In 1974 my college friends and I drove north from Boston to swim at the Rockport Quarries. The closest one was right off the road wrapping around Cape Ann. I led them to the highest point. A girl named Spooky was with us. She had long straight black hair and crooked teeth. I thought she was cute and dove thirty feet off the cliff to impress her.
The impact tweaked my back and I barely made it out of the quarry. Spooky left with my friend Nick. He had an Alfa Spyder. She liked cars more than daredevils and laughed, as he left rubber on Route 127.
I’m still friends with Nick even after ditching him in Berkeley for a ride to Denver with a hippie chick in a Ford Pinto. Marilyn and I made love in the Bonneville Salt Flats at dawn ala ZABRISKI POINT.
I figured Nick and I are now quits.
Ten summers ago my cousin Oilcan and I tried to go swimming in the Rockpport Quarry. A resident told us that it was ‘members only’. It looked the same as when it was for everyone, but we respected our exclusion and went to another one deeper in the woods. That one belonged to no one, but time.