White light accenting the yellow sunshine at center . . . a whiskey quartz was the highest possible quality to fit the nine-year-old’s budget.

Marcus S. combed soft and wavy cat fur for hair and saw the world through eyes the color of ice tea in sunlight.

We never loved each other.

It was something the four of us agreed upon over a few days.

Marvin S. would be Kurtistyne B’s boyfriend.

Marcus S. would be mine.

We were nine.

Mrs. Kemp, a tall humpback (or hunchback, if you white) with silver hair, sold those butter cookies shaped like flowers with ridges like lips and penny candy of every kind from the side door of her house.  The house, one square cinder block in white, seemed as hard as wedding cake.  Whether there were steps escapes me.  The shine and the sound, crisp as autumn’s leaves, of candy in intense fruit flavors flickered down from atop a silent white washing machine like light.

Or was that a deep freezer?

As was negotiated, and because it was the duty of good Southern boyfriends, Marvin and Marcus (no relation) procured the miniature brown paper sacks of candy for our daily pleasure . . . from the scowling sep-tu-a-ge-narian (who was prolly jess an ole fiddy) who loathed and frightened us.  Which, in a premature mythology lesson, the sight of her taught us too soon that between you and what you wanted sometimes stood a scary monster who could turn you to stone.

Apple and cherry Jolly Ranchers comingled with my cookies.  I would love to say I peered down the bag and there among the plastic candy wrappers floured in an insignificant coating of cookie dust sparkled the ring.  I would love to say Marcus S., with a romantic twinkle in his sweet tea-colored eyes slipped the ring on one of my skinny piano fingers.  But being an innocent boy and of no worldly technique, he dropped it in my hand like a piece of hard candy, sending me rushing on a ray of sunshine and diamonds.

Marvin S. had two older sisters as cake-batter yellow as he was, who terrorized him and made him chase them for stolen boy-things, whining and crying as he went.

“Gimme my truck!  Gimme my car!  Gimme my game!”  Translation: All of these demands meant, “Gimme back my balls!”

As a consequence, like old Mrs. Kemp who had aged into despising other people’s youth, Marvin S., behind his own high back, had grown to hate girls.  And, as it turns out, the bratty Blackbiter grew a sweet tooth for bitchin’.  (Or, at the very least, he had high blood sugar in his tank.)  His sissified self, labeling us “users,” twisted and turned his back on Kurt and me.

The spell of my childhood engagement broken, Kurt and I, gazing at each other across the chunky putty-colored flip-top desks of Sweet Home Alabama’s Meadowlane Elementary School, came sliding, swirling, crashing down from a three-day candy ‘caine high.  After bingeing for ONLY THREE GLORIOUS DAYS!

My first ring, Marcus’s ring, a natural whiskey quartz at the center of two white diamonds, though decades old, is still 18K gold.  In my Candy Land mind.

But now?  When I think of Marvin S.?  I think of him as a dancer from the movie “Fame” with a Mohawk and a dangling earring, walking the streets of New York City high-butted in pink legwarmers.  Butt even higher on his back than Mrs. Kemp.

When I think of Marcus S.,  to the contrary, I wonder if he’s well, if he’s tall, if he’s married—or red-hot loved—by someone—any one—because I’m sure he deserves it.  Then I wonder whether his eyes (which sometimes seemed half awake like mine) are still like slits between blinds in summer letting the sun shine through.

Love is a wonder—even in teeny handfuls, it can sweeten your whole life.

What was the first gift you ever received from your puppy love?