American Thighs

by Jill Conner Browne

  She bought it especially to wear on a first date with a cute boy she met at junior college. They doubled with another couple and went to the beach for the day. They were lying on the sand, talking, doing a lot of deep staring into each other’s eyes, and presently she somehow came to the realization that if and when she was to roll over onto her back, her new blue swimsuit ta-tas were gonna be all sunk in on account of there was nothing behind that swimsuit but your basic chest wall.

  She didn’t hear a word that boy said the rest of the afternoon; all she could think about was her squashed make-believes and her crispy-fried back. Finally, the others all seemed to be distracted with something and she seized the opportunity to grab her beach cover-up and complete some kind of crawlin’-on-your-belly-like-a-rep-tile kinda maneuver whereby she successfully facilitated the concealment of the evidence of her fakery. Oh, how she wished for something to stuff that bra with.

  I imagine that she briefly considered trying to writhe around and somehow surreptitiously scoop up sand with it, but, I further imagine, she wisely surmised that while the scooping itself might be accomplished on the sly, the wriggling motion necessary to the process would no doubt be widely noticed by and commented on by not just her own company but probably everyone else on the beach as well. And even if she managed to fill the cups with sand, there would have been the whole sands-through-the-hourglass effect as she sat up and they emptied of their own accord. It’s best she didn’t think of trying it.

  There are, of course, many, many other augmentation techniques available to us today—from actual on-the-premises aftermarket installations to soft-shelled padded bras to the latest version of falsies—what Bailey calls “sticky boobs”—but as we shall soon see, they all pretty much migrate, same as the oldtimey ones.

  Sticky boobs come two ways—the first way, it’s really just a strapless bra. The boobs are made of some kind of viscous rubbery substance and they are connected to each other in the front. You can stick these things to your body and they will stay there pretty much all day as long as you don’t sweat much. One of the Queens—Tammy—thought sticky boobs were her ticket to braless freedom forevermore. Until we were working on the Parade float and she got hot and they fell out from under her sweatshirt and lay there quivering in the sawdust and glitter on the floor of George’s barn. We didn’t laugh TOO much. Far better for it to happen there than in her professional workplace—which, suffice it to say, is fairly public in nature. She’s got enough to live down as it is.

  The other incarnation of the sticky boob is not a whole lot unlike the old-time falsie. It’s shaped a lot like it, nippleage included, but instead of the 1950s foam rubber, it’s made of the same sticky, jiggly stuff as the strapless things. They do purport to stay put more reliably than the early foam varieties, which, I’m told, were wont to crawl out of their cotton cups and peek out of V-necks or sleeveless tops at inopportune moments. I have also heard this version of the sticky boob called a “chicken cutlet,” which does little to enhance the mental picture of either the food or the breast it hopes to mimic.

  At any rate, another Queen in a far-off land reported to me that she was in a jumping juke joint in a Caribbean vacation spot and the room was throbbing with the beat of that perennial club-fave “Hot, Hot, Hot.” Which was just how she happened to be feeling, too—all decked out she was in full out-of-town-and-on-the-town suntanned, semiskanky slink with the mandatory mile-high heels, and she was just thinking she was SOOOOO HOT—dancin’ and flirtin’ and carryin’ on, along with her girlfriends who were similarly browned, outfitted, and misbehavin’ in grand vacation style, and by and by, as so often happens in these settings, the crowd broke out into a conga line and they willingly allowed themselves to be swept up in the “Hot, Hot, Hot” frenzy, and around and around the big barroom they cavorted with the Cuba Libre–crazed crowd. Presently, though, it being so much closer to the equator and all, a pretty good bead of sweat could be seen developing on all the dancers and prancers alike, but this did not quell the rum-soaked romp. Just as one of our revelers was throwing back her head to let fly a heartfelt “A-A-A-R-R-R-R-I-I-I-BA!”—her throat closed up and only a strangled “A-A-woolp” passed her lips and her face took on an ashen quality underneath her tan and semiskanky fancy-evening makeup job. This was because as she had simultaneously raised her arms over her head with an appropriate level of abandon to accompany her anticipated joyous cry, she felt a sudden slippery, slidey something slip past her nipple on its way out of her bra and the swooping neckline of her sweaty, semiskanky, slinky shirt. She felt it brush the hand that she had frantically lowered in a futile attempt to capture what had just made good its escape and saw it land in a shiny, sweaty, shimmering slide smack-dab in the middle of the strobe-lit disco floor. It was, of course, her chicken cutlet.

