by Lamb, Wally
I’m seventeen again, stuck in Sterling because that’s where my foster family lives. I’m dating Albie, not because I like him very much, but because one thing has led to another. Two of those snooty girls from my high school, Holly Grandjean and Kathy Fontaine, finally have noticed me—well, not me so much as what we sell at Jo-Jo’s Nut Shack. “Oh, wook. Gummy bears! I wuv Gummy bears,” Kathy says, and Holly says she “wuvs” them, too. I’m not sure why they’re talking baby talk. Are they making fun of me? But then, I decide they aren’t because Holly looks up from my merchandise to me and says I look familiar. “Don’t you go to Plainfield High?” she says, and I nod and tell them that all three of us were in the same gym class freshman year. I’m so grateful that they’re acknowledging my existence, these girls I thought I hated, that I shovel scoop after scoop of gummy bears into an open bag and tell them to just take them instead of paying for them. And then, at the end of my shift, my boss, Leland, points up at the surveillance camera mounted over the entrance to Jordan Marsh. It’s aimed right at my kiosk. Leland tells me to take off my Jo-Jo’s apron and not come back because I’m fired.
But a week later, I get another, better job waitressing at Friendly’s. My manager, Winona Wignall, assigns me to the take-out window, which the newest waitress always gets. But within two weeks, Priscilla is the new girl, and I’m serving people at the counter and making tips. Over the next weeks, Priscilla and I become friends, bonded by the fact that, out of all the Friendly’s waitresses, Winona likes us two the least.
Winona’s son, Albie, is twenty-three but he acts younger. He works at the Midas Mufflers down the road. After work, he comes over to Friendly’s to eat and hang around. He starts picking my section to sit at every time, and it’s kind of flattering, although he’s not much of a tipper. One time all he leaves me is eleven stacked pennies. Albie’s over six feet tall, and he’s blond and broad but not really fat, which is a miracle because when he comes in, he’ll eat a Big Beef with fries and a Fribble, and sometimes after that, will have dessert, too—a sundae, usually, which, when he orders it, he always calls it the Albie Special. The Albie Special is four scoops of chocolate almond chip ice cream, strawberry sauce and hot fudge, and chopped peanuts, the whole thing topped with whipped cream, jimmies, and cherries (three instead of the usual one). Sometimes when I put those sundaes in front of him, our other customers look over at it, and they’re probably thinking, wow, how does that guy rate? This one Holy Roller couple who comes in all the time? (They asked Winona once if they could leave their religious pamphlets for our other customers to take and she said no.) They always stare over at Albie’s sundae while he’s eating it, and I feel like going: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods. (My foster family sent me to parochial school, and I can still recite all the Commandments.) Instead of reminding them about the tenth commandment, though, I told the Holy Rollers that Albie pays extra for his sundae. He doesn’t really. He gets all that extra stuff for the price of a regular hot fudge, plus you have to give him his mother’s employee discount besides. Winona calls Albie “Big Boy,” which fits him size-wise but also is pretty funny because Albie acts childish, especially around his mother, who he still calls “Mommy.” He’s not all that much younger than my brother Donald, except Donald is already married and acts like a grown-up, which he is. So is Albie, technically, but he lives in his parents’ basement and still gets an Easter basket, which I know because all during Lent, Winona kept buying stuff for Albie’s Easter basket and hiding it in our break room. One time, Priscilla stole two Almond Joys from one of the bags. She snuck me one, and whenever we looked at each other during that shift, we couldn’t help laughing.
One night, while Albie’s holding up his elbows because I’m wiping down the counter where he sits, he asks me out. I didn’t expect it, and I don’t know what to say at first, so I say, “Let me think about it.” Then later on I tell him yes, okay, I’ll go. Because, hey, I’m not stupid. He’s my boss’s son.
For our date, Albie takes me to the drive-in. It’s a double feature: the first and second Planet of the Apes movies. (I’ve already seen the first one and thought it was stupid, but Albie picked the movie.) At intermission, he asks me do I want anything from the snack bar. I tell him yes please, a box of Good & Plenty. When he gets back in the car, he’s got my candy plus, for himself, three foil-wrapped hot dogs and a big soda. In between eating my Good & Plenty, I keep shaking the box, which is partly just this habit I’ve had since I was little but also partly because I like the sound. It comforts me.
Albie keeps looking over at me while he’s eating and I can smell that he has liquor breath. “Did you put something in your Coke?” I ask him.
