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Subject: Rep. by req.: Me and Martha Jane by S.J.R. (mF, teen, rom) part 9
From: sjr <73233.1411@CompuServe.COM>
**** WARNING **** WARNING **** WARNING ****
THIS DOCUMENT IS A SEXUALLY GRAPHIC STORY ABOUT AN INTENSE SEXUAL,
EMOTIONAL AND INTELLECTUAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A TEENAGE GIRL AND
A YOUNG BOY AND THE COURSE OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP OVER A PERIOD OF
10 YEARS. IT IS A DRAMATIZATION ABOUT REAL PEOPLE AND THEIR CON-
FLICT WITH SOCIAL EXPECTATIONS. IF THIS SUBJECTS OFFENDS YOU OR IF
SEXUAL LANGUAGE UPSETS YOU, OR IF YOU DON'T WANT THIS MATERIAL SEEN
BY UNDER-18 OR OTHERWISE UNQUALIFIED PERSONS, DELETE THIS DOCUMENT.
THIS DOCUMENT IS COPYRIGHTED 1994, 1996 BY SJR. SO--HEY, YOU CAN
COPY IT BUT YOU CAN'T CHANGE IT OR SELL IT UNLESS I SAY SO.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
THE ADVENTURES OF ME AND MARTHA JANE
by S.J.R.
PART 9A:
Working at Liberty Cash Grocery Number 23 was more challenging than
I'd expected. The store occupied the corner of Exchange and Lauderdale,
across the street from the same project and the same corner where Martha
and I grew up. Two stock-boys worked in the store, and three delivery
boys worked outside on the clunky old utility bikes.
On my first day at work in early July I was assigned to young, dark-
haired Anthony, a distant cousin who lived with his widowed mother in the
project. He could shuck a bushel of corn and trim lettuce so quickly
that his hand movements seemed a mere blur. During the first couple of
days I almost managed to compete with him, as well as learning how to
stock canned and boxed goods in the aisles and shelves as neatly as did
George, the oldest stock boy.
But after I learned the basic layout and operation of the store by
the end of that week, I was assigned to a delivery bike. That job con-
fronted me with my physical limitations. Though I was not small for my
going-on-fourteen years, I was neither hefty nor strong. A customer's
grocery order contained from one to several stuffed bags in addition to
an occasional case of canned goods or beer. The bikes themselves were
ancient chain-driven units with gigantic wire baskets over the front and
rear wheels. They had fat metal seats, no center bar, a chest-high bare
metal handlebar, undersized wheels designed for heavy loads and rough
streets, and a low-ratio single gear for hauling rather than speed. They
were slow, rusty, noisy machines. But when loaded with several heavy
grocery bags that would be pedaled over a pitted street or along a gravel
driveway, they were stronger and more manageable than a recreational bike.
One of the older boys, a chesty, tough-looking but friendly blond,
crew-cut kid named Charlie, took charge for the first few days and
showed me the ropes. He saw to it that I started out with one-bag or
two-bag loads for customers who lived no more than three blocks away. I
was slow at first; although I had once lived in the area, the building
numbering system in the project and on some of the more obscure side
streets were unfamiliar. This brief training reduced the number of daily
deliveries I was able to make. The job paid ten cents per order. At
that stage I averaged seven to ten orders daily.
By the end of the second week I was getting the hang of things. That
Saturday was particularly busy. Under the additional pressure of a
blistering noon sun, Charlie and another kid and I were on the sidewalk
in front of the store loading bags onto our bikes, along with a fourth
boy who had been drafted for the day from the part-time pool. Charlie
helped load the first two bikes and sent them on their way. He had
already loaded three orders onto his own bike.
He pointed to the last group of several bags. "They been here over
an hour. We better get caught up." He surveyed the bags. "We got one
for 236 Exchange, I can add that to my load. But all the other nine bags
is Miz Gaston's order. You'll have to make two trips outta this, maybe
three. You up to it, Speedy?"
"Sure," I said. "Load me."
Charlie helped me load the first four large paper bags onto my bike.
"That looks steady enough," he told me, checking the bike for sway and
balance. Then he climbed on his fully-loaded machine and steadied him-
self with one foot on the ground. Pointing at the one-bag order still
sitting in the corner, he told me, "Gimme me that order."
I gaped at him. "You gonna carry that with five bags already on your
bike?"
"Hell, give it to me. C'mon."
I handed him the bag, which was no lightweight, and he held it
pressed to his side with one hand grasping the bottom. Wobbling slightly
on the bike, he settled onto his seat, grabbed the handlebar with his
free hand, shoved off with one long push of his feet, and started
pedaling rough-and-ready down the street in the hot sun, gritting his
teeth and looking in all directions for the traffic.
I watched with admiration as he drifted slowly up Exchange Street,
steering one-handed and hefting a full sack under his free arm.
Climbing onto my own bike, I was surprised as the stubborn weight
caught me off-guard and almost felled me. Grunting, I forced the bike
upright and made sure of my balance. I proceeded slowly, knowing I'd
have to be careful with this monstrous load.
But before I could get moving, my stepdad rushed out of the front
door and pointed at the remaining bags on the ground. "Wait up! Wait!
Ain't all this part of the Gaston order?"
I told him it was all one order and that I'd make it in two trips.
He yelled impatiently about the order having been delayed too long
and demanded that I load it all at once and get moving. I was not that
good at loading up yet, so Tony grumbled and shoved me aside. Hastily,
he began stuffing the bags into the large carry baskets, shifting and
shoving until the bike was so heavily loaded it seemed to sag. The tires
were slightly but visibly pressed flat where they touched the sidewalk.
I eyed the load fearfully and mumbled something about not being sure
I could handle that much weight.
"Hell you can't!" Tony retorted, "Get on that damn bike and move this
order outta here! Go on, get movin!" He chomped on his unlit cigar and
strode back into the store, glaring back at me hotly.
At first it was all I could do to disengage the kickstand and simply
hold up the bike. The cargo's weight was considerably more than my own
and the slightest tilt of the machine required serious effort to keep the
bike balanced. I carefully walked the bike to the curb and slowly let
the front wheel off the sidewalk and into the street, then the rear
wheel. At that point the shifting weight almost pulled the bike ground-
ward. Desperately, using both arms and heaving my back and legs into it,
I kept the bike upright while I haltingly moved onto the seat, checked my
balance, hopped up onto the big metal pedals, and shoved my legs forward.
The bike seemed to move in slow motion. Before I made it across
narrow Exchange Street my ankles were sore with the effort. Checking the
traffic in both directions, I let the bike roll lethargically toward the
six-lane breadth of Lauderdale Street. Then I tried pedaling to gain the
speed I needed to cross the boulevard. But the weight I was pedaling
seemed to mock my efforts. I could not gain speed. Seeing traffic ap-
proach, I knew I had to head back toward the curb to avoid being overrun.
Helplessly, as if in a bad dream, I felt the bike tilt sideways as I
turned; then I felt the overwhelming weight shift the undersized wheels
with a sharp scraping sound; the front wheel began slipping underneath
the bike, and the bike started tumbling. I jumped off the seat and with
my arms, back, legs, and any other leverage I could muster, I vainly
tried to keep the load from forcing the bike on its side in the middle of
the roadway. But the weight shoved the wheels over the surface of the
pavement and pulled both me and the bike toward the curb. With a loud
crash the bike fell on its side, half on top of me, and several bags
tumbled into the street. Groceries went everywhere. The traffic caught
up with me and one of the speeding automobiles, swerving away from me,
smashed a cabbage into shards. Other cars crushed oranges and a cannis-
ter of bug spray. A can of creamed corn exploded sticky yellow grit into
the air, and several other items were smashed and smeared in the roadway.
Across the street, Tony ran out the door and screamed "God DAMN!"
Pitching his cigar aside he dashed across the roadway toward me, with
Anthony following. Anthony himself rushed to me in concern and alarm and
helped pull me from under the bike. But my stepdad Tony flew into a
rage. Kicking a couple of smashed cans out of the street and into the
gutter, he flared angrily at me and screamed, "How fuckin' stupid!"
Anthony uprighted the bike. Just as he wheeled it onto the sidewalk,
Tony stomped over to me and yelled, "Cain't you hold up a damn bike?" He
slapped me across my face so hard that my head jerked and I found my
startled eyeballs suddenly staring down the street in the opposite direc-
tion. I turned back to him, my neck aching from the blow, and saw his
reddened face glowering into mine.
"Get this shit outta the street and get that bike loaded again! Now
we're gonna have to rebuild this whole damn order! And whatever's
missin' comes outta your pay, goddamit!" He spit on the street and
pointed to the trash around us. "Anthony! Help this idiot clean up and
get 'im back on the road!" Tony turned and stomped off, toward the store.
