“Where you going?”
“It’s getting close to supper time. I better leave.”
“You’re not going to let them bother you, are you?”
“No, they’re stupid.” I started climbing the steps to the cockpit. “Besides, what they said isn’t true. We’re not boyfriend and girlfriend.” As I reached the top, I heard Eddie mutter, “We’re not?” I didn’t say anything else as we walked back to Chicory Lane, silent.
At the dinner table that same evening, I asked my parents about Mr. Alpine. I needed to satisfy my curiosity.
“He’s one of our neighbors, dear,” Mom answered. “We hired him to take Michael’s portrait, remember?”
“He takes our school pictures, too,” I added.
“Uh huh. And doesn’t he work at the library?”
“Yes.”
“He’s Mayor Alpine’s brother,” Dad said.
“I know that.”
“He’s also on the school board at Giddings.” That was the junior high school I would start attending in the fall.
“But do you know him?”
Mom wrinkled her brow as if she wondered why I would ask such a thing. “We say hello when we see him.”
“He comes into the bank,” Dad added. “Very personable guy. He’s helping to organize the Fourth of July parade. I think he does it every year.”
She looked at me. “Why do you ask, dear?”
I shrugged. “I think he’s nice. He’s always giving stuff to everyone, comic books and candy. And he’s got a movie projector and shows us cartoons and old movies.”
“Really?” said Dad.
“He’s got a lot of neat stuff. You know that robot from that movie we saw on TV?”
Dad looked at me sideways. “Robby the Robot? Forbidden Planet?”
“Yeah. Well, Mr. Alpine has a Robby the Robot toy that’s this big.” I used my fingers to indicate six inches off the table top. “He winds it, and it walks and lights up.”
“You’ve been in his house?” Mom asked.
“Everybody has. To see his toy collection, watch movies …”
Mom paused. She seemed concerned. “You probably shouldn’t do that, Shelby. If he asks you to come in again, just politely say you’re not supposed to go in anyone’s house without us knowing about it.”
“He’s a nice man,” I said again, working my way up to the real question. “Did you know he was married once?”
My dad cleared his throat and said, “Uh, yes, that’s true. That was before we moved here. He was a young man then, and he didn’t live on our street.”
“Did they have any kids?”
Dad and Mom glanced at each other. Dad continued, “They did. I don’t know the whole story, but the baby died in its crib. A tragedy.”
“Honey,” Mom said, “sometimes babies die for no reason when they’re really small. They call it a ‘crib death.’ That’s what happened.”
At the time, this news shocked me. Now, of course, I know about SIDS—sudden infant death syndrome—but back then no one had a term for it. The cause of death was a mystery; doctors didn’t start fully studying SIDS until a decade later, and it wasn’t part of the public consciousness until the eighties or nineties.
Dad turned to Mom. “He lives alone now, but did he ever remarry?”
“No. Barbara at the beauty shop dated him last year, and they went out for several months. I don’t know what happened. And, gosh, wasn’t he engaged a few years ago? You know, to that teacher at the high school.”
Dad furrowed his brow. “I remember … was it Linda Perkins?”
“That’s her. She was Linda Lewis then. Again, I’m not sure what happened. The wedding was called off. She ended up marrying Dr. Perkins.”
“Well, it sounds like he’s a confirmed bachelor now.”
“What’s wrong with that?” I interjected.
“Nothing,” Dad said.
“Never mind, Shelby, just eat your dinner,” Mom said.
Dad added, “I guess it takes some people longer to find the right person.”
“What church does he go to?” Mom asked.
“The Methodist? I know he goes every Sunday. I think he volunteers for a lot of their charity events.”
“What if I go in his house with my friends?” I asked.
“As long as there’s a group of you, I guess that’s all right,” Mom answered. “Just not alone, okay?”
“I won’t.”
