Call me Weinstein. I have lived my life of quiet desperation
dominated by women. Well, not really dominated by them. More like
dominated by the need for them. Controlled by the lack thereof and the
pursuit therein.Not that I have been without some small measure of
success. After all, I was married for ten years and am currently
married again; in fact, momentarily expecting the birth of my first
child. Things have changed considerably for me, some might even say
substantially improved. I sure would.
But as I look back from the
purview of impending fatherhood at my assorted ventures of Jewish jelly
and neurosis, I can only shake my head and laugh. Laugh at the journey
that took me fleeing from the castrating contrary shrew-esses of New
York to the gentle round-featured beauties of Harvard Square. Portnoy
would be proud.
I have done it all. Singles dances, volleyball
games, bike rides, weekend outings, video dating, skiing. Even, God
forbid, folk dancing. Peering into the well lit vestibule of Concord
Meeting House at the bobbing sea of sweating bandanna’d heads, I
relieved my bursting bladder in the front bushes, of the five ounces of
vodka imbibed in attempt to make even that activity palatable. Yes, I
have done it all. Done it all in search of the Golden Shiksa.
By the time I arrived on the scene, the great Diaspora had wended its
way from the Pale of Settlement to the suburbs of Long Island, halting
for generational deposits in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side. The
fabled charm of the newly arrived immigrant and first generation
ambition had given way to the sprawling mass of tract houses and
faceless suburbia. How I longed for the Sunday morning socialist
gatherings along the Coney Island boardwalk; the bath houses and the
camaraderie of the aging community elders as we downed endless glasses
of slivovitz; handball under the El and nasty waiters flinging forks at
me at Ratners.
But alas, it was not to be. For the suffocating
insularity of Delancey Street and Ocean Parkway had given way to the
sterile void of burgeoning shopping malls, ranch houses with
cookie-cutter yards, and two story brick-box school complexes.
Progress, I think they call it. And though the sweaty over-involvement
of the first half of the century had no doubt been glamorized by the
time it was disintegrating, some primal consciousness, passed through
the genes, told me that what we had gained was no match for what we had
lost.
Oh sure, a few memories of the Golden Era were preserved in the
Holy Sepulcher Museum on East 4th Street, otherwise known as the
basement of my grandfather’s house. Hour after hour, I would immerse
myself in the darkly lit mazes of that sub-chamber, culling from the
dusty archives little jewels of memorabilia. Dewey beats Truman. FDR
Dead. Mr. and Mrs. Hyman Applebaum invite you to the wedding of their
daughter, Cecilia. Little hunks of history, public and private.
Glimpses of a past that no longer was. What there was, was Long Island.
And a block full of boys, a one street Hebraic enclave in the middle of
a sea of Christianity.
There was the mandatory block bully, who
double functioned as the giver of names. Cherry. Blimp. Yag. Babes.
Mine was Nooge. Luckily, I had been spared the bad fortune assigned to
the bully’s two siblings, whom he christened Tush and Pig,
respectively. I think he is practicing law with Tush in Miami today, if
I’m not mistaken. I don’t know what happened to Pig.
The bully, as
giver of names, had somehow miraculously managed to escape one of his
own. Until he broke my nose by chasing me into a brick wall. From then
on, he was Captain Blood.
Say what you will about Captain Blood, he
kept things hopping. He plastered his attic with Playboy centerfolds
and formed a club that you could join by screwing one of the
paste-ups. Redman and Yag had done it, but mustering the first act of
chivalry in my life, I declined, though being sorely tested.
But
pictures proved not to be sufficient for The Blood, as he came
affectionately to be known, as he soon wandered across the fence to
expose himself to the unsuspecting girl next door, Pinocchio. She too,
is a lawyer today. The Blood got some counseling soon afterwards.
If
the block was cursed with a shortage of females, there was no such
similar dearth of them at school. There were scores of them. Cute,
pig-tailed, knee-socked, big-eyed, pug-nosed, little girls. Second
grade Lolitas. And though they were foreign to me, they had a mystical
power that no line drive to left or quickly flicked wrist shot could
hope to match. They were mysterious, beautiful, enticing. In short,
they were the Other.
But as I considered the Other from afar, it was
visions of paternalism that filled my head. How I saved the Other from a
bullying older brother or a huge wave at Jones Beach or maybe a wild
running dog. How the Other gazed at me and thanked me for my chivalry.
