The following is one of the essays from a new book of same that I am about to (try to) peddle. Of all the essays in the collection, this one is the mot straightforwardly narrative, the others being —what?— lyrical.
1957
The whole thing mystified me at age fifteen. As I knock on eighty’s door, it hasn’t puzzled me for a long time. I’m less troubled by it too, even if the event does still leave me oddly uneasy.
One Saturday, I was walking back from the school ball field. We couldn’t get enough boys together for a game, so we just played catch, shagged flies, and so on. Mostly, we told our exaggerated stories, though no one believed anyone else’s. That’s why for years I never shared this experience with anyone but one school friend. Too many would have thought I was fibbing.
When I got within a quarter-mile of home, I heard music from a blaring radio. Who wouldn’t have wanted to find out what that commotion amounted to? I followed it to the Ds’ house, a place very familiar to me. I crossed the front lawn when I didn’t see Mr. D’s car in the drive. He was a bit daunting, with his Navy tattoos of an anchor on one arm and a mermaid on the other, not to mention his drinking like… well, like a sailor, often right from the bottle, as if his whiskey were Coke or something. After he’d had a few pulls, he’d start making light-hearted wisecracks, but he could turn grumpy without any warning whatsoever. I never risked knocking on the Ds’ door unless their daughter Dolly was home, and even then I got nervous until I could be sure her father had his mood more or less under control.
Dolly and I were steadies, but she was away at a camp in Maine where she’d been going for years and years. I sometimes wondered why she hadn’t gotten tired of the place. In any case, since she was an only child, I knew her mother must be alone.
Her daughter called Mrs. D a bottle-blonde. She smirked a little when she said that, but only because she was envious. Dolly was nice-looking, all right– just not in her mom’s league.
The Ds’ lived close to us, and as I say, I knew the house well. My own parents disapproved of television, so we didn’t have one at home. In fact, the Ds’ TV set may have accounted as much as anything for my interest in their daughter. You don’t have to tell me that sounds terrible. Looking back, I don’t need any help to beat myself up about it– and plenty else.
I remember dark winter afternoons after school, when we two would go down to the basement and tune in “Queen for a Day,” which we liked to poke fun at. Some poor old lady would weep with joy over the washing machine or the oven or the medical help she was going to get just for being the most miserable person in the studio, as determined by the audience’s response to her story. The sadder the tale, the louder the applause. As I look back, that seems an odd sort of win, but we didn’t think about such a matter.
Dolly and I also engaged, when we dared, in some teenage groping. Nothing too heavy, though.
One day as we watched our program, just holding hands, she and I felt as though we were the ones being watched. It turned out that Bobo, a squat neighborhood mongrel, part Dalmatian, part basset, was out there in the fog, his sorry face peering through the window. From then on, we noticed how he showed up whenever we had the set on.
“He must look at TV Guide,” Dolly joked after the third or fourth time.
I’ve strayed from my story, which back then I never dreamed was almost as miserable as the ones on “Queen for a Day.” I’ll go back to it now, but please understand that, even as an adolescent, when hormones made me half-crazy at times, I was never some creepy voyeur. It wouldn’t be right to blame me for what happened.
The ear-splitting music was something slow and corny, all trembly strings. When I looked through Bobo’s window, I saw Dolly’s mom holding her mop handle like a microphone stand in the TV room. She was obviously singing, although I couldn’t hear her over the radio. Her eyes were half-closed, and all she had on was frilly black underwear, the kind I’d seen once when an older cousin showed me his Playboys.
I wanted to run, but before I could, Mrs. D opened her eyes and stared right at me. It was as though she knew I‘d be there. I froze, nowhere to go. To my astonishment, she smiled in a strange, woozy way and waved me around to her cellar door. I felt I had to obey, even though I desperately wanted to escape.
After she opened up, Mrs. D reeled back to that basement room. I dutifully followed, trying not to watch her jiggle. Suddenly, she swiveled and hugged me, all in one motion. At first I froze again, almost fainting with shyness, no matter that, like every boy in my circle, I always said I’d give my right arm for a moment more or less like this one. She really was pretty as a movie star.
I kept my head turned away, so she didn’t embrace me for more than a few seconds. Letting out a big sigh, or rather a huff, she grabbed a blue robe from a chair, put it on, and led me– no, pushed me– back to where I’d come in.
What had I done to make her so angry?
Next day, swearing him to secrecy, I told my classmate Patrick about the event, though I didn’t really go into detail. Once he saw I wasn’t lying, Pat said I had to repent, a word I wasn’t used to hearing. I didn’t know many Catholics apart from his family. His dad worked for the Knights of Columbus, though I’m not sure what his job was. In any case, I couldn’t see how I’d go about repenting, or even quite why, and my friend didn’t go into it any further.
Truth is, I believe he was jealous. He kept pressing me for more than I wanted to give. I told him that she wore those lacey underthings and that she hugged me, but everything else I left vague. Of course, there wasn’t much else, come to think of it.
Well, there was one thing. In that briefest of moments, I could feel her heart and mine beating together. I remember the sensation quite well, maybe better than anything else from that afternoon.
After Mrs. D. shoved me outdoors, I stood in my tracks for a minute or two. Then I walked over and looked through the little window again. She was crying. She’d turned off her radio and stood the mop in its bucket. Still wearing the robe, she stood there herself, not even moving, except for her hands, which she kept clenching and unclenching.
Strange: I suddenly felt that I cared more about Dolly than I ever had before. And yet I couldn’t imagine how I’d face her when she got back from camp, let alone how I’d face her mom. I’d have to write Dolly a letter if I could find her address up there. I’d just say we were through; there didn’t seem any way to tell her why. I just couldn’t go down to that basement again. The whole business made me pretty unhappy.
I knew this meant no more TV, but that was a long way from what bothered me most– not that I can precisely identify what the real trouble was even now.
I don’t know how old Mrs. D was when she died, which was not that long after, in my college years. She was at least a good deal younger than my own mom, who, when I asked her about Mrs. D’s death, simply told me, with a slight sneer on her face, She always liked her wine.
1957
What an intricate, sad story. What a mess, too. Queen for a Day, Bobo at the window, and Mrs D singing in her underwear. The orchestration sets all the elements vibrating together. Really nice.