Splits
 

One of my first attempts at writing YA fiction was a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel that was, and remains, pretty terrible. It was one of my first attempts writing any sort of fiction and was full of derivative cliché and cringey tropes that were popular in circa-2013 contemporary YA. I haven’t gone back to revise it because it served its purpose for me - I proved to myself I could finish a draft of a novel, such as it is, and I worked out some creative kinks that prepared me for the (hopefully) better projects I’ve started since. 

I still think about that first novel though and think there are aspects of it worth saving. Most of it will be rewritten, but I know at least two things will remain the same: It will always be a friendship breakup story at its core, and the setting will always be the backdrop of my own adolescence - the bowling alley. 

We all had our spots that we called home. In high school, I lived at the coffee shop by my house, and in middle school, I lived at the mall, and in childhood, I lived at my best friend’s house down the street. And through all of those years, I lived at the bowling alley. Specifically, one called Pin-O-Rama (not to be confused with the other birthday party favorite of the ‘80s and early ‘90s, Skate-O-Rama). When I think of writing anything based on my childhood and teen years, whether fiction or memoir, it is the only setting that feels as constant as it was formative. 

I started bowling when I was about five years old when I joined a youth league on Saturday mornings. My best friend and I stayed on the same team for the next eight years, spending every Saturday morning together that would bleed into Saturday afternoon once her parents took over the league and my dad became a coach. It was this last hour or so of waiting for the adults that, for me, made it worth coming back each week. She and I would share potato chips with a side of pickles while playing M.A.S.H., use the payphone to call free 1-800 numbers we memorized from commercials, play Mortal Kombat in the small arcade, or go downstairs to the pro shop and explore the mysterious underbelly of the alley. We were rarely out of sight from our parents for more than a few minutes, but they may as well have not even existed on those mornings.

When I was around 13, I quit the Saturday morning league, presumably because I had decided I was no longer a “youth.” That didn’t mean I stopped going to the bowling alley though. My dad was still a coach and my best friend still bowled, so I’d still spend most Saturday mornings from ages 13 to 15 hanging out as a spectator, with my friend and I replacing our games of M.A.S.H. with meeting the real-life boys who would become our first boyfriends (league bowlers, of course). 

Overnight lock-in events, Friday “rock and bowl” nights, and yet another league (this time, at night and for teens) kept Pin-O-Rama as the backdrop of my adolescence well through high school. And alongside all of that, the bowling alley became the place I most associated with my dad. Bowling became something we shared too, and our bond over it lasted much longer than the years I spent within its windowless walls coming of age with my friends. Even on those seemingly parent-less Saturdays, we’d sometimes stay after all the other kids left and bowl a game. He, always striving to beat his last score, and me, not caring enough that I hooked my arm too much.

A few months ago, I found out Pin-O-Rama was closing. There are rumors about the logistics of exactly when it’ll happen and what it will become, but its demise seems pretty certain. I won’t be able to roll one more game with my dad before it closes, or order steak fries from the concession counter, or breathe in the stale air that smelled of cigarettes long after smoking was banned. 

Living in New York, I've grown used to former havens turning into chain restaurants or banks. I have joked that someday I’ll write a memoir called “Everything I Loved Is Now a Chipotle.” The city changes its landscape every few years and in certain neighborhoods, if a store or bar lasts longer than five years, it is considered a mainstay. Even in my hometown, it’s not uncommon for places to change, and the bowling alley seemed to be surviving on borrowed time as it was. That doesn’t make its shuttering any less shocking to me, or even a little bit devastating. It was easy to imagine that as long as the bowling alley remained open, a version of me still lived there, and now I picture her squinting into the daylight, staggering home. 
 

(*For those wondering, the friendship breakup story of that first terrible manuscript was not about the best friend I bowled with. I could see you asking yourselves.*)

(**And for those who don't know what M.A.S.H. is, it was a highly scientific method used to predict the futures of 90% of pre-teen girls between the years 1985 and 1995.**)