“It’s not Coke. It’s root beer.”
“Yeah, but did you?” He nods, smiles, and pulls a half-empty bottle out of his back pocket. When he hands it to me, I squint and read the label. LONG JOHN’S GINGER BRANDY, it says. Eighty proof.
“You know something?” Albie says. “You’re pretty.”
“No, I’m not,” I tell him. I’m thinking about what I heard someone call liquor once: “Dutch courage.” I don’t know why. What’s so Dutch about getting drunk?
“Yes, you are, and you know you are, too,” Albie says. Ha! I think. He’s either drunk or blind. But then I think, well, maybe in Albie’s eyes, I’m like those girls at the mall who I got fired trying to impress. He scoots closer to my side and starts playing with my hair and my left ear. Then he leans over and starts kissing my neck. He’s trying to be sexy, I guess, but it just tickles, plus now his breath smells like both brandy and hot dogs, which isn’t very appealing. After a while, he reaches down and takes my hand in his. It makes me think of that song “I Want to Hold Your Hand” that’s on my brother Donald’s Meet the Beatles! album. When Donald got married and moved out of state, he gave me all of his old Beatles albums, which I still play quite a bit, even though the Beatles broke up because of Yoko Ono. Instead of watching Return to the Planet of the Apes or thinking about what Albie’s up to, I start singing that song in my head. And when I touch you I feel happy inside . . . It makes me think about this girl in my fourth grade public school class named Carol Cosentino who used to wear a pink sailor hat that had all these little metal Beatles buttons pinned all over it. Carol’s favorite Beatle was George, I remember. I wonder whatever happened to her. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that Albie, while he’s still holding my hand, is using his other hand to fiddle with his pants. Then I hear this snap-snapping sound and I see his belt flying into the back. From the way he just lifted his butt off the seat, he might have just pulled his pants down. I’m not sure, but I’m certainly not going to look over there and find out. But then he moves my hand over to his side and puts it down there—him and his Dutch courage. I can feel that he’s still got his underpants on, which is a relief, but I can also feel that he’s got a lump in there. A “boner,” I’ve heard boys at school call it when they’re talking dirty in the cafeteria. “Please?” he whispers, moving my hand up and down against his lump. I let him do it, not because I want to but because he said please, which makes me feel, kind of, that it’s me who’s in control of the situation, not him, and also because if Albie likes me, then maybe Winona will like me better, too, and assign me to Section A, where those lawyers from the office building next door always sit, and they’re big tippers. Those booths are Althea’s section, usually. Althea is Winona’s pet and she used to be Albie’s girlfriend. One day I overheard her telling one of the other waitresses that she broke up with him because he has no class. But according to Albie, he broke up with her because, unlike me, Althea is “a bitch on wheels who thinks her shit don’t stink.” That’s one thing I have to say for myself: I never, ever leave a bathroom smelly; I’m very careful about that kind of thing. I keep matches in my purse even though I don’t smoke, and whenever I have to use the toilet and, you know, get the bathroom smelly, I always light a match and burn some toilet paper to, what’s it called? Oh yeah, fumigate it.
Part of me wants to yank my hand away from Albie’s lump, but another part of me says, what do I care? It doesn’t even feel like it’s my hand that’s doing what he’s making it do, and while he’s over there, mouth-breathing and making my hand go faster, I try thinking of other things. I make up this game where I have to think of all the songs on Abbey Road in the right order: “Come Together,” “Something,” “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” I get all the way to “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” and then I can’t think of what comes after that. It’s like my mind’s gone blank or something. Thinking about other things is something I learned to do on those nights when Kent would sneak into my room. I’d recite stuff they made us memorize in school: the Ten Commandments; the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries. I can still remember some of the Mysteries—the Annunciation, the Nativity, Finding Jesus in the Temple. And, let me think. . . . the Resurrection, the Crowning of Mary as Queen of Heaven. (One time, this girl who sat next to me, Tammy Tusia, had to go to the office for being sacrilegious because she leaned over and said to me, trying to be funny, “Gee if Mary got queen, who got first runner-up?” and Sister Presentation heard her say it. Luckily, I didn’t laugh so I didn’t get in trouble.) So that’s how many mysteries? While I’m counting how many I’ve said, Albie starts going, “Oh, god! Oh, fuck! Faster!” Oh, and there’s the Scourging at the Pillar, the Descent of the Holy Ghost. Albie starts to groan and now I can feel the wet stuff. I know from Kent that after the wet stuff comes out, they quiet down and stop bothering you. I finally remember the song that comes after “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” It’s “Here Comes the Sun”—the one George sings. I wonder if Carol Cosentino, wherever she is, still likes George the best, even though he has long scraggly hair now and a beard that makes him look like a hillbilly. In my opinion, the Beatles looked better when they had their Beatle haircuts, like on the Meet the Beatles! cover.
