Chapter 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 everything 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 dangerous here."

I read on. She wanted me to bury myself in work at Christian Brothers. 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 teachers. 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 typewriter, 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 half 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.

I asked, "Where to?"

"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 yer a real hard worker," she said, her voice soft and hesitant and dripping with a heavy drawl that I recognized as belonging 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 banister. 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 fleetingly, 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 pillow 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 consisted 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, longfingered 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.

She said, "It's okay to do it in here. Ain't nobody else home t'day, 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 all 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.

She said gently, "Never mind them. 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, carefully 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 one of 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. Cain't yew tell? How 'bout yew? Yew 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 it 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 pulled my cock gently a few times, and when my eyes caught hers she averted hers and closed them, tugging again once or twice, then she held my cock with one hand and with the other unrolled the cold rubber. I watched her closed eyes and heard her breathing while her soft hand capably worked the thing over my length.

"There," she whispered, lying back, eyes still closed. "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.