OK— Sue had dumped me. Yeah. Me, deep-sixed once again. Why? Because no girl could possibly have been expected to possess the patience of Job when it came to waiting for my sexual maturity to catch up with hers. Which was apparently never gonna happen anyway. The story of my life. (I had to hand it to Sue though. She’d really hung in there for a long while. What a trooper.)
But now, at that point in my long life, I hafta say I’d never known any pain as deep and troubling and hurtful as the one I was experiencing then. I was the saddest of the sad sacks. Sometimes for short periods, I could bear the post-op trauma of having had my heart ripped right out of my chest; but then… I’d make the bad choice of playing Paul Anka’s “Lonely Boy” on my record player, and that’d send my seemingly-never-ending love-life-pity-party right off the rails, and I’d go all sappy-soap-opera-pathetic on myself.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
But going into about the third week or so of my own personal “Death Valley Days,” a handful of my friends who were worried about me moping the rest of my life away came over to talk me into going out with them. I argued against it, said I didn’t have any desire to, said “No way!” But they browbeat me into it, packed me like so much baggage into the car they were riding around in, and hauled me down to The Sugar Shack.
The Sugar Shack (so-named due to the popularity of Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs’ 1962 hit tune, “Sugar Shack”) was a small, evening hang-out for kids.
It was put together by the community as a sort of “nightclub for teens.” With the lights kept dimmed for atmosphere, you’d spy vending machines, the juke box, the tiny dance floor, and a few tiny table-and-chair sets scattered around. Showing up there was the ultra-cool thing to do back then.
So our car rolled up into the parking lot out front. Everybody started bailing out to go inside. I started to get out myself but, in the nick of time, I eyeballed Sue and her new (crumb-bum licensed) boyfriend climbing out of his car, parked two-cars-over! So:
I immediately slammed my door shut and ducked right down out of sight onto the car’s backseat floorboards. My friends freaked out. They pulled my door back open and started commanding me to come on out and just get over it. It was time, they told me. Time to move on.
But I wasn’t having any of that. I just felt so vulnerable and stupid and hurt! Plus, I was pretty sure I was having a hear attack! I slammed the door shut again and locked it. So they hauled the front passenger-side door open and one of’em, leaning in over the back of the front seat, continued scolding me like I was some petulant child.
“No. Come on in. This’ll be good for you! You need this.”
“Easy for you to say!” I told them.
“Tommy, trust us!”
I took in a deep breath and sighed it back out in a long sigh. “OK OK OK! I give up! Alright?! Just… Just give me a minute here, OK? I just need to take a breath… You guys go on in. In a minute I’ll come in.”
“You mean it?”
“Yeah, damnit! I do.”
“OK, then…”
So in they went. And much as I didn’t want to move, I did manage to sit up and climb out of the car. And believe me, it was a long jog straight back to my house and back to the safety of my “cave.” But I was so relieved to be back home and out of “danger.” I just wanted to climb into bed with the blankets over my head.
But more than relieved, I was really pissed. I began rifling through my LP’s. And after finding what I was looking for, I lifted Paul Anka’s “Lonely Boy” off the turntable, slapped the new platter on, and lowered the stylus into the grooves of the very first song on the A-side. The title song.
And I cranked up the volume…
The last thing in the world I needed to hear again right at that moment was “Hey, Tommy. Time heals all wounds.” I preferred Dion DiMucci’s take on things. So I blasted the anthem!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Weeks later, when the wound actually had scabbed over to some extent, Time found me seated back on my barstool at Lanpher’s soda fountain counter, nursing me a root beer fuzzy. I had to admit I was better, even though I couldn’t stop the bad habit of picking at my scab now and then. Thank God ‘Runaround’ Sue had apparently found better things to do than hang out there anymore.
So I was a junior now, and school was due to start back up in a few weeks. It was a time of ambivalence. The Back-to-School sales were on. I’d probably be getting a couple of new shirts and a couple pairs of chinos over at Koritsky’s. And maybe a new belt. But of course, I’d get most of my school supplies right there at Lanpher’s Drug. Funny, how having to make the annual purchases of a few new notebooks and ballpoints and pencils could add a tiny bit of eager anticipation to your life, despite the fact that you really wished summer vacation would last forever.
And speaking of ambivalence, the Piscataquis Valley Fair was coming right up too. I was still of the age where there was a lot of excitement and anticipation in seeing all those Fair posters stapled to every other telephone pole. Because if there’s one thing I thing I really dug back in those days, it was the wild feeling I got wandering around the sparkling midway after dark with my cronies. The Ferris Wheel decorated like a Christmas tree with its red, blue, and yellow lights; the Tilt-a Whirl squeezing the screams right out of the sloshing guts of its passengers; the hurdy-gurdy music of the carousel; the soft sawdust “floor” snaked with cables leading to the tractor-like racket of the generators anywhere and everywhere, powering everything; and even those greasy scarecrows from who-knows-where hired to operate the rides. All of that!
But more than that… the girls!
