Chapter 21

Christmas break was coming up at the end of the week. I had caught up with all my assignments, and I was maintaining a solid ‘A’ average in all of my classes. I had restarted my daily workouts. For my shop classes, I had purchased a 1969 Mach I Mustang with the 428 CI engine. It had been involved in a racing mishap, and it had sustained significant damage to the front and passenger side. This included the entire front clip, bumper, and headlights, as well as the right fender and chrome pieces, suspension, tie rods, springs, and coils as well as brake and wheel damage. The engine compartment was limited to the radiator, fan, and water pump. The good news is it was cheap, I got it for nothing. It had been sitting derelict in an automotive shop my company had purchased.

There was some cosmetic damage to repair, as well, including rust at the bottom of the doors and rear body panels. There was also some glass damage to be repaired. I will replace it with laminate coated dark black tinted glass and a smoke-tinted windshield.

I would need about $2500 in parts and paint using the school’s discount and body shop to bring it back to life. It will eventually be my prototype for testing my safety equipment and automotive upgrades. I was going to repaint it black and give it silver highlights. I would be giving it five coats of high gloss black and then giving it about five coats of clear coat to make sure it shined.

It was coming along on schedule, if not a little ahead of it. I spent an hour before school and then my 2-hour block of independent study, and another hour after classes, working on it. I had almost 100 hours in build time already invested in it. The end of the semester would hopefully be enough for me to complete it for a grade. Then it would be moved to my company’s garage’ where the real work of turning it into a 2020 modern marvel would begin in earnest. After that was completed, it would be much safer to drive daily.

I was back in my earlier physical shape. I had been working out and practicing for the upcoming baseball season. Additionally, I had started to practice my golf swing. I bought a nearly new set of clubs from a local pawn shop. The collection contained persimmon woods by Taylor Made golf clubs, an entire set of Ping irons, a couple of putters, and three different wedges. There were definitely more than 14 clubs in the bag, but that was fine. I would pare them down once I decided which ones worked best for me. I had played golf in my other life, but I was never good at it. I determined that I would become a scratch golfer this time around. I practiced swinging in the garage. There was one open bay that I had enlisted for that purpose. I had to be careful, but I was at least warm and not out in the snow, swinging a club in freezing cold temperatures.

With Christmas right around the corner, I, and everyone else was in gift-buying mode. I already had most of them. Mr. James was easy. I got him a new winter coat, boots, and gloves. He was a welder in a factory that had exposure to the outside elements. He’d needed a new jacket for a while now, but he put his family’s needs first, so I knew this would be a welcome gift. I also bought Mr. J a Craftsman riding lawnmower with a snowblower attachment from Sears. It would get lots of use year-round, most likely by me or RJ, but it would make those chores more manageable.

Mrs. J had me stumped. I didn’t know what to buy her. I thought about many things, including a car. She really could use it. But I wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do. I was afraid she would want to take it back to the dealer as being too expensive.

RJ was finally coming around; we had had a long talk about how things had gone off track. He admitted he was very jealous of me and my money, and the fact I was going out with four different girls at once. He didn’t think I understood what it was like to be him. He had to work for everything, and his parents would not buy him a car. They told him to get a job if he wanted a car. His brother seemed to be rolling in cash. He was never caught short. He drove a flashy car and had lots of female action. And now I had those things as well, and he felt genuinely left out. I told him I understood. I also stated, if his brother got caught, there would be life-changing consequences. Prison will change a man. He needed to avoid that temptation.

I went a lot easier on RJ, and I tried to include him in more of my activities. I also made him study with me and the girls, I wanted to show him I was working my ass off for what I wanted to achieve and if he wanted to be someone he had to as well. Don’t get me wrong. His parents and I read him the riot act about how he had been treating me. When he finally stopped and looked at things from my perspective, he realized I had lost a lot more than I had gained by having money.

I told him money wasn’t ever going to bring back my parents. I would never be able to talk to them, or hug them, or simply tell them I loved them. The money would never make up for the time I had to spend in the hospital, nor make up for the mistreatment from the police or the criminal justice system I had experienced. It would never make my life inherently better by itself. If I misused it or squandered it, then it would be gone. If I allowed it to control me and make bad decisions, then there would be consequences for that as well. Merely having this much money made me a target. I explained that I had to be in control of my emotions at all times. Otherwise, I risked facing a lawsuit for any little thing.