Oh, the bliss of the Other’s adulation. For somehow, there was a lack,
a gap in me beginning to develop, that only the beatific smile of the
selected Other could begin to fill. And since the raging hormones which
would descend so cruelly a short time hence had not yet kicked in, I
could pine for possession of the Other in a pure and holy fashion.
Every
new school year brought the dawning of another Other. There was Holly
Givens, she of the golden blond hair, and Diana Durham, of the cherubic
chipmunk cheeks. There was Shannon Carter of the long pleated braid and
the missing tooth smile, and Donna Hansen, a red haired, green eyed
vixen, all four feet one of her covered with freckles; and finally,
Heather Kalman, a little dot of a girl who broke my heart when her
father transferred to Secaucus.
But if the Lord could take away, he
could also giveth. As I pined for Heather, he blessed me with the
arrival of a tugboat captain’s daughter, one Irene Hennessey, a fair
skinned, freckled lass, with blond flowing hair. And if the Holy
Father’s fourth grade deliverance was truly bountiful, he outdid himself
and delivered the coup de grace in the 5th, in the form of Lisa
Lukkasson, a Lutheran Minister’s daughter, moving into town from the
Midwest. In this vision of loveliness all thoughts of tugboat
wanderings and chipmunk cheeks were quickly erased. With her soft blond
hair, smooth tan skin, wide ivory smile and radiant blue eyes, she was
an Other like no Other. The perfect Other. Such a good Other that she
lasted for not just one, but two, count ‘em, two years, all the way till
the end of grammar school. Oh, thank you, bountiful Father, for thy
gifts, which I will cherish and protect and honor in a faithful and
upstanding way. For he who bringeth forth the mystery of Lisa Lukkason,
is one to whom I am eternally grateful and indebted to. Tell me the
price and I shall pay it. Tell me the burden, I shall not tarry. Oh,
tell me Lord, how can I thank thee for the gift that is Lisa Lukkason.
In
my fantasia of pedestal-ic love, little could I know that time was
rapidly running out on my holy chivalrous universe. That a curse worse
than the invading Mongol hordes was about to descend on me and defile my
little world of purity. That the joys of the mental possession of the
Other would give way to the gnawing, rasping, unholy carnality of
physical desire. That my little wide eyed beauties pictured from afar
would no longer be sufficient to bridge the gap of fulfillment the
tingling in my loins was calling for.
Oh Lord, surely when I
mentioned any burden, you could not have meant this. Surely when I
mentioned any price, this could not have been what you had in mind.
Surely, Lord, you jest.
So I ask you, oh Lord, deliver me from the
strangle hold of impure thoughts bombarding my head in desecration of
the Other. Deliver me, my Master, from the aching pangs of longing now
filling my soul, where once purity reigned unencumbered. Yes, deliver
me, oh Lord, from……………..seventh grade.
I could feel it from Day One. Something cold, hard, metallic about
this place, more like a prison than a school. The clanging of endless
rows of metal lockers; hordes of unfamiliar faces lining the hallways;
the wide open vacuum of the cafeteria; the stench and impersonality of
the locker room and gym. A stranger in a strange land.
Things
wouldn’t be simple anymore, I sensed. For as frightening as the
unfamiliarity of my new surroundings were, they were nowhere near as
frightening as the changes happening within me. All of a sudden it
mattered how I looked, what I wore. For years my mother had picked out
my clothes the night before and I had donned them willingly, with no
second thought. For years my parents had sent me faithfully to Vince’s
Highway Barbershop, where, in between selling hot TV sets and toaster
ovens, Vince and his serene cousin Tony shaved my head on a tri-weekly
basis.
But that tranquil world had given way to a burgeoning era of
skin-tight pants, budding breasts and pompadour hairdos. The argyle
socks had to go. The red pants, long gone. My cousin’s hand-me-downs
might continue to be okay, at least with the proper alterations. And
Vince the barber would have to be content in seeing my head half as
often and of having to pay attention to detail when he did. The look of
the Gulag was out.
Within my skin-tight pants, there was no room for
comfort. Between the constant war of my continuous erection and the
combs and wallets stuffed into pockets, the Cuban Missile Crisis looked
like a May Day parade, in comparison. Something was going to explode in
my pants, of that I was sure. Hopefully all innocent bystanders would
be outside the four foot safety cordon.