"Right, Tony," Anthony murmured after him, looking almost as startled
as I must have looked. Shaking his head and eyeing me sympathetically,
he said, "That Tony's a tough customer, Speedy."
Enraged and humiliated, I avoided his eyes and began fetching the
litter out of the street while Anthony walked the bike with its bent
baskets to the storefront. Five minutes later I trekked wordlessly into
and through the store, into the rear stock room. Storming into the
restroom, I slammed the door shut behind me and threw the bolt lock into
place, then untied and removed my garbage-stained, shin-length cotton
work apron and, wadding it up tightly, slammed it into the wall and
screamed "Son of a bitch!" into the little room.
Covered with sweat, I bent to the sink and splashed my head and neck
with cold water to cool me down both physically and emotionally. I held
my dripping head over the sink and massaged my sore neck, muttering "Son
of a bitch" again, and then paused and took several deep breaths.
"All right," I muttered aloud, hearing my voice sound grim and wobbly
with hate. "All right, dammit."
I fetched a new white apron and got back to work. I'd kept track of
Mrs. Gaston's sales receipt. I repacked the entire order, noted what was
missing, and retrieved new items from the shelves. When the order was
complete I got Mrs. Gaston's telephone number from the delivery listing
and gave her a call, explaining that her order had been damaged but that
it was fixed and ready to go. She was very gracious and said she knew
that Saturday was always a busy day and she wasn't annoyed.
This time I packed the bags myself, making certain that the load in
each bag was evenly distributed and that each bag weighed nearly the
same. I managed to reduce the original nine bags to seven. As I began
carrying them outside and loading them on the bike, Anthony paused in his
work to speak to me briefly.
"Don't take it too hard," he said. "You're his son and he expects
you to do better work than the rest of us."
"I have my own expectations about how good my work'll be," I replied
angrily.
Outside, I loaded and unloaded the grocery order onto the bike sev-
eral times, until I was certain the cargo was perfectly balanced.
"What the hell 're you doin'?" said a burly young voice behind me. I
turned to see Charlie, his hands on his hips and a wry grin on his face.
"I'm takin' this order," I said flatly, grabbing up the last bag.
"I heard about what happened, " Charlie said, his tough-kid's voice
slightly taunting. "I know he shouldn'a done that to you, and I know it
was too big a load for that bike, but you ain't gonna tell me with a
straight face that you intend to deliver all this in one trip."
"That's exactly what I intend to do!" I said, jamming the last bag
into the rear basket.
"Hell, man, I weigh twenty pounds over you and my legs are longer,
but I wouldn't carry that in one load. You trynna get yourself fucked up
again?"
"Not this time," I vowed. I held the bike straight and level, dis-
engaged the kickstand, and then let go of the bike altogether. For a
brief moment it stood still and upright until I grabbed the handlebar
again.
"Not bad, tiger," Charlie said, nudging his lips in approval. He
grinned and threw me a salute. "But this time, if you fall, try t' land
on yer butt instead of yer head."
I turned the bike toward Mrs. Gaston's and walked it off the curb.
The bike landed on the street surface and remained level, with no bounce.
Mounting, I tested the sway range of the weight piled around me. I found
that managing the weight from the front was the key tactic, rather than
trying to manipulate everything at once. I engaged the pedals and began
pumping my legs with all my might. Soon I was rolling fast enough to
make a rapid shift to the right. I glided almost gracefully across
Lauderdale Street.
My initial optimism was short-lived. As I slowly progressed down the
street the load seemed to get heavier by the yard. Mrs. Gaston's address
was three blocks into the project. The last leg of the trip was a seg-
ment of rising driveway that led to her building; unable to pedal uphill,
I dismounted and walked the bike to her building. It was touch and go
all the way, with several close calls as the weight persistently forced
the bike toward or away from me. Finally, covered with salty sweat and
grime, I arrived at the front of her building. For some reason the cargo
was now too heavy for the kickstand, so I leaned the bike against her
building. There was no elevator, so one by one I began hefting the bags
up the steep, narrow stairwell to Mrs. Gaston's third-floor apartment.
She was a tiny, elderly woman in a dark flowery dress who expressed
alarm at the sight of my sweat-soaked face and clothes. She gave me a
glass of ice water, smiled and thanked me, and gave me a ten-cent tip.
Later, leaning in the shade at the side of her building, I cooled off
and caught my breath. I looked down at the shiny dime in my hand.
I told myself: you made it, dammit. And with a dime to spare. An
extra dime for New York. One step closer to the big city.
Mounting my bike I grabbed the handlebar, shoved off with both feet,
and went into a long glide down the driveway toward the street, the cool
wind now flapping my apron around my shins. I pumped the pedals swiftly
and pushed the bike through the breeze that mounted with my speed. I
spotted Charlie under the front awning of the store two blocks ahead. He
glanced in my direction and grinned and gave me the "OK" sign with his
raised hand.
For the rest of the afternoon the orders proliferated. Charlie and I
and the two other boys kept loading and shoving off with one delivery
after another. Charlie kept his eyes on me, sending me on the lighter,
nearer orders. Finally I told him I expected to be treated the same way
the others were and that I should carry the same loads as they.
"Take yer time," Charlie told me as we loaded up yet another group of
bags. "You're smaller than the others, and your legs are shorter." He
paused to reach into his shirt pocket for his cigarette lighter. He
retrieved a cigarette from the pack he kept in the folds of his rolled-up
shirt sleeve. He took a quick puff and extended the pack toward me.
"Smoke?"
"Thanks," I said, even though I didn't know how to smoke.
He gave the pack a quick, short jerk and the tips of several ciga-
rettes protruded from the pack. I grabbed one and put it in my mouth,
instantly feeling the mild burn of tobacco on my inner lips. I resolved
that whatever could be done by Charlie, who was robust and taller and
three years my senior, I could do as well.
He flipped open his Zippo lighter and lit my cigarette. I puffed. I
coughed several times.
"Shit," he said, grinning with his cigarette dangling from his mouth.
"C'mon, man, take it one thing at a time. That ain't no way to smoke,
you got tobacco all over your damn lip. Maybe you oughtta start out with
filters instead of straights."
"I'll start with straights," I said, embarrassed but grinning back
stubbornly. "There's a four-bagger over there. Come on and load me up."
He took another puff and sighed. "Man, what a glutton for punish-
ment."
For the rest of the afternoon I watched Charlie closely, chiding him
when I saw him pass up a large order and assign me to a much smaller
one. He smirked and warned me, "Don't pass up all the small orders," he
cautioned. "They're short and quick. And they pay the same ten cents as
the big ones that take longer."
As dusk neared and the flow of business waned for the day, I loaded
one more four-bagger onto my bike and was just getting ready to shove off
when my stepdad came out of the front door and stood near my bike. I
averted my eyes from his and pretended to be engrossed in straightening a
bag in my front basket.
He spoke evenly and calmly. "All right, I have to apologize for
losin' my temper today. You cleaned it all up, and you got the order to
the customer all by yourself. The customer called up and said nothin'
was missin', and nothin' was damaged. So you did a good job. And forget
about anything comin' out of your pay this week. I'm sorry I got so
angry about it." Without another word, he walked away.
His apology changed nothing. At that moment I deeply resented him --
not for his anger, but for the humiliation I felt at being struck. Even
before he disappeared into the store, I had turned my bike around and was
on my way with the next order.
Soon I was cruising in the cool late afternoon breeze with a four-
bag order, my sore thighs arduously pumping at the pedals that pushed my
squeaky, straining bike down Lauderdale Street. Earlier, when no one in
the store was watching, I made Anthony sell me a pack of Chesterfield
unfiltered cigarettes. As I turned into the project driveway and slipped
out of sight of those in the store, I reached into my shirt pocket under
my stained work apron, pulled out the pack of cigarettes, jerked the pack
in the manner I had learned from Charlie, and pulled out a cigarette by
holding the tip with only the dry, outer portion of my lips. Using
another technique I learned from watching Charlie, I struck a match on my
bluejean leg and lit up. The smoke was bitter and hot. I vowed I'd
learn to inhale the way older kids did, and the thought that my stepdad
would be incensed at my smoking merely firmed my resolve to smoke as much
as I wanted, to carry my own load, to ignore him and be free of him. I
told myself that it was what my real father, Steven Senior, would have
done.
In my pants pocket I had the tips I'd earned and that I didn't let
Tony know about: two quarters, two dimes, and some pennies. That day I
had already broken my previous record by carrying thirteen deliveries,
and the store would not be closing for almost three hours.