I think we are finally back to where we were before I lost my parents in terms of our friendship. I wanted to give him a really cool gift. But Mr. and Mrs. James told me not to go overboard.

I decided to buy him a new Atari system and his own tv, along with a stereo system which included AM/FM radio, with 8 track and phonograph. I think he’ll really like it.

The girls were a delicate situation. We’d go out as a group twice a month. On one of the outings, I introduced the girls to the NFL. That cost me a small fortune as I also took Mr. James and RJ as well. We all had fun, especially since the Lions defeated the Bears by a score of 14 to 10.

In addition to the group outings, I took each of them on single dates on a successive weekly basis. We would do typical date type things, movies, roller skating, or ice skating, or one of my favorites, tobogganing. Going down a hill made up of snow and ice at break-neck speeds was a blast. Mary enjoyed the afternoon as well, which ran into the evening. We made a run into the warming house at nightfall, for hot cocoa and a change into dry, warm clothes. Changing clothes led to some other ways of warming up a body as well. Let’s just say we were sweating when we got out of the warming house.

Eve was the only girl who I hadn’t made love to, she was not ready to lose her virginity, and I was okay with that. We did most everything else. I didn’t try to have penetrative sex with her. Even though I never discussed my sexual exploits with any of my girls, with them or anyone else, I was almost positive they had. They never asked what I had done with the other girls on their dates. But I wasn’t foolish enough to believe they hadn’t talked amongst themselves.

When they weren’t on dates with me, they were hanging out with each other. Somehow, they always managed a sleepover at least once a week. Our study sessions, which believe it or not, were intense. There was no physical contact allowed. That was their rule, not mine, but it worked. I had never studied so hard in my life. All my girls were super-intelligent in their own way. The study sessions allowed each girl to show off their particular talent and to teach the rest of us.

We would sit together during lunch, which was the only time during the school day I would get to see them, except briefly between classes. They somehow managed to get all their classes together, and I, because of my late arrival, had to take what I could get. Lunch was a noisy, fun time, and usually, we just tried to get caught up on what was going on in our day to day lives.

It was taken for granted by those who attended the same lunch that I was obviously dating all four of the girls. I never discussed the situation with anyone. Of course, RJ and a few others knew it. So, there wasn’t any reason to deny it. The guys usually thought I was a lucky SOB, and the girls figured I must be hot stuff in the romance department. My girls didn’t try to change their minds.

The most troubling thing about this was the girls’ parents. I had had conversations with each of the girls’ parents. I told them very truthfully, and distinctly I was dating their daughter and also other girls. I said I would not look at being exclusive with any one of them until, at least, she was out of high school, and I probably wouldn’t then because I planned on attending college. I wasn’t looking for Mrs. Right and definitely not a Mrs. Right-Now.

I went on to say that I respected both them and their daughter. That I not only knew that ‘No’ meant ‘No,’ I also expected the girl to respect me enough to understand if I said ‘No’ that I meant ‘No’ too. I explained I was a red-blooded American teenage boy, that I would most likely be willing to go as far as the girl would let me. I told the parents I would respect any curfew, and I would be responsible for ensuring their daughter arrived home on time.

I wasn’t blunt, and I didn’t say anything in a disrespectful tone. I simply told the parents what I thought was important. I didn’t need or want angry fathers with shotguns coming after me. For the most part, the dads said they respected me for being honest, they, of course, wished I were dating just one girl and not necessarily his daughter. I, of course, was the epitome of evil. I reminded them way too much of themselves at my age.

But not one told me I was unwelcome, or not to date his little girl. One simply asked me to please not get her in a family way. “She had too good a future to be tied up this young, by becoming pregnant.” he’d said. I assured him I would do whatever I could to avoid that situation.

This musing brought me back to the question I was mulling over. What do you buy for Christmas for your girlfriends, who were sure to compare each item and make a cost comparison and try to come up with a winner? I knew they would do this. It was simple psychology. I also knew I couldn’t stop them. So, how do I get individual gifts that are not alike, or merely differ only by a personalized engraving? Or something equally stupid, like four sweaters but all different colors? That was simply asking for trouble. I really needed a female’s perspective, but I wasn’t sure I knew where to get one without too much judgment thrown in with it.