Odyssey In A Teacup

by Paula Houseman

  One particular Sunday when it was our turn, the get-together was relocated to Ralph’s place because it was Albie’s birthday. I was allowed to bring Maxi and Vette. On this warm, breezy summer’s day, the adults sat on the back porch. The men set up folding chairs and a makeshift table—an old door, minus the handle, resting on a trestle. The women covered it with a couple of tatty cream-coloured, embroidered tablecloths, and brought out plates of food. Norma had made white bread sandwiches (Vegemite, cheese and tomato, mortadella and tomato, and just tomato). Sylvia had baked three Betty Crocker packet cakes (chocolate fudge, chiffon, and ginger), and Miri contributed potato chips, party pies, sausage rolls, cordial, bottles of soft drink, beer for the men, and champagne for toasting (where my family was comfortably off, Miri and Isaac Neuman were loaded).

  The older cousins, who had long since opted out of these gatherings, were there as well. They sat with the adults. Maxi, Vette, Ralph and I were now fifteen—too young to sit with the olds; too old to sit with the small fries. So after loading up our paper plates with food, we positioned ourselves in the far back corner of the big, level yard on one of the few patches of grass that wasn’t dead. Louwhiney and Zelda shared a picnic blanket just next to the porch. Everyone was happily stuffing their faces. For once, there was quietude and harmony. No eruptions of laughter after a joke, because no one was telling any. No oohs and aahs from the women after a juicy bit of gossip because no one was spreading any. Albie suddenly broke the silence, startling everyone as he yelled across the yard to Ralph.

  ‘Boy, you can t-t-t-take the B-b-bantam for a s-s-spin.’

  Seemed Herr Birthday Boy was in an unusually good mood. Ralph was thrilled to bits. He had longed to ride Albie’s precious Bantam motorbike since he’d had a taste of the experience about six months earlier. He disappeared into the shed in the other far corner of the yard, very carefully wheeled the bike out and proudly mounted her. He took off slowly. Hard to believe that he’d only ever ridden the bike once before, because in no time he looked like a pro. With a couple of tatts, a Wyatt Earp handlebar moustache, an Amish beard, a short (or long) ponytail and a leather jacket, Ralph could have passed for a Hells Angel rookie. Sitting astride this Bonsai Harley, though, he hardly looked the part with peach fuzzed cheeks, spiky hair, Gavin’s oversized T-shirt and loose, sunshine yellow seersucker short shorts. But he had the attitude. He also had a captive audience for a bit, although once he was cruising smoothly, no one paid him much attention.

  As Ralph zoomed round and round the yard, Maxi, Vette and I skirted the fence so as not to get run over, and made our way to the porch to top up our plates. Apart from the puttering and vrooming sound of the bike, there was general silence as adults and children were once again focused on shovelling food into their mouths. But as I moved to the south end of the table that held the drinks and paper cups, I heard Uncle Isaac whisper, ‘Oi! Nisht gut!’ That’s Yiddish for ‘Oh! Not good!’

  Squinting and staring into the yard, Isaac seemed to be speaking to no one in particular. I followed the direction of his gaze. Oi! Nisht gut, all right!

  Seemed that as Ralph relaxed and the ride got easier, he got ... harder. And this wasn’t the worst of it. As he stopped riding and put his foot down on the ground to steady himself, his ‘packed lunch’ (nuts and wiener) dropped out the side of his Gavin-shorts ‘n’ Gavin-Y-fronts. Hell, this is not good in any language! But still straddling the bike, Ralph was smiling broadly.

  Really? Ralph! How can you not feel that? Oh, Ralph!

  ‘He’s farkakt,’ whispered Uncle Isaac, meaning ‘he’s screwed.’ Even more so because Albie heard and also turned to look.

  ‘Gottfluch es, d-d-dummer T-T-T-Trottel!’ he said through gritted teeth. This means ‘God damn it, s-s-stupid n-n-n-nincompoop!’

  ‘SHIT A BRICK!’ screeched Maxi. This means ‘shit a brick!’

  Oh, Maxi. That got everyone’s attention. Everyone’s. They all turned to look.

  ‘Jesus,’ Vette whispered, and averted her eyes. She lapsed into silence like the rest of us. And the silence got more silent. The wind died, the leaves stopped rustling, and a cloud passed in front of the sun as if to stop it from seeing. Even nature was mortified.