I knew I had considerable growing and building-up to do. Charlie and
the others outclassed me in every way. But I had a goal ahead of me, a
goal far beyond the grocery store, beyond Memphis.
By mid-September I was running thirty orders a day, and over fifty on
Saturdays. The savings account that Tony managed for me slowly grew.
Slowly. But as soon as it looked as if I might be getting somewhere
financially, I had to register for my last year of grammar school. This
meant that I could earn money only on Saturday deliveries and on Sundays
when I typed menus at the Tremont.
I began looking for more work and more money.
PART 9B:
One morning in early October, soon after starting my 8th-grade school
year, I approached Tony at breakfast and told him I needed to draw from
my savings. At first he didn't want to hear about it; the account had
only recently begun to show real progress.
I told him I needed to buy a new bike and a front basket for it.
When he discovered that I needed the bike because I had signed up to be a
morning news carrier for the Commercial Appeal, his eyes lit up. It was
the first time I'd seen him express enthusiasm for anything I'd said or
done.
"What about your Saturday job at the store?" he asked.
"I'm keepin' that one, too," I said firmly.
He smiled broadly at my Mom. "Damn, this kid's gettin' to be a real
worker!"
Under those circumstances, he agreed that I could get an inexpensive
three-speed bike that wouldn't consume my savings but would be good
enough to haul a load of morning newspapers.
Of course I didn't tell him that the money from the paper route would
be used to get me to New York. He was so pleased about my willingness to
work myself to death, I didn't want to spoil the only basis for the slim
rapport that had been established between us.
At my first morning on the carrier job, it soon became apparent that
I'd again taken on a bigger chunk that I'd bargained for. My Mom woke me
at four o'clock in the morning and had hot oatmeal waiting for me when I
was dressed. As I wolfed breakfast she stumbled back into bed, grumbling
that she'd be glad when I would be able to wake myself up and get an
early breakfast without disturbing her.
That first October morning was chilly and dark. I rode my new red
three-speed Schwinn to the loading station several blocks away. The
route manager, a short and muscular middle-aged man with a harried look
and baggy eyes, delivered my initial instructions and showed me how to
check and sign for my newspapers. I learned that my route consisted of
136 customers on seven short suburban streets. I then discovered that
there was no way my three-speed Schwinn could transport 136 newspapers in
a single trip without another backbreaking effort on my part.
The solution was to pile as many papers as I could into the bike's
front basket. This amounted to a little less than one-third of the
papers required. I was given three large canvas shoulder bags with the
official Commercial Appeal logo imprinted on them in dull red. I stuffed
the remaining papers into the three canvas bags. Then I strapped the
bags around my shoulders by their long canvas straps. Thus weighted, I
slowly waddled like a two-ton duck out of the dimly lighted loading sta-
tion and toward my bicycle. Outside, the crowd of other newscarriers
hustled to load their motorcycles and automobiles. I knew none of them
and spoke to no one -- I was too busy trying to figure out how to keep
the weight of the packed bags from pulling me down and flattening me like
a pancake.
Lurching fitfully, I struggled to mount my Schwinn. The next step
was to see if I could possibly move my legs up and down to work the
pedals. I couldn't. The huge canvas bags hanging from my shoulders were
in the way.
The route manager in his leather bomber jacket passed me on his way
to his station wagon. "Hey," he shouted, "you gonna make it anywhere
like that?"
"Sure," I said, forcing a smile. I was far from sure of it myself.
After twisting and shuffling the load on my shoulders so that one bag
hung over my back and the other two were suspended slightly behind my
hips, I was able to move my legs. I started pumping arduously at the
pedals of my Schwinn, which I locked in its lowest gear.
By the time I devised this clumsy method, almost all the other kids
had left the loading station. I lumbered into the roadway and headed
toward Given Avenue, one long block away. Looking ahead, I was horrified
to find that, despite all the level streets and flat expanses of land in
my neighborhood, I had been given a route that had to be accessed from
the loading station by climbing the only hill in sight. And it was a
steep climb, rising quickly to a least a two-story height in the course
of that one long block of roadway.
As I grunted and puffed my way up the hill at a slug's pace, the
last two newsboys passed me, one on his motorcycle with its sidecar
loaded with newspapers, and the other in a baby blue 1952 Mercury whose
broken muffler roared and spewed a thin gray cloud of oily smoke as he
passed me and disappeared over the hill.
The sun was just rising. The jet black sky had lightened vaguely
with the first gray intimations of daybreak. There was no traffic on the
streets, no sound in the predawn stillness -- just myself, groaning and
huffing under the onus of the fully loaded front basket and the three
bulging canvas bags whose combined size was almost three times my own.
Halfway up the hill, the burning in my thighs told me I had no choice
but to dismount and walk the load to the crest of the upgrade. Cursing
under my hot breath, I stopped my bike. Now I had to find a way to
dismount without hurting myself. I could not get both my feet to touch
the ground in order to balance the Schwinn. Before I knew it, I felt the
bag around my back begin to shift to my side as I leaned to get off the
bike and onto one foot. Suddenly the strap of the bag was choking me. I
reached back to stop the bag's movement, but its weight and that of the
one next to it dragged themselves and me toward the ground. I was yanked
to my left; then the bag at my right hip followed suit with the others,
swinging behind and then beyond me, and all three bags hauled me down.
I fell, face up, my Schwinn toppling away from me. Two of the bags
landed beneath me, their wide straps yanking roughly and garotting me
from behind as they pulled me down. Flat on my back, choking and gag-
ging, I panicked and struggled to raise my head. This only dug the rough
straps into my neck. Finally, I had the good sense to roll onto my side
and off the bags. The straps fell away from my neck. I could breathe
again.
Coughing and gasping, I pulled the other straps away and stood to
survey the damage. The handlebar of my Schwinn had somehow been twisted
starboard, out of line with the center bar. I raised the bike and held it
between my knees while I strained to center the handlebar.
Rasping loudly and still choking a little, I looked around. Not a
car or a person in sight. At least I'd been spared the embarrassment of
having my stupidity and clumsiness witnessed by others. Checking my
wrist watch, I saw that it was nearly six A.M.
Breathlessly I muttered aloud to myself, "You'll have to do better
than this, stupid." My body was still reacting to the sensation of being
strangled by the straps of my own newsbags. Rubbing my neck, I found
that the flesh around my Adam's apple had been burned and scraped; it
stung painfully when I touched it.
Enraged, I hurriedly began strapping up again. Arranging the bags
more methodically, I reloaded the papers that had fallen out of my
Schwinn's basket and began laboriously walking the bike uphill.
Finally at the top, I took a right turn and surveyed the street that
lay before me and that led to the beginning of my route five blocks away.
Whereas the steep grade that led from the paper station to the top of the
hill was sudden and sharp, the street before me was a long sweeping down-
grade as far as I could see.
"Good!" I said aloud, knowing that I could simply coast downhill all
the way to my route. Carefully I mounted my Schwinn. After ensuring
that all was balanced and under control, I shoved off with my feet and
sat with the hard nose of the bicycle seat nudging painfully into my
coccyx under the weight of the carrier bags. But soon I was rolling
swiftly, the bicycle tires hissing loudly along the asphalt street. In
the quiet air I heard the wind whistle faintly past my ears as I picked
up speed. Thus loaded, strapped, upright, and rolling almost merrily
along, I imagined myself as looking absurdly like a giant papier-mache
cauliflower on wheels. About halfway down the hill it suddenly occurred
to me that I had no way whatever of braking quickly under the momentum of
the weight that both surrounded and propelled me. Stoically, I concluded
that in a collision the formless paper hulk would at least cushion the
blow.
Fortunately, sudden stops weren't needed. But as I approached the
far end of Given Avenue, where the first house on my route nestled upon
its own little mound of grassy lot, I noticed for the first time that
this part of Given sloped toward another upgrade. Thankfully it was not
the virtual mountain that lay behind me; but my rolling began to slow,
and soon I was straining and pedaling again in low gear.
Out of breath and grunting fiercely under the three canvas bags, I
finally rolled to a stop at the curb in front of the first house. Too
tired to resist, I allowed myself and my bike to lean, and then to slide
into a slow fall, toward my right. All of me and my load settled with a
soft lurch into the grass that lined the curb.