It’s after midnight by the time the drive-in gets out, and when Albie pulls up in front of my foster family’s house, he asks if he can kiss me good night and I say no, it’s late and I have to go in, and he accepts it. See? I’m in control. Not him. “Can I call you?” he asks. I make him wait a couple of seconds. Then I say, “Yeah, okay.” Albie’s not handsome or anything, but he’s sort of cute. Priscilla from work thinks he’s borderline fat and has kind of a pig face, and I can see her point, too. Upstairs, while I’m getting ready for bed, I decide Albie’s ugly-cute, like Ringo. Not that he looks anything like Ringo. He looks like Winona, although he acted kind of insulted when I told him that.
On our next date, Albie and I go to the drive-in again. Saturday Night Fever is playing this time, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing it because I’ve had a little bit of a crush on John Travolta from when he was Vinnie Barbarino on TV. But Albie’s wrecking it for me because he keeps telling me he’d bet me any amount of money that John Travolta is a homosexual. (How would he know?) I’m sitting there, trying to enjoy the movie, and Albie keeps saying stuff like, “Look! There’s your evidence. That’s a flitty walk” and “You know who dances like that? Queers, that’s who. I swear on a stack of Bibles: that guy is light in the loafers.”
“Do you mind?” I finally say, and after that he shuts up for a while, thank god. Then, halfway through the movie, there’s lightning and thunder and it starts pouring. The movie stops and it says on the speaker that they’re closing but giving everyone fog passes at the exit. When we get ours, Albie says he sure as hell would hate to sit through that faggy John Travolta movie again and, to be funny, I guess, he puts the fog passes in his mouth, chews on them, and then spits them out his window. I don’t like Althea, but she’s right about him: Albie’s got no class.
It’s early still, so we go to Kelly’s Drive-Thru and get Cokes and clam fritters, and while we’re eating our food, the rain stops. Albie throws out our trash, and then he starts his car and drives us out to Oak Swamp Reservoir, which is a make-out spot for kids our age. Well, my age. It’s easy to forget that Albie’s six years older than me. He parks and turns off his engine but keeps the radio on. They’re playing that song “Baker Street,” which I like, but when I say I do, Albie says it sucks and that he wants to listen to some real music. He reaches under his seat and pulls out a Judas Priest cassette and puts it into his player. “Yuck,” I say. “Where’s my earplugs?” and Albie says I obviously don’t know good music and turns up the volume. We start making out a little, and he guides my hand down there again to that same area as last time, big surprise, and he’s got his lump again. “Please, sweetie. Please,” he says. It makes me think of that thing my father said to me that time when he caught me feeding veal loaf to our cat, Fluffy, under the table. “You start that, Anna Banana, and he’ll pester you nonstop.” One thing about my father: whenever he got finished working on our car, he always came in and washed his hands with that scratchy soap powder, Boraxo, to get the grease off. But Albie always has greasy hands, and, when he gets close to you, he smells like . . . mufflers.
Five minutes later, Albie still hasn’t finished and my hand’s starting to go numb. Then something unexpected happens. He puts his hand between my legs and starts tongue-kissing my mouth at the same time. I let him because it feels kind of strange but also a little bit good, and the more he does it, the less I want him to stop. “Mmm, you’re wet,” he whispers.
“No, I’m not,” I say. Am I?
“Yeah, you are,” Albie says. “You’re so wet, I almost need a mop. You’re good and ready for it, aren’t you?”
