Remembrance of Things Young

Marquel, TPVs NYTimes Offspring Section correspondent, was scaring some neighborhood kid just for kicks, when he stopped to read Why Teenagers Act Crazy.

It’s not their fault. It’s all in the timing of brain development. According to the Times, the problem is that they are afraid, apparently of everything, but lack the sense to assess the real threat posed. This conflicts with Marquel’s recollection of adolescence which was entirely free of fear. Are these people nuts? Marquel decided to talk to his old high school buddies and see if they could either verify the Times research or refute it according to Marquel’s remembrance of his past.

I met Ernie at Tufi’s restaurant in Chinatown, since Ernie had asked, “what’s in it for me?” I had told him that the best noodles this side of Peking (these are my high school friends. Beijing hasn’t yet become the standard among my demographic) awaited him, and he hopped a bus downtown to Bayard Street.

I explained the Times article and asked, “So, Ernie, what were we afraid of in high school?”

“Nothin’,” he insisted.

“Nothing?” I asked.

“Nothin’,” he repeated.

“Then the Times article is wrong, the problem is not that teenagers get too many fears too early and can’t handle them?”

“Are you crazy?” asked Ernie, “we shoulda been afraid, but we weren’t. Can you remember the things we did?”

“I think so, although I’m not sure I want to,” I said.

“You bet,” he said.”that’s how I feel too. Were we afraid of driving drunk? No. Were we afraid of getting someone pregnant? No. Did we engage in unprotected sex? Yes. Did we dare each other to walk from Brooklyn to Manhattan across the bridge on the railing? Yes. Did we carry weapons? Yes. I think maybe we were afraid to ask girls out. Does that qualify?”

“I wish it did, because so far my list is empty. But I think the fears are supposed to be things that adult reasoning would quite. I think even an adult would have been afraid to ask the most beautiful girl out, so no. But I could be wrong about that. Can’t you remember anything that we were afraid of?”

“To tell the truth, no. I wish we were afraid. For instance, I wish we were afraid of bad grades. Then we might have studied and got better grades. But we weren’t afraid of shit. What else should we have been afraid of?” he asked.

“Well,now that I think of it, maybe we were afraid of not fitting in. I think we might have been afraid of being ourselves.” I said. “Do you think that counts?’

“I dunno. This is your article, not mine.” He pulled the plate of noodles towards himself and began eating directly out of the plate.

“Yeah,” I agreed, “but I thought you might remember better than me.”

“Well,” he said, “all I remember is us doing a million things we shoulda been afraid of but we did anyway because we were nuts…and also because we didn’t want to appear weak.”

“That’s something,” I said, “we were afraid of feeling weak.”

“But it was pretty buried,” he said. “I’ve got it!” he exclaimed.

“What?” I asked.

“There was one thing that we were all afraid of.” he said.

“And?” I urged.

“We were afraid that our parents would discover how stupidly unafraid we were of doing the most outlandishly dangerous things.” he said. “Does that count?”

“I think it might,” I said, pondering his response. It was true. We were unafraid of almost anything that we would be terrified of doing ten years later, but we were even more afraid of our parents discovering how stupid we were. I told that to Ernie.

“Yeah,” he said, “we were really stupid. Now, there the Times is right. We didn’t get smart till way later. But they’re wrong about being full of fears. We thought we’d live together. Nothing could kill us. Do you remember driving dead drunk and following the center double line down the highway in order not to crash into the side of the road?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I remembered, “that had to be one of the most foolish things we ever did. And we did it a lot. We weren’t afraid because we were…stupid. The Times is wrong. We weren’t afraid. We were just stupid. Why don’t they say that? Just a minute.” I reread the Times article. They had it all wrong.

“What else?” I asked.

Ernie was in the kitchen asking Mufi for more noodles. When he came back I asked the question again.

“I think that’s it,” he said. “the problem with teenagers is that they’re dumb. We couldn’t have been more stupid, and everybody we knew was equally stupid. And when we met other groups from other schools, or at parties, we were pretty confident that they were as stupid as us, right?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Ernie, I think you solved the problem.”

“No, you did,” he insisted.

“I think we did it together.” I said.

“Okay,” he said, “let’s have more noodles.”

So, after rereading the Times again, I think those researchers were up the wrong tree and barking in the wrong direction to boot. My recollection of teenage years, confirmed by Ernie, is that teenagers do stupid things because they’re stupid. They get smarter later, but for the time being if you don’t assume they’re stupid, either you, them, or all of you, are going to have serious problems.

On the other hand, we were truly terrified of being caught for the most serious slips. I don’t know what would have happened if we had been discovered in our worst misbehaviors, but that only happened when tragedy struck, if someone was killed while driving drunk, or injured while drugged up, or arrested. Otherwise. We and our parents led parallel but unrelated lives. They continued acting rationally, in a goal oriented way, the chief one to get us to adulthood alive and well-educated. Meanwhile, we were on the opposite track, doing one stupid thing after another, but in retrospect, learning about life in an insanely high risk manner. Somehow all of us, parent and teenagers alike, ended up at some sort of common end point. We were alive and productive, and they were…well, they had survived. This would make a good theme for next years Mothers or Fathers Day article. But the Times, once again, got it wrong. Maybe all their reporters are on the young side.

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BY MARQUEL: Remembrance of Things Young