I lay there for several minutes on my back, gazing at the
brightening, dull overcast above. Gradually I gained my breath, though
for a minute or so I seemed to have fallen into a shallow doze. Opening
my eyes, I extracted myself from the long shoulder straps and sat up,
feeling the chilly October air on my face and hands. I craned my aching
neck to my left and looked at the sweep of roadway which I had just
traveled. There stood the hill at the top of Given Avenue, where I'd
fallen and nearly choked. I knew there was no way to get from the paper
station to my route without fighting that hill. I'd have to battle that
hill every morning, seven days a week, for as long as I kept the paper
route. And this was only a Monday -- the Sunday edition would be three
times the size and weight of the dailies. Well, I thought, I'd worry
about that when Sunday arrived.
Standing creakily, I stretched and found that my shoulders ached and
had also been burned by the iron grip of one of the straps. My neck
ached, my back ached, my thighs and shins burned and throbbed.
I looked again toward the hill, which stood silent and mocking five
or six blocks away. "I'll beat you," I said aloud. "I'll beat you yet,
dammit." I straightened my jacket and my twisted shirt, and then dragged
my load of papers onto the customer's lawn. Sitting in the dew-damp
grass, I spent several minutes resting while folding and tucking each
newspaper into a hard, flat, four-cornered package that would be easy to
pitch onto the 136 front porches that lay ahead.
A few minutes later the route manager, Mr. Williams, cruised by in
his brown station wagon and rolled to a stop near me. "Hey," he scolded
from the car window, "you better get movin'. It's almost six-thirty."
"I'm folding all the papers first," I called back, without getting
up. "It'll go faster that way."
"It's your route, you handle it the way you like. But if you don't
finish by seven o'clock when people wake up, I start getting calls from
folks who climb the walls because they don't have their mornin' paper."
"Don't worry," I said wearily. "Just running a little slow on my
first day."
Mr. Williams frowned and lit a cigarette. "Don't let this get to be
a habit," he cautioned sternly. He stepped on the gas and drove off in
a hurry.
"Up yours," I muttered as he roared away.
It was impractical to walk my entire route carrying all three bags
loaded with folded newspapers. I decided that I could leave two bags
in the shrubs of the first house, and use the third bag to service the
first part of my route, which circled back to where I started. The
second bag could handle the next two streets, and I could circle back
again to pick up the last bag and finish the route.
By the end of the week I was showing up at a quarter to five in the
morning, walking my papers up that first hill, and completing the route
just after six. Then I'd cruise home on my Schwinn and catch an hour's
nap before showering and boarding the bus to St. Michael's School. When
school let out that afternoon, I was so tired that I fell asleep on the
school bus; the driver knew my stop and woke me up every day. But I knew
I couldn't depend on his wakeup forever. I had to shape up.
Managing my first Sunday edition was a nightmare. The Sunday sub-
scriber list was larger than the daily, totaling 165 papers instead of
136. The bulk was not my estimated three times that of the dailies, but
four or five times the weekday load. Although I'd learned a lot about
handling the carrier bags and my Schwinn, I was discouraged to find that
I had to make three trips back and forth before I could transport the
entire load to my route. By the time I finally slipped thick rubber
bands around each paper, a heavy and sloppy rainfall began. Many papers
got soaked before I could move them into shelter on a nearby front porch.
That morning, I didn't complete the route until after seven-thirty.
When I finally stumbled into my parents' home I found that five customers
had already called in their complaints.
My step-dad was awake and sipping his coffee as he dressed for Mass.
"Why are you so late?" he grumbled. "Didn't you go to your route this
morning? Your manager called and said he had five complaints."
I collapsed onto our sofa and wearily explained that the Sunday
papers were so heavy that it took over an hour to get them to my route,
and then the rain made me even later.
"Hmp. Cain't be THAT many papers on Sunday," he grumbled.
"It's not the number," I said, "it's the size."
"The other boys get their papers up there, don't they? Why can't
you?"
Holding back a fit of anger, I answered patiently, "The other boys
have cars or motorcycles."
"You have to be sixteen to drive a car," he retorted.
I retorted back, "They have cars. That's all I know."
He thought about it for a minute. "Well, we have to wake up early to
get to Sunday Mass anyway, so...I'll get up with you on Sundays, and we
can load your papers in the car."
I was relieved by the idea. Relieved, surprised, and disappointed
all at once. Surprised that he would offer help, much less that he'd
even considered that my situation might require it. Relieved, that the
worst of the Sunday nightmare would be alleviated, although that big hill
on Given Avenue would still be there the other six days of the week. And
disappointed: not only did I feel old enough and intelligent enough to
drive our Ford each morning, but I also could complete my work long be-
fore it was time for my stepdad to drive to work. I was envious of many
of the other boys, most of whom were not yet sixteen but who nevertheless
appeared to have dads who let them use a car for work.
But I was not willing to tempt fate by complaining about the offer.
I thanked him, though I did so in such a subdued manner that I wondered
if he believed I was truly grateful. I did not trust Tony enough to
communicate with him frankly. I seldom shared words with him, much less
my thoughts and feelings. Anyway, this little package of help did not
satisfy my need for someone whom I felt could be the father I wanted or
needed.
The other barb was that I wanted to be able to do everything on my
own. I did not trust people or like them enough to be able to ask for
help, which I accepted only when I saw no other choice.
So I accepted his ride. Each Sunday, the two of us traded brief,
dull, impersonal shreds of conversation during the predawn half-hour or
so as we rode to the paper station, loaded the papers, and then unloaded
them onto a front porch where I could keep out of the weather. Tony
would drive off, leaving me to rubber-band the big Sunday editions or
slide them into plastic covers when it rained or snowed.
It's possible that this Sunday routine might have aided in bringing
me closer to Mr. Tony Lobianco, and through him perhaps to my Mom. After
the first few weeks I had faint hopes that this might happen.
Those hopes were dashed a few days before Thanksgiving when my mother
came into my bedroom one night and caught me masturbating. Apparently
she had been on her way to the bathroom in our dark house and must have
seen my hand movements under the bed covers. She rushed into the room
and pulled back the blankets to reveal my erection, as I tried in vain to
pull my pajamas back up.
"Speedy!" she shrieked. "How disgusting!" She threw the covers back
over me and I saw her flinch and grimace with revulsion. "You should be
ashamed of yourself!" She left the room, muttering, "I hope you tell the
priest about this in confession! That's just...awful!"
For a while I lay silent and shaky with the suddenness of it all,
humiliated at being caught, mortified by her reaction. After many
minutes of darkness and quiet, I was simply angry. I waited almost an
hour before renewing my vision of a girl my age, a girl very much like
Martha Jane, arching her hips to receive me, and finished as stealthily
as I could.
The next morning at breakfast, Tony waited until my Mom left the
breakfast table for a moment before saying in a subdued but reproving
voice, "You'll be goin' to confession when you're in school today...
Right?"
"Yessir," I replied, appearing suitably ashamed and penitent.
Of course, I didn't confess. The incident succeeded in making me
feel ashamed, but it also resulted in my being angrily rebellious rather
than penitent. I adopted a strict policy of never revealing my sexual
self to anyone, not even to other boys.
That night and that morning had been the most personal and intimate
moment I had ever experienced with either of them. Any hopes I had about
bridging gaps between myself and my parents bit the dust. I never again
trusted them with any aspect of my inner life.
PART 9C:
Easter Sunday, 1956.
I knew the paper that day would be no larger than a regular daily.
I told my stepdad I could handle the load with my Schwinn.
In fact, the Easter edition was so slim that the entire load fit into
my front basket, and I pedaled up the big hill on Given Avenue at a brisk
pace with nominal effort.
As I rounded the hill and turned to roll into the long downgrade that
led to my route, a thin snow flurry began. Spare, tiny flakes floated
lazily down to white-frosted lawns and rooftops. I felt rather heroic.
I had become attached to the hill I'd conquered over the past six months
and to the bloated carrier bags that I now slung around my back and
shoulders with routine nonchalance. I had not grown taller, but from the
way I was climbing that hill every day and the way I handled multiple
deliveries on the big hill at the top of Exchange Street on Saturdays, I
had grown in strength and endurance. I felt I had learned the message
behind Pogo's little joke, which I had seen not long ago in the Sunday
comics: "We have met the enemy, and he is us!" My physical limitations
were my major enemy. I felt that if I could not overcome them, then I
must develop effective workarounds.
Adults were, if not inimical, untrustworthy at best. My peers and
those who were slightly older had gone Brando, all in upturned collars or
black motorcycle jackets and t-shirts. Boys my own age, nearly fourteen,
began outracing me physically; I watched them grow taller, while I stayed
where I was. I had been tall at twelve or thirteen; but I could see that
at fourteen I would be below average in size. Even in the winter cold I
would sweat bullets when delivering the heavy orders on Saturdays in the
project, while bullnecked Charlie performed the same feat without even
breathing hard.
