Chapter 3

The next week was a whirl of activity for me. I was running all over the place, walking Faye to and from school, running home to get my homework done and then running back over to Faye's so we could go for a walk and have a little time alone together. Mostly we walked over by the school, not the high school, the elementary school. We'd stand over behind the corner of the main building and, out of the wind, we'd kiss and talk. We both liked to snap off the long icicles that hung from the sides of the school, some as long as two feet, and used them in mock sword fights or to point with. If I got thirsty, I could even bite off the end and use it like an ice cube. We spent a lot of that time pushing each others limits. It seemed like everyday I'd be permitted further advances, breaking new ground for physical intimacy. By Thursday evening I'd managed to blurt out the news that I loved her. She didn't tell me that she loved me too, but she did allow my hand free reign while we kissed. All of this was outside three or four layers of clothing, mind you, but it was still very exciting for the two of us.

Friday night Joan and I met her at the teen center for another dance. In the week just passed we had officially become a couple and were now "going steady". I only danced with Faye that night. Joan had a long string of waiting admirers and could have danced every dance with a different partner if she had wanted to. Instead, she limited herself to three or four boys, but was particularly interested in Frank Tierney, a boy from school that lived less than a block from us. I found out later from Faye that Joan had had a big crush on Frank ever since she was thirteen years old. I'd never known or even suspected that. Frank was seventeen years old and was a junior the same as me.

He didn't hang out with the same guys I did, so I didn't really know him all that well, just to say hi to if I happened to run into him or something. Frank's father had a used appliance store over in Poquonnock Bridge and Frank helped out in the store after school and on the weekends too. My father had once bought a used automatic clothes washer from Frank's dad, much to my mother's delight. My dad and Frank's father had installed it outside in a shed they had set up alongside the house. My Uncle Sonny had come over and handled all the plumbing problems. We wound up putting a huge used water heater out there too, that my Uncle Sonny had gotten a good deal on from somewhere. It took them the best part of three weekends, but when they got done, my mother had an automatic clothes washer and, more importantly, we had hot water in the house without having to heat it on the stove by the bucketful. My father wanted to get her an automatic clothes dryer too, like my Aunt Betty had, but my mother said the clothes were fresher smelling and the whites stayed whiter if you dried them on the clothesline outdoors. Mom took her old wringer washer over to the old folks poor house in New London, where she worked as a nurse, and the old people and the staff there used it to keep the people's clothes washed better.

About halfway through the dance Joan told me that Frank had offered to give the two of us a ride home after the dance was over. My father, having satisfied himself that the dance was an innocent enough thing that he could safely permit us to attend, had decided that us walking the three miles each way would be preferable to him having to drive us there and wait up to drive us home. It was cold and the walk over to the dance had been an hour's worth of hard going. A ride home after the dance, when it had only gotten colder, was enough inducement for me to overlook whatever designs Frank might have had on Joan. I told her that that would be fine and to make sure she didn't do anything to get him to withdraw his offer. She smiled at me in a way that made me know that she was way ahead of me on that score too. For the rest of the evening Joan would only dance with Frank. Joan had worn a dark blue sweater and a lighter blue full skirt to the dance that night. Her sweater looked like it was absolutely stretched to the limits with her breasts poking out so far. Joan's small waist just served to emphasize how big her bosom was. That sweater, and what was underneath it was probably half the reason so many boys were interested in dancing with her. I saw her out on the dance floor with Frank during a fast dance while Faye and I were sitting one out. She would shake her shoulders kind of side to side and it made her boobs really jiggle and shake. I think poor Frank was hypnotized by the effect. I knew, just watching her that one dance that she had sunk her hook into that boy and had no intention of letting him get away.

After the dance I walked Faye over to her grandfather's car and she reached up and put her arms around my neck and pulled me to her for a good French kiss. This was in front of all the kids in the front of the teen center, either talking or waiting themselves for their rides to show up. The kiss lasted for maybe fifteen seconds, and when she let me go she smiled at me, winked, and turned and got into the car. I was left standing there, red faced and sporting an erection that had sprung up from nowhere. Fifteen seconds of being out in the cold though quickly solved that particular embarrassment. I turned around looking for Joan and Frank and found them already sitting in Frank's beat up old Plymouth. When I tried to open the front passenger door, Joan had locked it so I was forced to jump in the back seat. We took off quickly and drove the five minute drive home. Either Frank's heap didn't have a car heater, or it didn't work, but it was very cold inside that car. As we sped on home though, I was really grateful to Frank for the lift. I knew he'd much rather just be giving Joan a ride home, but he'd just have to settle for what he could get, and that included me in the car too.

