Oh Matt Dillon, my Matt Dillon. You and I could have such a life together. Forget that I am twelve and fresh out of Franklin Elementary School in Cadillac, Michigan. Forget that you are a Hollywood heartthrob and can drive a car and smoke and walk around with your shirt off. Forget that we are basically different species.
I first saw you in Little Darlings. You were so cool and boy-pretty. And then My Bodyguard. And even though I usually won the boys vs. girls arm wrestling bouts at lunch, and you were the bully in the movie, I wanted you to be my bodyguard. I imagined you in the hallway at school, leaning up against the lockers, waiting. Ready to step in when one of the older boys snapped my bra strap or fired a spitball my way. I imagined you leaning — you were always leaning — against the doorframe of my bedroom, casually standing watch. And if my stepbrother came to my door to violently tickle me until I couldn’t breathe or to ask if me I wanted a ‘hurts donut’ — Matt Dillon, you would stop him. You wouldn’t have to kick him in the nuts like I did, you would just slowly turn your head his way and give him a heavy-lidded, squinty-eyed look that would send him back where he came from.
Oh Matt Dillon, my Matt Dillon. You and I would sit side-by-side on my twin bed and I would pull my Matt Dillon scrapbook out from under it and set the book on our laps. As we paged through it, I would explain to you why I had chosen each picture, why I had written each caption, and you would not laugh at me. You would not be weirded out. You would be flattered and its mere existence would communicate all my feelings to you, saving me from having to explain myself. You would not care that everyday on my way home from school, I would stop at the news stand and buy another a Tiger Beat or Teen Beat, or a 16 Magazine, and once home, on the couch in front of General Hospital, I would tenderly cut photos of you from those pages and paste them into my Matt Dillon scrapbook with rubber cement I stole from school. You, with your dark hair, your knowing eyes, your white tank top — you would not laugh at me, you would take my face in your hands and look deeply into my eyes and tell me, ‘I know’ and ‘I feel the same way’ and then you would kiss me. And movie music would swell in the background. You would see through my bad short haircut, my garage sale clothes, my braces, my glasses. You would see what was really in there. The real me.
Oh Matt Dillon, my Matt Dillon. Maybe you would still be flattered to know the fires of my crush for you have never died completely. For a time they were transferred to lesser giants, Johnny Depp, Duran Duran, that guy who played Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights. But you were the first. When I thumb through People Magazine these days or Entertainment Weekly and your face stares back at me, I am still tempted to reach for the scissors and glue.