivid. In theory, kissing a bad boy should be great, right? The passionate end of that reasoning was spot on but there was something missing. I can theorize now that it may have been that freshness of youth thing, I don't think he ever had that. I imagine he came from the womb with a cigarette hanging from his full lips, bleached out hair and a penchant for causing trouble. What's in a kiss, you ask? Everything.
So after a few more weeks, 6 mix tapes, my first cigarette, a few stolen stopsigns, and many more cringe-worthy kisses he presented me with a symbol of his undying love and affection. I noticed this symbol as I walked up behind him in the hallway after 4th period. There on the back of his denim jacket was the worst nightmare for a 12 year old girl who was desperately trying to blend into the walls. Scrawled, in hot pink spray paint, was…DJ LOVES KD. My heart stopped. Not in a good way like when my only real love first held my hand, but in a way like I just saw a clown killing a panda. All the kids were pointing at it…pointing at me, pointing at it AND me.
In retrospect, my actions following this show of affection were expected and lend a great deal of insight into my behavior over the years to come. Like any girl with early onset communication issues, I stuffed my feelings of disgust deep, deep down and held it in place with a huge brick of resentment. Instead of telling him it upset me or breaking it off with him, I ignored him. I mean, full court press ignoring. He disappeared into the walls kind of ignoring. Not enough sorries in the world could make up for it kind of ignoring. I didn’t know what else to do. I mean, I don’t think Nancy had to deal with Sid painting hot pink love notes on his jacket, did she? Did she?
So I suppose I was happy dating DJ the bad boy and with people thinking, wrongly, that I was a bad girl. And as a nod to my fear of commitment, I kind of enjoyed not really knowing if he liked me. But to me, there was just too much wrong with the spraying of the jacket and the declaring of the love. First and foremost, Bonnie and Clyde did not show affection with pink spray paint! They just didn’t. I’m fairly certain I just read that fact on their Wiki page, by the way. Secondly, love? I was 12 years old. I barely knew how to love my cat let alone a man-boy with yellow hair. Finally, where did the bad, emotionally stunted boy go? Where was the boy that didn’t even tell me about his chipped tooth?
I ignored DJ for about two days before he went all, “Say Anything,” on me. He showed up outside my bedroom window with flowers—keep in mind he was 13, stole his brother’s car and drove 30 minutes to my house. Wait, how did he get my address? It was the 80's, you couldn't Google it. Anyway, I digress. My mom was less-than-impressed by this suitor. With all of my glorious, heart breaking strength, I insisted he was just a weirdo from school and she called the police. He ran before they arrived and things were fairly uneventful...until...the trashcan.
School became a bit of a messy place for me after I broke things off (using that term loosely) with DJ. He was everywhere I was. He was sad. I was skeeved out that he loved me. It was just a mess. It seemed to ease up after a while. He stopped coming by my classroom after every period. He stopped putting notes in my locker. Those events happened more sporadically and were less of a burden on my fragile emotional state.
Then, it happened. I remember it was the fall because the air was so dry and so ripe for a nice, warm fire. Maybe not entirely safe for a nice, warm fire but that’s just what I got. I was walking to the bus after school and there it was. A large, metal trashcan—full of fire. Did you catch that? It was full…of…fire. The flames were high and smoke was billowing and attracting the attention of everyone that ever lived on this planet, or so it seemed. And there was DJ next to the trashcan with a bottle of lighter fluid at his feet. He was holding the denim jacket over his head… DJ LOVES KD… DJ LOVES KD… DJ LOVES KD…for the entire world to see. I stood there, mouth hanging open, black eyeliner framing my large, round, shocked eyeballs. I can’t remember much of what he said but it was heartbreaking—but no one could turn away. It was painful, emotional and... WONDERFUL (to everyone but me and him). After what felt like a few hours, he ceremoniously placed his denim jacket into the fire and slowly walked away.
