Hot Texas Night: My First Date

TRY TO PICTURE a skinny, towheaded eleven-year-old boy on that sticky, summer evening in Brady, Texas, back in fifty-one, maybe fifty-two. I felt like the whole bottom had dropped out of my belly, I was so scared.

There were any number of places I’d rather have been, though getting onto dark, as it was, my possibilities would have been restricted to Uncle Charlie and Aunt Happy’s second-story apartment that sat atop Brady’s Drug Store — the place where I spent most of my daylight hours slumped over the counter on a tall stool, sucking a sody-pop, as the Texans called it, through a straw, while thoroughly absorbed in one of the comic books from the rack, nearby.

I think they liked me at Brady’s. I was careful not to get the cover wet from the counter, and I replaced the comic neatly onto the rack before I got another. They didn’t mind that I never bought the comics as long as I plopped down a dime for the sody-pop.

The drug store closed at five anyway, so if I hadn’t been standing that moment at the door with my cousin, Kenny, I’d have been at the apartment, being dragged into Mom and Dad’s chatter with Uncle Charlie and Aunt Happy about school and Little League. And my sister, Donna, would have been right there egging me on.

But ... wherever I'd rather be, here I was, standing behind Kenny, who had already rung the doorbell twice.

#     #     #

It was Kenny who got the harebrained idea of having me double-date with his girlfriend’s kid sister. Kenny was my sister, Donna’s age, which would have put them both at about fourteen. Why couldn’t he have found one of his friends to double-date with her? Besides, I don’t think they knew that I knew, but I saw the way they looked at each other — Kenny and Donna. I think that’s okay with cousins; I don’t know.

I guess it didn’t matter, though. What was done was done, and here I was, standing a little behind him, not knowing what to do with my hands, and shifting from one foot to the other, as he rang a third time.

I said it was Kenny’s idea, but I'd bet my bottom dollar Mom and Dad had gotten together with Charlie and Happy and convinced Kenny it was the right thing to do. Mom kept whispering to me that I was cute as a button, and then she fiddled with my hair, which was yellow as cornsilk, trying to get my cowlick to stay down.

Kenny and I didn’t have one thing in common. He liked cars and horses, and I liked baseball and watching wrestling on our 10-inch Admiral™ TV every Friday night on KTLA, Los Angeles. I knew all the wrestlers’ names and their records. There was Gorgeous George, Baron Leoni, Papa Gino and his son, Leo Garibaldi. Giving the blow-by-blow was Dick Lane and his famous, “Whoa-o-o-oh-h-h Nelly!”

Texas didn’t have wrestling. Uncle Charlie and Aunt Happy didn’t even own a TV. But just lying around, listening to their scratchy records, or their staticky radio that played whiny western tunes, was better than now — waiting, with my shirt stuck to my body, for the girls to answer the doorbell.

“Maybe we should just go, Kenny,” I said. I hated my voice. It was high, like a girl’s, while Kenny’s was lower — not much, but a little — and cracked some when he got excited, like everyone said mine would when I became a teen.

“They’ll be here directly. Heck, you know how girls are, Junie.”

But I didn’t know how girls were. And he knew I didn’t know how girls were. Dang, he was tall. I felt tiny, damp, and exposed. Kenny smelled like Old Spice™. He tried to get me to splash some on my face. Maybe I should have.

While I considered that, the door opened enough for an enormous head with stubbly jowls to stick through. His squinted eyes darted all over the place until they lit on me. I sucked in some air that I hoped he didn’t hear and waited for him to speak. He took his eyes off mine and turned them full on Kenny, giving a little jerk of his head toward me.

“’Spect I c’n put the shotgun away for the evenin’. Think y’all can vouch for him, Kenny? Think he’ll treat my baby girl right?”

“He’s okay, Mr. Jordan. He’s my cousin. From California.”

“Ha-ha,” the mouth said, and it came out like two short bursts of air, rather than a laugh. “Junie. From Caley-fornya, huh?” He looked me up and down. “’Spect I don’t have much to worry ’bout, then.”

