Tears of Atreyu

When I was seven years old, my parents and I went skiing with family friends in Aspen. We stayed in a huge 5-level house next door to both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Emmanuel Lewis (of Webster fame), I stayed in a room with my best friend and we each got our own bunk bed, I skiied for the first time ever, saw my parents drunk on margaritas for the first time ever, and was allowed hot chocolate with every meal. However, what I remember most about this trip is that it was also the first time I ever saw The Neverending Story.

First of all: don’t even talk to me about the sequels. I ain’t trying to hear that. Words cannot describe the love I had for this movie—and for its stars. I was young and finnicky, and therefore wavered back and forth between Barret Oliver and Noah Hathaway, playing the two male leads, Bastian and Atreyu. I named my first boy Cabbage Patch Kid “Barret Oliver,” but it was Atreyu who had my heart. When I received a gold locket for Christmas (the Annie boom was still going strong), I cut Atreyu’s face out of the HBO guide and pasted it inside, locking the bathroom door because I knew my mother would kill me if she knew what I was doing. It was a bad picture—he was in the Swamps of Sadness, his horse had just died—and it was a tiny locket. For years, usually in the lunch line, people would say, “Does that locket open?” and when I would admit that it did, the next question was always, “Who is that?”

You try explaining that to Tony Layne, the cutest boy in 7th grade, and make it sound cool. You can’t!

Anyway: this was all brought to mind because Jared just told me that a band named Tears of Atreyu played at Seasick Records last weekend. And I missed it! I don’t care if they’re genius or awful or how broke I am, that’s a band T-shirt I needed.