As the Easter flurry advanced slowly into light snowfall, I sat on a
customer's front porch away from the chilly wind and rubber-banded my
goods. After a long winter, mornings were breaking earlier. In the
early hush, the sky slowly brightened into a warm greyish glow. The
Easter edition would be an easy throw; people would be waking later than
usual. I could afford, for once, to relax. Unrushed, I lapsed into one
of my most dangerous habits: thinking. I recalled the day a few weeks
earlier when Tony mentioned that I'd saved up enough to buy a small
motorcycle, for which I could legally obtain a license on my fourteenth
birthday. But I preferred for some reason to stay with my Schwinn.
Besides, the money saved by not buying a motorbike would be more useful
when I could finally visit New York.
Keeping busy, making my own breakfast seven days a week, spending
Sundays at the Tremont and several evenings each month making door-to-
door subscription collections on my route -- all of it left me more
isolated from my parents and sister, and from acquaintances. I was only
dimly aware of Mom's next pregnancy, which produced a baby half-brother
they called Tony Number 2 a few weeks before Easter. Naturally, every-
one's attention shifted to him.
Keeping two jobs had cost my participation in plays at school. It
was physically impossible for me to do it all, considering how much hard-
er my relatively small frame had to work to accomplish the same thing
that others seemed to manage with less effort. But if I kept working and
building myself up, I thought, then a later day might find me doing plays
again as well as everything else.
The fact that I was now wearing eyeglasses had been a major setback,
leading me to believe I was somehow defective. An eye test at St.
Michael's in February revealed that my vision was far from perfect. A
few weeks later, Mom took me to an optometrist.
The following week, we returned from his office with my new eye-
glasses.
"How long will I have to wear these things?" I asked Mom petulantly
as we were riding home with the plastic-framed monstrosity on my face.
"If you're like most men on your side of the family," my Mom replied,
unaffected, "you'll probably have to wear them the rest of your life. At
least when you read, anyway."
This depressing thought sent a chill up my spine. For days I would
stop at every reflecting surface I passed and adjust and readjust the
frames, to no avail. They hurt my nose. They burned behind my ears.
They never seemed to sit neatly on my face. My mother's lack of concern
didn't help. Nor did the kids at school, who started calling me "four-
eyes" and "spec". Kids who wore glasses on tv and in movies were always
portrayed as anemic, brainy misfits. The glasses made me feel ugly and
deformed. I hated them.
That Easter morning I carried, safely hidden in a zippered pocket
inside my quilted carcoat, the latest of three letters from Martha. I
kept her mail in a folder with my schoolbooks, not because they contained
intimate material, but because I never wanted them to be considered part
of the garbage my parents would force me to discard. Sitting on a cus-
tomer's front porch after preparing my papers, I leaned back against the
stuffed bag and gently opened the white envelope from New York. She used
plain unlined paper. I marveled at the way she wrote in almost perfectly
straight lines.
Martha. She had an address in Manhattan on East 87th Street. "It's
the East Side," she wrote, "but definitely not a ritzy block. The
building is a hundred years old. It's a walkup, which to you tourists
means no elevator. It's an old building with very small apartments.
Over the years the newer buildings just grew up around this block. It's
so old, the shower is a stall in the kitchen, because the building was
here before indoor plumbing was common. Has hot water, though--at least
it's not a coldwater flat, like the building next door to mine. The
apartment even has nicks in the walls that hold the old-fashioned oil
burning lamps that were in here before electricity was installed. It has
a small living room, and a really tiny fireplace that actually works.
"I have been teaching kids your age who are just about the most
brilliant boys and girls I ever met. Of course, you're just as smart as
most of them. What many of them lack, though, is your sensitivity, and
your creativity. Some of them are not bright at all, but just problem
children whom it seems I can't help much. I hope I can learn to work
with them, they've led such hard, often cruel lives. Some conditions in
the neighborhoods where these children live can be described only as
real-life nightmares.
"Which reminds me: I hope you are not having that same old dream. I
wish I knew what it meant. If it happens again, please try to describe
exactly what it is that happens in your dream, how you feel and what
you're thinking. But I hope the dream hasn't come back. I hope you are
well, and happy, and growing, and learning. Please don't wear yourself
out with all that work; your school is the most important thing, and your
well-being."
Although I had read the letter a thousand times, I could read no
further that morning. I wiped my eyes dry, replaced and aligned my
specs, and hid the letter inside my coat. Standing, I slung the heavy
bag over my shoulder and started on my way.
I had written her several times. I had not told her much about
myself, except for the jobs. I hadn't told her that the reason I was
working so hard was because I wanted to come to New York and see her, and
I wanted to do so more than once. I didn't tell her about my dream, my
parents, my loneliness, or anything else about my inner life. I didn't
want her to worry. Above all, I didn't want her to see my failings.
Therefore, I didn't tell her about the glasses. I didn't tell her that I
had not grown taller.
Someday, soon, I knew I'd have to ask her if I could see her in New
York. I wondered if she would refuse. She was in a truly different
world now. Had she fallen in love with someone? Surely, with her looks
and her charm, she must have met someone in a big place like New York
City. Each time I read her letters, I wondered how much she didn't
reveal. I wondered, as I walked through the waxing snowfall that Easter,
if, when I asked her about going to see her, she would then be forced to
tell me that she had someone and that it wouldn't be a good idea for me
to show up. Or if she had met someone and I did visit, what would I do
when she introduced her boyfriend? And if she indeed had a boyfriend,
why was I breaking my back for the money to visit her? What would be the
point?
Martha, I thought as I walked along with my carrier bag slapping my
hip. Snowflakes smashed silently into my new lenses. Martha Jane.
Just after Easter I woke up one morning with a burning pain in my
side and tummy, and a heavy twinge of nausea. Luckily the paper load was
light that day and the weather mild, but as I finished and was on my way
home I still sensed a creepy nausea. Except for a bout with the 'flu, I
had never been so sick.
When Mom saw that I was still in bed at breakfast time she asked what
was wrong. I told her I didn't feel I could handle the ride on the
school bus without throwing up. She shoved a thermometer in my mouth and
read my temperature.
Tony stopped in my doorway and asked, "What's goin' on?"
Mom sighed. "Well, he doesn't have much of a temperature. It's just
under one hundred."
Tony grunted, "C'mon, Speedy, you're not that sick. Get up and get
ready for school. You'll feel better when you start movin' around."
Mom, in her bathrobe and slippers, followed him into the living room
as he donned his carcoat and got ready for work. "Well," she said, "he
does have a little fever, not much. Do you think it might get worse?"
"Damn. People go to work and school all the time when they're a
little sick. I go to work when I feel like shit, myself. Hell, he ain't
sick. Get him dressed and get him to school."
My brief nap did leave me feeling improved, and I supposed Tony was
right. Besides, I didn't want to admit that anything could floor me that
easily, and I did have to keep up with my work. So I dressed and boarded
the bus as usual. But during the long ride to school the pain and nausea
increased. I began perspiring. Repressing the desire to throw up was
becoming an effort.
As usual, I arrived at school and got into the line of 8th graders.
Sister Immaculata led us into the church for our daily eight o'clock
Mass. Halfway through the service, I feared I could no longer hold back
my urges. At one point some bitter stomach fluid jumped into the back of
my throat; trembling, I knew an eruption was looming.
Climbing over the other students in my pew, I crept softly to Sister
Immaculata, who sat in the aisle seat in the back pew looking prim and
fresh in her starched white Dominican collar and pristine black robes.
"What's wrong, child?" she asked, a little irritably.
"Sister...I feel sick. I think I should go to the restroom."
"Now, just be patient. Mass will be over soon, and you can go."
"But, Sister, I don't need to...'go'. I feel sick. And my stomach
hurts."
"Oh. Well...patience, child. The service will end soon and we can
take a look at you."
Sister Immaculata did not have more time to protest or to talk me
into thinking I felt better. A split second later, to my own surprise as
well as hers, I noisily and violently threw up a huge serving of redolent
vomit directly into the lap of her long brown robes. She rose instantly
as the pale yellow stuff spilled down her clothing and onto the floor.
Grabbing my arm, she rushed me through the nearby rear door and into the
vestibule. Despite my best efforts, I deposited another raging load that
drenched her entire right side and clung to every shiny bead of the heavy
rosary and the large silver crucifix that hung from her hips.
When we were safely in the boy's restroom at the rear of the church I
began to cry. "I'm sorry, Sister," I sobbed, almost hysterical with
embarrassment. "I'm so sorry, I tried to hold it back!"