  Ralph looked down and saw that his ‘boys’ had joined us outside and were swaying in the not-breeze. His face turning tomato-red, he dropped the bike and bolted for the house with his tail between his legs, and both hands cupped around everything else between his legs. No one moved or spoke. And like everyone, I was immobilised, dumbstruck, horrified. Yet, at the same time—and I’m ashamed to say this—I wanted to laugh because one of The Beach Boys’ hits was playing in my head, oombopbopping about good vibrations and excitations.

  I suspect george and simon heard the same song in their heads—God knows the void between their ears was big enough for them to hear it bouncing off the sides and echoing in quadraphonics—because they started to laugh. Bad call but also a good one, because it galvanised me into action—I was up like a shot, stopped dead and glared at them.

  ‘At least he’s got ‘em,’ I spat out.

  A verbal kick in the balls that they didn’t have. Still, it must have hurt. Tweedledee and Tweedledum-arse, bully-boys who were essentially cowards, cowered.

  I ran through the house and found Ralph in his bedroom. He was lying on his bed curled up in the foetal position under a threadbare blanket. I nearly knocked over a bucket full of vomit next to the bed. The smell was so strong, I felt like adding to it. But this wouldn’t have helped Ralph, who was sobbing, and I so wanted to comfort him. The level of humiliation he’d experienced cut deep. At first, I didn’t know what to say or do. Stroking his head and cooing didn’t make much of a difference. Then I instinctively put my hand on his shoulder and oh so gently said ... ‘Nice tackle.’

  Ralph stopped crying and turned to look at me. A slow smile spread across his tear-stained face. The boy rallied! It was a defining moment, where I not only came to understand a man’s depth, but my counselling skills were born.

  I had to draw on them at times in my relationship with Ralph. While life at home for me was not exactly a barrel of laughs, life with Albie, george and simon would have been a nightmare. Yet in spite of Ralph’s trials, he didn’t go off the rails. Not to my mind, anyway. Certainly, he was severely traumatised when Daffy ended up swimming in orange juice, and the beatings left their mark. And although he didn’t turn to crime, drugs or alcohol after the bike incident, Ralph’s weird behaviour got weirder. He gave this a name.

  ‘I have obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I do things obsessively and compulsively.’

  Ralph went from not checking anything to obsessively and compulsively checking everything twice. Twice. He became fastidious. He also craved symmetry. He needed to do things in pairs and was fixated with even numbers. This seemed to gain a foothold when he asked me to come into the city with him to help him choose a pair of Jockey low-rise briefs.

  ‘They’re not a fashion item, they’re just underpants. Why do you need me?’

  ‘You’re better at gauging size, and I need them to fit perfectly.’ Perfectly understandable.

  We stood in the Harris Scarfe underwear department on the Saturday morning, sizing up the briefs. I selected two possibilities; Ralph grabbed them both and headed for the counter. The salesman took Ralph’s hip measurement, agreed that these were the right size and watched patiently as he counted out and then recounted his pocket money (what he earned from his paper run less what he gave to Norma). He came up short both times and then looked at me.

  ‘Can you lend me twenty cents?’

  ‘Sure. But they’re called a pair of underpants. Why don’t you just start off with one pair till you have more money?’

  ‘They’re called a pair because they were originally made in two parts, and I don’t care that they’re still called that; we’re talking one piece of clothing.’

 
It can be hellish hard work trying to argue with a smart-mouthed obsessive-compulsive. The only time I had the edge on Ralph was when I called him odd. Mostly, though, I indulged his neuroses, and he indulged mine (by calling me Ruth-ie, which worked in both our interests). God knows I developed plenty, not least cacomorphobia, a dread of morbidly obese people. This was spawned by the spawn of Satan herself, cousin Zelda.

  Our parents felt sorry for Zelda, so we kids were conditioned to tiptoe around her (it’s not hard to give a wide berth to someone with a titanic stern). I didn’t feel sorry for her at all. Buffered by the adults’ pity, Zelda regularly played the boohoo-I’m-fat card, and succeeded in making me her villain. Her pathological lying got me into trouble on family Sundays at our place.

  ‘Go to your room!’ Sylvia would yell, her tone brooking no argument.