Back in the sixties, it was considered strange if you were still single and already in your thirties or forties, even if you were divorced. This was a strong sentiment, especially in the Bible Belt. I suppose that was the case with closeted gay people. They lived their lives as “confirmed bachelors,” and whatever the term would be for the female equivalent—“old maid”? I don’t think my parents thought Mr. Alpine was gay; after all, he had been married and had apparently dated. He certainly didn’t come off as effeminate, although I suppose he was “theatrical”—that was the best word to describe him. He used words like “my dear” and “darling” when talking to us kids. And when he took our school pictures, he’d say to the next kid in line, “Step up there, handsome!” Click. “Have a seat, princess!” Click. “Give us a smile, cowboy!” Click. “Look right at the camera, miss movie star!” Click. He had an attitude that made us all laugh.
After that discussion, I didn’t visit Mr. Alpine as much as I had before school let out—I had gone at least a couple of times with Eddie, and several other times when there was a group of kids in tow. There would only be one other time when I found myself alone in Mr. Alpine’s house, but that occurred a little later—I’ll get to that episode shortly.
In those early days of summer, I would persuade Eddie to ride our bicycles to the library. The building was downtown, a good three miles or more. Whenever we rode our bikes, it felt like an adventure. Around the halfway mark, we would stop at Barney’s Drugs, which boasted an old-fashioned soda fountain and a variety of comic books that Eddie would buy. We would get an ice cream and a Coke, and it would start to feel like we were on a real date. The image of us sitting at the counter, sweaty and pigging out on the sweets, is very clear in my head.
I always loved the library. I’d spend hours there, not only looking at the books, but also studying the newspapers from the big cities. The New York Times was fascinating because there was so much to offer—Broadway theater, tons of movies I’d never heard of, and all the fashion inserts. My dream was to one day leave West Texas and go to a big city. I ended up in Chicago, so I guess I fulfilled that wish.
Mr. Alpine worked at the information desk, so Eddie and I would go over to say hello. As a man in his thirties, he was, to us, very much an adult. He was of medium height, a little chubby, and he wore glasses. His hair was short, with a greasy shine to it, some kind of hair gunk. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t remarried. He wasn’t “handsome” in the traditional sense, but in my opinion he wasn’t bad looking. He seemed to me at the time to be an attractive man, fun to be around, and very smart.
Mr. Alpine smiled and greeted us warmly. “Well, well, is it Hansel and Gretel, or Romeo and Juliet, or Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn?” I didn’t know who that last pair was, but the way he said it made us laugh. “I know,” he continued, “it’s Sir Lancelot and Guinevere. Those names suit you more. And what, pray tell, are you darlings up to this afternoon?”
“Just visiting the library,” Eddie answered. “Got any good books?”
Mr. Alpine laughed. “Nah. There are no good books here.” He turned to me and asked, “Shelby, my dear, I haven’t seen you lately. How’s that sweet baby brother of yours?”
“Michael’s fine. He cries a lot.”
“Ah, well, babies do that, don’t they? He was an angel when I took his picture.”
“He was being good that day, I guess.”
Mr. Alpine cocked his head and winked at me. “So why don’t you ever come visit me? I never see you! You’re breaking my heart!”
I didn’t care what my parents or anyone else thought; I thought he was funny and charming. “Maybe I will, with Eddie.”
“Great. I’m off work tomorrow. I’ll just be working on plans for the parade. Why don’t you both come by?”
There was something I was supposed to do the next day. Swimming lessons? Piano lessons? I didn’t remember exactly, so I made up an excuse.
Mr. Alpine switched his attention to Eddie. “Well, then, Eddie, my good friend, why don’t you come over? I have some new comics for you.”
I sensed Eddie hesitate, but then he said, “All right.”
“Good. We’ll have some fun. Maybe I’ll beat you at Battleship this time.” He turned to me and said, “Eddie’s the Battleship king.”
That was news to me, but I didn’t really mind.
“Oh,” he added, “speaking of the parade, I’m organizing a float with a bunch of school kids on it. Would you two like to be on it? Want to be in the Fourth of July parade?”