"It's all right, dear. You couldn't help it. I didn't realize you
were so ill. Poor child, I should have listened to you. It's all right."
I was kept in seclusion in a small office in the rear of the church,
with Sister Immaculata sitting beside me and holding my hand until
another nun and the assistant pastor showed up to relieve her. Thank-
fully, the other students couldn't see me there. I feared I could never
face them again; so many of them had both heard and seen me throw up on
Sister Immaculata.
For my entire stay in the office, which lasted almost an hour until
yet another priest showed up to drive me to St. Joseph's hospital in the
official black pastoral Chevrolet, I apologized again and again for
drenching Sister Immaculata. Secretly, in my impish self that I never
let anyone know about, I was telling myself that this was what stupid
adults had coming to them for not listening to me. There was, indeed, an
almost satanic satisfaction in being able to say secretly, "There! Now
they'll believe me."
At St. Joseph's I was examined quickly by a tall doctor who smiled
indulgently when he was finished and had me lie down on a hard-cushioned
cot until my stepdad arrived. Both of them stood in the doorway of the
antiseptic room and joked and chatted. I had appendicitis. They would
have to operate. I would be in surgery that afternoon.
"Operate?" I repeated fearfully from the cot.
They both laughed. "Mr. Lobianco," the doctor chuckled, "I think the
word 'operate' made your son turn white as a ghost."
They were amused at my stunned reaction, but I wasn't. How could I
have allowed myself to get so sick? It was a sign of weakness and power-
lessness that I found totally unacceptable.
But there wasn't much I could do about it: within the hour I was
dressed in a thin cotton hospital gown and wheeled into surgery. Lying
face-up on the surgical wagon in the middle of a small operating room, I
looked up to find myself surrounded by white-masked faces. Firm hands
placed a cool damp white cloth over my eyes, and then I felt the ether
mask covering my mouth and noise.
"Just relax," a nurse crooned. "Relax, now, and breathe slowly
through your nose. Don't open your mouth, dear. Breathe only through
your nose. Understand? Breathe deeply, now. Thaaaat's right."
I could not relax and trust them. I felt overcome by all those faces
and then I saw only the unfocussed white of the cloth over my eyes. Sud-
denly the acrid odor of ether burned the lining of my nose. Then my
throat burned. I felt as if I were being suffocated. I became aware of
the low buzz of the bright neon operating lamp that I knew was suspended
just over my face. I made a brief moaning sound to let the others know
that the gas was burning my nose and that I couldn't breathe. Sensing no
reaction from them, I groaned more loudly. But they ignored me. Then I
panicked: I could not breathe, I was choking. The lining of my nose
burned so painfully that I felt my sinuses would burst. Someone held me
down with a ruthless pressure on my chest. I was afraid to open my mouth
and scream, fearing that to do so would cause the ether to burn my mouth
and throat. I began thrashing about and moaning, then moaned louder and
louder. Unable to scream through my mouth, I screamed through my moan
and felt my throat scalded by the force of the sounds I was making. I
heard someone shout, "Grab his arms!" I struggled violently, grasping
and scratching into space. But I couldn't move! The buzz of the operat-
ing lamp grew into the deafening, terrifying buzz that I'd heard in my
dreams. The white cloth over my eyes began to swim and circle in my
sight, even though I knew my eyes were closed. I could feel myself
drifting, then sinking back into nothing. I was shrinking, dying, and
the white universe expanded swiftly. My moans and the wild buzz merged
into a single strange sound that rose to a blaring hum and then slowly,
slowly, slowly decreased in frequency and then in volume, until it became
a low helpless drone in the drowning murk. I surrendered to the white
death, and to the blackening veil and the silence that fell quickly and
softly over everything...
I was unconscious into the evening. When I awoke I lay partly on my
right side in a huge, soft hospital bed. I blinked. I was actually
alive. I had a pounding headache.
"There you are," said the sugar-sweet voice of a very pretty
nurse. Her gorgeous face was the first thing I saw when I opened my
eyes. "Feel all right now?"
"It stings," I moaned, referring to my stitched and tightly bandaged
tummy.
"Well, don't you worry, that'll go away. Say, mister, what happened
to you in there? It took four people to hold you down. You're really
strong, you know that? You're just about the strongest young man we've
ever seen around here. You feel better now?"
I never had the chance to answer the lovely nurse's question. She
was so beautiful, all I really wanted to say was that she had made me
instantly horny and that I wanted to screw her brains out. But the pain
of the stitches in my side became my overriding concern. That, and the
pesky injections three times a day that left my right arm cramped for
several hours; and the unfilling diet of jello and Cream of Wheat; and,
during the next three days, the parade of relatives that passed through
my room.
As with my first hospital stay, years ago following the fight in the
project, everyone in the Ricci clan showed up or called or sent a card.
But now the Lobianco family and a vast array of their kin cruised in and
out of view. My stepdad had fifteen brothers and sisters, and it seems
most of them showed up. Almost all of them lived in the Little Flower
parish, in the same part of town as the hospital. I met for the first
time the enchanting, smoky-eyed Aunt Theresa Lobianco who would be a
major figure in my sexual fantasies for many years. And Josephine
Louise, who worked nearby, stopped in on her lunch hour each day to grin
and joke around and then exit, leaving me with a horrendous erection.
And then there was the phone call from Martha.
She spoke first with my Mom, who filled her in on all the medical
details and then handed the phone to me.
"What are you doing in the hospital again, cowboy? Can't you stay
out of trouble?"
With my heart pounding, my mind swirling, and everyone in the room
listening, I had to carefully consider every word I spoke and every
expression on my face. After beating around the bush for a few sentences
I asked, "So, are you married yet?"
"Married!?" Martha laughed hysterically. "God, I don't have *time*
to get married!"
Mightily relieved, I didn't even hear the rest of our conversation.
Martha couldn't say when or if she would be back for a visit. She wanted
me to hurry and get well.
I wanted to hurry and get well, too. I was already growing bored and
giddy with impatience, knowing that I was under strict orders not to work
at delivery or on the paper route for at least three weeks. That would
be three weeks without money for New York. I still didn't tell Martha
about my plans. The conversation got sidetracked onto my upcoming four-
teenth birthday and, due a few weeks later, my graduation from grammar
school.
When the phone call ended I spent the rest of that day in a nearly
morbid silence. I pretended to be irresistibly sleepy. Most of the
visitors left the room as the nurse tucked me in for my final evening at
St. Joseph's. I closed my eyes and allowed the others to think I was
sound asleep. Meanwhile, I kept listening to the sound of Martha's
telephone voice, which clung to my brain like syrup. She was not
married. I wondered how long she would remain so, and how I could make
up for three lost weeks.
I would go home the next day and spend my birthday on the living room
sofa, doing makeup homework to keep up with my classes. And all day long
for three weeks I would simply think: Martha. Martha.
PART 9D:
Near the end of the summer of 1956, just before I started classes at
Christian Brothers High School, I wrote Martha Jane and told her that the
main reason I worked all summer was to earn money for a one-week visit to
New York. I had saved enough for train fare, and if she didn't have room
for me in her apartment I had money for a hotel.
Three weeks passed. I'd hoped for a quick reply. I wanted to get to
New York before the summer ended. But as the days passed I started
losing hope. August ended. I made new plans: perhaps I'd hear from her
soon and could at least spend the Labor Day holiday with her.
Then Labor Day passed. And I thought: all right, then, Thanksgiving.
And if not Thanksgiving, Christmas....
A letter arrived the week after Labor Day. Mom handed it to me when
I came home from Christian Brothers. I pretended it was unimportant and
told Mom I would read it when I got to it. I disappeared in my room for
a while, then hid the letter under my shirt and rode my bike to Gaisman
Park. I sat under one of the skinny, almost leafless saplings and
hastily opened the envelope.
"Dear Steven: Please, please please don't spend so much money so
soon on a trip up here. I don't want you to go broke and spend every-
thing on me. Wait a little longer."
Disheartened, I read on. She had taken in a roommate, a struggling
fabric designer named Veronica, whom she called Ronnie, to make ends
meet. Martha's deal with Columbia didn't include summers, so she tutored
privately and had other jobs on the side. And the apartment was far too
small for two people, much less for three; and she and Ronnie had to lay
low anyway because her lease included only one tenant; if Ronnie were
found out the rent would go up.
She wrote, "You really haven't saved enough money for a week in a
decent hotel in New York. There is no way I'd have you stay in a dump.
You'd get mugged or even killed in that kind of neighborhood. New York
isn't like Memphis. It's very dangerous here."