Since the Junior High had
been a mating of six or seven grade schools, each elementary school
gang banded together to form its own little mini-tribe. These were
composed for mutual defense, as well as for staking out new turf. Our
tribe consisted of eight to nine members and we were the elite of Lenox
School. I had made the tribe based on my athletic ability, although I
was clearly one of its lesser members. The problem was height, or lack
thereof.
The tribe would do everything together. Stand in line
before entering school, eat in the cafeteria, hang out in gym class,
gather in the courtyard during break time. From the safety of the
tribe, we could gaze out at the forbidden fruit we so desperately longed
for: the girls of the other tribes, or the foreign tribesses, as it
were. For not only had nature unleashed in us strange new cravings, but
the educational system had provided a new and expanded context in which
to exercise them. All of a sudden we were surrounded with packs of
delicious and budding young nubiles. The girls of Plaza School. The
girls of Schubert School. The girls of Milburn and Coolidge and
Prospect and Brookside Schools. Our own paltry lot from Lenox paled in
comparison, or at least it seemed they did. Maybe we were just used to
them.
Status began to appear, as the inevitable cross-pollenization
of the mixing of different schools in the classroom evolved. Our big
guns mixed with their big guns and the female elite banded together as
well. Our tribe of location was breaking down to be replaced by newer
models based on social standing. As my fast fading grasp started
slipping, gone were my golden connections to Dougy LeDoux and Solon
Panagloss and Jerry Herman, the erstwhile power brokers of grammar
school legend. Down, down, I plummeted, falling fast and finally
bottoming out in the bosom of the antiestablishment. If we couldn’t be
the in crowd, we would be the official out crowd, our outness being the
defining character. Oh sure, we were higher on the social scale than
the science nerds and the AV squad but then again, so were paramecium.
Yes, we would be beatniks, the rebels, the intellectuals, at least the
seventh grade version of them, anyway. I would steal my sister’s
sandals and take the Long Island Railroad into Washington Square to hear
the Jewish Ragtime Cowboys play the budding acoustical tunes of the
early sixties.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t tall enough to be considered
handsome. I did make cute, however. With my little jokes and recently
liberated hair, many of the girls who sat around me developed crushes,
at least the shorter ones did. Local girls, I called them. And though I
was flattered by their attention, my heart longed for the seventh grade
Lolitas who were hopelessly out of my reach. The age old theme of not
wanting what you can have and not having what you wanted, was starting
to rear its ugly little head; although I’m not sure I would have known
what to do with either group, if given the chance. So, erect and
farting, I continued to pine. Pining was becoming a way of existence.
There
was a friend’s bar mitzvah where I met a Jewish bombshell, my first
official JAP, who I would pine for the next year, and her friend, who it
turned out pined for me and whose father owned the largest baseball
card company in America. If only my gold digging ways had been more
developed, I could be sharing box seats with Hank Aaron today. But
alas, with my pining heart and semi-priapic state, I languished in the
emotional wasteland of seventh grade, headed for the rocky shoals of
eighth. All the rumbling miles of the LIRR, and the strumming guitars
of Rambling Elliot Adnopoz and Robert Zimmerman could not dispel the
dark gathering clouds on the horizon. Until I met her.
She had been the star of Brookside School, the class vice-president.
She had made the advanced class and the boys of Schubert were touting
her highly. She was being set up with the elite of our elite, tall
scholar athlete Doug LeDoux, but somehow, she fell short of the mark.
For as the blossoming young beauties vaulted vertically, Debby sprouted
horizontally. Ultimately, her tragic flaw was that she had too much
brains and brawn to make the highest rankings of the social register.
As her star plummeted, she carried a sweet sadness about her of one who
has tasted the heights and knows that they are forever more closed to
her.
Not that she was without substantial redeeming qualities. For
she was not fat, but merely short and stocky. Zaftig, they called it.
Some males would kill for it, and I was one of them. And in that squat
little frame developed two of the fullest, roundest and irresistibly
tempting breasts known to the likes of eighth grade masculinity. It was
enough to pop a zipper at thirty paces.
She was German and her face
showed it. High cheek bones, wide-set blue-green eyes, a little round
bulb of a nose, a huge mouth with full lips, and straight, shoulder
length, brown hair. It may seem cruel to say, but she looked like a
feminized version of Babe Ruth. But she was beautiful to me.