He winked at Kenny and Kenny nodded rapidly.

“Well … girls be outen a minute.” And with one parting glance at me, he withdrew his head and closed the door.

“What — what’d he mean by that?” I asked.

“About California?”

“Yeah, about not having anything to worry about.”

“You know the old saying about California, don’t you?”

“Nope.”

“Only two things California’s famous for — their prunes and their queers.”

“That’s stupid,” I said. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

“Well, that’s what they say. And then they say to one of ’em, “And you don’t look like no prune.”

“And that would mean I’m a queer? I’m not a queer, Kenny.” Funny thing — I didn’t exactly know what queer meant. I’d only heard about it one time at school. I think it had something to do with being a sissy. Something bad like that. Because the kid they called queer sure was a sissy.

“No, Junie,” Kenny said, kind of impatient-like, “Mr. Jordan didn’t mean y’all were queer. He just meant you were young and didn’t know much about girls.”

I wished we had longer to talk about it because I was finding out that being queer had something to do with being young and I had a few more questions to ask, but before I could dig them up, the door swung open and the two girls slipped through it and stood for a moment looking over at me.

“This here’s Junie,” Kenny said. “He’s my little cousin.” With that, he took the older girl’s arm and without any more urging, she stepped over to be beside him, leaving the younger girl who was blonde-haired like mine, but hers was longer, hanging down to her shoulders, and the three of them stood, staring at me with their not-quite smiles.

“Hello.” I pulled my shirt away from my body, but when I let go, it went right back.

“Hi, Junie,” Kenny’s girl said. “I’m Barbara, and this is my little sister, Norma.”

“I’ve never heard of Junie before,” said Norma, scrunching up one eye.

Kenny said, “I think it’s a California name.”

The girls’ eyes locked on each other’s. “Caley-fornya!” they said in one loud voice.

#     #     #

A beast with two heads came to mind when all I could see from the back seat of Uncle Charlie’s Chevy 4-door were Kenny and Barbara’s heads and shoulders behind the steering wheel. My side was seizing up something awful from twisting my body to the right to see the screen. Norma had a clear view from the opposite end of the back seat.

Kenny had told me on the way over to their house that we were going to watch “The Thing From Another World”. He told me he’d seen it before and it was nothing, but it scared the pants off the girls, and he said I knew what that meant, and he winked at me.

A few scary scenes took my mind off the pain in my side, and when intermission came, I could finally sit up straight again.

Kenny untangled and turned to me. “Barb and Norma are going to the little girls’ room and then to the snack bar. You want a sody-pop?”

I told him a Nesbitt’s™ Orange, and Kenny slipped Barbara a dollar bill, and the girls got out.

Kenny turned around in the seat and just stared at me.

“What?”

“What?” he half-whined. “What’re you doing, Junie? Or, what ain’t ya doing? Barb’s been watching y’all in the rearview mirror. You’re disappointing her. You’re disappointing Norma. And heck, Junie, you’re disappointing me.”

That hurt. It seemed I’d spent my whole life not wanting to disappoint people. Grownups, anyway. Mom and Dad. Teachers. My friends’ parents. Pretty much, anyone who was older. Not my sister though.

Now, here was Kenny telling me I disappointed him. And Barbara and Norma. I disappointed them, too, he said. And that hurt. Why did that hurt?

“Are you scared of Norma, Junie?” And he smiled with only one side of his mouth.

“No,” I said, and I knew I was too quick to say it, and a little chuckle came out before I could stop it.

“Well?” he said like he was expecting me to prove I wasn’t scared.

“Well, you’re not a prune.”

“I’m not a queer, neither, Kenny!” I said his name so loud that my lips started shaking and I was afraid I was going to cry — and now wasn’t the time to cry.

He gave my arm a little jab. “I know you’re not a queer, Junie. Heck, I know that. But you know — ” He stopped to scratch his head. “You know, girls expect boys to, I don’t know, to act a certain way. Or they get to thinkin’ they’re ugly or, or, they got something ’twixt their teeth, or something.”

