On a typical girl’s night out, Carolyn, Ellen and Pamela find themselves at a usual haunt where any Friday or Saturday outing could mean either a concert or a cache of drag queens performing their nightclub cabaret. Tonight was the mix of high energy and hilarious music, dancing, and comedy performed by the queens in residence.
The show was always entertaining, but today they featured the trio’s favorite skit—The Library is Open! In this bit done between acts, the queens don fake glasses and open books to read the room and tell the tea (the truth) right to the well made-up faces of their fellow queens. It’s caddy, but always witty and amusing and all done in fun.
“Kendra Wild, I love your street smarts. But you should check the length of your skirt, because only women who work on the street would risk showing that much of their ‘smarts.’”
“Bossa Nova, gurl, this is going to hurt, but you need to hear this tea. Your beehive is too tall and your stinger is showing.”
“April Fool. I’ve always admired your wonderful taste in clothing. You should be on the best-dressed-drag list. But do all your tasty man treats have to be on the most-wanted list?”
When the show was over, the girls sat and finished their drinks, each speculating what truths they would love to tell each other but wouldn’t dare.
If I could spill the tea to Carolyn, I would tell her that her makeup is overdone and makes her look like a drag queen, Ellen thought to herself, but said.
“It’s it funny how they kid each other. I wonder if any of it is true.”
“I think it’s all made up. It’s too funny to be real,” Pamela said thinking to herself a few things she could tell her friends that wouldn’t be funny, but would be real.
“I bet it’s all true. When you spend a lot of time together, everyone has opinions about something their friends do or don’t do. But most people are afraid to tell. I think it’s refreshing,” Carolyn said, secretly wishing she could tell Pamela that her hair is too high and her shirt is too low and Ellen that she needs to stop dating losers.
“Well, I would certainly tell you girls anything I was thinking,” Ellen slyly grinned.
“Of course, that’s what friends do,” Pamela sipped her drink.
The girls smile and laugh looking at each other wondering the undisclosed truths and opinions that lie beneath the friendship façade, knowing that the unceremonious end to any friendship is only one contentious truth away.
The truth often goes untold as many people can’t handle it and sometimes it does not set you free.
Author’s Note: This story is an excerpt from a work in progress, Summer of Love, the 3rd book in the Timeless American Historical Romance Series of the saga of the McIntyre family as each of their members experience important historical events woven in with their story of love and discovery.
On their lunch half hour, Peggy and her friends, Cherry, short for Cheryl, Laurie and Shirley always went to the Automat across the street from their secretarial school. At the Automat for just few nickels and dimes and in a very short time, they could get a full meal of main course and dessert, plus coffee from walls lined with human vending machines where armies of people insert freshly cooked food from behind the tiny individual glass doors. The variety of food offered the opportunity to eat different each day, depending on your mood.
Peg liked macaroni and cheese with chocolate cake. But somedays tuna salad and lemon meringue pie or pie ala mode were her fancy. Sometimes the girls would make different choices and trade, like a tasting smorgasbord. But the other thing the automat served was a runway of men in uniform office suits on their lunch time. Tall ones, short ones, rich ones, poor ones, old ones and young ones all paraded by them each day like window shopping where they could pick their favorites, trying to guess what lies beneath their starched shirt and brill-creamed surface. Cherry and Laurie loved man shopping and directed the daily selection by labeling each man a wolf or a sheep. Queen Cherry definitely wanted wolves. She liked the excitement of a man who knew what he wanted and would take her long for a ride. But that ride better be in a limousine, or Rolls-Royce, dripping with diamonds and pearls. Cherry only went first class. She looked for the men who were gray in the temples and didn’t particularly care if they were married or not, as long as they kept her in the lap of luxury so she didn’t have to work. Demure Laurie couldn’t care less if they were sheep or wolves. She’d even settle for a wolf in sheep‘s clothing, but she looked for wedding rings with exacting precision. No married men for her. Describing her perfect man she said, “Handsome is a bonus, but I’d trade looks and personality for a decent bank account. I just want to be taken care of.” She saw her life as wife and mother, but with a housekeeper, so she could be a lady who lunches. Shy Shirley looked for young men with pale rosy cheeks and sweet smiles. In other words.. a sheep…an easy-going man who will follow along