It sounded like fun, and we happily agreed. I left Eddie to chat with Mr. Alpine, venturing off to look at the new books in the children’s room. When Eddie finally joined me at the shelves, I said, “Mr. Alpine almost treats you like his son.”
At first, Eddie didn’t respond. Then he made a little sarcastic laugh. “He’d be a better dad than my real one. Mr. Alpine is pretty cool.”
I agreed with Eddie. That was back then.
Among everything else that happened that one carefree summer day, lost in the sea of forgotten memories, I do recollect one thing: Eddie and I planned to get together the next day.
We were going to play in the bomb shelter.
5
That afternoon in the fallout shelter represented a significant moment in my childhood. I can’t replay the entire episode in my head, just brief glimpses of what happened, vague emotions, snippets of conversations. It was the first sexual experience I ever had with the opposite gender—at twelve years old. Sometimes I’d ask myself if what we did was “normal” for curious kids. Wasn’t there an expression for it? Kids playing doctor? That’s all it was. Show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.
But no—as an adult, I became more educated on the subject of sexual development in children, and I now realize that this was inappropriate behavior for our age group. “Playing doctor” normally occurs between the ages of five and seven, and there is usually no sexual gratification component to it. It’s simple, natural curiosity. What Eddie and I did at our age was not innocent activity. The fact that it was mutual doesn’t make much difference.
I met Eddie at the park after lunch, and we went back to his house. Eddie’s father was away, and his mother was in the living room, watching television and smoking cigarettes. Eddie led me to the backyard by way of the wooden gate on one side of the house. Everyone on the block had fences. The bomb shelter door was located on one side of the yard near the house. It appeared extremely large and heavy to me. Made of metal, it sat about a foot off the ground as if it had grown out of the grass, one end slightly higher than the other. I don’t remember it being locked. Eddie simply went over, grasped the handle, and pulled it open. It squeaked. A wooden staircase led down into the darkness. I’d been inside before with a group of other kids, and Mr. Newcott had yelled at us. The place was supposedly off-limits to Eddie and his friends, and poor Eddie got a beating because of it. From then on, we only dared to venture into its depths when Eddie’s dad was away.
“Are you sure this is all right?” I asked, looking around. I was more concerned about doing something grown-ups would disapprove of rather than worried about going into the shelter alone with Eddie. I wanted to go in there with him. I trusted him. Nevertheless, I was nervous—but excited at the same time.
“It’ll be fine. Come on.”
I gingerly descended, guided by the daylight streaming through the open door. Eddie followed and closed the door above us. He flipped a switch near the top of the stairs and the lights came on.
The space was large and rectangular shaped, I’m guessing twenty by thirty feet in size. Two cots, covered in small mattresses, sheets, and blankets, sat on opposite sides of the room. A third cot was placed perpendicular to those. Shelves on the wall behind the cot were stocked with dusty old canned goods and nonperishables, likely dating back to the late fifties or early sixties. Big jugs of water that Mr. Newcott must have filled himself sat on the floor beneath the shelves. I spotted flashlights, batteries, candles, and boxes of matches. Behind the stairs was a toilet hidden by a privacy screen, or a door—I can’t remember. Maybe it was a partition that you could slide open. The commode actually flushed! I thought it was amazing that they could build a bathroom underground.
I also had other things on my mind. Oh my gosh, I thought. I am alone with Eddie. It was definitely a thrill, but to tell the truth, I felt a little claustrophobic. The uneasiness was alleviated when Eddie took my hand and led me to one of the cots. We sat and inexplicably started giggling. We were being naughty—and it was fun.
“No one comes down here anymore, so I don’t understand why we’re not supposed to play in it,” Eddie said. “I come here all the time when my dad is gone. It’s my ‘secret cave.’ Oh, and guess what: I have the best hiding place in here.” He stood and gestured for me to follow him back to where the toilet was. Getting on his knees, he crawled behind it. Eddie traced his fingers around the edge of a concrete slab in the floor and somehow got it to move. Grabbing hold of the edges, he lifted it, revealing a perfectly square cubbyhole in the ground, lined in concrete, maybe twelve inches deep.
