ABSTRACT
Spring, 1979. I am a high school senior in Brooklyn, New York. Not the trendy borough 20-somethings flock to today, but the birthplace of disco, bad accents, and Saturday Night Fever . I fit in like a ham sandwich at a Kosher deli. I am tall and awkward and have an acerbic wit that hides my insecurities like my ridiculous white-man’s Afro obscures my oily face. Fortunately, I have a clique of friends who, like me, don’t fit in to any larger group – not the jocks, the stoners, not even the super nerds with whom we share advanced placement classes. (Thank God, because I wouldn’t want to feel that unacceptable.) We cling to our otherness since, at least in our group, it makes us feel the same. We even have a clever name that flaunts our tenuous rebelliousness: The Wicked Dicey Ones. Lynn Eisen-berg saw it spray-painted on the side of a subway car and appropriated it for our group.
