He was young, about the age when he did Crime in the Streets, which is about my age now. He was very beautiful, and about two inches shorter than me, and he smelled of Old Spice. I remember feeling awkward, my feet unsure of which way to go. I kept saying, “But I don’t know how to waltz.” And Sal Mineo said, “Don’t worry; just follow me.” I woke up suddenly, as if awakened by a loud noise. My underpants were wet and sticky. And it was time to get up for school. “Talent is beauty,” Efrem was saying, just as Todd Waterson shouldered his way through the choir room’s double doors. Which would have made a nice little cinematic segue, since Todd was not what I would call a major talent in any art form, but could have written the book on being beautiful. I thought of the juxtaposition of Efrem’s remark and Todd’s entrance in terms of film, both because I love movies and because last year, when Efrem signed my yearbook, he wrote, “May your life be a movie in which you are Orson Welles: Write it – direct it – star in it.”
