Twentieth Century Limited Book One - Age of Heroes. Jan David Blais
Acne. I have no chance. It’s too bright in here.”
“Did you try?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I need to go to the bathroom.”
I looked back at Sandra... she was talking with her friends. I wanted to keep her in sight so I could find her right away when the music started, but if she liked me, I figured, or at least didn’t mind me that much, she’d be there when I returned. So Omer and I went and got a couple of cokes. “That girl... what’s she like?”
“Oh, I don’t know, she goes to Saint X. She’s from Warwick.”
“That’s a long bus ride.”
He read my mind. If things went well I would definitely ask her out. He had this sly expression on his face. “I never was that close to anybody that big,” he said. It seemed Omer had developed this obsession after the Rita Hayworth incident though it wasn’t all my fault, he’d probably been thinking about it already. “You were dancing close... did she rub them against you?”
I glowered at him. “You have a dirty little mind, don’t you.”
He laughed. “Don’t we all? What are you, some kind of statue?”
A statue I was not. Suddenly the music was on again. I had to get back. “Come on, you’ll do better this time,” I said. Even if Omer was a sex fiend mentally, he was still my friend. I was relieved his hang-dog expression was back. We returned to the spot I’d left Sandra but... where was she? Her friends were gone too. I looked around frantically. Suddenly my heart sank. She was on the floor with Harry Croft, a loudmouth jock, a real jerk. He was wearing his letter sweater, naturally. They were dancing back and forth when suddenly he grabbed her around the waist with both hands and pulled her in really tight. I tensed. I felt like going out there and punching him though he was six-three also who was I to watch out for Sandra, I’d just met her and maybe I read her wrong. After a few seconds of groping, she shoved him away and stomped off the floor. She and her friends put their heads together then Sandra and this other girl started to leave. They passed close to me but Sandra had her head down.
Omer saw her, too. “Why didn’t you stop her, lover-boy?”
“Omer, you really are a shit.”
Well, that was it. Fed up with “La Salle boys,” she had left. And the evening had started so brilliantly. I began shuffling toward the exit when I saw Sandra and her friend coming back. I stepped in front of her. “Sandra,” I said. Her eyes were moist and red.
“Hi,” she said, blinking and looking away.
They were playing a really fast song but throwing caution to the wind I gestured and she smiled and led me to the floor. I’m not very good at this, I said. She said don’t worry, I’ll show you how. It turned out to be a fast box with a lot of turning and when I let go of her she spun around before re-entering my happy, confused orbit. When the set was over I asked if she’d like a coke and she said yes. We were sipping in the lobby no beverages food smoking on floor and I told her about myself. She also liked to read and had a nice camera, not as good as the Leica but better than my old one. We went on, back and forth until finally she looked at me in this funny way. “You know,” she said, “you’re different from the others.”
Normally this would have been discouraging, but I figured, that is I hoped she was talking about Harry Croft. “I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s nice. You’re nice.”
Nice? Nice! The next set was all slow numbers, and she put her hand around my neck and held me close when we danced which drove me wild so I fell into the ladder again. During Good Night Sweetheart, I asked for her phone number. I committed it to memory which wasn’t that big a deal except my mind was filled with thoughts and feelings so I repeated it a couple of times. “Shall I write it out for you?” she laughed, but I replied crisply, “West 5524R. Right?”
“Right!” The music stopped and she said she’d better get back to her ride. I said I’d call, she said she’d like that. She liked Westerns, too. Walking out, Omer made another crack but I let it go. The most beautiful girl in the world had just given me her phone number. Outside we ran into Terry and Jerome. Terry and I had long since mended fences but Jerome was his same morose self. “Why do I bother with these dances?” he said. “Damned waste of time. Last time you’ll see me here.”
“You were dancing a lot,” Terry said to me. So people had noticed.
Jerome gestured toward the crowd, “What do you think’d happen if I asked one of those white chicks to dance? Not that any of them’d say yes.”
Even Terry was glum. “Why don’t they ever invite some colored girls?”
“That’s the trouble,” Jerome went on, “damn Brothers...all talk, no action.”
Terry burst out laughing. “No action, that’s for damn sure! No action at all!”
Well I got my license. My mother drove a hard bargain – you want the car, you take dancing lessons. So twice a week for six weeks I climbed the stairs to Arthur Murray’s in a Westminster Street office building. I stared out the window over the shoulder of this woman old enough to be my mother as she initiated me in waltz, rumba, tango, swing and perfected my fox trot. All of a sudden my box had lots of company.
Several times Sandra and I got together, movies and, you guessed it, a hockey game. The most we had done was hold hands because we’d never really been alone and I didn’t know how she’d react anyway. It made me nervous that these excuses were about to disappear. Prom night, my parents beamed as, resplendent in white jacket, plaid tie and cummerbund, I drove off in the old Plymouth, corsage on the seat beside me. I debated, wrist kind or the kind you pin on, and went with wrist as safer. Pink sweetheart roses. We looped back for Angelo who was taking a Mt. Pleasant girl. I don’t remember much about the evening but what happened at the end I will never forget.
I’ll be the first to admit we were late. We stopped at a diner then drove Angelo and his date home. I shut off the motor and turned off the lights and there we sat. Sandra slid over toward me and I put my arm around her shoulder. When I turned to face her she came closer... closer...and... we kissed. I put my other arm around her and we did it again, longer and harder. Times like this I wished I didn’t wear glasses but I couldn’t take them off because that would send the wrong signal to a girl like Sandra. She still thought I was different in a nice way, but that night I didn’t feel at all different or nice. I was hoping, sort of, I’d have the grace to stay pure, with this wonderful girl who wasn’t that kind of girl at all, but there we were in what can only be described as a clinch. Suddenly, there was this blinding light. We jumped apart.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Oh my God!”
Next thing the door opened and this face looked in. Her father. It smelled like he’d been drinking. “Way past your curfew, young lady,” he rasped, shining his flashlight at us. “Let’s go. You’ve said enough goodnight already.” Sandra looked at me, this wretched expression on her face, and without a word she slid across to the other side. He slammed the door, and I was left to watch my pink chiffon dream trudge up the walk and disappear into the house behind an old man and his bathrobe.
I really wanted to see Sandra again. I practiced disguising my voice in case somebody like her father answered. I thought of hanging around her school, too, but I did neither, I’m not sure why. A couple of years later, I heard she got married and moved. That night, that agonizing night, I was so unhappy. God help me, I said, lying awake, the first girl I ever liked who liked me back. You better help me, God, I sure can’t help myself.
Next Sunday I was totally focused. Body of Christ, Blood of Christ. My mind began to wander... where in the Bible do we see the sixteen-year old Jesus? What did he feel like when he looked at girls? Did he wonder what they were like under all those clothes, or did he already know? Did he ever get a hard-on? Did he accept pleasure knowing it wasn’t his fault (often it isn’t)? If not, how can you say he was a real boy? And if he wasn’t a real boy, how could he