by Bill Geist
“Who goes there?” one of the girls called out as she wrapped herself in a towel.
“Billy?” another queried.
“It’s Billy,” one confirmed. Others laughed, seemingly relieved that it was just young Billy.
“C’mon, join us.”
I wanted to run but it was too late. So I stripped to my underwear—as far as I could go—and walked toward the rock.
“Noooooo!!” they shouted
“Skinny-dip! Skinny-dip!” they chanted.
I was horrified. I flashed back to swimming lessons at our local YMCA, where boys were made to swim nude. Girls wore suits. What!? Why? Years later, the Village People had an answer.
We didn’t like it. Young boys standing with their hands folded just so in front of themselves, making sure their eyes never met those of another, as completely clueless instructors explained the easy-to-remember ten basic steps of learning to swim.
Consequently, I didn’t learn to swim for years. Our mothers would drop off Ricky Piper and me for swimming lessons. We walked in the front door of the Y and out the back.
We went downtown and walked around, which was kind of an adventure for young kids out on their own. On the return trip we stopped at the fountain in West Side Park and dampened our towels.
And here’s one I can barely believe myself: our junior high school, Edison, had a swimming pool. Swimming class was required. Boys swam nude there, too. What’s the deal?
It was horrifying. Water, as you know, causes a certain amount of shrinkage, and, I can tell you, so does unwanted public attention. Same with turtles.
So I stood before the girls at the Point wondering, What will they think? Will they laugh and point?
I whipped off my shorts, sprinted to the rock, and took the plunge. The girls cheered. A few snickered. I didn’t ask why.
* * *
Years later at the Point, at a coed party (with suits) we huddled around a small campfire, hugging whomever was closest. Three beers in, I put my arm around a soft, cuddly, and warm housekeeper who was nothing to write home about, but I didn’t see her jotting notes about me to her friends and family, either.
Just then, Phoebe walked over, bent down, and whispered in my ear: “You can do better than that.”
“What?!” I said, too loudly. No girl had ever uttered such suggestive words to me, and I never expected to hear any such from her.
So, this is what it’s like being cool.
After getting Jean another beer, which seemed like the least a chivalrous man would do—the very least—I was off lickety-split with Phoebe.
We walked up the hill to the highway, then down the dark, winding road toward Uncle Ed’s house. We tiptoed past the guys’ quarters and down the hill, where we boarded Ed’s cabin cruiser, a favorite spot for spooning, and I mean that in the most lascivious sense. We proceeded to the sleeping spaces in the bow.
We frenched.We wiggled around for a full twenty minutes before we both realized we had reached that moment, the moment when the foreplay clock runs out. Now what? Your move or mine? The first of many “Now what’s” I would experience in the coming years
I was frankly afraid to make any advances. Even though she had been the agent provocateur in all this, I feared she’d turn me down. Or maybe laugh.
Who knew what girls were thinking?
But I did have one trick left. You may have already guessed it. Mental telepathy. Don’t scoff, I’ve seen it bend spoons.
I pressed my forehead against hers and chanted silently but very intensely: Let’s do it! Do it! Doooo it! Now!…
I wasn’t getting through to her. I altered the pitch, the wordage, the frequency.
For whatever reason, mental telepathy wasn’t working. No better than cruising the Steak ’n Shake drive-in hamburger joint on Friday nights, where we never spoke to any girls, never got out of the car, just cruised and tried to look cool. We hoped they’d notice and that we’d wind up making out with them—maybe in a park or somewhere. Unclear.
This did not happen. Ever. Never worked.
Both Phoebe and I finally realized that nothing was going to happen between us, be it her reluctance or mine.
And once again, she whispered in my ear, “It’s late. I have to work breakfast tomorrow.”
The End.
Chapter Eighteen
Cross-Cultural Exchange
Pete was named, perhaps by me, to head our Cross-Cultural Summer Exchange Program, whereby those of us here for the season would get to know and better appreciate the customs and values of local peoples.