I had
seen her the year before, but she was foreign to me, and, I knew,
reserved for the elite. All I remembered was that she had a beautiful
smile.
And so I found myself one row over and one seat back from her
in eighth grade Spanish class. I was Carlos and she was Juanita. I had
always hated languages with a passion, having about as much ability in
them as I did with a square knot. But somehow, a glance at those soft
firm breasts said that this was compensation that might make language
class worthwhile.
After three or four days, I was sitting at my desk
waiting for class to start, thumbing through a Mets yearbook, when she
came in and settled at her desk. She half turned around to me and
flashed the beautiful smile. She said “Hi.”
I almost fell on the
floor. Unsolicited, unprovoked, unanticipated, I gathered my startled
self and attempted to respond. I think I grunted, as some kind of
gurgling noise escaped my exploding larynx and wafted toward her ears.
I’m sure it wasn’t English; I’m not even sure it was human, but when it
reached her, she sort of half-giggled and turned back around. Senora
Delfuedo came in and class started.
My mind raced. Surely she had
made a mistake, or I had made a mistake. She had smiled at the guy next
to me. Except the guy next to me was Susan Hallerman. Didn’t she know
we were not of the same caste? That I was beneath her and not worthy
of her attention? What did she know about the lowly world of Washington
Square and Bob Dylan? She was on the cheerleading squad, for God’s
sake! Surely it must be a mistake. Maybe she wanted to get to Doug
LeDoux through me. After all, this President Kennedy junior look alike
was my next door neighbor. Yes, that must be it, I thought.
But
then the same thing happened the next day and then again on a third. It
wasn’t a fluke. She was actually saying hi to me, for God only knows
what reason. By the fourth or fifth day, I was gradually able to utter a
response that was possibly English and almost definitely human. I was
in deep monosyllable with her. I think she was enjoying it.
Suddenly
I was always early for Spanish class, sometimes so early I’d have to
wait for the class before to leave. Weeks passed and I managed to
evolve into complete sentences. Sometimes two at a time. She asked me
what I thought about things. She actually seemed to care what I had to
say. She was the first girl who had ever taken me seriously and I had
no clue as to why. All I knew was that I was flattered.
I used
whatever limited skills I had in Spanish to impress her. With
hopelessly tangled syntax, I made primal little jokes like “Los Chicas
son peros,” (the girls are dogs). If I couldn’t speak in the language,
at least I could joke in it, enough so the class could recognize and
laugh. Senora Delfuedo grew flustered but seemed to understand that I
was working for a higher purpose than my accustomed C. “Yo quiero la
una con los tres ojos,” (I like the one with the three eyes) I opined,
in one of those enforced dialogues in front of the room. The class
snickered, but most of all Debby smiled.
“Ay, Carlos,” Senora
Delfuedo shot back. “You mean la una con los gris ojos (gray eyes).
No, Senora Delfuedo, con los tres ojos. Senora Delfuedo just shook her
head. Well, at least he keeps the class half awake.
These were the
days of V-neck sweaters, high knee socks, and loafers. Debby wore them
all. Nestled comfortably in the middle of the open V was a small
crucifix with a little nailed form of Jesus resting on her chest. As I
stared into the face of that lucky little bastard resting high atop
those soft budding mounds, I imagined him laughing at me while a huge
erection hoisted its way through his spreading loin cloth. “Don’t even
think about it, Jew Boy; she belongs to me,” he sneered. Okay, Jesus,
I’ll back off for now, but your days are numbered. Oh, to feel that
soft metal erection crushed against my breast as I enveloped my zaftig
shiksa and clutched her to my chest. “Whoa to thee, my savior, with thy
now flattened metal schlong, mark my words, your days are numbered.
The avenger has cometh.” Oh, the height of forbidden fruit. The stuff
of dreams.
Sometime that winter I found the breasts could actually be
touched. Not directly of course, and certainly not unclothed, but
still touched, nonetheless. For Debby, I discovered, started going to
the youth centers held at the Harbor Junior High on Friday nights.
Although it was decidedly uncool for incipient beatniks to attend such
events, the incentive was overpowering. I transcended the mockery of my
friends and rode my bike the five miles in freezing cold to get there.
