ASIDE: Actually, she tied with Heather Guth as the first star-crossed crush. Heather wanted to pursue things further than I wanted to take them in fifth grade. I wasn’t ready for such a forward public display as holding hands. I understand now that it had more to do with commitment than fear. Who wants to take themselves off the market with such authority at THAT age?

I could write Alyssa something much more beautiful now. I could veil my emotions in poeticism, be less forward, promise little and pique her interests. Probably most important, I’d leave out the photo. I’ve moved on, though. I know she has. And, given the great distance that time can create between emotion and reality, I see now that her beauty and talent could bested by the woman I am married to, many of the women I work with and a few seen in random places. Alyssa, like so many other Hollywood starlets, benefited from both timing and luck. Those factors are often more important than ability or persuasion.

Alyssa could be considered the male equivalent to New Kids on the Block, who will perform at the Sprint Center tonight. Corporate office buildings across the metro were alive today with chatter as female fans of all persuasions opened up about their infatuations with these former heartthrobs. To the ladies’ credit, they have kept their opinions of these gentleman returning to the stage amongst themselves this time, much more so than the New Kids craze that swept the nation in the early 90s.

The New Kids fans have also been surprisingly level-headed. They’ll admit, for example, that the guys are out of shape, were never that talented and that their new material can’t hold a candle to the stuff they churned out with bubble gum assembly line-like perfection in their heyday. And yet, the ladies are paying the steep ticket prices to see the show. Like me, they know better, but it’s hard to let go because, after all, these crushes are more about you and what you learned from them than it ever was about the idols.

These celebrities tap our imaginations that we tend to lose as we grow older and possibility narrows. We see people with real talent who don’t use it or don’t make it and come to realize that New Kids banded around the concept of making money – and the individual members probably knew somebody who knew somebody.

I don’t recall what Alyssa wore in my dream – the view granted me was neck up. I assume her wardrobe was pieced together from items I’d seen her wear in various Bop magazine photo spreads. I hope, for her sake, that she was lovely. Respect for her acting ability has waned more than likely as the footage of her “awkward stage” is replayed around the world hundreds of times a day in various languages.

In a metaphorical sense, reruns are the photo she’d probably leave out of her love letter envelope if she ever sent me a reply. But she needn’t bother. What would a writer be without unrequited love?

A few of the inebriated souls wander this district believing themselves to be braver or possibly invincible under the influence and try to put their hands through the glass in shops window or pick fights with groups of sober bodies or kiss the wrong women – ones that belong to someone else – and do so inconspicuosly.

The fate that befalls the drunks is usually not ideal, but in this dirstrict comprised of the city’s oldest bars and where the college kids come in groups to meet up and watch the games and drink and shoot the shit, the drunks are often forgiven. “Oh, he’s just drunk” is a phrase that often passes as an explanation for irradic behavior. Someone vomits in the alleys here every night. People meet and sleep together and never talk again. Someone else falls in love and it stays – and it works – and it’s true.

Most advances are clumsy and fail as a result and someone ends up drunk, his mind attuned to random details and so he notices the aborted rail line staggering from bar door to bar door, from cover charge to cover charge, until hunched over those tracks wondering if his stomach is going to empty out. But the failure is worth the long shot at unexpected happiness in the bar district – the girls here for fun and the boys for the chance at meeting them.

The bars are the great encouragers of all behaviors. The beer and the whisky could flow under the streets because there are so many places to get it, as common as tap water. The owners can be alcoholics, too, except now they drink at home by themselves with their properties in the charge of other drunks who don’t drink when they work, but instead start in when the bar stools are stacked and the patrons gone.

Anything is permissible on the streets here on Saturday. If history couldn’t temporarily be put aside, no one would come back. The love that seldom works out in the drunken crowd would turn the rarest successes into rampant lies. Freight trains rolled through here once with power and quiet glory that needs to be forgotten.

The sun sets on the Crossroads district with its blocks staggered like steps as they progress up the hill on Wyandotte Street. At the top is a beautiful church, watching over all this urbanity, the small creative boutiques, the real estate offices, and the apperent factories where workers in casual dress smoke and curse on a perfect fall night.

The wind is nearly imperceptible close to the brick walls on the street’s west side. On the east, the wind comes barrleing down the block, picking up loose leaves and a concert flyer that’s come unstuck from a tarred telephone pole.

The edges on the buildings are sharp and pronounced against the perfect blue sky. Glass in the street lamps glow prematurely. And, the crickets in the long line tree branches poking through a chain-link fence along the sidewalk start chirping in anticipation of final sundown.

Cars parked streetside reflect the sunlight in big diamonds of white light. Jets from the downtown airport leave the sky streaked with white strips. I’m tired from a day spent writing and in anticipation of it. I feel as tired as the sun downs itself, burning itself in all the blueness, never able to overcome the coloring.

I walk these streets searching for inspiration, under the swooping power lines, past the gated, private parking lots, the trash dumpsters, art pieces in windows, empty salon chairs, hip lamps and lingerie, cafe windows with daily specials sloppily written on chalkboards. Then the breeze again, and I feel safe on these streets, transported to earlier in the summer when it was warmer and the anticipation greater. The more the searching goes on, the more I feel inspiration is looking for me a block over. Cross my path, something to capture on my handheld, a word painting or therabout, some sort of wisdom to impart.

Where does the mosquito come from in all this, circling my long sleeves futilely? If it were June, I’d have my blood sucked and he’d fly off with a fully tummy, back to the overgrowth in the lot by Southwest Boulevard. For now, he’s out on his own search, hoping to cross paths with warm red blood, and in that sense he’s not unlike the vagrants that wait for singles to walk down the wrong alley carrying whisky money in their pockets. I feel connected to the few living things I can see and hear.

The sun is half gone now as I walk only in shadows. I sit on the sidewalk ledge and look down the hill. I thinl about the big hill near my childhood home that we’d ride down wildly on skateboards hoping the wheels didn’t lock up on the chestnuts that would fall from overhanging trees. At this angle, the speed would be intense and too fast to stop, so the rider would have to jump off and abondon his board and watch it careen into the street.

Cars turn off and on Wyandotte, disappearing behind rows of buildings, brakes squeaking on even the newest model cars. Downtown at twilight, though, the streets are mostly silent and more like they were historically than they are during the day time.

The sun is down and I decide it’s time to turn my eyes to another street.