  But the great thing is this: she and her girlfriends had INFINITELY more fun back at their fancy resort hotel room laughing till they nearly threw up over Little Missy’s Flying Chicken Cutlet than they EVER woulda had if they’da gone home with any of the smarmy guys they were originally dressed to impress. And thirty years from now, God willing, they will STILL be enjoying that same episode from their suntanned, semiskanky, slinky, SILLY escapade. Time and money well spent.

  Survivalist Supplementation

  My very favorite form of fake-boob fluffery I have ever seen devised was shared with me by a precious, darlin’ member of the Junior League of Tallahassee when I did my very first fundraiser for them. If you live in that area, do whatever you have to do to join that Junior League—those wimmin are FUN! It’ll be worth working your ass off—which is the mainmost part of Leaguein’ of course—just to get to hang out with them.

  Anyway, at this particular event, I went in Full Queenly Regalia—which y’all know I just about don’t EVER DO except for our very own Parade in Jackson, Mississippi, the third weekend of every March. But the chairs of this particular event had the great wisdom and forethought to make it a COSTUME-MANDATORY deal where everybody came dressed as the “Queen of Whatever They Chose,” and if you don’t already know this, lemme tell you, there is NOBODY more competitive than a Junior Leaguer.

  There were evermore some OUTFITS up in that place that night. As I recall, it was slated to run from six PM to nine PM and when I left, at eleven PM, they were dancing on the tables. But, I digress. I was telling you about the best fake-tit job I ever heard about. This darlin’ little Queen came dancing up to me and demanded that I feel her bosoms. There was no lascivious gleam in her eye so I did not imagine for one instant that she had any amorous intentions toward me whatsoever—I could tell right off this was going to be a valuable take-away lesson in…something. I obliged her and gave the proffered pair a pat, but she insisted on a squeeze so I squoze and looked at her quizzically, as if to say, “Okay, fine, now what?” And she, quick as a lizard, whipped one out with a gleeful squeal, “THEY’RE PEANUT BUTTER!” And danged if they weren’t. She had two plastic sandwich bags filled with peanut butter and stuffed in her bra and that Peter Pan made for some of the most realistic falsies I believe I have ever seen—or felt.

  And, she pointed out, if you for some reason become stranded and hungry somewhere on your way home of an evening—you could always eat ’em! How does one argue with such irrefutable logic? Why would one try?

  Suffice it to say, I have failed utterly in these, my life’s earliest and most coveted goals—five-two, long red hair, large breasts, little feet—none of that EVER materialized for me and I am scarred and haunted by this abysmal “shortcoming” on my part. I grew taller and taller with every passing year—and only a very few years of that rendered me a total wipeout at any hope of being short. Sigh.

  I’d have to say that my inability to shop in the petite section and wear size 6 shoes were clearly the most significant of all my physical failures because, after all, one can fake one’s hair and eye color, and we’ve discussed at some length the myriad methods for building a bustline, but “tiny” is not a trick t
o be tried with any expectation of success. Extremely high heels do tend to make my feet look smaller, but that obviously serves only to compound the lack-of-shortness issue.

  Bad New/Good News

  When I was in the ninth grade at Peeples Junior High School in Jackson, Mississippi, education administrators across the land were struggling with two of the most crucial crises they had ever been faced with in the history of the American public school system. By this point in time, these issues that had already been plaguing big-city schools for some time had even trickled their way down to our own personal backwaters. School boards, principals, teachers, coaches, and even parents of students found themselves in a maelstrom that they were ill-prepared to comprehend, let alone control. And while they didn’t devote any discernible time to the comprehension of these issues, oh Lord, how mightily they did fight to control them.