It was Friday night. It was my temple and I was there for a religious
experience.
Sure enough, there she was. Her and her V-neck and
loafers and knee socks and little metal Jesus. Debby was dancing with
other boys, many boys, tall, handsome Biffs and Brians. But I didn’t
mind; surely she would dance with me.
Hoping that I didn’t smell too
bad from the ride and with the icicles starting to defrost from between
my toes, I lurched across the room and descended on her in the middle of
a gaggle of girls. Hen talk, I think they call it. She looked shocked
to see me.
“Would you like to dance?” Debby hesitated. Oh no, she’s going to reject me! Jesus was sneering.
“Why sure, I guess.” She seemed to be coming back to her senses.
We
strolled to the center of the dance floor. I put my arms around her
and awaited further instructions. A fit of honesty overcame me. “I
don’t know how to do this.”
Debby laughed. “Just relax, I’ll lead,
you follow me.” We started slowly moving back and forth. It was
heaven. I clutched Debby tight to my chest, trying to suffocate the
living bejeepers out of the smarmy little crucifix.
“I didn’t expect you to come to someplace like this,” she started.
“Well, you know.” It was the best I could do. At least it was English.
“You don’t like Gene Pitney?”
“Oh, he’s all right.” Who in the hell was Gene Pitney? Was he some guy who was after her? I made a note to find out.
I
settled into the soft flow of the music. For once I could relax. Oh,
the soft press of those majestic breasts upon my beating heart!
Closer. The smell and feel of her fresh washed hair upon my cheek. If I
could die right now and forever be eternally frozen in place. Oh, if
only.
But it was not to be. The song ended and Debby thanked me and
went back to her consortium of hens, who gave a little giggle and waited
for the next Todd or Dennis to approach. And so it was that I found
religion, at the Holy Tabernacle of Baldwin Harbor Junior High. Friday
night services were everything to me.
Much to my dismay, I had inherited something from my grandfather that
put me out of commission for two years: halitosis. I don’t know why or
when or where, it somehow just arrived. As if things weren’t tough
enough, what with the war going on in my pants and all. Now all of a
sudden, people wanted to keep at a distance. They turned their heads
curiously while I talked. Hands cupped noses. I was becoming a master
of profiles. Intuitively I knew that something was wrong, but it was
months before anybody said anything. And when that finally happened, I
did what any rational totally fucked up fourteen year old would do. I
clammed up. If they couldn’t hear me, they couldn’t smell me, I
figured. Except it was putting a hell of a crimp in my fledgling little
social life.
Youth Centers were a thing of the past. Girls were a
thing of the past, for that matter. I kept a cordial relationship with
Debby from the safe distance of a row. Apparently she was making a
final play for my long desired next door neighbor. Consigned to the
ninth circle of hell, I resigned myself to watching from the sidelines.
I considered buying season boxes.
My enforced monkhood brought new
forces into play. I had half heartedly taken some guitar lessons
several years prior, which I had abandoned in favor of my Walter
Mittyesque pursuit of women, er, girls. But since my voice, or at least
the accompanying sewage, had failed me, I locked myself in my room for
hours at a time, developing a new one. Furiously I practiced, furiously
I picked. Jewish Ragtime Cowboy stuff. Dave Van Ronk. Reverend Gary
Davis. Doc Watson. The years spent down at the fountain of Washington
Square would not go to waste. Despite my stubby little digits, I became
a cracker jack finger-picking guitar player.
But what was one man
alone? If you had a band you could get chicks, or so it seemed. For me
there was no choice. It was the only voice I had. Harpo speaks.
But
as suburban teenage beatniks, arty young intellectuals carrying our
copies of Catcher in the Rye and Naked Lunch, we could not have a rock
and roll band. It was the antithesis of everything we stood for. It
was acceptance. It was Status Quo. It was wrong. It was……………….. but
what about the chicks? They dug rock and roll bands. I had watched in
amazement as four math teachers put mops on their heads and mouthed the
words to a Beatle song playing over the PA, while a room full of girls
stood on their seats and screamed, tears streaming down their faces.
Wow. It was something to see. Certainly I could do with a real guitar
what Mr. Cardello was doing with a cleaning implement hanging from his
head. Couldn’t I?