I read on. She wanted me to bury myself in work at Christian Bro-
thers. She wanted me to give up the paper route and return to drama and
to writing. I had sent her some short poems I'd written; she was so
impressed that she wanted me to contact someone at school who would look
at more of my work. She thought my stepdad's decision to send me to
Christian Brothers was wise and that the Brothers were singular teach-
ers. And if I were going to spend my money, I should wait until I had
more on hand so that I wouldn't be totally broke, because I would need
decent clothes of my own. And I should buy a new typewriter for school
and for developing my writing instead of struggling with the Black Beauty
(I had not yet told her the story of the Black Beauty's sorry fate). And
I didn't belong on a paper route anyway; I belonged in the theater and on
the student newspaper.
So that was it. I could not refute her. In every way, she was
correct. But I was not content with it.
Two days later, on a Saturday when I knew long-distance rates were
low, I asked Mom if I could make a call to New York and pay for it with
my own money. Mom said yes. I dialed Martha's number. No answer. Two
hours later I dialed again, late in the afternoon.
It was Ronnie who answered, with a youngish voice and a noticeable
New York City accent. "Who's this?" she asked. When I told her she
replied excitedly, "Oh, Steeeeven! Oh, I've heard so much about you from
Martha! So you're really a person? The way she talks about you, I
didn't think you were real! Hold on, I'll get her."
Martha was surprised and happy at my call.
I asked, "What happened to your Memphis accent?"
"Oh, hon, that's gone months ago. I call Mother and she can't
understand a word I say."
We had a long talk. It took a while for me to get accustomed to the
changes in her voice. She talked faster, and she sounded older, worldlier
and more businesslike. She apologized for not letting me visit her right
away. She said I really and truly needed more money, and she refused to
let me stay in a hotel. "I want you to come up here on an airplane, not
a crummy train. I want you to be patient so you can be comfortable and
treat yourself like a mensch. You know what a mensch is?"
"No."
"A mensch is a PERSON, hon! I don't want you coming up here with
your stuff in a paper bag and looking like a street urchin. And I want
to make plans for it, and have time to spend together. Don't you think
that's better than being so rushed and desperate? Life in New York is
desperate enough without all that."
I didn't want to agree; but she was right, all the way down the line.
She pleaded with me to buy a good typewriter, a nice one that I'd be
happy with and that I would use to write and study instead of wasting my
time and energy with notebook paper.
I refused. I did so nicely, but I refused to spend money on a type-
writer, which in those days was a fairly expensive and exotic item for a
high school kid in Memphis. And I insisted that I'd rather save the
money for New York. Martha yielded on that point but insisted that I
travel to New York when the timing was better.
She said, "I'm glad you called, Steven. Really. But talking about
saving money, do you know we've been on the phone for over an hour?"
Apparently she heard reluctance and disappointment in my voice.
"Steven. Sweetheart. I miss you, and I know you'd love New York. Will
you understand? For me? And treat yourself better, and be patient?"
"Well...okay."
"Don't say okay if you don't mean okay."
I laughed. "Okay."
"And buy yourself a typewriter?"
"No."
"Oh...stubborn! Hon, please write me. And please take it easy."
Halloween passed. Thanksgiving. Three more letters and then
Christmas cards passed between us. Then Christmas. 1957 began. Then
Ronnie found a better job and moved into a vacancy in the same building.
Then Martha found another teaching job on the side to supplement her
scholarship. Easter passed. She sent an oversized Easter card that she
said was designed by Ronnie. But no other word. April passed, and still
no letter.
One hot Friday afternoon in late spring, Charlie and I spent a
harried day working one huge delivery after another. I was sullen and
was taking my anger out on the orders, asking for the biggest ones and
for the most distant customers. Finally, by late afternoon, the two of
us cleared the backlog and the flow of customers thinned for a while.
Soaked with sweat, I took a break in the restroom and soaked my head with
cold water.
As I returned to the front of the store, Charlie called to me from the
front door. "Hey, Speedy!" He motioned toward the outside with his
head. "C'mon out here, let's take a break. C'mon."
"I just had one," I said crankily.
"What the hell, c'mon."
I met him out front and he mounted his bike. "Get on your bike," he
said. "Let's take a ride." He lit a cigarette and handed me one. I
took it and lit up.
"Where to?" I asked.
"Let's take a little ride up on High Street while it cools down. Get
the hell away from this store for a spell."
Wordlessly, I followed him on my squeaky bike and we rode up a short
rise for several blocks. We took a right onto High Street, a narrow
avenue of dilapidated tenements that had changed little since the turn of
the century. A few of the buildings were abandoned; one of them had a
condemnation notice on the front door. Abruptly, Charlie turned into a
narrow driveway overgrown with weeds beside a four-story building of old,
oily, dull red brick.
"What's up?" I asked, crushing out my cigarette.
"C'mon and meet a coupla girls I know," he said laconically. He
shoved down the kickstand and flipped his cigarette toward the street.
"Girls," I said apprehensively. Quickly, I removed my glasses.
Charlie smirked. "Hell, Chrissie and Karen don't care 'bout that."
"I do," I said.
The wooden front stairs and porch creaked loudly under our feet.
Charlie pounded on the screen door and hummed and waited. Presently two
teenaged girls opened the heavy front door. Charlie introduced them with
a few lines of friendly banter. Chrissie, the busty one with curly
blonde hair and a mischievous smile, said hi. Karen was the slim, quiet
one with long black hair and an expressionless face.
"What's up?" Charlie asked.
"C'mon," Chrissie said to him playfully, "I'll show ya. Karen, you
and Steven...talk." She giggled.
Charlie and Chrissie disappeared into the massive dark hallway beyond
the door. Karen leaned in the doorway and looked me over shyly, still
with no expression on her face, her hands folded behind her. She was
attractive in a lazy, slutty way, with a pale narrow face and a thin,
wide mouth, black hair that draped around her small shoulders, and dark,
ambiguous eyes.
"Charlie says you're a real hard worker," she said, her voice soft
and hesitant and dripping with a heavy drawl that I recognized as belong-
ing to northern Mississippi sharecroppers.
"I do my share," I said. Unaccustomed to talking with girls my age,
I said lamely, "So you're Karen."
"Yeah. I'm Karen. Uh, Chrissie and me been friends for a long time."
It had been so long since I'd stood face to face with a girl, I had
no idea what to do next. I looked around to see if Charlie and Chrissie
were doing anything that might give me a clue as to what was going on,
but they had disappeared inside the building.
Karen eyed me with an inscrutable stare. A clumsy silence passed.
Then she motioned with her eyes to her right, toward the hallway. I
wondered if she meant what I thought she meant.
She hesitated, and moved lazily into the hallway, where she stopped
with one foot on the stairway and a hand on the dusty wooden bannister.
She turned toward me momentarily, her face still dull and unchanged, her
dark eyes questioning. I stepped inside the screen door and let it close
softly behind me. She headed slowly up the stairs, quickly glancing at
me about halfway up. I waited at the door. Then at the top step her
gaze again met mine, directly but very briefly, as she turned and started
up the second level.
I told myself: hey, idiot, she wants you to follow her. I moved to
the stairway. It was all too unexpected and unfamiliar. There had been
girls who told me they thought I was cute, but none who made or accepted
my advances. What the hell -- it had been almost two years for me.
Martha was in no hurry to see me. Probably New York would never happen.
But was Karen serious?
Halfway up the first flight I paused and listened. The floor above
creaked softly. I continued. When I reached the second floor all I saw
were dusty shafts of sunlight, warped and faded walls, and several half-
open doorways. Then, behind the second door on my right, I heard what
sounded like the squeak of an old metal bed. I moved forward and stood
in the doorway; the odor of grease and rotted plaster bled from the room.
Karen sat on a half-made metal bed, holding a single deflated pil-
low to her chest, her long legs folded under her dark blue dress. Her
eyes looked at me from her dull face. "What took y' so long?" she
joked. A slight smile creased her thin lips; the smile disappeared
instantly as I moved into the room and looked around. The space consist-
ed of four walls, a cracked ceiling, a closed closet, an undraped open
window, the bed, and her.
I stood in the middle of the room, hands on my aproned hips. "What's
up?" I wondered if, at any moment, an axe murderer might dash from the
closet, empty my pockets of the tips I'd earned that day, and kill me.
She seemed confused. Then hesitantly she raised a slender, long-
fingered hand to her dress and touched the top button. "Wont me t' take
this off?"
I don't know how many seconds she waited for me as her words slowly
sank into my brain. Soon she began undoing her buttons.
"It's okay to do it in here. Ain't nobody else home today, they all
went downtown." As she spoke she allowed her dress to fall open and
reveal one breast and its flat, cocoa-brown nipple. "Won't nobody come
in." She motioned toward the window. "Cain't see nothin' through the
winder, either, they tore down the buildin's back there."
