The Fourteen Years War - 1992 - Volume I

I know writing this is not going to be easy. It may not even be cathartic. However, I have wanted to write this history down for a long time. No time like the present. Chronologically... In January of 1992, I noticed a good looking redhead hanging out at the Art Building at my college. We started talking and then dating. Valentine’s Day was on a Friday that year. I remember because that good looking redhead broke up with me the day before V-Day. On the following Monday, I’m assuming, since it would have been the first time I saw my friends Kelli and Beki at school, Kelli told us she had met a local DJ, AZ. We were in awe. THE AZ. Wow. She said she was kind of interested in him and would we like to meet him, since she now knew where he lived. The three of us piled into my father’s truck, as my car was in the shop, and she directed me across the river to a half-house apartment in the center of the small town that I now live. AZ met us at the door, disheveled and bleary eyed, in his underwear. *Laugh* He excused himself, leaving we three neophytes on his doorstep while he put on his blue and green bathrobe. I won’t ever forget that bathrobe. After donning his bathrobe, he invited us in. Me, being in the throes of heartache, immediately zeroed in on his massive CD collection and found a song which had just the right beat and lyrics to soothe my aching heart. The song was “Gimme Love,” the B side of the single “I’ve Got A Lot to Learn About Love” by The Storm, a Journey-esque band with a couple of former members of Journey in it. This was the time of Shotgun Messiah’s Heartbreak Boulevard, Skid Row’s second CD Slave to the Grind, Metallica’s Enter Sandman, Guns N Roses was singing about November Rain and we had started hearing new bands like Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana. While AZ and Kelli sat together on the floor, Beki sat properly on the couch, I jammed out, dancing in his living room floor. It was very hard for me not to look at him. Long dark curly hair, and those eyes, those dark, deep set eyes, like pieces of onyx, and the look of a very hungry leopard. His look alone made electricity surge through my body. I was 21 years old. I didn’t know much, didn’t have a lot of experience with men, but I knew when a man was interested and he did little to hide it. After we got back in the truck, Kelli and Beki both remarked, “God, he couldn’t take his eyes off of you!” Kelli wasn’t upset. She figured he wasn’t much her type anyway and urged me to “go for it.” I said, “But he kissed you.” She said, “Yeah, but he was watching you, THE WHOLE TIME!” (These conversations are over 14 years old and I’ll remember them the best I can, but, yeah, this is pretty much what was said.) Regardless, I was still hurt over Red and our break-up and seeing Red everyday did nothing to assist me in moving along, but, I did hear AZ on the radio everyday, and that did assist in moving things along. One day in early March, I gave Red a ride to the tennis courts and I was sure it was over and my feelings along with it. That day, I left the tennis courts, drove across the river, and started searching for that little half-house apartment. It took me a while but I did and AZ was out in front detailing his car. My stomach was full of butterflies as I approached him. He smiled at me, remembered me, and we chatted while he detailed. After a while we went in the house, sat in the floor, listened to music, he played air drums, I sang, and we head-banged. And we kissed. . . . Next “14YW - 1992 - Vol. II”