But we were hopelessly compromised. How could we
abandon the acoustical schizophrenia of Bob Dylan that we were committed
to? Little did we realize that that pithy icon would abandon us
instead, to the nether regions of electricity. No. We were pure,
committed. Anti-cool.
So we formed a strange little unit peculiar to
the era, in the acoustical format, called a Jug Band. Perhaps it was
the successor to my grandfather’s balalaika band or the wailing Klezmer
bands, so recently revived. Hey, I suppose they wanted to get chicks on
the shtetl, as well. But unlike the balalaika and Klezmer units, the
heart of the jug band was formed around a rhythm section which consisted
of an upside-down washtub with a bass string attached to a movable
broom handle; a thick moonshine jug which was blown into; and a ribbed
aluminum washboard which was scratched with finger picks. People
weren’t sure if we were opening a Laundromat or forming a band. But
with our scattered array of guitars, banjos, harmonicas and kazoos,
along with our fabled rhythm section, we aroused curiosity, if not
female hormones. We played at school functions, Unitarian (Atheists who
believe in Jews) Churches, anyplace that would have us. The girls eyed
us, if somewhat askance. “Well, they’re………………. interesting, I guess.”
Not the passion we were hoping for, but anything was better than
indifference.
Yes, Jelly Roll Joel and the Creole Jug Stompers was
making its mark. In truth, we weren’t half bad. The band roster looked
like it had been taken off a B’nai Brith Memorial. Weinstein.
Levitt. Lefkowitz. Schwartz. Rosenthal. We reached our high water
mark when we got invited to the immortal WBAI marathon hosted by the
even more immortal Larry Josephson. At least in the annals of mid ’60′s
New York, that is. Josephson reviewed the name board and toyed with
us, introducing the band at various points as Jelly Roll Joel and the
Nazi Jug Stompers, The Frau Von Buderhofen Pimpernels, The Third Reich
Revival Good Time Jug Thumpers, The Gaon of Vilna Drum Majorettes and
finally, Shalom Alechem and the Fab Five. I felt thoroughly de-nazified
by the time we left the studio and boarded the cattle cars headed back
to Long Island. Jelly Roll Joel had soared on the New York airwaves and
been molested by the best.
But alas, there was still no passion.
Despite our best efforts, we couldn’t match the power that Mr. Cardello
and his hanging tresses of Lestoil had mustered. And I still had
halitosis.
Fortune finally smiled on me in a most peculiar way. I
got food poisoning. After three days of constant vomiting, diarrhea,
fever, sweats, and a general wanting to die, my parents called the
doctor just to make sure that wasn’t in fact what I was doing. And with
the calm presence of my aging pediatrician by my side, I spilt my
horrible little burden. Was there anything, anything, I could do, in
case I survived, to be liberated from the frozen lake of Hades? The MD
listened patiently, nodding her head. When I finished my litany of
woes, she took out her pad and quickly jotted down one word: Delex.
Very good, she said. That was all. And with this pithy offering, she
departed, splitting the night air like the great white medicine man she
was.
I gargled in the morning. I gargled at night. I gargled
furiously. I gargled so hard and so long my mother went into atavistic
fits of pain long forgotten. Delex had come to liberate me. It started
slowly at first. Wary heads were turning from ninety degrees to a
cautious forty-five. By six weeks, I was actually receiving full
frontals from distances as close as forty-eight inches! People would
brace for the upcoming blast and lose their balance from not having to
recoil. I took the warning label off of my vocal chords. I was almost
ready to talk to girls.
And so as the summer of ’66 approached, the
dark clouds were dispersing from the long storm-laden sky. Though I had
reached my full adult height of a lanky 5′ 6″, I had developed into a
musician of some note. I was going on a six week bicycle tour of
Western Canada. And suddenly, Debby was being very nice to me.
The flame had finally burned out. The torch that Debby had carried
for the immortal Doug LeDoux had finally ebbed into non-existence after a
three year vigil. Not that Dougy had abandoned her for someone else.
