The
lyrics “I’ve Got a Brand New Pair of Roller Skates…” floats down the stairway
from Diane Calibri’s apartment. I’m
about to bolt but Eddie Cornwall says “rallright, Ravit Reatty!” in his best
Jetson’s voice and heads up for the door.
Eddie and I had started hanging out again in eighth grade
when my Little League and Pop Warner were done but high school sports had not
yet begun. We had already been nailed
once that fall. The Army Corps of
Engineers was straightening the Middle Brook after a flash flood through the
neighborhoods. One night we climbed up
into their biggest rig, an earth grader, and found the key in the
ignition.
“It’s gonna run into the
firehouse” I warned, stopping Eddie from trying to start the thing.
“Nah, it’s like my Dad’s
milk truck” he countered, stepping on the clutch and turning the key.
It rumbled to life but
stalled before he got it rolling. The
second start stuck and the headlights came on revealing the black car of one of
the firemen speeding around the firehouse with its lights off. He nabbed us as we scrambled down.
After our groundings we spend our nights and weekends
looking for two things. Eddie expresses
one in a song:
God-damn
David let me set you straight
your
Mama got a cunt like a two-forty-eight
with
hair so long it can mop up floor
ping
pong titties that can bounce off the door.
We find the other one on a
Sunday when we skip services at the
I’m
sitting on a log at the biker’s pit pretending to smoke a Marlboro when Eddie
speeds over yelling “Hop on, we got it.”
He had seen the Ducati lying in the creek at the bottom of a steep hill
just past the poop hole. A crow flies up
off the handlebar as we scramble down and pull out the motorcycle dripping
mud. Eddie says “C’mon, let’s get it
outta here before he comes back.” It
takes us an hour to drag it up the hill, another hour to fail at kick starting
it, another to fail at push starting.
It’s getting dark by the time we roll it into the bushes beside Eddie’s
house. Working on it would have to wait
because Diane’s mother is going out that night.
She throws open the door with “Hi guys” and hits a button
on the record player, dropping the new 45 from the Tommy album down onto the
turntable. Her shy and pretty friend
Robin lights a candle as “See me, feel me…” sweeps the four of us onto the
couch. Eddie shouts “Want to hear my new
song?” and launches into it before the girls can answer:
Ain’t
your Mama pretty
she
got meatballs in her titty
she
got scrambled egg
between
her leg
ain’t
your Mama pretty?
Diane reaches back, hits the
lights, slips onto his lap, and plants a wet kiss. Robin just rolls her eyes and leans away from
them and toward me. Our eyes meet and we
smile before bumping lips. A giggle out
of the way, we hold each other’s cheeks and touch puckered lips, then whole
lips, then tips of tongues. Mine finds
fine hairs at one corner, a groove on top, a smile at the other corner, a
smooth lower lip. Then it’s tongue to
tongue, teeth, nose, and chin. The room
echoes with sighs, slurps, moans, and jingles.
It takes us a moment to decipher that keys are being fumbled in the
door. Then Diane leaps for the light
switch, Robin the candle, and Eddie and I the chairs across the room. Mrs. Calibri surveys the scene and says “See
you later, boys.”
The
sycamore leaves turn tan as Eddie and I either fiddle with the Ducati or meet
Diane and Robin down the brook. We make
a little fort with cardboard and dried grass under the bushes beside a back
trail. Robin and I are still above the
neck but Eddie and Diane are under shirts and heading south fast when winter
comes.
One
Saturday before Christmas Eddie calls and says “Get over here quick, I figured
her out”. I hop on my big black Schwinn
with the banana bike handle bars and pedal up
