Chapter 2

It seemed to me that my birthday party had just as much of an effect on the other people attending the party as it did on me. Three weeks later, when Ed Nulty had his fourteenth birthday party, his mother rented out my mom's dance studio for it. There were about twenty of us invited to the party, with Ed inviting the guys he wanted to have attend, and my mother and Mrs. Nulty inviting the girls. It was a sock hop themed party, where dancing was expected and encouraged. I had made sure that my mom invited Eileen to Ed's party.

Eileen was a year behind me in school, and since I was a freshman in high school, she was an eighth grader at the junior high school where my sister went. I had been quizzing Bill Terry about Eileen almost everyday for the last two weeks. I found out that she was moving to our town from Detroit, Michigan. Her father was coming to work in Bill's father's construction company. They were brothers, Bill's dad and his uncle, and Bill's dad had been after his brother to move here to help him for several years. After his business was well established, Bill's dad offered his brother a part ownership in it if he'd come out to work with him. Eileen's mother was a very good friend with Bill's mother too.

I found out that Eileen was six months younger than I was. She was an only child, and, according to Bill, her parents let her get away with almost anything she wanted to do. Bill had seen her smoking a cigarette in front of both her parents, and she took sips of her father's beers sometimes as well. Up until this time in our lives, Bill and I hadn't done anything as grown up as either of those two things. We both had tried chewing tobacco once, but we found out that swallowing the juice led to vomiting. Bill and I had both watched while Tommy Lampkin stole records from the five and dime, but neither of us wanted to steal anything. We were typical teens of our time and place. Small town, middle America had been turning out children like us for the past forty years.

Viet Nam was going to start getting in the news soon, and Ike was leaving office. John F. Kennedy was going to usher in a new era, and personal values were going to undergo a radical shift because of the birth control pill, war protests, and a new political age where the North/South antipathy seemed like nothing when compared to the hawk/dove schism that would soon replace it.

I still watched Leave it to Beaver on our television set, but I was starting to appreciate the Eddie Haskell character more and more. My friends and I all thought that Wally Cleaver was too much of a goody goody to be believable. "The Beav" was too gullible I thought. In my town, at that time, that made my friends and me radicals. In the school cafeteria, we talked about a wider array of topics than ever before. Part of it was associating with the other, older, high school kids, but most of it was that we were beginning to grow up and change in our own perspectives.

On the Saturday of Ed Nulty's party, I took special pains with my grooming and clothes. I knew that Eileen would be there, and I wanted to make a good impression on her. She was there, and we danced a few dances, but it wasn't like that first time at my party. She seemed withdrawn to me, definitely not interested in making further progress with our relationship. In fact, I got the distinct impression that she wasn't very interested in me now, period. I learned later, from Bill and my sister, that Eileen was going steady with another eighth grader in her class. At the time, I felt bad, like I had allowed a golden opportunity to slip past me.

I had really been looking forward to getting better acquainted with Eileen. In fact, Eileen had been the girl I was fantasizing about a few nights before Ed's party. I was in the shower, and it was the first time I ever masturbated to an ejaculation. Somehow, even though she hadn't been present in that shower with me, I thought this meant some bond had been forged between the two of us. It was definitely a case of a totally unrealistic expectation on my part. About halfway through Ed's birthday party, when it finally became apparent to me that Eileen wasn't interested in developing a relationship with me, I started paying attention to Clara Townsend. I asked her to dance first, and then, after the dance was finished, I started talking to her while she sat down next to my sister.

I already knew that Clara liked me. Kate enjoyed teasing her about it, and making her blush when I was around them. Unlike Eileen, I could tell that Clara was really enjoying the attention that I was paying her. It wasn't the same to me though. Clara was cute enough, but she hadn't started maturing yet. She didn't even have the beginnings of breasts, or any outward sign of having entered into puberty. I think that part of the reason why I put any kind of move on Clara was to see if Eileen might notice and become jealous. While I was over talking with Clara, Bill came sniffing around after Kate, asking her to dance again. I hadn't said anything to either one of them about the kiss I'd seen them giving each other at my birthday party. I thought Kate was too young to be kissing boys, especially boys that I knew and hung around with.