He had never committed to her in the first place and seemed content to
spend his time alone, surrounded by soccer balls and math books. It was
incomprehensible to me. Could he not feel the gnawing, aching longing,
playing on his soul, that only the pursuit and seizure of his chosen
beloved could bring to an end? I mean, what was wrong with him? I
would kill for his height, for his looks, for his athletic grace. Girls
would throw themselves at him, and still it wouldn’t matter. Here I
was screaming out, “take me, take me,” grasping at ankles, hanging from
lampposts. Yet, to he who could have it all, it didn’t matter. It was
then that I figured out Dougy LeDoux’s reason for existence. He was
there to show me the basic unfairness of the universe. My own personal
experiential guru. O thank you, Great Master. Perhaps in your all
knowing wisdom and indifference, you can proffer your leavings to one
not so noble of spirit, to one who would be grateful for whatever scraps
of undesired carnality are discarded from your table? Do what you
want, white man. To Dougy LeDoux, it just didn’t matter.
But to
Debby it did. As June approached, she was looking forward to a long
lonely summer whose highlight would be working in her father’s sweater
factory. But just like two years prior, out of the clear blue, she
started inviting me into her life. I don’t know why she picked me out,
but she did. My first reaction was as it had been before. I looked
around to see who she was talking to. This time not even Susan
Hallerman was there. Unless she was invoking some incorporeal spirit,
it must have been me.
It started in dribs and drabs. A special hello
at lunch. A stolen trip to say “hi” as I stood in front of the
bomb-blast otherwise known as my locker. A little wave from the hallway
into my homeroom as I patriotically saluted the flag while trying to
shield the morning’s erection from the stern gaze of Mr. Appleby. What
was going on here? My friends were nudging me. The woman of my dreams,
my soft breasted cheerleader, for whom I had lusted in my heart as well
as my loins, was throwing herself at me and all I could do was slip
into reverse from neutral after having been in overdrive for more than
three years. What was wrong? Was I suffering from Weinsteinus
Interruptus?
That’s it, it was a trick. It was God’s little cosmic
revenge for liberating me from halitosis. He had made a pact with his
special agent here on earth, the smarmy little crucifix that nestled
above the golden mounds. The metallic icon had never forgiven me for
putting the full court press on his swaddled manhood back at the Harbor
Junior High. Yes, the two of them had secretly infiltrated Debby’s
soul, causing her to beckon me for some mysterious reason, only to laugh
in derisive ridicule the moment I snapped at the bait. “Surely you
jest, Rumpelstiltskin, you can’t be serious.” But I thought? “Get
real, Sneezy. Or is it Dopey, or Grumpy?”
No, I just wouldn’t have
it. No way they were fooling me, this ungodly trio, the Father, The Son
and the Holy Pom-Pom Goddess. I would not be their work here on earth.
Subtlety
wasn’t working. Debby got bold. As I gazed into the nether regions of
my metallic cubicle trying to decipher if the hardened object on the
upper shelf was a slide rule or a tuna fish sandwich, she snuck up from
the rear, and biting her lower lip, asked me if I would like to walk her
home. After all, it was on the way to my house. I told her I would
have to check my busy schedule. It was open till 1997. I would love to
walk her home.
We walked and we talked, about what I have no idea.
My feet were suspended six inches off the ground. We walked past the
greasers playing handball and hanging out at Woolworths. We walked past
the local coffee shop where the frat crowd peered out and wondered what
the hell she was doing with this jamoca. A traitor to her class.
Debby didn’t seem to care. We passed the grocery store and the Shoetown
and hit the main drag. Debby asked me if Ringo Starr was my favorite
Beatle because he had a big nose also. Up until that moment, I never
knew that I did, but I guess one man’s button is another man’s
schnazolla. I told her I preferred Paul, being a melodist myself.
As
we walked, I snuck furtive little glances over. Pinch me, I’m
dreaming. Firm curvy legs covered by green knee socks and bottomed off
by penny loafers. A plaid pleated dress with broad swaying hips and
sensuous buttocks pulsating to burst its confining dimensions. And of
course, the tight omnipresent V-neck, forest green, with the keeper of
the mounds snuggled firmly in place, the protector of Fort Knox. The
soft wonderful mounds pulling Debby firmly forward, sure,
uncompromising, certain in their rectitude and direction. Oh, how I
longed to hold, to touch, to caress.