Pete was from Oklahoma. Where? “Blackwell, near Ponca City,” he explained when we first met.
“Oh yeah,” I replied.
Returning to the boys’ quarters late one night I found him in bed with the lights on, a sheet pulled up to his neck, and quivering. He pulled back the sheet to reveal bloody lacerations on his legs.
“What happened?”
One of his cultural exchange attempts had gone terribly wrong.
One of Pete’s regular tasks was to drive the station wagon—“Arrowhead Lodge” splashed large on both sides, like a moving billboard—to Stu’s Icehouse and Bait Shop to pick up ice every couple of days during the hottest, busiest part of the season when reserves ran low.
Pete was an affable sort, an able ambassador, and once there he’d smile and try to engage the staff in pleasant conversation. But the icehouse gang was a tough—inbred?—crowd. They didn’t change expressions nor speak actual words.
Except Gayle, Stu’s improbable daughter—adopted?—who was rather attractive and sociable. She and Pete became well acquainted one particularly hot summer when much ice was needed. They corresponded—in writing—several times during the off season and the next summer decided to “do the deed,” as he described it, thereby advancing the cause of closer relations with the local citizenry.
She borrowed her uncle’s car, Pete brought the beer (Schlitz, hot off the truck), and they drove to the Grand Glaize Drive-In, arriving at dusk just in time for the feature film. He did not recall the title of the film. They did not go to the snack bar or play on the swing set.
Within minutes each chugged a couple of beers and soon found themselves—odd way to put it—in the back seat. Things were progressing quite well when there was this banging on the rear passenger-side window. It was then that she uttered those worst of all words in such a situation: “It’s my dad!”
Stu!
And he was accompanied by her even lesser evolved uncle. These were burly men who tossed around heavy bags of ice like they were throw pillows all day every day.
Somehow, Pete was able to grab his shoes and undershorts and escape through the rear driver’s side door.
He ran as fast as he could, obviously, then bounded over a fence so high it kept passing motorists from seeing sinful scenes on the big screen, free. Then he dashed across the road, crashed through a barbed wire fence, and crawled, bleeding, into the dark woods. This is the sort of course that qualifies a soldier for the Green Berets.
Gayle’s dad and uncle had seen Pete escape into the woods and now they hunted him. Being hunted in the woods is not good, as any deer would tell you. Pete could see the glow of their cigarettes. Good Lord, they planned to be here so long they had to smoke cigarettes? What next, a campfire? Would he have to trap small animals and eat them?
They came ever closer to Pete before eventually giving up the chase and returning to the drive-in to pick up the car and Gayle. Pete saw this and made for the Methodist parsonage down the road, where he’d try to call the lodge for a ride.
He went to the door wearing only his shoes and undershorts and still bleeding. The minister answered the door and gasped. He wasn’t going to let Pete come in. If only his stigmata had been on his palms and feet the preacher might have showed more compassion.
“There’s been an accident,” Pete said, and asked to use the phone. The preacher was reluctant, but finally allowed Pete to step inside and make
the call. Jim Murphy picked him up.
A week or two later someone from the icehouse returned the rest of Pete’s clothes to the front desk at Arrowhead without comment. Jim Murphy, who lived at the lodge year-round, told Pete that over the previous winter someone got into an argument with the guys at the icehouse and was killed!
Henceforth I was sent to the icehouse in place of Pete. The problem with that was Pete and I were both tall, thin redheads. So the first time I went in, the muscular, low-browed men glared at me, then mumbled amongst themselves, apparently deciding that killing me would cost them a good account, not to mention I just might not be the right guy.
Nevertheless, it was a setback for the cultural exchange program and for a greater understanding among peoples in the Bagnell Dam area.
Chapter Nineteen
The Best Laid Plans
It was already August and here I was, still a virgin. At least according to Webster’s.