with her or fall in with the pack. Cherry and Laurie helped her spot them by making a “baaaa” sheep noise and laughing when a likely candidate walked by. Shirley bashfully lowered her chin when any man passed but when she heard the sheep sound, she’d perk up and find a way to look. “I just want someone who I can go on picnics and long drives with and bring to church and home for Sunday dinners. Someone I can make a home with,” she explained of her Prince Charming. She didn’t have the highest expectations for a whirlwind romance…just a nice guy. Peggy was different. Unlike her friends, to her marriage meant restraint just like straightjacketed suits the men wore. She didn’t want to be put in a pretty blue box with tissue paper and a bow like something with sweetness, fragility or beauty to behold. And she didn’t see a life cooped up in an office either. Peggy craved freedom. A life where she could persue her music for fun or for a job, letting her hair long auburn hair down to wave in the breeze, free from the stiff ponytail and bow she had to wear in the office. Somewhere she could walk in her bare feet through a field of flowers and never have to worry about tight skirts, heels and hose or being locked in the pretension of a life that would imprison her, like her parents wanted. But, she knew the life she wanted may be beyond her reach. She was trapped in a societal situation that forced her to pick a door. She could have a respectable office job or she could have a husband. While she enjoyed their lunchtime game, soon she realized she had to pick one door. Every day she thought again, married men were for Cherry, not her, but she liked the idea of danger and excitement. Older men however, she felt would be less dangerous. She didn’t care about money so Laurie’s ideal didn’t check her box either. The image of endless martini lunches complaining about their housekeepers and husbands was not appealing. Then she thought maybe Shirley had the right answer. A sheep. He would be easy-going enough to let her pursue her music and maybe could be a friend. But the picture of a white picket fence and PTA meetings left her screaming in her head. No, her man would not be in a suit. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make herself choose that life. She had to find door number three. Then as if on cue, looking out the window she saw him. A street musician with long blonde hair and fringe leather vest over a tie-dye shirt. He was playing a guitar and had a harmonica stand around his neck. Because of the noise in the Automat, she couldn’t hear what he was singing, but she was entranced by his aura. She found her door. She would choose a husband but not one in a suit or in an office, she’d marry a musician. A sheep, but hopefully in wolf’s clothing.
I had a dream two years ago about a mall of women owned businesses who care about each other and help in their mutual success.
I saw the Germanic architecture of the castle-like building with turrets in each corner and felt the devotion and friendship of the women shop owners…and The Little Shoppes series of women’s friendship was born. Many days later, their world came clearly into my lens and a year ago, Book 1 Cupcakes, etc. was published.
This year I’m celebrating women’s history month by offering the first book at .99 Kindle deal through March 8th preceding the March 15th launch of Book 2, Butterfly Bridal Boutique.
Women’s Fiction is a bit of a mottled catch-all genre of anything that women want to read whether it be mystery or romance, etc. I disagree. I think women’s fiction are books about women for women. And I especially like to write these books about friendships between women.
Recently actress Jane Fonda explained in an interview her vision of women’s friendships.
“Men’s friends face each other in life. Women’s friends stand side by side.”
I agree. Women embrace their friendships as the people who will walk beside you and hold your hand through everything. Women confide and share every aspect of their lives with each other.
The Little Shoppes books feature the life story of individual women through trials and tribulations and how they help lift each other up, especially when their livelihoods are threatened. That’s enough to celebrate in March and everyday.
Ever since language began words have come in and out a favor and have often changed meaning. While Benjamin Franklin used to say privy, we now say bathroom, toilet, can or John. Privy now means being informed of something.
Just as life and people change, so do their colloquialisms. In the 1930s, if someone called you gay that’s a completely different message 100 years later. In the 1960s far out meant something interesting and wild instead of distance and groovy is a mystery to anyone today who didn’t live through the time. And radical meant something different in the 80s than any other decade. Some young people would say PHAT, meaning or fly or cool, a generation or two ahead of them would be mystified as those words meant something else to them.
