This poem is dedicated to Gary L----, who lived, with his parents and two siblings, six doors south of y parents' home on our dead-end street on the west edge of our rural village, centered in a heavily rural township. Gary was nineteen years old; with long hair, a beautiful torso that shirts rarely covered except during his evening job pupinng gas. During the days of that summer, he often wore black or gray jeans, and charcoal colored socks, without shoes. During his evening job, he did wear a gas station attendant's shirt, but still refused to put on shoes. I had not yet entered adolescence, but I enjoyed the fiercest crush on him. I think he knew that I wanted to be with him, as much as I watched him mow his parents' lawn, or repair a car, or perform some other chore---his bare torso glistening with sweat, and his sock-sheathed feet gliding over grass, or the sidewalk, or wherever else he needed to be. I think he knew how beautiful he was, and, even though pre-pubescent, I felt the first stirrings of romantic and erotic arousal whenever I saw hiim. My crush on him lasted for over a year. During that first summer of 1969, my father drove to that gas station to fill up, and Gary was working that night. I was in the back seat, and, after he started the pump, he leaned into the back compartment and greeted me in the most provocative way.
My crush on him followed me into seventh grade, and did not dissipate until he moved away. He deserves to have a poem dedicated to him. I wish I could have told him how much I loved and wanted him.
