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It's A Raw Deal

By Ken Thompson

“Do you ever wanna come back?” .

“Back to Brooklyn?” .

“Yeah… to when we were kids and all… back to the quote-unquote good ol’ days?”

Harvey’s question was a good one. Probably every ex-Brooklynite has thought about it. This time with the benefit of a second double Chivas and not having seen him in a very long time, I gave him a honest and direct answer.

“Sure, for some things, but not for everything. Some of it was not so good. I try to remember the good things but if I think about it too long I remember the stuff that I wouldn’t want to go through again. Still other stuff I’d wanna do over ‘big time’.”

A funny smile came across Harvey’s face as he said “Me too… I’d want to do over the thing with girls.”

“That’s for sure. The years from ages 13 to 18 were in some ways a definite disaster. Not all our own fault you know. We got something of a raw deal.”

“Yeah… but I WANNA do the girl thing over again.”

Here we are, two grown men, lamenting lost opportunities and relationships with girls some forty plus years earlier. In some ways it was totally stupid but the Chivas made it all reasonable and rational.

Harvey had been a pretty good football player for Erasmus in the years that weren’t so good for them. He never let the jock thing go to his head but he got smart and learned what it meant to strive and lead. He lives out on the North Shore and has quite a successful business and a great family.

Sipping yet another round of Chivas doubles at Peter Luger’s Steakhouse on Broadway can go to your head pretty fast. Can also make the participants seem noticeably brighter.

“Kenny, what’s the difference between a slut and a bitch”.

“I give up.”

“A slut will do it with anyone but a bitch will do it with anyone but you.”

“Ha ha.” Sure, I’d heard it before but we were being nice. It was good to be with Harvey again. We always laughed at each others jokes and stories no matter how inane. Some things don’t change.

“What ever happened to her? What was her name?”

”Rachael.”

Shame on me for even being able to remember her and her “special attributes”.

We ordered another round of drinks as appetizers and two of the renowned Porterhouse steaks done medium-rare. They were served on plates that seemed the size of a manhole cover.

We talked for another two hours as the young lawyer looking suits from Manhattan came and went. The strong coffees went down slowly and were kept filled. We laughed and told memories and stories. Mostly about people we didn’t see anymore… Jimmy, Albie, Arnie, Dom, Ira, Lew, Sammy, Joe, Johnny, Alan, Charlie, Howie, Tommy, Paul, Squee, Cuyler, Stanley, … we talked about Ocean Parkway, Flatbush Avenue, and Kings Highway… of playing ball and doing stuff. We spoke longingly of some girls but the details had escaped us over the years and they were pretty vague memories. We had the same names but different images and situations.

We agreed we missed all of the people and events, and promised that we’d search ‘em out and all get together again. It was a nice thought. We were on with our lives. We should do it though. Maybe later.

We recognized we were full and had more that enough to drink. We argued who would pay the tab and he won it as a business expense and said he’d make sure to over-tip; something we even did growing up. We said our goodbyes, gave hugs, and said we missed each other. Harvey went off to his home as I got in the waiting car service’s Town Car and headed back to an over-priced hotel room on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. It was the type of reunion you wished happened more often but seldom does.

Harvey left me with good feelings and me thinking about the `doing over the girl thing for ages 13 through 18’. Then it came to me. I had missed something growing up.

Out of a memory cubby-hole not frequently accessed, I recalled Neil Simon’s play Brighton Beach Memoirs. A great read though the play’s script is a little different from the movie’s.

Anyway, near the end of the play, Stanley, Jerome’s older brother, comes home from not enlisting in the Army and is talking with his Dad. The gist of the talk by the Dad is that Stanley is very important to the family, not only financially but emotionally. He speaks of how important Stanley is to his brother, Jerome, and to his development into a good person and a young man. He speaks of how important it is for an older brother to pass on the ways of the world, to prevent him from making mistakes. Stanley accepts the responsibility. Later, Stanley gives Jerome a “dirty” picture which, we are led to believe, Jerome uses to further go blind or at least to acquire glasses.

All of a sudden I had it… or didn’t have it… I was missing an older brother. I had needed someone to teach me about the ways of the world as an adolescent. Of course, at this stage of my life it’s silly to expect to now have an older brother. My parents don’t do those things anymore both having already passed. Actually, as a first born male child it is forever impossible to ever have an older brother.

I admit that parents can become separate, find another, and “in the deal acquire” children that are older but these kids would not be true older brothers. Yes, there could be older males who act like a true blood-brother but that are not what I’m getting at either. And for those who can say “My Dad was like a brother to me.” forget it. Sure some of your friends may have been like brothers but those were the same friends that constantly bragged, lied to you, and possibly got you into trouble.

Only one of my friends had an older brother and that was Arnie. I can’t say what his relationship with David was but I know they weren’t “best buds”. They got along but I don’t know what their conversations were in their apartment. I do remember an exchange that went something like this:

“Hey Arnie, you get wet dreams?

Yeah, do you?

Yeah .

Does David get ‘em?

I guess so; but he spends a lot of time in the bathroom doing things and poppin’ pimples.

What things?

I dunno but he hides dirty magazines under the tub.”

For my growing up and coming of age, I had needed the sex talk and lotsa advice about girls but I never got it. My Mom gave me a book to read when I started having wet dreams but it was gibberish. It was probably put out by a doctor with an Oedipus complex, a monastic seminary, an ancient spinster lady, or a very bitter order of nuns. It didn’t tell me what I needed to know to “succeed” with girls… whatever that means. I didn’t necessarily want the secrets of getting to third base or even second base as much as the info to make the playing field even. In hindsight, I needed an older brother and didn’t have one.