When Kate got up and went off to dance, I took her seat next to Clara. For some reason, maybe it was just instinct, I put my hand on top of her hand which was resting on the table. I felt her whole body go tense, even though it was only my hand on top of hers.

"Relax, Clara, I'm not going to bite you or anything. What's the big deal anyway? I held your hand when we were dancing a minute ago."

"We're not dancing now, Larry, and anyone can look over here and see us like this."

I lifted my hand up, moving it no more than six inches away before letting it come to rest down on the table again, sitting it there real close to hers. Both of us were aware of where our respective hands were placed. Clara actually stared at my hand, seemingly afraid that it might somehow get loose and attack her or something. I wanted to say something to put her at ease.

"So, what's going on between Kate and Bill? Are they going out together?" I thought I was making a clever joke. Clara reacted like I had slapped her or something. She got flustered, and looked like she was trying to catch her breath. "Tell me that you're just kidding. Bill and Kate, I don't believe it! Wait until my mom finds out about this." Her hand reached over and took mine in a vise grip. For a second there, it scared me because she was squeezing it so hard.

"Larry, you can't say anything. It's a secret. If Kate thinks I told you, she'll never speak to me again!"

How in the hell could something like that happen? Right under my nose too. Bill and Kate? She was only twelve years old for crap's sake! She wasn't much more developed than Clara was. And, Bill, he was supposed to be my very close friend. Could he really be sneaking around with my sister like that, behind my back? The only thing that kept me sitting at that table instead of confronting Bill and Kate was my very certain knowledge that Bill could kick my ass with one of his hands tied behind him. That being the case, I decided to try to worm some further information out of Clara. If it was as bad as I feared, well, there were a lot of things worse than getting your ass kicked.

"How long have they been going out, and what have they been up to?"

"Since your party, Larry, and they haven't done anything wrong. They've kissed some, and that's all. Kate isn't ready yet for anything more than that."

"She's too young for even that. Bill should know better. I bet he wouldn't like it if I was doing stuff with Jane, and she's a couple months older than Kate." The record stopped playing, and I saw Kate and Bill walking back over to our table again. I got up, pulling my hand away from Clara's. Kate saw where my hand had been though, and she immediately got the wrong idea.

"What have you two been up to while I was off dancing? Kate had almost a leer in her voice when she said that. Bill was standing right behind her, his hand placed casually on her shoulder. One minute before listening to Clara, I wouldn't have noticed where Bill had his hand. Now, I was going to notice everything there was to notice about these two.

"Clara was just trying to explain to me about how mad you were going to be at her when I tell mom and dad that you've been messing around with Bill behind everybody's back." The look that Kate shot at Clara was like my mom and Aunt Agnes sent our way when they were really upset with us for something. I'd never seen that look from Kate before. Bill took his hand off of Kate's shoulder and started to walk away from all of us. "Get your big ass back here Bill. You've got some explaining to do too. What do you think you've been doing with my kid sister?" I said this last part way too loud. I saw about ten kids turn around and look over our way. Worse than that, Mrs. Nulty heard me too, and started walking over to us. I think she was afraid that Bill and I were about to start fighting or something. With her approaching us, I either had to shut up about things for now, or keep on with it, knowing that I would then get my mother involved in it as well. Mrs. Nulty spoke to me.

"Is there a problem, Larry?" She didn't look that worried, more curious than worried, I'd say.

"No, Mrs. Nulty. I was just kidding around with Bill about dancing with Kate so much. I think he forgot that she's only a baby." Kate hauled off and kicked me right in the shins as soon as I said that about her. Next, just to show how right I was, she started crying. Right after that, Bill got all upset and came over close to me. He told me that he was just about ready to kick my ass if I didn't quiet down right away. So, like any other fourteen year old boy who'd been challenged, I punched him in his mouth.