February 25, 2006--Saturday Story: "Waiting to Get Laid" Continued

Waiting to Get Laid

If I were honorable, I would begin this with the familiar disclaimer—“This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental”—and change Ellen Goodman’s name to Elaine Goldstein and obscure the fact that we laid naked together every Thursday at noon, entwined in each others arms, under the daybed in her parent’s apartment, hiding from her brother Morton, who had come home from school for lunch to the “empty” apartment, to eat the sandwich his mother had left for him, singing to himself, unaware of our presence, and flagrant condition, just ten feet from where he was chewing.

But since these Thursdays were the most exciting times of my life, ever, because I was getting closer and closer to getting laid for the first time, and since this is not a work of fiction, cad that I am, I will call her by her true name, Ellen Goldman.

How did Ellen and I get to that place? Literally? I cannot speak authoritatively for her, but for you to understand the full extent of my excitement, I have to take you back a bit in time to when it was exciting if a girl would allow you to put your arm across the back of her seat when you went to the movies together. To be clear, I am not talking about your arm or hand actually touching her shoulders much less her neck; I am saying you were making progress in the relationship just by having your arm resting on the back of the chair. Knowing all the while the risks you were running to be able to reach along her chair back while straining not to do any touching--you needed to so contort that arm that you were in danger of having it yanked out of its socket or developing gangrene.

Less physically threatening were the opportunities available during the walk home. It might be possible to think about using that same arm, if it was still functioning, to circle her waist. Again there would be no arm touching back, but the arm might surround her back, an inch or so away from it but close enough so that the tips of the fingers at the end of that arm might actually touch lightly the puffed-out hem of her tucked-in blouse.

And then at the door, there could be the chance to hold for a brief moment just one hand and attempt a squeeze.With our current sensibilities I know you are screaming, “Enough!” This to you sounds more like the mating rituals among the Trobriand Islanders than the frisky youth of Brooklyn. But I insist on saying to you, before moving on, that what I have told you thus far is the virtual truth from my many months courtship of my first crush, Dorothy Bloomberger, when she was sixteen and I was fifteen but claiming to be sixteen. Getting away with the deception because of my great height, or her interest in the movies.

But I have heard you, enough!

I do, though, have to add that what I have just described was what one expected when going out with “good” girls. From the perspective of those of us who were perpetually over-wrought and desperate, sadly the overwhelming majority. It was reported, and I emphasize reported, by the likes of Donny Friedman that there was a group of very different kinds of girls, much, much smaller in number, girls referred to in politeness as being “fast.”

Donny Friedman had stories to tell of his times with one or two of these--in the coat closet with the Siegel Twins, in the balcony of the Rugby Theater with Muriel Berlin, and one not-to-be-described experience with Becky Sharfstein where he claimed they “went all the way.”

Ellen Goodman began very much as a member of that much larger classification of girls; but, as the result of my fevered relentlessness and whatever she was desiring, wound up in a category of her own—my first love.

We met on Lonely Street. If not down at the end, for sure still there.

Ricky Traub’s girlfriend Margie had a new 45 RPM phonograph and I went over there to see it. Ricky told me that she also had Elvis’ latest, Heartbreak Hotel. I knew Blue Suede Shoes; but though I tried, that didn’t do it for me—I recognized his smutty appeal, but couldn’t get beyond the lyrics to the smut:

You can do anything,
But don’t you step on my blue suede shoes.

But to be in nubile Margie’s bedroom, to see her new record player, and to hear Elvis Presley there lured my out of my perpetual sick bed, I had pretty much recovered from a winter-long case of the grip, and I raced over there.

Where I heard Elvis in HiFi and saw Ricky and Margie grinding away at each other, pelvis to pelvis, dancing to that incredible song. And on Margie’s bed, almost buried in a froth of crinoline, was Ellen Goodman, who would before too long change my life.

Ricky and Margie had been going steady for about a month, the first of my friends to establish such a relationship. This meant that he gave her his ARISTA pin to make the arrangement official, they would assume they would go out together every Friday and Saturday night (he would not have to ask her for a “date” at least a week in advance), he would call her all other evenings during which time they would review the day’s events (“Did you see what that Sheila was wearing today? What a tramp”; “Can you believe it, Mr. Gatti taught his class all day with his fly open”; “My mother doesn’t want me to let my hair grow long. I don’t know what I’ll do. I feel like dying.”), and most important Ricky would be allowed to slip his hand under Margie’s brassiere without too many preliminaries.

Ellen was Margie’s best friend. I had never met her. She lived on the other side of Brooklyn; up near the border with Queens. I had heard about her from Ricky who told me that she was cute and a good dancer and didn’t have a boyfriend. Though I was desperate for Margie, through Ricky, to introduce me to some of her girlfriends, Ellen didn’t seem like a realistic possibility since she lived so far away—at least two bus rides distance. And since I was the opposite of cute much less handsome (six-feet-two, only 140 pounds, and already sprouting a crop of pimples), I thought her cuteness would by definition rule me out of boyfriend contention.

In spite of this, when I saw her curled up on Margie’s bed, moving on the mattress to Elvis as only a good dancer could, I was smitten. Tortured soul that I was at such an early age (I was a prodigy in the field of unhappiness), smitten though I was, I was also nervous; because though I was attracted to the dancer part, I had two left feet and there was no way that at least one of them wouldn’t always be stepping on one of hers if we ever got onto a dance floor. However, I was hopeful because of the no boyfriend and very interested in the cute part because Ellen was just as advertised.

I knew from Ricky, who was obviously more advanced than I in these matters (just look at what he and Margie were up to), that it was essential to have a good opening line one when attempting to attract girls.

So I tried one of my best, to be more impressive even pulling myself up out of my usual slump, “Margie tells me you’re very good at Algebra.”

Still moving her hips to Elvis, she said, “Actually, it’s Geometry that I really love.”

“I haven’t taken that yet. I’m not sure I’ll like it.”

“Well, if you’re good at drawing or art it helps.”

“I’m not very good at that either,” quickly realizing that maybe this was not going well. How could I be impressing her if I was already managing to bore myself? And how, I am sure you are wondering, could something that began this pathetically lead to my lying naked with Ellen, under her parent’s day bed, just six months later?

To Be Continued--