“Has — ” I suddenly forgot how to finish my sentence.

“Has what?”

“Um — has — oh, has Norma gone out with boys before, Kenny?”

“No. Barb says it’s her first. But you know how girls talk. And sisters! Betcha Norma’s got Barb in the little girls’ room now, askin’ to have her teeth checked.” He laughed, then stopped short. “Here they come. Now listen, Junie, just loosen up, relax a little. She’s more scared of you than you are of her.”

When they got back in the car and sodas were exchanged, I saw that Norma had moved about a foot more toward the center of the seat. I took a swallow of my orange drink. It was fizzy. I almost coughed but stopped myself.

Barb slid all the way across the front seat next to Kenny. I think she stole a glance at me along the way.

The tall pole lights that necklaced the lot shut off, the screen lit up with the enormous words, “and now we continue”, and the soundtrack blared from the speaker hanging from the inside of the window, next to my ear. From somewhere in the mix, Kenny cleared his throat.

I dipped my shoulders to the right of the beast with two heads, and as I did so, I glimpsed Norma’s left hand flattened on the seat, midway between us. She tapped the seat with her palm.

“You can see better from here,” she said.

Of course, any fool would have known I could see that. “Guess you’re right,” I said, like it first dawned on me, and I scooted across the seat. We sat, six inches from each other looking, for all intents and purposes, like we were two of those ice figures you see them carve at the county fair.

I glanced at Kenny — the way he had his arm stretched across the seat and Barbara’s back kind of fit into the socket of his chest and armpit. Then I saw for the first time how he was looking at me through the rearview mirror, the corners of his eyes all crinkly. He drummed his fingertips on the back of the car seat. I knew what he expected.

My short inhale came in little jerks as I ever-so-slowly raised my right arm, bumping her shoulder, then brushing past it in a move that felt like it took a full minute until my skinny bicep settled against her hair. By now, my breathing was rapid, my heart throbbed in my throat, and I was sure, if she was watching her sister for cues and settled into my chest, there was no way I could conceal my thin, trembling frame.

Instead, she sat, rigid, watching the screen. Before long, my breathing slowed, and my body only spasmed once, then not at all, until I found myself actually engaging in the movie’s plot. Shoot! I’d made too much of what should be simple and natural.

I heard a long sigh coming from my right, and in a few seconds, something drifted across my thigh and fished around for my hand. Gathering it in, she brought it across her thigh to her lap, and I could feel my heart and my breath, thin and ripply, again.

She cleared her throat. I glanced at her, and when she caught my eye, she leaned her mouth toward my ear. She whispered: “I want you to feel something, Junie.” With that, I watched as she slowly brought her other hand over, resting it, knuckles down next to the one that held my hand. My breathing really took off.

I may have — I must have had a confused look on my face as I continued to watch her work something out from her closed palm. It was one of those openers I’d seen Mom and Dad open their beer cans with. It came to a sharp, curved point, like an Eagle’s top beak, and it gleamed in the semi-darkness.

“This is if you try anything,” she whispered, and she immediately drew back her hand, while she still held mine with her other one.

I know my eyes must have been the size of quarters as I nodded. In fact, I kept nodding, and then she settled her head against my chest, and when I tried to gently remove my hand from her lap, she tightened her fingers around it.

So, I left it there like a little stump until the movie ended.

#     #     #

Later, on the way back to the apartment, I told Kenny about the can opener.

“Oh, heck, Junie, her Daddy put her up to that. I should o’ told you. Barb did the same to me on our first date.” He stared across the front seat at me. “But she kissed you at the door. I saw her.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t mean anything.”

“What do you mean? I saw her kiss you.”

“But — no, but — ”

“But, what?”

It humiliated me, but I had to tell him. “She stuffed her — she stuffed her tongue in my mouth!”

~     ~     ~

Thank you for reading. Before you snicker at my innocence, remember this was the early '50s. And to an eleven-year-old, a tongue in the mouth was pretty dog-gone disgusting!