“I call it ‘Davy Jones’s Locker,’” he explained. “I’m pretty sure it was made to store valuables—you know, money and jewels and stuff.” At that moment, the hole contained his valuables—comic books, magazines, a knife, some small toys, and I don’t know what else. I asked about the knife. He just shrugged and said it used to belong to his grandfather. It was more of a sentimental keepsake rather than an item he might use as a weapon.
He made a big deal out of the comics and magazines, some of which were issues of Playboy. I recall being surprised. I’d seen Playboy in the rack at 7-Eleven, so I knew what the covers looked like, and I knew each issue had photos of naked women in it. But I’d never seen the inside of one or any alleged nude pictures. So, we went back to the cot and looked at them together. I thought we were doing something really wrong, but I didn’t care. It was thrilling. I was with a boy whom I liked and thought was cute, and we were alone, and we felt safe. And I was fascinated by the magazines. When Eddie opened up the centerfolds to show me what they were all about, I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked but also, I must admit, a little turned on. It’s possible I didn’t fully comprehend those feelings at the time, or perhaps I had already experienced pleasuring myself by that age, even before that day in the bomb shelter.
I don’t recollect how it started. We were talking about the women in the magazine, and why they would pose that way. Eddie said it was to “turn on men.” I was curious as to how that actually worked. He told me about erections, or, as he called them, “hard-ons.” I’d certainly never seen anything like that. At previous babysitting jobs, I’d changed baby boys’ diapers so I knew what a penis looked like, but not one that was aroused. I don’t believe I’d ever seen my father’s at all.
“Do you have one of those now?” I asked, wide-eyed, my jaw to the floor.
“What?”
“What you said. A … hard-on.”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Do you want to see it?”
My heart pounded in my chest. I answered, “Yes,” and he showed me.
I’m pretty sure I was speechless. Here, the memory goes out of focus. Maybe I watched him for a while. I don’t quite recall everything, but at some point, a few minutes later, I was showing him what I had between my legs. He stared and touched himself. And that was it. I don’t remember buttoning up and leaving the shelter, but we must have done so quickly b
ecause I do recall getting that feeling of claustrophobia again. The cool dampness of being underground had gotten to me. How would I have ever lasted if I had to live for days in a bomb shelter in the event of a real-life crisis?
That night, in my own bed, I couldn’t sleep. I thought about what had happened. I couldn’t get the image of Eddie out of my head. Was he unusually big for an eleven-year-old, or was it simply the fact that I’d never seen an erection before? Had I experienced an orgasm that afternoon in the bomb shelter? Probably not, but it was close. One thing was for sure: I learned that day how pleasurable sexual activity could be.
Whether or not Eddie intentionally initiated the event is unknown, but it was clear that he knew more about what he was doing than I did. I mean, he was looking at Playboy magazines in private, and he had no problem with me knowing about it, or gazing at the pictures together with me. He was obviously already into sex. At eleven years old, in 1966, Eddie knew terms and expressions I’d never heard before. When I was older, I recognized that Eddie had a confidence with his sexuality, more so than what was normal for an eleven-year-old. Where had he learned it from?
As for me, I admit to being precocious. Boys did interest me when I was twelve. And Eddie was mysterious, cute, and cool. But before that day, I had never, ever experienced with a boy what Eddie and I had done, and I couldn’t believe I was willing to do so. I went right along with the program and enjoyed it. It’s a memory for which I have mixed emotions.
We met again in the bomb shelter just a day or two later. We experimented with kissing. It was the first time I had kissed like the adults you see on TV and the movies, with the tongue and all. I thought it was fantastic. Just to have a boy’s arms around me felt wonderful. Jimmy the cat, who was down there with us, wanted attention but we weren’t giving him any!
We had make-out sessions in the bomb shelter two, maybe three, more times. Once, Eddie wanted to show me his erection again, and I said that I didn’t want to see it.
The Secrets on Chicory Lane Page 4