I decided to launch a two-week initiative to convince A) Dana to go with me to Jeff City and B) spend the night. The overnight was crucial. If that didn’t materialize, I didn’t really want to go all that way and back on the crazy road.
“Why don’t we go up to Jeff City some night and go to a restaurant and a movie?” I asked, wholesomely. Dana balked but eventually agreed.
Then the hard part. Phase two: “By the time we eat and see a movie, it’s going to be late. And I don’t want to drive back on that dangerous road. So maybe we should, you know, stay overnight.”
“Whaaat!?” she replied. “Where?”
I couldn’t bring myself to say the word “motel,” which back then carried with it licentious overtones. Really. Just the word.
The next day, after fabricating my thoughts, I told Dana that I had a friend who lived up there with his parents in a big house and could probably put us up. She didn’t ask how many rooms the two of us would be occupying per se.
“Will his parents be home?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered, although it concerned me that she wasn’t getting it.
On the big day, I was off duty at 4:00 p.m. and Dana was off after lunch. I’d asked Ed if I could borrow the lodge wagon, which was never a good bet, but when I told him why, he immediately said, “Yes!”
And so we set out on our Jeff City adventure. I had a big smile and, thinking ahead, a stirring of the loins. Dana was happy, too. I had to wonder if Lewis and Clark were as excited about getting to Jeff City as I was.
We had the windows down, the radio up, and were singing along to “Surfin’ Bird,” the classic by the Trashmen: “Well, everybody’s talkin’ about the bird! A well a bird, bird, b-bird’s the word…Papa, ooma mow mow, papa ooom mow mow…” Dana favored “Come a little bit closer, you’re my kind of man…” by Jay and the Americans. There’s no accounting for taste.
I kept sneaking peeks at her. She was a beauty. I felt lucky. Her father probably kept his farmer’s daughter locked in the barn to avoid a stampede of clod-kickers.
We arrived at the movie theater in Jeff City just as Cleopatra was about to begin. Pulling out all the stops, I bought a large buttered popcorn. Sure, it was expensive, but I wanted to let her know how much she meant to me.
When the movie was over, we drove to Big Mo’s (or words to that effect) Steak House, “Where the Meat’s Bigger Than the Plate!” The shrimp in the shrimp cocktails were unnaturally large too, looking like they might have been harvested from water discharged by the cooling tower of a nuclear power plant. The baked potatoes? Footballs. The steaks were very tender and very, very thin, which lead me to wonder if Big Mo might be out back driving a truck over them, back and forth, again and again ’til they’d hang off the plates
After dinner, I went to a pay phone outside and made “a call” to the “parents’ home.” I spoke loudly, hoping Dana could hear.
“Hello, Mrs. Smith, This is Bill, that friend of Bob’s who needed two rooms tonight?…Oh no, really? I’m very sorry to hear that…freight or passenger?…Yes, a motel, that’s a good idea…Okay, I’ll try the Ramada? Thank you, goodbye.”
I hung up and turned to Dana. “Someone died. Hit by a westbound freight. They tried to save him at Jefferson City General but he didn’t make it. The house is full of relatives in town for the funeral.”
“That’s terrible,” Dana said. “What should we do?”
“She said the Ramada was nice and fairly affordable.”
“No. I meant like flowers or a card,” Dana said.
Dana was silent as she got back into the car. I was silent as I drove. We were both nervous. It was like we were on the verge of something very exciting but also frightening and perhaps stupid. Like when a roller coaster goes slowly up and up and you anticipate the thrilling, scary plunge. Unless she hadn’t figured out where I was going.
I pulled into the Ramada parking lot about as far from the office as I could. I’d just remembered that we were in a powder blue Ford station wagon with “Arrowhead Lodge” emblazoned in two-foot-high letters stretching from front to back.
“Wait here,” I told Dana, who had no intention of getting out.
“Gotta act confident,” I told myself. “Checking people in is your job.”
“Good evening,” said the desk clerk. “May I help you?”