Girls all over the place. In bunches of three, four, sometimes even five or six. Everywhere you looked. A parade of girls. Girls in shorts or capris. Girls wearing Hawaiian leis draped over their shoulders. Girls toting chimpanzee-sized stuffed teddy bears or holding little kewpie dolls some guy’d won for them. Girls nibbling daintily at big, pink clouds of cotton candy. Girls from your school. Girls from outta town. Foxy girls who’d knock you out with their fetching beauty if you dared to stare too long.
Ah yes. The Piscataquis Valley Fair. Every autumn. The excitement!
And the inherent ambivalence…Because we’d wait hungrily every year for the fair. And finally it would come! Yay! BUT…practically the very next day, when all of its lights had winked out for the year, when all of its tents had buckled and collapsed, when all of its rusty rides had been dismantled and loaded back onto the semis, and the fairgrounds had been left an empty trash-and-ticket-strewn graveyard… the SCHOOL bell would ring!
Because the calendar showed us you couldn’t have the fair without school right on its heels, year after every year. School with its alphabetic-order seating plans, its morning assemblies, its homerooms and study halls and spitballs, its essay assignments and pop-quizzes, its detentions, but…
when you really stopped and thought about it…
Well, the girls.
(So school wasn’t all that bad.)
Anyway, back to me sitting on my stool at Lanpher’s…
A friend (who happened to be a girl but not a girlfriend) had just gotten up off her stool to leave; but she’d stopped momentarily and was gawking out the big glass storefront at something. “Hey look! Who’d have thought! Freddy’s got himself a girlfriend.”
The voice in my head said, Freddy? I called out, “You talking about my cousin Freddy? Or…”
“Yeah. Him. And wow, he’s got himself quite a cutie, too.”
Holding my big, frosty mug in hand, I got up and joined her at the window. And yes: wow was correct. There he was. And there she was. The two of them strolling in conversation past the Esso station across the street. My first impression was, Well. Look at you, Freddy you old dog. My second was, But whoa! Check her out! She was cute. At least from a distance.
“So… who’s the girl? I don’t recognize her.”
“A freshman.”
“Oh! Yeah. Freddy’s a freshman too this year.” I found myself wishing I could get a better look. “She from town?”
“Oh yeah. From over on Winter Street.
“Ah!. Winter Street. Right around the corner!”
“God, Tommy. I can see your mind working right from here. You’re so obvious.”
“Whattaya mean?”
“That you’re so interested. I mean, you’re getting a real good eyeful there.”
“Hey. C’mon. Freddy’s my cousin, for cryin’ out loud. Family. Of course I’m… interested... in who he’s dating. If… he is dating, that is. It’s… like, you know, keeping up with the family news.”
“Family news. Ha! Right. You just keep telling yourself that.”
“What’s your problem, anyway?”
“Problem? Do I have a problem.Who said anybody has a problem?”
“So anyway… what’s her name?”
“Phyllis. Phyllis Raymond.”
“Oh.”
“’Oh,’ he says. Yeah. If you got a pencil, I can write that right down for ya, if you want. Don’t know her phone number, but I can probably get it.”
“Well, you’re the helpful type, aren’tcha.”
“I am, I am. I’m on the Pony staff. Always looking for a juicy scoop. I like to keep track of what’s going on, yeah. But anyway. I don’t think they are.”
“Are what? ”
“Dating. Freddy and Phyllis. At least, not that I’ve heard. I mean, maybe they are. But anyway, I can find out and get back to you.”
“Whatta you got? Too much time on your hands or something?”
“No, actually just busy, busy, busy.”
“Stirring up gossip, yeah.”
“Well, the Fall Edition of The Pony will need stories, won’t it. And it’ll be coming out before you know it. But hey. Be nice! If you want me to put the good word out for ya. That you’re interested in her, that is.”
“Jeez! She’s with Freddy.”
“I know. Who’s a lowly freshman, though. Right? Like you were, year before last. A freshman without any status. Remember?”
“Oh, believe me. I do. I’d like to forget.”
“Well, you’re a junior now. You can crush freshmen. So don’t worry.”
“Oh, you’d worry, if you had my track record. I’m thinking about becoming a monk in a monastery.”
“Yeah, well, I gotta run. But, I’ll pass the word along for ya. And no, don’t thank me.”
“The word?”
“Phyllis. Phyllis Raymond.”
“That’s the word?”
“No. You’re the word. See ya.”
“OK. Bye.”
Hmmmm…. Phyllis Raymond.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
And so the county fair finally did arrive. That last bastion of summer vacation, all that was left holding back the inevitable onslaught of teachers, books, and early-to-bed school-nights. Summer’s last hurrah. Remember the Alamo, and all that.
I was there with a couple of my cronies. Inhaling the electrifying carnival excitement, and experiencing the thrill of the hunt: the sport of girl-watching.
Us, looping ourselves through the midway, around all the crazy Wonderland rides, over around the cow-pie-stink of the livestock sheds, then back around through the fried dough-and-French fries food concessions, and eventually right back through the midway once again. Over and over.
What else was there to do, with your pocket-change so quickly running low?
But my God, weren’t the girls lovely!