  She didn’t even give me the benefit of the doubt. I never, ever made fun of Zelda’s size—well ... not to her face. Ralph and I secretly nicknamed her Little Lotta, after the comic book character whose full name was Lotta Plump. And honestly, we were being kind. Zelda was shitloada plump! Anyway, she mouthed ‘Ha, ha’ every time I got banished. Then she would chant through my open window, ‘Sooky, sooky’ as I sat on the floor of my bedroom weeping over the injustice.

  Where Zelda was my provocateur, Louwhiney was Ralph’s. She wasn’t as spectacularly porcine as Zelda, but still, she was a squealer just like her. And Ralph did a lot of time in his room because of his sister’s furphies.

  Being scapegoated too often was wearing thin for Ralph and me. I’d had enough of hanging out with the rellos every weekend, and Ralph didn’t want to hang out in front of them ever again. This time when I stated my case, I had more ammunition. Drawing on what I was learning about the various forms of government at school, I stood my ground with Sylvia.

  ‘This is a democracy, by the way, not an autocracy. I’m not going to these family things anymore. You cannot make me! I have democratic rights!’

  ‘Oeuf! I should have home-schooled you, pest!’

  Would that have included sex education? Of course not! But Ralph’s expo had been an interesting introduction to it.

  CHAPTER TWO:

  FOURPLAY

  Maxi, Vette and I have been friends since kindergarten. There’s not much we don’t know about each other. And glimpsing Ralph’s dingle-dangle that afternoon launched a whole new level of, er, intercourse. Sure, we’d seen boys’ bits when we were little—we shared baths with our big brothers. Ronnie is two years older than Maxi (they also have a younger brother, River. Maxi was thirteen when he was born). And Alex is three years older than Vette. This was the first time, though, that we’d seen the whole enchilada ... straight up. Ralph, on the other hand, had yet to see a fully ripened female ‘noonie’ (as Vette’s mother called it), but he got a preview of coming attractions when he was nine and played peekaboo with Gwen.

  A year younger than Ralph, Gwen was a skinny, fair-haired girl who lived two doors down from him. They were lying in the clearing of the little nearby park, which was overgrown with weeds. Gwen was a bit shy, so Ralph took the initiative. He stood up, pulled down his pants and flashed.

  ‘Ta-da!’

  Gwen recoiled. ‘Oh, iiick!’

  Having grown up with two sisters, no father present and only female cousins, she had never seen a boy naked. She assumed male gonads looked like her Ken doll’s. Gwen thought Ralph was badly deformed, and told him as much. He set her straight.

  ‘All boys’ privates look like this. They’re not useless, seamless bulges like Ken’s!’

  Never mind that Ralph actually spoke like this as a child; I suspect that six years on when his moving parts fell out of his shorts, he probably thought Ken was lucky.

  Gwen looked again through narrowed eyes, and just shrugged. It was her turn. She lay back and pulled down her pants. Ralph scrutinised her exposed noonie, examining it from all angles. He then casually picked up a caterpillar that was marching across the clearing, and perched it on her pubic mound.

  ‘Why d’ya do that?’ I asked him when he relayed the story.

  ‘I just wanted to see what it would look like.’

  Wow ... so young and already contemplating the aesthetics of pubic topiary for a woman. Clearly, Ralph was a mini man of vision. That he displayed a lack of it while he was straddling the mini bike was his hard luck.

  A few months after his unfortunate display, Maxi, Vette and I attended a youth camp (Ralph’s family couldn’t afford to send him). It was here that I experienced my first lip kiss. A group of seventeen of us—eight boys, nine girls—were playing spin the bottle. I had a thing for Aaron Eisen, who was sitting directly opposite me in the circle. He spun the bottle but it didn’t land on me. Cassandra was the lucky girl who got to kiss him. Then with her spin, the bottle pointed at Eugene, but Cassandra refused to kiss him because he was beastly looking. He still got to spin the bottle, though, and it stopped at me. I didn’t want to kiss Eugene either, but ...

  I had been paying close attention to kissing scenes in movies and frankly, I was sick of practising on my hand or the doorjamb. Even though the seventeen-to-one odds of my upcoming spin landing on Aaron were not great, if I did get lucky, I didn’t want him to think I was inexperienced. So I let Eugene kiss me.