We reached Debby’s corner. We
stood beneath an ancient oak tree with decades of lovers’ initials
carved inside of hearts now grown over with bark. Behind us was the
ominous presence of a large red brick Lutheran Church, with a huge
cement cross blessing its front facade. In these hallowed halls,
Debby’s family, the Neumaier clan, had gathered for years of assorted
confirmations, services, and whatever other Pagan rituals those of the
ilk indulged in. The most reverend Hermann Lukkasson, father of the
fabled Lisa, had delivered the holy incantations that Debby had soaked
up, absorbed, and otherwise interweaved into the pulsating libido her
sixteen year old hormones were now calling forth. She turned to face me
and we stood for what seemed an eternity, her beneath the Oak and me
between the opposing crosses, now sneering up at me from her chest and
leering down on me from the Temple of the Omnipresent Goyim. As always,
Debby led.
“Well maybe we should get together sometime.” Followed by a small bite on the lower lip.
“Well
maybe.” Great. She had given me an opening big enough to drive a Mack
truck through and I was searching for the keys to the Volkswagen
beetle.
I gazed down at her beautiful tooth-filled smile, her full
lips pulled tight against it. Smile lines bracing the upper corners of
each side of her mouth. Chestnut brown hair, straight and full,
cascading to her shoulders, with soft even bangs falling in front to the
top of gently curving, mossy eyebrows. And just below, the greatest of
treasures, huge, wide-set luminous eyes, with brilliant blue-green
radiator coils for irises. I didn’t know that eyes that light were
possible, at least on something that wasn’t albino.
Debby waited.
She spun and began to step away. “Well, I really enjoyed talking to you
Craig. Call me sometime.” With that she started walking away.
NOOOO! Please God, don’t let her get away! No telephone, not the
anxiety of that, act now, now, what are you waiting for, puberty breath?
“Deb, uh, Debby?” She stopped.
“What, Craig?”
“Well,
I thought uh, maybe we could, you know, uh,………. like maybe make some
plans uh now, I mean while we’re both still here and everything.” I
think it was English. It was enough to stop her, anyway. I wondered if
she thought I meant while we were both still here on earth.
“Why, um, sure Craig. What did you have in mind?”
My
God, she’s going to do it! What did I have in mind? You mean I had to
provide content to this nebulous offering? I had not evolved past the
form of it yet.
“Oh do, oh sure. Well let’s see. Yes, that would be good to know.”
Debby gave me a quizzical smile. “Well what do you like to do, Craig?”
What
do I like to do? I like to fantasize about attaching myself to your
ravenous body and becoming a permanent appendage therein for constant
and continual paroxysms of sensual delight through the boundless eons of
time.
“Like to do, well, um………….” Got to think quick. I can’t
drive and have no money. Where can we walk to, cheap. My father would
lend me five bucks. Nunleys, that’s it. Miniature golf.
“Well, um, we could go to Nunleys, maybe play miniature golf. Would you mind walking?” Oh God, why did I say that?
Debby laughed. “Sure, that would be fun. And when would you want to do this?”
Oh
man, she needs a time and a date too? The woman was relentless.
Actually asking me to make decisions. I was hoping she’d do it all for
me.
Let’s see. It was Wednesday. I couldn’t let this hang; the
anticipation would kill me. And yet I couldn’t be overeager. Don’t
rush it, be blasé. Oh, whenever. No, the anxiety would be torture.
“Well, uh, how about Saturday night?”
“This Saturday?” Oh God, I had blown it. Way too anxious.
“Well, you know.”
“This Saturday would be fine.” YES!
“Craig, what time did you have in mind?”
Okay,
slow, steady, we’re definitely getting to the end here. This was just
detail stuff. Let’s see. Dinner at 6.30. Shower. Sneak out of the
house. “7:30?”
“7:30 would be great. Craig, do you know which house is mine?” Know which? I had the blueprints in my garage.
“Oh, no. Which one is?”
“It’s
number 738. This side of the street, third house down from the first
cross street. We have our name on the post in front.” The Saxons. No,
The Super Saxons. Purveyors of Christian Babies since 1571.
Debby
walked the three steps back to me. She reached up and pecked me on the
cheek. “Okay, Mr. Craig Weinstein, I’ll see you at 7:30 Saturday
night. And don’t be late.” She spun and started walking off.
I
gazed from the hypnotic trance that I had just entered, at her short
swaying form, sashaying down the street now, away from me. I breathed
deep the sweet flowing fragrance of her quickly planted kiss and brush
of sweeping hair. My knees began to tremble. God was near.
Seventy-two hours. If I could just survive the next seventy-two hours, I’d give anything. Anything.