And us? I look back on this evening shaking my head. The three of us really just spinning our tires and going nowhere. And we knew we were losers, sadly. I’m reminded of a song, and if I were to ever make a movie of this scene, that song would make a perfect backdrop soundtrack.
THREE COOL CATS 1958 The Coasters
Three cool cats, three cool cats
Parked on the corner in a beat-up car
Dividing up a nickel candy bar
Talking all about how sharp they are,
These three cool cats
Three cool chicks three cool chicks
Walkin’ down the street a-swingin’ their hips
Splitting up a bag of potato chips
And three cool cats did three big flips for
Three cool chicks
Up pops the first cool cat
He said, “Man, look at that!
Man, do you see what I see?”
“I want the middle chick!”
“I want that little chick!”
“Hey, man, save one chick for me!”
Three cool chicks, three cool chicks
They look like angels from up above
And three cool cats really fell in love
But three cool chicks made three fools of these
Three cool cats, three cool cats
Three cool cats, three cool cats,
Three cool cats, three cool cats
But then… something unexpected… Gradually, we’d become aware that the three of us were being dogged by a couple of half-pints. What they were following us for, I couldn’t imagine. But it irked and, consequently, I stopped and spun around on them!
“What the hell do you two punks want? Trouble? Beat it!”
But they didn’t beat it. On the contrary the shorter of the two, the one six-inches taller than a yardstick, stepped forward. Right up to me, in a seemingly confrontational manner, although he wore a nervous grin.
“I got a question,” he said.
And I was thinking, Who the heck is this kid? And what question could he possibly have for me? I mean, I don’t know him from anybody.
“Who the hell do you think you are? Look, I don’t know you. And you don’t know me! So…”
“I got a question,” he said again.
Jeez, the nerve. “Heard you the first time. Alright. Spit it out. And… it better be one hell of a good question, too.”
“You the guy who likes my sister?”
Well that floored me! He’d just blurted it straight out. I stared at him.
“What?” I definitely hadn’t seen that coming. “What’d you just say?”
“Are you the guy who likes my sister?”
I shook my head, as if to shake some cobwebs out. “Your sister? Listen fella, if I don’t know who you are, then I don’t know who your sister is, DO I. Why? You gonna beat me up or something if I say yes?”
I mean, I was thinking, has this squirt got me mixed up with somebody else? Like somebody in some family feud, like the Hatfields and the McCoys?
“So…? Are you?”
Jeez. Again, the nerve of this kid. Like one of those yapping little pug-faced dogs on my paper route. But oddly, I could feel myself getting pulled right in. Because somewhere out there was a girl we were talking about. And Girls? That was my favorite topic. But who? Who was she?
“Well… how can I like somebody I don’t even know who she is?”
The theme song of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis could’ve been playing itself in the ‘juke box’ in my head:
“She got a name? This sister of yours..?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, what the hell is it?”
“Phyllis,” he said.
Phyllis. He’d said Phyllis. Suddenly everything changed.
Because (A) I didn’t know any Phyllis. I’d never met a Phyllis in my life. But (B) there was… one Phyllis that I knew OF, wasn’t there. Freddy’s Phyllis. The cute one.
But… how was this all happening?
I studied the twerp. I looked him over, like some guy inspecting a used car he was thinking of buying.
“OK. Then your last name’s Raymond. Right?”
He nodded.
“What’s your first name, kid?”
“Willy.”
“I see. Well, Willy. The answer is yes. I do like your sister. I like her very much. So— whatta you care?”
He just blurted it right out. “Can I have a quarter?”
“Can you… what?”
“Can you give me a quarter?”
I couldn’t believe the brass this kid had. “Jeez, I dunno. Why would I wanna do that? I mean, twenty-five cents? Do I get something out of it?”
“Maybe.”
“Well then, how about this? Say I give you a quarter. And then you? First you tell your big sister you talked to me, OK? And tell her my name. Tommy. Tommy Lyford.“
“She already knows your name.“
“She does?”
“Yeah.”
I was thinking, She DOES? She really does??? And Whoa, was that my heart that just leaped up out of my ribcage?
“Oh. OK. Sure. Good. So… And… then you tell her that… yeah, I do. I do like her. How’s that?”
“OK, with me.”
“Alright. OK with me, too.”
I fished a quarter out of my pocket and held it up before his greedy little eyes. “One quarter. And know this: there’s plenty more where that came from. You dig? If you play your cards right, that is. So, you might wanna be helpful. Right?”
“OK.”
I dropped the quarter into his sweaty little palm. And my God, he was off like a rabbit, with his buddy chasing behind. ! He obviously had something particular in mind to spend it on.
But here’s the thing. I couldn’t believe how upper-case-‘F’ Fortune had just parachuted right down out of the friggin’ blue and handed me an in. An in being something I could use. A connection. I mean, sometimes life can apparently be like a Monopoly game. When you least expect it, you draw a card that says, “Your bank has made an error in your favor. Collect $200.” Was my luck possibly changing?
And how did Willy even know who I was? Somebody must’ve been talking about me. No, about me and this sister of his, this… Phyllis.
This Phyllis Raymond.
Suddenly, I was actually looking forward to school finally starting back up again for the year on Tuesday.
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