With this idea in the mind an examination of the power of a word is appropriate. Can words hurt? Yes. Can they kill? No. Do words have meanings that should be societally shunned or is free expression to be allowed regardless? for this, I propose and serve up the word F**** for consideration.
That I can’t even print the word in it’s entirety, proves it is still in question. A decade ago and certainly two or three this word would’ve been received in public with shock and sometimes even fainting. Now it’s commonly used on the streets of most urban cities and their subways, but in the last decades has even become commonplace on the Broadway stage.
It’s used in the movie Goodfellas 300 times and in Wolf of Wall Street 569 times and its mere use no longer requires an R rating.
But what if the word taken completely out of context? Looking deeper into its function, it is actually a very functional word in today’s lexicon. It appears in the dictionary as a noun and verb, but it’s usage has evolved to the point where it now serves, depending on the sentence, as a noun, a verb, an adverb, an adjective and even an article or pronoun…nearly every type of word. So why is it revered by some and revolted by others?
In its original context, I can understand why some may even exalt its ban, however, in today’s vocabulary it can be used frequently without distain. How many words do you know that are so flexible they can provide so many linguistic functions?
So perhaps, instead of assigning certain importance on individual words we should instead defer to the manner in which they are spoken, not necessarily separable from anything else. I submit that this much maligned word is often used now in a benign way, leaving its meaning to the ear of the beholder. After all, it is just a word.
Cleaning out someone’s house after they pass is filled with memories, regrets and sometimes surprises. After their mother’s passing at the ripe old age of 99, Carolyn and Mike agreed to stay in his childhood house and help his sister Erin and her husband Steve sort through the house before the sale closing.
“It’s really sad to reduce a person’s lifetime into piles of yours, mine, sell and donate,” Carolyn said as they sifted through the kitchen cabinets.
“Yeah. I’m just hoping to avoid as much drama as possible, so whatever Erin wants, just let her have it. I don’t want this to devolve into squabbles over who gets this momento, the good china or the silver. She’s so emotional, I get the feeling she’s teetering on the edge,” Mike whispered.
Erin was the baby of the family and the only girl. But even at 65, she was still prone to passive aggressive huffs and sighs, sprinkled with sniffles and tsunami bursts of tears without warning, dampening the air with disagreement and disappointment. It made the daunting task even more difficult.
“What pile does the around the world spoon collection go in?” Carolyn asked.
“As far as I’m concerned, it can go in the junk pile with my dad’s Roy Rogers wagon wheel coffee table in the den. But I think we’re going to have to sneak some things out. She doesn’t wanna put anything in the donate or throw away piles. Every time I ask her, she cries,” Mike muttered in frustration.
“I don’t know if even charity will take some of these things,” Carolyn laughs just as Erin enters the room and hearing the joke, immediately cries and hastily runs out. Steve shrugs at them with his hands up and follows her.
“I feel bad for her, but between her outbursts and stubbornness, nothing’s getting done,” Carolyn said in a soft voice and Mike nodded.
“I know I feel like we’re walking on eggshells all the time. I don’t think she believed the house would sell so fast. She probably thought she had more time,” Mike whispered.
“I even took Steve aside to see if he wanted to just rent a storage unit so she can have as much time as she wants, but he looked at me with dagger eyes. So I guess that’s out,” Carolyn said.
“She already has two storage units full of stuff. She has a real hard time letting go of things. Let’s go into the den and go through the desk and file cabinet. We should be OK with a bunch of old papers,” Mike answered and moved to the other room.
They started stacking papers from the file cabinet on the wagon wheel coffee table, looking for important papers.
“Looks like Erin may have learned keeping things from your mom. Here’s a receipt for a dinner from 50 years ago. All it has is a phone number on it,” Carolyn chuckled.
“A phone number? Let me see that.” Mike reached for the faded receipt, looked at it with disbelief and laughed.
“I thought she was making this up the whole time,” Mike shook his head and Carolyn gazed at him confused. “When we were little, my mother always told us that she had the number of a hitman in her drawer. Anytime anybody crossed her, she threatened to make one phone call and that would be it. I always thought she was kidding,”
“Where do you think she got it?” Caroline asked curiously.
“I don’t know, she said it was given to her by someone in the mafia who she did a favor for,” he answered.