It was the next day that my sister Annie took a big spanner wrench to Kevin Hartigan's head, almost killing him and getting herself thrown in jail in the process. She had just been told by him, while they were discussing their upcoming wedding and honeymoon plans, during their dinner break at work, that he was married, and would have to get a divorce before the two of them could themselves get married. This had just come up out of nowhere, as Kevin had told Annie many times that he had been a committed bachelor until he'd met up with her. After he was murdered, over in New London several months later, we all found out that, not only was he married, but he had two little children that none of us had known about either. I spoke with Faye a lot on the telephone over that next week, but all of us were staying pretty close to home, after Annie was released, trying to give her emotional support and comfort her while she went through almost a mourning experience. I guess she stopped being mad right after she was arrested, but she got all sad and depressed and worried that everyone was laughing at her for being so stupid and falling in love with a married man.

I did see Faye everyday at school though and we had a few chances to at least hold hands as we waited or walked together between classes. She said she felt really bad for Annie, and then she told me that she wished that she had a big family like I did, so that if bad things happened to her that she would have the love and support we were all giving to Annie. I told her that she had me and that would be all the love and support she'd ever need. I kissed her then, even though it wasn't allowed in our school. I didn't care whether we got caught or what might happen if we did. I needed her kiss right then, and I thought she needed mine every bit as much. I didn't go to the dance that Friday, not wanting to be out having fun while my big sister was in her room crying her poor heart out. Joan wanted to go by herself and even told my father that Frank would be willing to drive her to the dance, and watch out for her while there, and would also see that she got home OK. My father told her that he was unlikely to be putting a fox in the hen house to guard one of his chickens and told her she'd just have to wait until I felt like going again. My mother backed my father on that decision too.

On Thursday after school Joan got off the phone with Faye and told my father that Faye and her grandfather would be giving her a ride to the dance and that she would meet Faye at her house before the dance and would get a ride all the way home after the dance from the grandfather. I was upset that Faye wanted to go to a dance when I wouldn't be there, but I didn't say anything. My father told Joan she wasn't going to the dance and that was final. He said he didn't care if President Eisenhower himself wanted to give her a ride, she wasn't going to any dance without her brother there to look after her. Joan went to her room and could be heard, over Annie's crying as she lamented living with a stupid family who only cared about what the boys did and wouldn't let her do a single darn thing by herself. My mother went into the girl's bedroom after about fifteen minutes of us all listening to Joan's ranting. She had a few quiet words with Joan, but Joan kept yelling about how unfair she thought it all was. I heard Joan yell that my father was being a stubborn jerk, this being quickly followed with the sharp sound of a hard slap in the face that ended all the shouting. My mother came out of the bedroom mumbling something about not having a daughter in her house that was disrespectful of her own father. All that evening we had two girls crying in their bedroom. It was so depressing listening to the two of them crying and keening, each trying to outdo the other.

I guess I wasn't acting normal at school on Friday, because Faye asked me what I was upset about. I told her I was still upset over what happened with Annie.

"Are you mad at me because I'm going to the dance tonight without you?" I wondered if she was a Gypsy mind reader or something.

"I'm not mad at you for anything. If you want to go to the dance, it's all right with me. I hope you have yourself a good time." I was jealous a little, but mostly I just didn't think people should want to be having fun when my sister was so darned unhappy. We didn't hang around that much in school that day, maybe because neither of us wanted to start fighting with each other. Frank Tierney talked to me in the afternoon, before school let out, asking me whether I was mad at him over the thing with Joan. I told him that I had no problem with him and that the problem was Joan wanting to go out while the whole family was in a crisis over what was happening with Annie. I told him that it would probably all be resolved soon and things would be back to normal. When school finished for the day I waited out front for Faye and Joan to come out. I waited for fifteen minutes, and when they hadn't come out by then, I walked home by myself. I was finishing up some reading from school after being home for an hour or so when Joan came in. I asked her where she'd been, telling her that I waited for her for fifteen minutes.

"Frank gave Faye and I a ride home. We rode with him over to Poquonnock Bridge to pick up some money from his father." I knew this was going to be a problem. There was no way that my father would have allowed my sister to be riding around in a boy's car unsupervised by either me, Annie, my mother or him. It just wasn't done by good girl's her age. I didn't want to start another big crisis, but I wasn't about to let anyone take chances with my sister's reputation either. I put my coat on and walked over to the Tierney's house and knocked on their door. Mrs. Tierney answered the door and I asked to speak with Frank. He came to the door and I told him that we needed to talk outside. He said OK and then shut the door to go get his coat and then came outside.

