Remembering Atom

       I have a tattoo on my left leg, just above my ankle bone. Actually, I have two of them. One is of two little girls of different races holding hands. The symbolic import of this tattoo is rather obvious and universal in its appeal. The other one just below it is a name: ATOM. Yes, I am one of those incredibly stupid people who, in the utter spontaneity inspired by the first blush of love, decided it would be a good idea to engrave the name of my beloved into my skin with India ink. People always seem to think that this decision, made when I was the tender, idealistic age of nineteen, is the height of folly. And, as people often do, they comment with disdain. "Atom? What, are you really into science or something?"

       "No, it's a name."

       "A NAME? You have a tattoo of a name? What does your husband think of it?"

       At this point, I guess I am supposed to feel regret tinged with shame that I was ever naive enough to think that love lasts. I should blush that I didn't anticipate a time in the future when I would wish I could erase the blind devotion etched into my skin. Well, here it is almost twenty years later, and I have yet to feel that regret.

       The first time I saw him, I was almost nineteen years old. I didn't really know it at the time, but I was pretty lost. My parents were in Sacramento, preparing to move to Illinois, and we'd had next to no relationship since I had left home and moved to southern California the second I turned eighteen. I had moved for a boyfriend, who after we had lived together for a few months got himself arrested and locked up, so suddenly I had no one to share the rent. Enter all of my delinquent friends who had run away from home, plus three cats. We would dumpster hamburgers from the McDonald's trash and take them to the Quikstop to zap them in the microwave. We would stay up all night playing cards; my friends were all buzzing on speed but I was hyper enough without it. These friends were people with names like Biscuit and Batman; one had a bulldog tattooed on his head. Obviously, we weren't having deep, soul-searching conversations about what direction our lives were taking. I was sad and lonely.

       I worked at the theater in town, which was right up the street from town park. My comrades didn't have jobs, so they would hang out there all the time, and I'd show up after work. This one day, seemingly like any other, I came walking around the corner and BAM! There he was, sitting up on the brick wall behind a bench. He was wearing worn-looking black Chucks, and jeans. I think I first saw his profile. His hair. His skin. I was only eighteen, and had no idea that the moment I first saw Atom would end up being one of the most memorable of my life.

       So, if you want details, as I know I would if I were reading your big love story, here they are. He had long, sort of golden-brown hair. It wasn't very well combed (ever) so he had little rat's nest bumps all over his head; not stylish enough to be dreadlocks, just uncombed places. Coincidentally, I had the same in my own hair. Not for fashion reasons; I just didn't have the gumption necessary to go buy a brush. It seems so strange to me now that there was ever a time when I was too lazy to purchase a brush, but it's true. My sister remembers that when I would come home for Christmas she would be so horrified at the state of my hair that she would immediately sit me down to work out all the knots with a comb.

       So you see, we were each in our state of dishabille and we recognized the kindred sloth in one another. He had these almond-shaped brown eyes with chips of gold in them. I didn't notice the chips right away; that came later. He had that kind of skin that is tan all the time, and the kind of nose that I love, big and important, almost hawk-like. His smile...big, white teeth and crinkles around the eyes. Sideburns, all curly. The thing is, and I can't stress this point enough, I was FLOORED. Never before or since have I had such a visceral reaction to the sight of another human being.

       I was palpitating all over. Think jellyfish, pudding, quivering mass of amorphous blobbage. It is definitely not safe to feel the way I did before even learning someone's name. We looked at each other. He was aloof. Actually, anything short of instant elopement would have seemed aloof to me. He had his bike, but my friend asked him if he needed a ride. He had just moved to town from Louisiana. Little bit of a southern accent. Didn't need a ride. Hoisted himself on to the bike and rode off.

       I asked around in a frenzy and found out that his name was Adam. Well, that's what I thought. So, I was writing Adam all over papers, napkins, my hands. Turns out it was Atom, the strangeness of which only added to the allure. He came into the theater where I was working the ticket counter a few days later. He was with his parents, but to me it seemed as if he had just washed ashore on a blanket of golden foam, cradled in a seashell. We stared at each other in a pretty brazen way. I wasn't so forward, as a rule. I walked out of the ticket booth and stood watching him as he strutted away. He turned and flashed me a smile, walked backwards for a minute; we stood there just looking at each other.

       I don't know about you, but it just never happened that way for me before. Usually, it's like you hang out with someone for awhile and you kind of start to like him, or he kind of starts to like you and you think what the hell? and then you're in a relationship. With this one, I had absolutely no choice in the matter; all the cells in my body took over and there was this magnetic force.

       So, Atom started hanging out at the town park all the time and became friends with all of my friends. I would just zombie-shuffle my way through anything I had to do until I could get there. I would periodically say his name aloud and smile. I would check to make sure his bike was there propped against the wall. We had this whole grinning, eye-locking thing going on, but we rarely talked. There were always lots of people around, and we were busy trying to score some alcohol or otherwise drum up fun in a dead suburban town. This one night, he asked me if I would braid his hair. It smelled like cigarettes and dirt. Aren't those in fact the most intoxicating scents in the world?

       Another night, a group of us took some beer up on the roof of the theater where I worked to get drunk and look down at the town lights. I was feeling really brave. He held my hand and helped me climb the ladder. When we were sitting on the roof, I stared at his profile until he turned.

       "What?" he said.

       "I'm just taking in the view." Who was this Ricko Suave who was inhabiting my body and throwing out cheesy lines? I got a big rush out of being so bold. He smiled.

       Lots of other things happened. My boyfriend got out of jail and I had to find a way to get rid of him without ripping out his heart. I managed to do it, but he called with suicide threats for awhile. Love is so dramatic at nineteen. Atom and I didn't kiss until Jim was gone. The night that he left, Atom came to a party at my house. I got wasted, as was my custom at the time. We went for a walk to the park up the street. We sat on a bench under a tree. I was lost, depressed, self-destructive, and ripe for some intense feeling. We kissed.

       That was the beginning. The details of what happened afterward are pretty complex. There's a lot of laughing, crying, more yelling than there should have been, some hitting. Drinking was always a major influence, and apologies. On one of those drunken and euphoric first nights, all of my friends were giving themselves tattoos. We had a bottle of India ink and a pen casing with a thread-wrapped safety pin in it.

       The pen casing got passed to me. I took it and repeatedly jabbed the safety pin into the flesh above my ankle until it spelled out ATOM. I looked across the room at him and smiled. I remember a time when I was reduced to my lowest, but also soaring. I remember that it took me three years after we broke up to be able to say his name without feeling sick. I remember the feeling that there is no one on earth who has felt the intensity, like supernova blast blinding love. That it doesn't just go away, and I don't want it to. When I feel old, untouched, mature...remembering Atom is a reflex and a right. He is, after all, in my skin.