“Wow what was the favor?” Carolyn leaned forward with interest.
“It’s so ridiculous. She said that she gave a ganster the last piece of apple pie in a diner one day and he gave her the number. I never believed it. It’s like something from the Godfather. One day I will call on you for a favor,” he stood up with his lip over his top teeth mimicking Marlon Brando.
“I thought she made it up so if we were bad, we’d be scared she would use it.” He laughed and put the paper down.
Caroline smiled with a Cheshire grin. “Let’s call the number.”
“That’s silly. She made it up. It’s probably the number for her butcher,” Mike laughed and started sorting through the papers again.
Carolyn shrugged and put the receipt in the middle of the wagon wheel and picked up another pile of papers. But every time she looked down, her eyes darted to the number. It was like it was calling to her.
“This is crazy,” she shouted and then chuckled. “Can’t we just call it? I have to know.”
“What? That’s crazy. Even if someone was there 50 years ago, no one’s there now. What do you think a hitman has an answering service? Dial one for assassinations, dial two for breaking body parts. I’m getting some water,” he snickered and left the room. Carolyn picked up the receipt and went to the chair to get her phone out of her purse.
“I know this is stupid, but I can’t help myself.” She said aloud to herself and dialed the number just as Mike came in the door.
“Are you seriously calling that number?” Mike rolled his eyes.
“Yes, now shush, it’s ringing.”
Carolyn put the phone on speaker and the two stood over the phone in anticipation, while the phone kept ringing. Five rings. seven rings.
“See nobody’s there. It’s just gonna keep ringing,” Mike sighed.
“If it wasn’t a real number anymore, it would’ve gone directly to an error message from the phone company. It’s ringing. This is still someone’s number!” she said excited.
After 10 rings, Carolyn looked disappointed, but just as she was about to press the end button, someone answered.
“Hello?” a man’s voice said.
“Oh, my God!” Carolyn giggled and quickly hit the end button, hanging up.
“Why did you do that?” Mike asked frustrated.
“I don’t know,” she grinned. “I wanted to see if it was real, but I guess I didn’t want to know whose on the other end of the phone. But just in case, I’m keeping it,” she said and stuffed the receipt in her purse.
“Oh great. Now I have this number hanging over my head, again,” Mike said.
“Well, just so you know I have it. And you better behave yourself,” Carolyn laughed.
“Hey let’s tell my sister the number is real and they told us we need to donate everything… or else,” Mike said and they both laughed.
How is my little Sis? Valentine’s Day is coming up. I bet you’re looking forward to the school dance. Do you have a date? With your pretty long blonde hair and bright smile, you probably have boys asking you all the time. They will probably decorate the gymnasium with red and pink balloons and streamers, just like always. I really wish I was there to see it. Make sure to write and tell me everything.
I’m doing a lot of dancing these days, too. Don’t tell Mommy and Daddy, but Kate, Janie and I are dancing with men for a dime a dance. I told them we were waiting tables. I didn’t think they would approve of us dancing with men for money.
It’s not too bad. My feet get stepped on a lot. Sometimes we get some servicemen, but they are almost all at the USO. We get a lot of older men. Some men are smelly and some don’t even speak English. That’s difficult. And they’re all sweaty, even though it’s cold and snowing outside. It’s hot in there with all the people. It’s so unpleasant. I have to take a shower every night and scrub just to get the odor of smoke and sweat out of my hair. Thank goodness there’s a bouncer named Bruce who makes sure they don’t get fresh.
Well, got to go—almost time to go to work. I dread it. I hate wearing this heavy blue eye makeup, mascara and extra rouge. You wouldn’t even recognize me. But Eddie says it makes us look older and prettier, like sophisticated city women and not Midwestern farm girls. We told him we’re not farm girls—we don’t live on farms. But if you’re a New Yorker, you think everyone from the Midwest is a farm girl.
At least we get to sing a song or two each night before the main act goes on. That is, when anyone can hear us. The sound in the steakhouse is horrible and people are eating and making a lot of clatter with the plates and silverware. It’s not like the concerts we saw at the ice cream socials at home where everyone appreciated the singers. They don’t even listen to us most of the time. I keep hoping one day someone will come in who will recognize our talent.
