Chapter 1

It was sometime in 1963 that my sister Annie started making some big changes in her life. Ever since her problems with Kevin Hartigan five years before, she had avoided relationships that were anything more than casual sexual encounters.

I don't know how many short term affairs she may have had, but the number was larger than most girls at that time. She liked sex, and wasn't too shy about letting someone know if she found him attractive.

She avoided married guys, or men who were in serious relationships, but anyone else was fair game as far as she was concerned. Sexually speaking, she acted just like the guys of that era, getting laid whenever a good opportunity presented itself.

The first time I knew that anything different was going on was when my brother Ray came over to see me on a Saturday, sometime in early February. He asked me if I had heard anything going on concerning Annie, and I told him that I hadn't.

"Something's definitely going on Jackie, I've heard a few guys complaining that Annie has stopped being "friendly" all of a sudden. She hasn't been showing up much at most of her usual places, and when she does, she's leaving by herself. I thought she might have said something about it to either you or Ellen." I told him that Annie was old enough to decide for herself about things like that, but that I'd check with her soon just to make sure that things were going Ok with her.

Ray asked me if he could borrow my Impala for the evening since he had a big date and wanted to show her a good time. He promised to give it a good wash and a wax and to not use up too much gas while he had it. When I told him all right, he then proceeded to borrow ten bucks from me too.

I really admired the way he worked me to get what he wanted. He was so good at it, after he left, I felt like he'd done me a favor by doing the borrowing from me, rather then going to someone else.

I went into the house and asked Ellen if she'd spoken with Annie lately. When she told me it had been a couple weeks since she'd heard from Annie, I told her about my conversation with Ray.

Ellen seemed upset that I hadn't asked Ray more questions about it. Women think differently then men about stuff like that. I told her that it might be better if she checked in with Annie, rather than me, because the two of them were comfortable talking about anything.

She told me that she would call Annie as soon as her baking was finished. Ellen was after me to put an extension phone in the kitchen, so that she could chat on the phone when she was waiting around for things to be cooked, and couldn't leave them alone for long.

Every time she got a chance to show me how much easier her life would be if she had a phone in the kitchen, she'd get in a little commercial in favor of the extension.

"Call the phone company on Monday and get extensions installed in the bedroom and in the kitchen, Ellen. Maybe you also think that you need another one in the crapper too, but you just tell them to give you a long cord in the bedroom that will allow you to take the phone into the bathroom."

"You're the best, Jackie, mom will be so pissed that I've got three phones and she only has two. Can I get a second line for the kitchen too, so I can call out even when you're on the other line? It won't be that much more money, and I'd stop asking for anything else about phones from then on, promise."

I knew she was only saying that she'd stop asking, but even that, her saying it, was a big improvement, so I nodded my yes to her, and got myself a nice smooch as a reward. It always amazed me how friendly women can be when you just let them have their way with things.

I forgot all about my conversation with Ray after that, and was only half listening a couple weeks later when Ellen started talking about some dinner engagement we were going to the next Saturday evening with someone named Yanoush or something like that.

"Wait a minute, who or what is a Yanoush?"

He's Annie's new boyfriend, haven't you been listening to a single word I've been telling you?"

The answer to that question is always 'yes, of course I have', but suddenly, I really wanted to know just what important information I'd missed out on getting.

"Sorry, hon, I'm afraid I was looking at your ass and thinking about something else entirely. I'll try to pay better attention from now on, please repeat it for me."

Well, it worked, so I got to hear the whole thing right from the beginning.

"Good recovery, Jackie. All right, I was telling you that Annie and I had a nice long talk, on my new kitchen phone, not the extension in the bedroom, because I was in the kitchen and that long cord you had me get them to put in doesn't quite reach all the way to the kitchen., plus I was leaving the other line open in case you needed to call me for something."

"If you don't hurry up and get to the good part, I'm going back to thinking about your gorgeous ass some more."

"Aren't you being sweet? Anyway, Annie has a new boyfriend, he's a Hungarian man from Hungary, over in Europe? You remember that country that the Russians attacked with their soldiers and tanks a few years back? Anyway, his name is Janos, spelled J-A-N-O-S, even though it sounds different than it's spelled. That means John here, isn't that funny? He works at the Sunoco station over by your parent's house. He's thirty years old, and was a school teacher in Hungary before the Revolution or uprising, whatever they call it. Annie seems quite taken by him. She hasn't been out with anyone else in almost two months now. We're all going out to dinner, Saturday night, so we can meet him. Annie doesn't want to take him to meet your parents just yet. Isn't that exciting news? I'm so happy for her, and she sounds like a young girl again."

"I'll just wait a bit and hold off on celebrating until after we get to see this guy. I'm not that sure I like my sister being with some foreigner. What's he doing working in a gas station if he's a teacher anyway? Something doesn't smell right here if you ask me."

"Well, when we meet them Saturday, we'll find out all about him. Annie wants us to go someplace where there's dancing. She says Janos is a real good dancer, and we haven't been dancing in a long time."

After that, I kind of tuned her out again and went back to thinking my own private thoughts. Annie didn't have too good a record with picking out guys. I figured I better go check this guy out myself, before Saturday.

The next morning I went over to the Sunoco station and got my tires rotated and my oil changed and had a new fan belt put on. While I was waiting for them to finish up with everything on the car, I had myself a little talk with Doug Myers, the guy who owned the garage and the Sunoco dealership.

He told me that this Janos guy had been there for two years and had pretty much kept to himself until he and Annie started going out. He said the guy was taking night classes up in New Haven two nights a week to get his Connecticut teacher's certificate, or something, so he could teach in the schools around here.

He also told me the guy was dependable, and helpful, although he didn't know shit about automobiles other than where the gas and oil went, how to check oil, water levels, and tire pressure. I found out the guy only made forty bucks a week too.

When I got back home and told Ellen all this useful information, she wasn't at all impressed with me. Women don't value the direct approach for gathering information, they like to trick it out of the guy themselves, without him ever being the wiser.

By Saturday afternoon the two ladies had picked a place for dinner and another for dancing and we all had agreed to meet at the restaurant at five thirty. Just the excitement of going out dancing had Ellen so worked up that we had ourselves a little 'nooner' which we didn't then do as often as we had in the past.

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I accepted my good fortune and did my best to ring her chimes a time or two. Ellen was always very responsive to my tongue work, and I could get her up there and keep her there for quite awhile.

I figured if I spent a little extra time and effort before the evening got started, then she wouldn'y be so likely to start up with her games when we were out with Annie and Janos. Well, it was worth taking a shot.

Cleaned up, Janos looked better than he had over at his work. He was only about five seven, or so and had light brown hair that was thinning a little bit on top. He talked with an accent, but a person could understand him Ok. He kept mixing up his "V's" and his "W's". He would say vorked instead of worked and wery good instead of very good.

Other than that, his English was as good as a lot of people who'd been in this country a lot longer than him. He claimed that he spoke five languages, but since I only spoke the one, I just had to accept that on faith.