First (Grade) Love

by Mike Covers

February is the month for love, as evidenced by the annual Hallmark holiday right in the middle of it (Lincoln’s birthday). So I thought I would share the story of my first girlfriend. When it came to her, I will openly admit that I had no idea what I was doing. How could I? I was 6.

I suppose some explanation is needed for those of you who, for whatever reason, did not have significant others at an age when training pants were still a recent memory.

When I moved from kindergarten to first grade, I had to change schools. This was because my parents wanted me to go to Catholic school and the local one, while requiring kindergarten as a prerequisite, did not actually OFFER it. Only the public school did. The reason for this can of course be traced back to the Bible, when Jesus Christ famously said “Let the children come to me, but only once they are over age 6. Prior to that, go forth and fuck thyself.”

Since I was in a new school with new classmates, I naturally didn’t have any friends (come to think of it, this had also been the case in kindergarten). My mom figured that she would rectify this by, seriously, APPOINTING me a girlfriend. In first grade. At age 6.

Once again, this was Catholicism, not one of those religions/cultures that actually engages in arranged marriages. Not only does Catholicism not partake in pre-arranged unions, but from what I know about “pre-Cana” classes that couples must take if they wish to get married in a Catholic church, the organization damn near does everything in its power to PREVENT marriages. Granted, I don’t know a lot about these classes, but they seem more difficult than Harvard Law finals (and probably make about as much sense).

Anyway, when my mom told me that my classmate Brooke was going to be my girlfriend, my exact response was “Fine. She’s my girlfriend. Can I go play Legos now?” For me, it was just another chore my mom asked me to do that I really didn’t want to, like cleaning my room, helping dry the dishes, or kissing my aunt. 

Brooke was a cute, pudgy blond with a face like a Cabbage Patch Doll. I think one of the reasons she was appointed to me was because she was somewhat of a “goody goody” yet still popular; the ideal child, if you will. Her family also had a tad more money than ours, as was evident in their library of Nintendo games (we’ll get into that later). My mom must have figured that being paired with Brooke would improve my social standing…in the first grade, where status is of course permanent. My mom had also developed a friendship with Brooke’s mom and later tried to bequeath one–or possibly both–of my younger twin sisters to Brooke’s younger brother Billy. Despite our mothers basically promising us to each other, Brooke and I rarely communicated on our own. In other words, it was exactly like a REAL marriage, except in plaid uniforms and clip-on neckties.

Then came fourth grade.

Our relationship was in trouble. Once again, we barely communicated. In the years since first grade, we had drifted into completely different friend groups. Brooke was hanging out with Tiffany, a tiny yet loud brunette who shared Brooke’s interests of being athletic and cute. I, meanwhile, was hanging out with Peter, who took part in activities like tormenting the class’ resident smelly kid, Jon, and hopping the freight trains that clanked through the township. So Brooke and I were already seeing that our shared interests were few and far between.

One major speed bump in our relationship came when she and Billy invited my sisters and I over to play Nintendo, specifically Super Mario Bros. 3. While this game may collect dust in a flea market these days, back in 1989, it was the biggest thing to hit the video game world. To me and all other kids, this was something of far greater global significance than, say, the fall of the Berlin Wall. Not only did it factor into “The Wizard,” a 90-minute-long Nintendo commercial masquerading as a Fred Savage movie, but it also granted our beloved Mario the ability to FLY. This was NOT something that Link, Samus Aran, Mega Man, or even the Berlin Wall could do!

And Brooke wouldn’t let me borrow it.

Can you believe that? She wouldn’t lend it to me, her longtime boyfriend. I wasn’t going to borrow it LONG, only until 1996 or whenever I beat it, whichever occurred first. Brooke and Billy DID let us borrow their copy of the Jaws Nintendo game, offering it to us with the same gusto that people exemplify when donating a broken, outdated toaster oven to Goodwill. From what I remember, the entire point of Jaws was for your unnamed diver character to collect conch shells while occasionally evading Jaws’ half-assed attempts to gobble you up. The graphics left a lot to be desired, as Jaws looked more like the nondescript shark that came in Lego pirate sets than anything close to resembling the Great White in the movies. Needless to say, no one could fly in Jaws, either. The outdated toaster oven would have been a better game.

But once Halloween rolled around, that’s when things were truly over.

Halloween 1989 happened to fall during my artistic phase. While my peers were outside playing sports or hopping freight trains, I spent my days inside, hunched over the metal desk in my bedroom, turning blank pieces of paper into masterpieces. I drew cityscapes of New York and Philadelphia. I created my own “Where’s Waldo?” scenes. I was damn proud of myself. So when my class was given the assignment to draw some sort of spooky scene for Halloween, I was ecstatic. I KNEW my talent for drawing was a gift (my mom told me so, after all) so my completed piece would rival, at minimum, the Mona Lisa. Here is what my original monster looked like, except this one was created on my phone, not with a set of markers with yellow highlighter for the face.

On the day the assignment was due, we all turned in our posters to be displayed around the classroom. Not only did mine include a super-detailed haunted mansion, cemetery, and the like, but I had also populated it with an ORIGINAL monster that I had invented. This monster had eight legs, all of which were attached to its perfectly round head. The entire creature was purple, save for its face, which was bright yellow. Two straight lines…er, eyes…were the creature’s only facial feature. It may have looked like a cartoonish mold spore magnified 1000X, but it was my creation, dammit, and I was proud as hell of him.

The next day, we all walked into the classroom and saw this written on the blackboard:

“Best Halloween Poster, 4th grade – Brooke.”

Keep in mind that this was the late 1980s, so schools had yet to adopt the policy of “EVERYONE is special and gets first prize!” Back then, there were definitive winners and losers, and I was crushed to find myself as a member of the latter group.

Brooke’s poster, to me, was nothing special. I remember it having something that resembled a cat, a HOUSE (not a spooky mansion, but a plain boring HOUSE) and a jack-o-lantern. No cemetery. No detail. Certainly no purple original creatures. But since she was BROOKE, her work was AUTOMATICALLY deemed the best in the entire class. She could have turned in a Christmas drawing and she still would have been awarded Best Halloween Poster in the ENTIRE 4th grade.

Hurt profusely, I decided right then and there that she was no longer my girlfriend. That was it. I could not be sworn to someone in whose shadow I would constantly find myself. I’m not Steadman Graham.

The “breakup” had little to no real impact, aside from my individual feeling of liberation. I don’t even think I actually TOLD Brooke that we were broken up; my guess is, had I done so, she would have replied “We were together in the first place? Are you talking about that time in first grade when our moms forced us to be boyfriend and girlfriend?”

Years passed and Brooke and I wound up at entirely different schools. Ironically, I had a lot of trouble scoring dates in middle school, high school, and even college. Why was it so hard? After all, a 6-year-old could do it…and that 6-year-old had been ME PERSONALLY! 

Much later on, we became Facebook friends, meaning that we communicate just as much as we did during our arranged relationship. She is married with kids these days; hopefully, she is letting them choose their own romantic partners when they hit first grade. My bitterness toward her long since evaporated (it’s been at least 2 weeks now), I can confidently say that, judging by her posts, she is sweet and humble in her day-to-day life. She didn’t let winning Best Halloween Poster – 4th grade go to her head or anything.

I may not have a spouse or kids of my own, but in the days since that fateful fall day in late 1989, I did gain something far more meaningful: my own copy of Super Mario Bros. 3.