Please tell Mommy and Daddy I love them and you too. Just keep these things between us girls. I don’t want Mommy and Daddy to worry. I’m fine.
Luv, your big Sis
****************************************
For Valentine’s Day, they tried to transform the steakhouse into a palace for Cupid and his arrow to draw in lonely men without sweethearts. They hung red streamers and big red and silver glitter hearts and banners all over the room that said “Be My Valentine.”
“Come on, girls, we’re going to have a big crowd of men for Valentine’s Day,” Eddie said. “Let’s get this place looking cute. I want to see hearts and a lot of red.”
“Yes, red rouge, red dresses, red lips and red feet from getting stepped on by these oafs,” Kate chided, while they decorated the steakhouse. “This is like putting red lipstick on a pig. This place is still a sty.”
“It’s not all bad,” Janie added. “We’re making some lonely sad guys happy today by being their Valentine,” she laughed and put her head through one of the big paper hearts.
“Your face is going to stick that way, Janie, and then no boys will want to dance with you,” Kate joked.
“There’s hope,” Suzy said. “Maybe we’ll get a great crowd for our set today.”
A few hours later, the room went from laughing girls to billows of cigar smoke with sweaty hacking and cackling men. The place was full of men looking for solace and company on the saddest holiday of the year for someone who’s alone.
“The lonelier they are, the homelier they seem to look,” Janie said. “Looking out from our set, they seemed dazed. The pickings are slim today, girls.”
“Get out there and mingle, girls…” Eddie barked. “There are men out there waiting to have their Valentine dream come and dance with them.”
“Dream or nightmare… you be the judge.” Suzy smiled. “Depends on where you’re standing.”
The girls danced for hours with many men, who were all having a good time, but at the end of the evening, the crowd was a little drunk on the Valentine’s Day champagne special and got rowdy.
“That’s it.” Kate slapped a tall, dark man and stormed into the employee room at the back of the steakhouse. “I’ve had it with this stuff. I’m not going to take it anymore.”
Bruce, the bouncer, saw the guy grab Kate’s backside and hurried the guy outside. Eddie didn’t want anyone to harm or manhandle the girls, but he didn’t want anyone to disrupt the paying customers, either.
Bruce was good at his job. He was very large, very Italian and very nice. The rumor was that he worked for the mob, but who knew. They were all glad he was there to watch over them.
The girls tried to calm Kate down, but couldn’t stop her from confronting Eddie. “We’re singers, not pin cushions for every pinching Tom, Dick and Harry. You know we’re better than your main act. We packed the place. We want at least three songs a night or we walk.”
“Are you crazy?” Janie and Suzy asked when she came back into the room. “This is our only way to pay Mrs. Arnold for our room and board. We need this job, no matter what.”
Note: Here is an abridged excerpt from my collection of love stories. For Valentine’s Day … share love through romantic tales.
After my divorce and a year of listlessness and whining, my friend Mary signed me up for an online matchmaking service…as a valentine’s day present.
At first, I didn’t want a faceless, heartless computer deciding who was right for me. But Mary finally wore me down and I agreed to look at the profiles and go on one date. How bad could that be?
After a few emails came in, Mary and I… and two bottles of wine, spent our Valentine’s Day trying to find me a date.
I admit I went into it with a bad attitude, and the choices didn’t prove me wrong. Man #1467 had this cheesy 70s mustache and stood in front of a flashy red car with a creepy grin that made me cringe.
“I think I saw this guy on a VHS cover in the back section of the video store,” I said, laughing.
“What were you doing at the back of the video store?” Mary joked.
Then there were the boring twins, #5981 and #3465. One was an accountant who was “obsessed with puzzles of all kinds” and the other was a tax lawyer who wanted to spend all day birdwatching. Delete and delete.
Some were just plain scary. #9636 said his hobbies were guns and taxidermy. He actually posed with a bunch of positioned stuffed dead animals and two AK-47s.
“Yikes. That says ‘killed in a horror movie’ all over it,” Mary said and quickly deleted his message.
And #2579 believed his mother was his best friend. He included that caption under his profile picture of him and his mother smiling cheek to cheek.
“Norman Bates much?” I said and laughed.
