RENEE

My first love was a Catholic schoolgirl. Her family was rich and she rode purebred horses in competition.

She smelled of vanilla. Her name was Renee.

We'd meet at the Youth Center on Saturday morning and be holding hands at the matinee by one. She gave me a really nice, gold ID bracelet and I gave her a music box I'd picked up at the Ben Franklin.

One Sunday, her family invited me to join them for church. They picked me up in a big, gold Cadillac and took me to an enormous Gothic looking structure full of stained glass, burgandy velvet curtains and gold covered altars. The priest spoke Latin and there was enough pomp and circumstance to shame any wedding I'd ever attended. I felt like I'd accidently stumbled into some well-to-do secret society. We kneeled and sat and rised and kneeled and sat and rised enough times to make Jack LaLanne weary.

Before the big show ended, I had yanked off my clip-on tie. By the time Renee introduced me to her cousin Brown, I was fully rumpled. I pulled my hand out of my pocket and thrust it towards him, but Brown ignored the gesture. Now where I come from, Brown's a color and not a name. But I held my tongue. That little bastard, however, didn't hesitate to comment on my suit, "Where'd you find that rag? Shanty town?"

This was the first time anyone had ever made reference to my being poor. I guess I never thought of myself as poor, but this revelation was devastating.

Renee called to break up with me the next week.

The Youth Center would never be the same