I started undressing. As I got down to my underwear and prepared to
strip them off, I heard a noise from the hallway.
"Never mind them," she urged. "They're too busy doin' it to worry
'bout us." In one motion she slid under the sheet, pulled her dress over
her head and off, and held a corner of the bedsheet aside for me, care-
fully keeping herself covered below the waist.
"C'mon," she said. "Git in."
Nude, I slipped under the sheet. She covered us and turned to me. I
turned to her, but hastily she pulled herself to me as if she didn't want
me to see all of her, and curled her legs around mine. Against my right
knee I felt her crotch and was amazed that she had become sopping wet so
quickly. Like a sudden wind from under the sheet her girl's scent rose,
stringent and sharp. It was disconcerting; heady because of its sheer
lusty power, uninviting because it seemed so alien to her otherwise
alluring, slim, white body.
Her face was uncommunicative, but her eyes were intent, waiting,
deeply focussed into mine. Her arms went around me and she tried pulling
herself closer to me, and me to her. I reached under the sheet and down,
touching her dripping mound. Instantly, her hand shot down to hold mine
away from her.
"No, don't. I don't usually like bein' touched there. It's
embarrassin' sometimes."
Surprised and disappointed, I looked at her confusedly. Her eyes
softened and gently she placed my hand on one of her pliant little
breasts.
"I don't need much touchin' anyway," she said apologetically. "I'm
ready. Can you tell? How 'bout you? You ready?" Her eyes on mine, her
hand found my cock as if by radar, without searching. She gave me a
quick, fleeting, sensuous grin -- another of her rare facial expressions
that vanished almost as quickly as they appeared. "Yeah...it's gettin'
there." Without removing her eyes from mine she reached under the edge
of the mattress on her side and retrieved a rubber, quickly stripped open
the wrapper, and reached under the sheet. Chewing her lip, she held my
cock with one hand and with the other unrolled the cold rubber over my
length. "There," she whispered, lying back. "C'mon. 'S been a long
time. I need it in me."
Well, I thought, if that's the way she likes it...I covered her and
then settled on her, and with one whispering slide of her trim torso she
raised her knees and spread her thighs. Before I knew it she grabbed me
again, her light touch and long fingers warm and tickly, stimulating me
briefly until I realized she was maneuvering me into her while I was only
mildly excited and barely at half-mast. Nevertheless, she was so wet and
slippery that I slid inside; she had only to nudge her hips slightly
upward, and I was fully sheathed.
Through the confining rubber I felt she was warm, almost steamy--but
so soft and lubricous that I felt I were copulating into a small glass of
warm water. I tried to raise on my arms and look down at her, but
immediately she pulled me close and pulled herself up so that we were
tightly joined with my face in her neck.
She wasted little time. Gasping, "Yeah. Feels good," she began
squirming her sex against me with a nimble precision that belied her
sluggish manner. I humped slowly but steadily, stretching a bit so that
my nearly flaccid shaft could gain some feeling of her inner shape and
texture. But to my disappointment I felt little, save for the pleasant
tickle of her pubic hair bristling near the unrubbered part of my root.
The sensation was paltry, and a great deal more of what I had been
accustomed to was altogether absent, but it did generate a mild erotic
twinge that helped stiffen me a little.
"Yeah," she panted. "Gettin' harder. Hmm. You move good."
Soon I knew I could not maintain this semi-erection. It wasn't just
the lack of sensation or the sense of being rushed: we were clumsy and
unsynchronized. There was nothing about us physically or emotionally or
mentally that spoke in the same terms, much less in the same language.
Not being able to touch her, not being stroked or primed myself, I became
merely a cooperative observer. Staring ahead at a sight no more scintil-
lating than a patch of pillow, her earlobes, and part of her tensing
neck, I grew more and more distant.
The only thing keeping me involved was the surprisingly rapid ap-
proach of her orgasm. "Don't cum yet!" she panted. "Keep dickin' me!" I
pumped her steadily, keeping my shaft near what I thought was her clit
and flexing my cock to make it seem stiffer. I wanted at least the
pleasure of getting her there. The old bed jiggled. Soon she was gasp-
ing and groaned "Yeah..." and her head fell back. Her ankles slid around
mine. Seconds later, she trembled and hissed "Yeah," and her head
snapped stiffly forward. She whimpered a few times and her nails dug
into my back while she rapidly ground her pubis against me for several
seconds. Somewhere beyond the rubber I dimly felt her inner spasms. Then
with a shudder and a sigh she sank back like a limp string.
I stopped. Propping on my elbows, I watched her: she lay open-
mouthed, eyes shut, breathing deeply and exhaling in long tired sighs.
Her arms relaxed and fell from me, one flopping to her side and the other
draping itself around her head.
"Hey," she panted, "yer good...Y' know just how to do it."
"Glad you liked it."
"Yeah. Liked it a lot...I'm glad you waited. I ain't cum good 'n
hard like that in a long time." She opened her yes. "You cum okay?"
"Sure," I lied.
"I couldn't tell. You must a cum when I did."
"Mm-hm." For a moment I held her and stroked her cheek, neck and
dark nipples, planting little kisses on her throat and her slim, oddly
touchable shoulders. Her flesh was soft and seemed to melt against my
lips. It wasn't that I liked her so much; it was sympathy for a soft
girl whose life was so barren that she could think of what we had just
done as being great sex. And more: I needed someone to please, hold, and
kiss.
Soon she squirmed nervously, her eyes filled with surprise and mild
reproach. "Hey, you could make somebody fall in luv, doin' stuff like
that. Holdin' an' kissin'...'n stuff."
I moved off her. Swinging my legs out of the bed, I sat up with my
feet on the floor and my back to her. "Just felt like doin' it," I mut-
tered, defeated, looking down and seeing the empty rubber on me. Out of
her sight, I pulled it off and pitched it out the open window. I started
dressing. I didn't want to be there anymore.
She rolled onto her stomach, still clasping the sheet about her.
"Hey. You live 'round here?"
"No."
"Oh. Thought maybe I'd...see you around sometime."
"It's...possible."
She started to speak again, but stopped. Her face had changed; it
had a look of quiet contentment and a girlish almost-smile. I was
stooping to tie my shoes when she spoke again.
"Maybe I wouldn't be so shy, next time. 'Specially with you. I
always been kinda shy."
"Why? There's nothing wrong with you. You're pretty."
"Yeah, well...but shy anyway...You look better'n I thought you would."
I walked to the door and looked out. There was no one in the hallway.
"How old 're you?' she taunted, rocking shyly on her hips. "Sev'n-
teen? Eighteen? I'm sev'nteen, come July."
I looked back at her. Should I tell her I was barely fifteen? I
lied: "Eighteen." I noticed I was lying more often lately.
"You don't talk much," she said.
I smiled weakly. "I'm shy too."
"Yeah. You fuck real good, though." She blushed. "You ever hear
that song, 'Sweet 'n' Gentle'?" She smiled devilishly. Her teeth were
yellow, a couple of them chipped.
From downstairs I heard a door slam and then Charlie's heavy foot-
steps heading for the door. "Hey, Speedy! You up there? C'mon, we
gotta go!"
"I have to get back to work," I told Karen, and I started downstairs.
Behind me I heard her call out, "You know where t' find me. Right?"
Charlie and I mounted our bikes. He lit a cigarette and started
forward. "Damn," he said, "that was a LOAD off my MIND!"
We rolled down the street.
Charlie said, "You ain't said nothin'. How was Karen?"
I shrugged. "It was okay."
"Okay? Damn. Just a little quickie, wha'd you expect?"
"It was okay. Nice."
"Never done her myself. Chrissie always tells me Karen's real hot."
"Yeah," I said, trying to forget the whole thing, "she is."
Charlie wagged his head. "Damn, Speedy. I cain't figure you out."
That night I arrived home around ten o'clock, as usual for a Friday.
Mom was asleep. I showered. Then I remembered Karen and showered
again. It might have been possible for me to like her. She struck me as
pretty, an oddly delicate but kinky combination. I wondered if she had
any diseases.
Two days before my fifteenth birthday, I arrived home from school and
found a large, brown-paper Parcel Post package on my bed. The return ad-
dress was East 87th Street in New York. Quickly, I unwrapped and opened
the heavy box.
It was a brand new Underwood typewriter.
Taped to the instruction manual was a birthday card. Martha had
signed it. Under her name were three or four x's and a message:
"Call me 'Collect' on your birthday."
Continued...
-- CJ
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