“Delete!” Mary agreed.
At this point, the second bottle of wine was emptying and as the silly laughter got louder; the picks got worse. Even Mary was losing faith. That’s when we opened the last invite, #3421.
“This says he’s widowed; that’s good. That means he’s not the problem,” Mary said.
“Sure, he probably killed his wife, chopped her up into little pieces and put her out with the garbage,” I said, discouraged, and plopped on the couch.
“No, it says he owns a vineyard,” Mary continued.
“A vineyard? In Illinois? I bet he owns the moon and the Golden Gate Bridge too,” I said, giggling sarcastically. The wine was definitely talking.
“Just come here and look at this one,” Mary insisted.
So I poured the last drops of wine and dragged my glass with me over to the computer and braced myself.
“Give me a break. How fake can you get? A widower who owns a vineyard? Even the picture looks phony. And it’s thirty miles away. Seriously? I’m done. Experiment failed,” I said and buried my head in the couch.
“No, really—look. Here’s the website. He’s not going to create a bogus website just for a date,” Mary said. “I’m emailing him. You promised me one date and this is it.”
“Even if he is for real, that’s almost an hour with traffic. Completely unrealistic,” I strongly objected, but she already sent the reply.
A few days went by and I completely forgot about it. Then I got a reply.
“I would be happy to meet you. You live about an hour away from me, so I’ll come to you. Please choose a restaurant you like and we can meet there,” the message read.
To be honest, I nearly deleted it, but I did promise Mary, so I agreed to meet him. I chose a restaurant near my house, so at least I’d get home fast.
It was raining cats and dogs, and I was ten minutes late. But when I got there, he wasn’t there. I sat at the bar so I could see the entrance and ordered a full glass of wine…for courage.
By the time I finished the glass, I realized I had been stood up. I was almost relieved I didn’t have to go through with the pretense of talking to someone and feigning interest until the check came. But I was upset that he didn’t want to meet me enough to just show up.
As I was getting my coat on, a man entered, soaking wet and covered in mud. He staggered over to the bar.
“Was there a woman here tonight looking for me?” he asked.
The bartender nodded and pointed in my direction.
He dripped over to me and apologized abundantly.
“I’m Jay and so sorry I’m late. You must think I’m a horrible guy, but my truck got a flat tire and I had to change it in the rain. Please stay,” he explained.
The rain soaked him to the skin and he still wanted to talk to me? How could I say no?
He told me his unfortunate tale of pulling over on a back road with no lights, swishing and sloshing through the mud and puddles, falling down a few times and then the jack slowly sinking into the mud.
Every word captured me, like a book I couldn’t put down. He told the story so well, it almost seemed made up. But as he sat in front of me with pieces of mud hardening on him like a ruined piece of pottery on a wheel, I knew it was real. And so was he.
When I got home, I reported back to Mary that the date was a success, but anything more was doomed to failure. He couldn’t move away from his vineyard, and I couldn’t move that far from work. It was impossible.
But Jay was persuasive. He agreed to come to my area for dates. And the more I saw him, the more I liked him—really liked him. If only the geographic gap wasn’t like the Continental Divide.
Then he asked me to come to the vineyard, so he could cook for me. Curiosity got the best of me about the vineyard…and his cooking…so I agreed.
A small meandering drive led me to a charming river rock stone and redwood two-story ranch home with a giant wrap-around veranda. The sign said Oak Valley Vineyard established 1921. It was real.
Jay smiled and greeted me with a glass of wine. We sat on the veranda in silence, gazing at the sunset. It was a beautiful painting of yellows, oranges and pink hues.
Just as the sun set, glittering twinkle lights illuminated the area and Jay served a wonderful meal.
After dinner, we walked hand in hand onto the flagstone path covered by a wooden pergola with flowered vines all over it. It was magical.
Then he leaned over and kissed me. The kiss tasted just like the wine, especially the sweetness. I even felt a little spark, almost like static electricity. He was a good kisser and I was captivated. Everything about the place, and Jay, enveloped me with a feeling of home all around me, and I wanted that to last forever. And it did. We were married a year later on Valentine’s Day in the vineyard. Turns out the computer did know more than I did.