"Is there a problem, Jackie?"

"Yeah, Frank, there is. The problem is with you giving my kid sister a ride home from school and carting her over to Poquonnock without checking with my folks first to get their permission. You could at least have spoken with me before you asked her."

"I never asked her, Jackie, she asked me. And besides, Faye was with us the whole time and I didn't try nothing with her anyways."

"If I thought you'd tried anything with her Frank, we wouldn't be out here just talking. I believe you when you say she asked you, but I'm asking you, as her brother, not to give her anymore rides in your car without first getting permission from my parents. Can you do that Frank?"

"I can do it Jackie, and I will do it, too. I don't need any of your threats though, yours or your old man's."

"My old man isn't here, Frank, it's only you and me. I wasn't threatening you either, just saying that I wouldn't let anybody get away with taking advantage of Joan. If you got any problem with that, then you better just keep the fuck away from her from now on, you got that?" For just a minute there I thought Frank was gonna get all froggy on me, I could tell he was thinking about it, but I guess he decided not to try me because he just nodded once and went back inside. My father was home by the time I got back, but I decided not to say anything to him about Joan's little stunt. He had enough on his plate trying to get Annie off the hook on the charges filed against her over the spanner wrench assault.

"Did you go over to Frank's Jackie?" Joan was washing the supper dishes and I was drying them. My parents were in the living watching the television. My brother was out somewhere at a friends house and Annie was in her bedroom still crying and feeling all depressed.

"I sure did. And I told him not to be giving you anymore rides anywhere without first getting the OK from the folks." She gave me a really fierce look.She was as mad as I think I'd ever seen her. She took a supper plate and threw it with all her might down on the floor. It made a hell of a noise, but it didn't break. I bent over and picked it up and rinsed it off and started drying it.

"What in the hell is all that racket in there? Don't you know we're trying to watch the television in here?" My father didn't sound too happy about us disturbing him.

"Sorry pop, a plate slipped out of Joan's hand, but it didn't break." Joan's glare got even worse, and I thought she was going to throw another plate or maybe a pot this time. We finished up the supper dishes and everything was put away. Joan went into her bedroom and came back out with her winter coat on and was putting a knitted muffler over her head. As she passed through the living room, my mother looked up at her and asked her where she thought she was off to.

"I'm going out, I can't stand listening to Annie anymore and there's no one here I want to be with right now." Talk about waving a red flag in front of a bull, my father was up out of his chair in a flash.

"You just sit your little butt down in this chair, miss smart ass, and tell me again just where the hell you think you're going on a night like this and without first asking and getting my permission?" Joan looked at my father with the same look she had given me earlier in the kitchen and started back towards the front door. "You better get back here right now Joan, if you know what's good for you." She opened the door and went out, slamming it behind her. By the time my father and I had put our coats on and gone outside, she had disappeared. We spent the next three hours looking for her, going door to door and asking neighbors if they'd seen her. We went over to the teen center and my father went inside and made them stop the music that was playing and asked everybody there if they'd seen her in the past hour or so. No luck. After we got back home and she still wasn't there, I walked over to Frank's house and once again knocked at their door. Mr. Tierney answered the door and said that he hadn't seen Joan and that Frank had gone over to the dance. I thanked him and left.

Joan came waltzing home at around 11:00 that night and refused to answer either my mother or father's questions about where she had been, saying only that she'd been out and it was her business who she'd been with. Finally, my mother took her to her bedroom and told her the consequences of her little night out on the town. The next Monday my mother enrolled Joan in the all girl Catholic high school, and told her she could either do what she was told to do and like it, or she could get her ass out on her own and wind up just like Margaret Tracy, selling her ass in New London and taking drugs. That sounds very harsh, and it was. Fifteen year old girls didn't run roughshod over their parents stated wishes in those days. Parents weren't the least bit squeamish about handing out stern consequences for children being out of their control either. Had I attempted what Joan did, I'd have been beaten to a bloody pulp and left out in the cold to die. In my father's house, you did what he told you to do. Period! It might not have been fair or good, but that's how it was.

