New driver’s license hot in my Velcro wallet.

I drove her to a steakhouse—K-Bob’s—to impress.

No fool, when the waiter asked how, I replied, Well done.

At the North Star 8, I knew the guy who scooped our popcorn from Honors Geometry.

I played it smooth.

Dead-faced. Like a stranger.

It was Friday night. The Breakfast Club.

Three boys and two girls serving detention in the library for nine hours on a March Saturday.

I wanted to be Judd Nelson, the bad boy.

I wanted to wear his trench coat, his Frye boots, his fingerless gloves.

I wanted so badly to sneer.

Maybe I held her hand over the armrest.

Maybe I kissed her on her parents’ porch.

I know I so wanted to.

But I didn’t.

Because I was Anthony Michael Hall, of the Math and Physics and Latin Clubs.

I, too, contemplated ending it all at any prospect of failure.

Though not with, of all things, a flare gun.

And she was Molly Ringwald, but actually beautiful.

Her hair was wildflower honey and long, not short and fender-rust red.

I called her the next morning, knowing no better.

Her mother said she was busy and would call back later.

“Don’t You (Forget About Me)” was the big song from the John Hughes soundtrack.

Every Gen Xer remembers.

Simple Minds was the band.

She never called me back, Saturday or otherwise, ignoring the words of this song that went to the top of Casey Kasem’s American Top 40, one higher than Madonna’s “Crazy for You,” from the movie Vision Quest, in which Matthew Modine fell in love with an older woman.

Together, these songs taunted me on MTV. At the mall. In my darkened bedroom.

The radio did so enjoy its clever cruelties then.

But I kept listening.

Savoring the pain.

Already recognizing the road most travel.