The Last Dog On Earth

Have you ever wanted something so badly, but you couldn’t bring yourself to even admit it to yourself? Ever wondered why?

Because we all get the hell beat out of us along the way. I remember having a terrible crush on a girl named Sonia. This was at Mt. Vernon Jr. High, and she was just adorable to me. Well, I was too shy to say anything. She was one of the “Cool girls”, ran with the “Cool Kids” who ruled the school.

Well, I knew that my friend Neil was Sonia’s friend, and one day I was talking to him on the phone and asked him if he would ask HER if she would go steady with me. “Go with me” I think the term was. Whatever that meant. I mean, I wasn’t dating. Maybe we’d walk home together or something. Heck, I didn’t know. I just knew there was something I wanted, something I yearned for, and that cute little brown-eyed girl was part of the mystery.

Well he called her and conveyed my request, and he got back to me and said that she would give me her answer the next day.

And…the next day was torture. I saw Sonia in the hall, with her friends, and they giggled at me. Was she blushing? I sat near her in a couple of classes, and she and her friends cut glances at me, and I felt my face flare with heat whenever she did.

All day long this went on. And then finally, at the end of the day, she passed me a note. It was just a little square of paper. One of her friends took it from her, and then handed it to me. I opened it, heart hammering, and it said: