I lost my virginity (whatever that means) to this album. John and I had been out in the desert all day, near the potato factory, playing “The Hill” with our friends, a Vietnam-based drama I crafted like some kind of future video game. (I have been mistaken for a “dungeon master” by some and never knew exactly what people mean by that.) I would fill up my dad’s empty hard liquor bottles with water and we would swig from them as if we were hard bad ass soldiers under Sgt. Rock, who always reminded me of my dad (we enjoyed those comics together). Later that evening, after playing war and enjoying a respite at the swing set in the trailer court park, we went up to John’s backyard, where his lovely olive-skinned sister Janie and her best friend frizzy-haired freckled Rhonda and I shared sleeping bags with John. John and Janie’s family had a turntable on the porch and we would play this album on it incessantly, the LP a loan from an older sibling who probably found it too femme. “Magic Man,” “Crazy on You,” and the title track were a taste of seductive alchemic reality for us, the younger trailer court punks. Switching off and on between the two sleeping bags, we made out with Janie and Rhonda, sharing that intimate space and breath and taste and trying to be fair with our fumbling affections. Only years later did I realize that John was making out with his sister Janie. My last contact with him was a letter he sent from his new home in Idaho where he traced the cover of an X-Men comic on lined notebook paper, atop a sweet note about missing me. At least he stayed in touch.
Heart – ‘Dreamboat Annie’ by Chris Estey
