He stuttered badly.

He liked attention.

The girls thought he was cute.

No, this is not the Bruce from Asbury Park, N.J. This is the one from Jersey's farm country, the kind of place where men are men and sheep are afraid.

You know him as Bruce Willis, Mythical Action Man. I remember him as a skinny kid in an olive-green Army coat, hanging out on the corner in front of the YMCA, hands shoved into his pockets against the cold, watching enviously as the cool guys in the Chevelles and the Camaros drove past. There wasn't much else to do in Penns Grove N.J. in those days.

Bruce was a year younger. He had his crowd. Mine was much cooler. So I thought. He became class president, I became a hippie. He disappeared for awhile and moved to New York. I hitchhiked. He showed up on a TV show called Moonlighting, I went to work for a tiny newspaper, where I was only going to stay for a short time while learning to be a Great Writer. He wound up rich and famous, I ... yes, that's another story.

Back in Penns Grove the memories of Bruce aren't all good. You see, he made some promises. He was going to fix up the town. He bought some land, so people began buying the whole dream. You could feel the optimism. To a dying town, a $48.5 million waterfront complex isn't a ratable, it's salvation.

But Bruce pulled out. The land is for sale. In this movie John McLain can't save the world.

"I don't think he gave a rat's ass," said one former childhood friend. "There were a lot of people who thought that the whole town was going to be transformed."

Bruce still shows up occasionally. His father still lives there, in the house Bruce bought him. During the Philadelphia shooting of his newest movie, "Sixth Sense," he dropped in at a restaurant called the Roman Pantry to see Marianne DiMarco, its owner and a childhood friend.

"I tell the girls to try to be cool, not to make a fuss over him," DiMarco said. "I want him to feel normal. So what do I do? I yell his name real loud. BRUCE!"

Did she ask about Demi?

"I didn't dare."

Does she remember him from back in the day?

"Oh yeah, he was really cute," she said. "He still is. He's got a baby face. He was always like a comedian, fun to be around."

She couldn't remember if he ever tried to put the make on her.

"He was flirty," she said, laughing. "He probably did."

Truth is, he's still flirty. The way some people her tell it, he seduced a whole town, then walked away.