I started noticing girls in grammar school. There were maybe sixty kids in our class – half boys – but the Nuns used to keep us apart… very apart. Girls mature faster than boys, emotionally and physically, so when I was just getting ready they were way ahead of me. I could look, almost stare, but that was it. I didn’t know what else there was. Girls ignored me as well as most of the other boys… as they were so well trained to do. In theory you could talk to the girls, but I didn’t really have the nerve, opportunity, or know what to say.

Valerie, who lived on the next block, was everything I could want for in a girl but I was just about invisible to her. My attempts at anything were a complete failure and besides that… “She Knew”.

My last chance in grammar school was a dance at the end of eighth grade. I got up some nerve, had my Mom teach me the box step, and got dressed up. The dance was classic: boys in a large cluster on one side, looking over at the girls and making snide remarks; girls in small clusters on the other side, talking and laughing among themselves and absolutely ignoring the boys. 200 chaperones everywhere. Peer pressure and an inadequately developed confidence level made for a dance-less evening, a long walk home, no growth in knowledge, and the continuation of the age of innocence and ignorance.

High school was different in a number of ways. Being in an all boys school, being involved in some extra-curricula activities, traveling an hour each way, working as a delivery boy after class, supposedly having three hours of homework a night, and having the small Dumont TV on in the same room as I did homework didn’t give me time for what was becoming an almost consuming mental interest - GIRLS.

My Dad’s static line of advice for his non-dating-much son was to tell him “You have to swing the bat to get to first base.” His apparent solution was for me to ask ANYONE out, including daughters of friends from The Sportsmen’s Bar and Grill, and then I would get the hang of it. His story that Babe Ruth was as much a strike-out king as a home-run king was understood but did not seem to honestly relate to my situation. Besides you could get hit by the pitched ball or walked to get to first base.

I moved from Sports Illustrated to Argosy Magazine to other reading matter: Escapade and Playboy, which I kept hidden. Books helped; there was an underground lending library for the likes of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer series, Shulman’s Amboy Dukes, etc.; but all I learned was that everyone but me seemed to know the “secrets”. I knew the stories were probably an exaggeration but there must be some fact behind them. Could the key to the “secrets” be a Charlotte-Russe? I needed an older brother.

By the way, I finally mastered the wet dream issue.

Weather permitting and no ball games to play, the guys would wile away our time sitting on two benches on Ocean Parkway. Sometimes we would pitch pennies and sometimes we would ponder deep thought as to why there were no girls around. If some girls did come by we somehow usually offended them to the point where they continued their walk and never looked back. We would then resume our discussion of why no girls were around. We were jerks.

On weekends a bunch of us would go to Flatbush Ave near Erasmus looking for girls. Of course the chances of nine guys finding nine girls that could pair off so that everyone would be pleased to be seen with was totally insane. So we’d wind up going bowling or to a movie and then to Garfield’s, Jahn’s, or Kee’s Chinese Restaurant where we’d try to talk the waiter into bring us beers… without any success.

I did go to some high school CYO Confraternity dances but still had sweaty hands and a difficulty making any headway with girls. I could manage to get girls up and dance, leaving appropriate room for the Holy Ghost, but was unable to take it from there. I note that girls didn’t help the situation or make it easy for me... not that that was their responsibility but it sure would have helped if they were more understanding. I needed an older brother.

I guess it was in my second year of High School that I realized that I was at a critical stage of “man” developing – being semi-erect constantly. I almost couldn’t think about anything that didn’t lead me into thinking about girls. This included saddle shoes, eye shadow and rouge, tartans, the heart shape, any sight of girl’s undergarments (before the age of `visible panty line’), subway tunnels, rocket ships, etc. Even the letter “W”. I wonder if Dick Clark knew what Frani, Justine, Bunny, and Arlene on American Bandstand, did to me and 150 million other young horny guys?

The pressure was on as a high school Junior; Senior Prom was 20 months away. I don’t handle pressure well. Almost everyone I knew seemed to have the “ca-ca” together to the point that one guy was planning to bring TWO girls and another just couldn’t seem to make up his mind. Nobody seemed to have problems but me. 18 months to go and I met a very proper and pretty girl who was nice and I could talk to. We didn’t date but from time to time we would be in a group together and we would talk. In hindsight she was nice to me and if I was smarter, or had an older brother, I would have known what to say or do. I’m not talking physical mind you, just for me to be smarter at times.

At 12 months to go I had all my eggs in one basket… this girl or none! Not a good situation. I almost couldn’t broach the subject but when I finally did I got a “Yes.” I was jubilant. Stories of 1960 Prom Night wildness and romance are greatly exaggerated… based on my sample of one. The night was fun, exciting and memorable but not rich with kisses and cuddling. I was a perfect gentlemen… it was really more like a brother and sister thing, but not like in Arkansas!

Doing college at night and working on Wall Street got me exposed to more girls and I found you could kid with them, talk to them, be flirtatious, even hinting at more than I ever dreamed of. It was a case of me having to walk before I could run… if you get the metaphor.

Before I knew it, I became discerning about who I would talk to, be seen with, and want to spend time with. The funny thing is I tried to never forget how hard it can be and therefore was a flirt with just about every female.

College was good for me. I found my one true soul mate, married her, and live very happily. She was able to overlook my short comings, and flirting, and saw that she could make something worthwhile and presentable of me. It wasn’t easy for her and I’m a work in progress. Life is good.

I wound up okay… I think. I do know that growing up could have been better and easier. Maybe most boys go through the same thing but there has to be a better way. The next time I do life again, I hope I’m wiser, smarter, maybe even cuter, and overcome “relationship retardation” earlier.

I hope I get to do it with Harvey.

By the way, her name was Janice, not Rachael.

[end] © Copyright by Ken Thompson - 2003.

She Knew