“I’m a salesman in town for the Adhesives Expo,” I said. (I’d seen a billboard somewhere.)
I was perspiring heavily.
“Haven’t heard about it,” the clerk said. (Maybe the billboard was in St. Louis.) “So you’ll be here all week?”
“Just the night,” I said.
“Single?”
“No, the wife is with me.” They marry early around here.
I registered: Fred Butkus, 100 Main Street, Chicago. Then signed the form “Bill Geist.” Shit. I quickly scrawled that out and signed “Dick Butkus,” throwing family resemblance to the wind.
The form asked what firm I was representing:
I wrote: “Midwest Mucilage.”
“Good outfit,” I remarked.
The clerk pretended not to be paying attention to any of this.
“Your total is $28.50,” he said.
Whew! I thought. I worried that Big Mo might have cleaned me out.
“Your room is 102 right here on the first floor so you can come in through the front door.”
“Great,” I said, thinking Ugh. How was Dana going to get past the desk clerk?
I went back to the car and told Dana. “Ugh,” she said.
We had no luggage. Sure sign of trysters. I knew. I was a bellhop.
So we hustled in, looking at the walls, the ceiling, the carpet, anything to avoid eye contact with the clerk.
The key didn’t work. “Son-of-a-bitch,” I said. “Wait here.” So there she was, leaning against the wall in the motel hallway alone, probably feeling like a hooker.
I rushed down to the front desk and back, unlocked the door, and we bolted inside. Dana turned on the TV. The Andy Griffith Show was on.
“That’s where I grew up,” Dana said. “Mayberry R.F.D.”
I took two beers out of a small cooler I’d brought along.
Then two more and so on.
“Excuse me,” she said, and went into the bathroom. I heard her pee for the first time. Moments later she opened the door and emerged in a short T-shirt and underwear. I’m pretty sure I gasped.
She moved quickly to the bed, pulled back the covers, and hopped in. I stripped down to my shorts and joined her.
We were kissing passionately when she grabbed my shoulders, pushed me away, looked me straight in the eye, and said firmly: “I can’t.”
What do you mean you can’t?!
“I can’t do this.”
“Why not?!”
“I’m…Catholic.”
“Catholic!?” Where’s the relevance?! She’s probably a member of 4-H, too.
“How do you guys get such big families?”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“B
ut you must have known…” I said.
“I can’t.”
“I’ll sleep in this chair,” I snapped.
“You’re sweet,” she said.
Sweet Jesus! I thought.
She went to sleep. I could tell by her breathing.
I sat in the chair, my feet on the ottoman, for a good hour or two, in the dark, pretty sure I’d never have sex in my lifetime.
If not now, this night, when?
Maybe next year. Next summer.
Chapter Twenty
Autumn Leaves
A dry leaf scoots across the stone patio, making a scratching sound as it goes, scurrying to exit the summer stage and join those scattered down the hill from summers past.
The light breeze pushing it along feels cooler as dusk settles on this, the last day of summer.
Dana and I sit out by the pool on two old wrought-iron chairs that will need a new coat of white paint next spring. We lightly touch hands, not speaking much in these final hours of a summer romance that seemed most improbable when Ed suggested it back in June. What more was there to say?
It had been a week of goodbyes as the summer staff returned to homes and schools. The girls hugged each other and cried. The guys shook hands and uttered meaningless farewells: “Be good, Billy. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Funny about guys and goodbyes in my generation. Whether it was here or after college graduation or leaving Vietnam, we said goodbye and moved on, rarely to write or call.
We’d held a memorial service behind the pool, where we buried Wheezer’s red baggies, which he was wearing when he got off the bus from Arizona, and wore all summer, day in and day out and many nights too. Some objected to the service on the grounds that we were burying something alive.
We’d had “Slugger’s Smoker,” filling room 101, the muskiest room on the “garden” floor, with billowing smoke from several cigars. After Slugger had gone.