It was 1 AM at night, but the sun was still out. At least it was in my mind. That night, the sun, moon and stars converged and reflected in the shine of my silver metallic 1978 Camaro Berlinetta while I was cruisin’. The first time I went cruisin’, I thought it was stupid. All night teens drove up and down a half mile stretch of road in the more populated next town over, stopping at pre-determined locations, the McDonald’s and the grocery store parking lots. That is, until the police came and kicked everyone out at one spot, only for the hordes of teens in used cars to travel like nomads to the next point. It was a strange ritual. Most people got out of their cars and spent the night walking around talking to others, flirting and posturing to see who was the coolest, while admiring each other’s ride. After all, growing up in a small suburban area in the shadow of the city of Chicago, since the mall and the arcade we’re closed, night out options for adolescent underage teenagers were twofold… a movie or eating at some fast food establishment, nursing the same Coke for two hours and sharing some french fries or ice cream with friends. But both of those events required dipping into hard-earned dollars and spending less money on clothes and shoes. Cruisin’ was free. But despite my initial disinterest in this tame and strange rite of passage, my perspective changed drastically when I got my first car. It was a slightly used, as my dad joked, driven only by an old lady who drove her to church on Sundays. While I sincerely doubted that an old lady would drive a hot Camaro coupe with low bucket seats, I didn’t care. In an area without public transportation where you must drive everywhere, wheels were freedom and mine was particularly pretty. It was metallic silver, with a tiny red pinstripe along each side and around the windows, sporting whitish gray bucket seats. I loved that car and couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to show her off cruisin’ in West Jeff. So my girlfriends, and I piled into Bernie, as I called her, and joined our peers. New cars were like fresh meat, and we made the most of every minute of it, driving up and down with the windows open, strutting like peacocks, flouncing our feathers. And when it was time to park, we stayed in the car thinking we were too cool to go to anybody else… they would come to us. And they did, like moths to the flame. The boys would saunter up, eyeing the car and looking inside to see a bunch of girls mustering our best bravado poses, seeming like we didn’t care. Knowing nothing about cars I figured I had to be on my game so I read the manual cover to cover for the first and only time in my life and memorized every mechanical specification of the car, ready to effortlessly answer any questions like a pro. I would boast, “It has a V8 405 engine with 185 horsepower at 4,000 rpm’s and a top speed of 125 mph, which I did verify in a drag strip on another occasion.” When they inevitably asked whose car it was, I happily and succinctly said it was mine, with a sharp matter-of-fact earnestness. The boys thought it was cool and by mere relationship, maybe I was too. My friends loved the attention by every boy in school. And gaggles of girls ran up to us, admiring the car as a breakthrough of the glass ceiling. Girls could own cool cars too. We felt like rock stars all night, driving back-and-forth, the focus of every rumor, innuendo, question and desire that evening. It was awesome and I thoroughly enjoyed it enough to repeat the exercise every Saturday night that summer. But the first night was the best for that night, Bernie, I and my friends ruled as the queens of cruisin’.
The salad bar is the quintessential object lesson for life. Seems weird, but follow me on this.
Life is full of choices. This or that. Do I stay or should I go. Each decision impacts other options made both before and after.
Maybe you like rabbit food and always belly up to the salad bar and imbibe generously, carefully avoiding and shunning any of the sweet perpetrators that lure people under the guise of balanced diets and rewards. Heathy eating is never gluttonous, right? But can it be borderline obsessive?
Or you take the things that are good for you even if you don’t like them. Lesson: Responsibility?
But admittedly, you often indulge or overindulge the Jell-O and the pudding. After all, you did eat a healthy salad and deserve a treat. Lesson: Moderation?
There are different kinds of cheeses, beans, sometimes even multiple varieties of lettuce and vegetables all equally presented on the salad bar open for all who pay the price of admission. And no overlord stands there and dictates that you can’t take both kidney beans and pinto beans or not to mix the cheddar cheese with the mozzarella, despite the cringe of your onlooking neighbor. Lesson: Freedom?
People may gag at the different stroke of blending the blue cheese dressing with the thousand island dressing, it’s a matter of personal taste. Lesson: Tolerance?