I was heading towards my first class Monday morning when a girl that I knew slightly told me that she'd seen Joan kissing Frank Tierney in the lobby of the movie house on Friday night. She said they were all over each other and she'd had to turn her head away because she was so embarrassed at their behavior. I managed to find Frank just before the second period began and asked him whether he'd gone to the movies on Friday with Joan. He said he had and that if I wanted to do anything about it he'd be happy to meet me after school anywhere I wanted. Neither one of us made it to second period, or any other class that day. Frank decided to leave school early, and I drove him home in his car, just to make sure he didn't pass out again and crash. He put up a pretty good fight, landed a lot of punches and wouldn't quit even when he knew he was beat. We had decided to go out in the lot next to the school to settle our differences after I told him exactly what I thought of someone giving his promise and then breaking it a few hours later. He said he didn't care what I thought, about anything, and if Joan wanted to get laid, he'd make sure that she got exactly what she wanted. When the fight was over, Frank knew that he'd keep getting more of the same treatment if I so much as heard a rumor that he'd screwed my little sister. After he assured me that he understood me and would stay as far away from her as he could, I reinforced my commitment to enforcing his good behavior by kicking him unconscious.

When Joan got home from her new school that afternoon she and I had a talk. I told her that Frank had bragged to me about screwing her Friday and that I'd just kicked his ass, but that dad was going to kill him as soon as he got home after I told him exactly what she'd been doing on Friday night. Joan cried and swore up and down that Frank had lied about her, that he kissed her a lot, at the movies and in his car, and that she'd let him touch her breasts outside her sweater, in the car, but she swore that nothing else had happened. I loved her and I didn't want her to end up with a bad reputation, or even worse, banished from the family, and totally cast adrift. She and I finally came to an agreement, I wouldn't tell my father what I'd learned about Friday, and she would be on her best behavior and not cause anybody anymore grief. That plan lasted until my father came home from the base and changed out of his uniform and walked over to the Tierney's. I saw the look in his eye and ran after him hoping I could head him off.

"Hold it pop, where are you going? Wait up a minute, what's this about? Dad, don't go making things bigger than they already are, it won't do anybody any good. Think about Joan's reputation here." Finally he stopped and turned, letting me come closer.

"What have you heard, Yutch? Is it as bad as I heard? If it is, I swear that boy is going to wish he was dead when I'm through with him."

"Pop it wasn't anything, they went to the movies and smooched a little. Nothing else happened. I already talked with both of them, it was pretty innocent, so please don't go off half cocked." I was chasing after him again right after I said smooched. He went bounding up the stairs and started hammering on the Tierney's front door with the edge of his fist. Mr Tierney came to the door and he had a pistol in his hand. He didn't point it at my father, but he told my father to get off his steps and he'd come out and they could talk. My father really liked Mr. Tierney pretty well, otherwise he'd never have gone to him for the wash machine. My father looked at the gun and debated whether to take it away from him or not. I really think that if I hadn't spoken with him before he got to the Tierney's he would have just gotten the gun away and wreaked havoc on the whole household, or else died in the attempt.

"John, I'm coming out and Frank is right behind me. I've left the gun inside, but I don't want anymore trouble from the two of you." Mr. Tierney came out and Frank stepped out and stood holding the railing to the steps. He really looked like shit, one side of his face was all swollen and looked misshapen. I guess I'd kicked him harder than I'd thought. My father looked over at Frank and I heard him draw in a sharp breath and exhale it slowly.

"Jesus Christ, Jim, I know he did a bad thing there, but you didn't have to punish him that bad! It isn't like he raped her or anything."

"You think I'd do something like this to my own son, John? It was your boy there that did this. He put the boot to Frank, he did, and he belongs in a jail cell for doing it." My father looked over at me then, but I couldn't tell what he was thinking. He looked almost shocked.

"When a seventeen or eighteen year old fella takes advantage of a fourteen year old girl, then somebody belongs in a jail, or in a grave, and it isn't my boy who did that, Jim.

"She's fifteen, and I didn't take any advantage of her."

"She's however fucking old I say she is you son of a bitch! And if you want to talk to me you can come right down here and do it like a man and not hide behind your father here. Jim, you better reign him in now, I'm starting to lose my patience. I'm a reasonable man, but I won't tolerate having my daughter's virtue violated and have the fucker who did the vile deed smarting off to me when I've come to get satisfaction."

"John, nobody was violated here. It was two kids going to a movie. I'm upset that Frank lied to me about what he was up to, but did he deserve this for taking a girl to a movie?"

"You got anything to say for yourself here Yutch? If you do, now is a good time to say it."