  Eugene looked like a blobfish. He had fat, squishy, wet lips, and he opened his mouth really wide as he zoomed in. I had to match him or my whole head would have disappeared down his yawning gob. But when his tongue darted in and out of my mouth like a gecko, I retched. Eugene appeared wounded.

  Maxi, who was sitting next to me, leaned over and whispered, ‘Way to go, kemosabe!’

  This made me feel worse than I already did. Callous as it sounds, it wasn’t that I felt guilty about almost yacking in Eugene’s mouth and upsetting him, I was only concerned about Aaron’s reaction. Would he ever want to kiss me with that special image imprinted on his psyche? I looked at Maxi sheepishly; she tried to make me feel better.

  ‘Hey, don’t look so worried. Check it out. You gave him a stiff.’

  Ecch. If only she’d been talking about Aaron ...

  The others then urged me to have my spin. The bottleneck pointed at Jonah. Jonah wasn’t as ugly. His head was shaped like a turnip and he had a small mouth, which made his lips look frozen in a permanent pucker. He closed in on me and made sucking and nibbling movements, like a goldfish eating a long worm. There was no danger of being vacuumed into his blowhole or even his tongue shooting out, because the aperture width was too narrow.

  The kiss wasn’t great, but it wasn’t revolting. Jonah’s face was flushed when he was done. With that, and with his strawberry-red hair, compact yap and a sudden, er, swelling, Jonah reminded me of the Dr Seuss character, Gustav the Goldfish. Little dude eats fish food and realises he’s made a boo-boo. He grows twice as long, thick and wide; exceeding his fishbowl, his tail hangs outside. My thoughts got all lyrical:

  I regretted the deed, ‘cause just like Eugene,

  My kiss set in action a small part unseen.

  Quite clear to all present, he wasn’t a queen!

  A formal salute in the pants of young Jonah!

  The upshot of snogging; the boy gotta boner!

  Maybe I wasn’t up there with the likes of Theodor Seuss Geisel just yet, but clearly, I had talent (even if it was as a prick teaser). And I was determined to exercise it.

  Kissing became the sport du jour at that camp, and we three girls participated fully. It was also a first for Vette but for Maxi, it was just a refresher course. We kept up our kissing binge post-camp, working at bettering our personal bests.

  Ralph wanted in. Not your average bloke, Ralph averaged himself by turning it into a pissing contest. He made a tally board at school during one of his woodwork classes.

  ‘Why do we need this?’ asked Maxi.

  ‘So we can see who gets the longest list.’

  ‘We already know you’ve got a long one that lists.’

  He smiled
at this. Yep, average bloke.

  By comparing notes (not lists), we four learned a lot about the opposite sex. From Sylvia, I learned a lot about the opposite of sex.

  One Saturday afternoon when Ralph, Maxi and Vette were over at my place, we sat in my bedroom pooling our experiences and gossiping. We talked about a girl in my class who did more than just kiss. Bridget was an attractive blonde. The girls at school nicknamed her Gidget (after the movie character), the petite and cutesy heroine of many teenage girls. Well, Bridget was the petite and cutesy heroine of many teenage boys. She earned pocket money after school hours from her job in a deli, and she earned a reputation at school from her hand jobs behind the lunch shed. The boys nicknamed her Digit.

  After my friends left, Sylvia, who was a walking cliché and often spouted them, called me into her bedroom. Her lips were tightly pursed in disapproval.

  Shit. Here we go ...

  ‘I overheard your conversation about that girl, Digit, the one with the two jobs.’ Jesus! If I weren’t so pissed off that she had eavesdropped, I would have laughed. It was like a really awesome game of Chinese whispers. ‘This girl is a “nice” girl. Boys sleep with nice girls, but they marry “good” girls. Which do you want to be?’

  It was not a question. It was a guilt-inducing statement pitched like a question, just for effect. That way, it looked like I was being given a choice. Sylvia was overprotective, and I’m sure she was concerned about my reputation, but only inasmuch as how my decisions would reflect on her parenting skills. Image was paramount. ‘What will the neighbours think?’ was a common catchcry during my childhood and adolescence, and Sylvia was tethered to it.

  ‘Well?’ she added when I didn’t respond.

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘I’m waiting for your answer.’

  ‘What’s to answer? It’s a rhetorical question.’ I don’t think she understood what a rhetorical question was because she looked confused. I just stared at her and raised one eyebrow.