For vegetarians and vegans, it’s the bastion of the holy food land. Instead of constantly improvising on limited menus, picking, and settling for what they they can have, often everything is finally within reach without restriction. Lesson: Equality?
But while you may freely go back to your table and regale your group with the faux pas tale of the person who mixed the two dressings, you are free to laugh, but they are free to enjoy it.
And the conduct at the salad bar can offer unspoken behavior rules of the road. You don’t cross your reach in front of anyone or push and shove people out of the way, no matter if you wasted most of your lunch hour waiting at the Apple store or how close it is to your movie time or theater curtain. You politely wait your turn. Lesson: Manners?
Proper decorum dictates use of the utensils provided, instead of plunging your grubby hands into the food. After all no one would break a social norm and risk, making others sick for their own indulgence. Lesson: Respect?
But just in case you get careless or have an accident, there is a sneeze guard installed by the management to prevent you from spewing the contents of your nasal passages all over the heathy food. Lesson: Avoidance of lawsuits?
Oh, and there’s often soup. That’s just warm comfort food. Maybe it’s all a lesson that life is full of everything you need an want for yourself and others, if you just look.
“You were supposed to be dead,” a bystander screams glaring at my formerly lifeless body resurrect from the ground.
“I feel like it,” I mumble, patting my hands over my chest taking stock of my body.
I think I’m ok. But how? When someone shoots you in the chest, you’re usually not ok.
I look for something in my breast coat pockets that could’ve stopped a bullet, like you see in the movies. But there’s nothing.
Sitting there amongst the now busy city streets I realize, I wasn’t shot at all. But it wasn’t my imagination that knocked me down. It was a force. Maybe it was a warning or a horrible mistake.
It all started a few nights ago. It was a regular Friday night at the bar, until she came in.
She was put together in all the right places, as if someone drew her on a canvas or erected her as a skyscraper. She was built.
Even though my stool didn’t spin around, my head did a quick 180 when she walked through the door.
And did she walk. Not just putting one foot in front of the other, she glided like an angel on gossamer wings. I was captivated.
She sat down next to me and asked me for a light. I was happy to oblige and shot her my best come hither smile. She returned the favor.
A couple hours later, we talked about everything under the sun, including the kitchen sink. I’m not subject to romantical flights of fancy, but in those moments with her, my head pictured a little Whitney color house with a picket fence and a new Ford in the garage. It was the perfect dream.
She asked me for a ride home. I was happy to get a chance at a good night kiss. Or maybe something else, who knew. But something else is what I got.
I realize now, I was a chump. A stooge that fake femme fatal easily wrapped around her little finger and led right into the gates of hell. She was good alright.
She spun a tale worthy of a golden man named Oscar and I fell for it hook line and sinker. I was a willing piece of putty in her manicured hands.
She said her former boyfriend was stalking her and wouldn’t let up. I have no problem understanding why he wouldn’t let her go.
She was afraid to go home unaccompanied and asked me if I was packing. That should’ve been my first clue, but again, my dumb imagination conjured a steely knight on a cream horse. I should rap myself in the jaw for being so gullible.
She went in for a kiss to thank me and the next thing I know, I wake up to a screaming broad in the street outside her apartment building. Boy was I a patsy.
I must’ve just been knocked out…and good. But I could’ve sworn I heard a gunshot.
Then I see two cops in my scope.
“Officers, I’m OK. No permanent harm done,” I say getting to my feet.
“That’ll be for the judge to decide. You’re coming downtown with us,” they order as the handcuff and throw me in the paddy wagon.
Now I’m in the soup for sure. I have no memory of what happened. And even worse, I don’t know her name. What a sap.
They put me under the glaring bulb and tell me I murdered a man in cold blood and left the gun with my fingerprints next to the body. That was news to me. They say it’s an open and shut case. I could fry and I don’t know why. They’ll never believe my story. Even I don’t. No one could be such a stooge to be fooled by a beautiful dame. But I was. Now my goose is cooked.
(c) Suzanne Rudd Hamilton,2023
Author’s Note: This story is written in noir style of 1930s to 1950s urban slang. I enjoy these movies and this type of storytelling.
SUZANNE RUDD HAMILTON 