I know what “it” is, and I don’t want it in me, but I don’t not want it, either. I’m confused. So when he pulls me into the backseat and gets on top of me, I let him. He pokes his thing all around down there but his aim is bad. Then he finally figures it out. He starts whispering stuff like “Oh, Jesus” and “Oh, baby” and he’s pumping his hips faster and faster, and that’s when, all of a sudden, I think about birth control. “Hey!” I say. “Stop. I don’t want to get pregnant.” He says it’s no problem, that he’ll pull out before he “nuts,” which, I think, must mean when his wet stuff comes. There’s a lot about sex that I still don’t get, but I know it’s their wet stuff that gets the girl pregnant. And Albie does pull out, too, going, “Oh, fuck! Oh, Jesus!” I don’t appreciate the fact that he’s gotten his stuff all over my stomach, and even a little of it on my new pocketbook, which I only bought the day before yesterday at Two Guys because Althea was out sick and I got assigned her section and one of those lawyers gave me a twenty for a bill that was only four dollars and seventeen cents and said to keep the change.
The next Monday in English, Mrs. Sonstroem has us read aloud from the book we’re reading, A Tale of Two Cities. I’m trying to concentrate, but a part of me is back at the Oak Swamp Reservoir with Albie, and him making me feel that tingly way. “Miss O’Day,” she says. “You’re next.” I hate reading out loud and have been hoping the bell would ring without me getting picked. No such luck. Plus, I’m not sure where the last person left off and Jeannie Baker has to lean over and point to where. Before I start, I see Kenny Lalla and John Marchese smirk at each other and I hear Stanley whisper under his breath, “Get ready.” Get ready for what? I wonder, but I start reading. And when I get to the sentence “My father has been freed!” Lucie ejaculated, the boys—first just Kenny and Stanley, and then a bunch of the others, all start laughing. None of the girls are laughing out loud or anything, but some of them are smiling at each other, and Betsy Yeznach’s hand is covering her mouth. I don’t get what’s so funny.
“All right, that’s enough!” Mrs. Sonstroem, who almost never yells, starts yelling. “Maybe if you’re all this immature, we shouldn’t even read Charles Dickens, who happens to be one of the very best writers of all time.” Then she says something about pearls and swine that I don’t get. One of the boys starts making pig snorts and she gives him a detention. Then the bell rings.
After school, and after I’ve changed into my Friendly’s uniform and still have a few minu
tes before I have to leave for work, I look up ejaculate in my foster family’s dictionary. 1. To utter suddenly and passionately; to exclaim, it says. Then, 2. To discharge abruptly, especially to discharge semen during orgasm. I look up semen. Then I look up orgasm. Okay, now I get it, I think. “Semen” is the guy’s milky discharge and “orgasm” is the highest point of sexual pleasure, marked in males by the ejaculation of semen and in females by vaginal contractions.
The next time Albie takes me out, we skip the drive-in and go right to the reservoir. I’ve put my pocketbook out of range this time. He pulls out in time again, and I think to myself: he just had an orgasm and ejaculated his semen. Unlike the last time, I’m not feeling much of anything myself, but at least I know the names of things now.
For our next date, I have to go over to the Wignalls’ house for dinner. I get embarrassed because once the food’s on the table, I start eating, but Albie and his parents are just looking at me. Then Mr. Wignall says they like to say grace first. “Oh,” I say. “Sorry.” He and Winona hold out their hands and I take them and Mr. Wignall thanks God for the bounty that’s in front of us. He and Winona have their eyes closed, but Albie and I don’t and Albie’s looking at me with this goofy grin on his face and making cross-eyes to be funny. When Mr. Wignall’s done, he opens his eyes again and says, “Let’s eat.” Winona’s done the cooking and it’s creamed dried beef on “toast points” (which is really just regular old toast, as far as I can see) plus beets (which I hate). The Wignalls pour vinegar on their beets, so I do, too, and the vinegar soaks all into my toast so that I have to eat this mushy pink vinegar bread to be polite. Mr. Wignall has seconds and Albie has thirds. For dessert we have green Jell-O with canned fruit in it, which is something Mama used to make, too. Except at our house, everyone got their own separate dish of Jell-O, but at the Wignalls’ it’s in a big bowl and you pass it around and then squirt Reddi-wip on top. And in the middle of dessert, Mr. Wignall says to Winona, “Sweetness, would you pass me some more Jell-O?” I almost start laughing, thinking about how, the next day at work, I’ll tell Priscilla about Winona’s husband calling her Sweetness and how it’ll crack her up. It’s like I’m a spy or something. Then Winona says, “Would you like more cream, too, Sweetness?” and Albie says there is no more, that he ran the can dry, which is no surprise because he squirted so much cream on his Jell-O that, if he was my kid, I would have yelled at him for being a pig and not thinking about anyone but himself.