  I’m not talking about Civil Rights issues—those were to surface soon enough, but those basic human liberties were mere trifles in comparison to this horrifying epidemic that threatened to claim and forever consign to hell the very soul of an entire generation. It’s still hard even to think about what was happening in our country then, but I feel strongly that there are things that must be said in order to let the healing begin over this rift that has been a festering boil on the butt of our country for decades. Let us lance it now, with brave hearts, and walk together, without a limp, into the light.

  Okay, I’m just gonna man up and name it here and I’ll even confess my part in it—no pussyfootin’ around—I freely offer here, for your viewing pleasure, the stain of guilt upon my own conscience. Bring your own dirty laundry on out here and we’ll compare. The heart, mind, and psyche of every adolescent in the EN-tire country—even unto those in the very nether regions of Mississippi—had been infected with the same pestilence that had first swept with fast fury through the major metropolitan areas of the United States but, sparing no one, quickly came to us as well. Not since the horrific influenza epidemic of the twenties had the entire country been so immediately and inclusively engulfed in such a deadly plague.

  Beatle haircuts and miniskirts had come into the world. And they were—uh-huh—here, baby, there, mama, everywhere, daddy daddy—oh, yeah.

  The direst threats thrown at us—in the most maniacal rants of the zealots with thundering voices and the very wildest of eyes—against the Demon Rock and his brother, the Devil Roll, had apparently all proved true. An entire generation—the hope for the Free World and the rest of it, too—had, to a person, climbed willingly, gleefully, into the big hand basket and hotfooted it for hell, and no amount of admonishing, yelling, grounding, and/or beating could stem this tide of determined delinquents.

  For once my soaring height came in handy for something other than getting stuff off top shelves for short people in the grocery store. With my freakishly long legs and as-yet-unblemished thighs, I could fetchingly wear the very miniest skirts made. Of course, they were actually just regular skirts made to be mini on the mainstream population, which, from my lofty perspective, was mostly made up of minipeople—but hang one of those on MY hips and let the full length of MY legs unfurl beneath it and, well, there are a few traffic tie-ups in my past, I’m just sayin’. The very same legs that I had fumed and fretted over for their insistence on continued growth became the subject of photographs on more than one occasion when I dressed to reveal them while strolling through the French Quarter. It was a heady experience and my inner-hooker was unchained. From that day forward, I wanted to get as nearly naked as the law allowed and run up and down the road all the time. The law at the time did not allow for nearly enough nekkidity to suit me.

  I was not alone in the felicitous discovery that I actually possessed an inner-hooker. Around 1965, everybody under the age of thirty seemed to have a similar startling revelation about themselves.

  We soon found, though, that one’s inner-hooker was/is not welcome in the halls of academia—it was especially unwelcome in the halls of my junior high school. Every schoolday morning would see a steady stream of students lined up in the halls outside the principal’s office—dress-code offenders. We would be lining up to be measured—boys’ hair and girls’ hemlines. One could not come over the collar and the other could not come more than four inches above the kneecap. (There was never any mix-up as to which standard should be applied to which group.)

  The Ironclad Rule of Measurement that applied to the girls at Peeples was four inches above the knee and this presented an insurmountable hurdle to me personally when it came to store-bought clothes. Everything on the ready-to-wear racks was geared toward the average-sized American female—and she was, it turned out, only about five feet four inches whereas I was, at that time, five-eleven and rising.

  My elfin friend Cindy and I could shop together at her mama’s downtown store, Freda K’s, pick out the exact same skirt, and hers would have to be shortened to even come up to the 4-inch rule and mine would get me sent home to change. Only there wasn’t anything to change INTO—there weren’t any longer skirts to be bought at any price and we were not allowed to wear pants to school.

  Fortunately, Mama was able to SOMEHOW—by sheer force of will and I’m sure not a little intimidation since she was also an Amazon and the principal was, well, he was SO NOT tall—negotiate for me a reverse hemline restriction that was based on a ratio of skin to skirt. I was allowed to show an equal PERCENTAGE of thigh compared to my more compact classmates.

  This rule applied only to me and it did not create any rancor in the ranks since I was clearly, by a long shot, THE tallest person, male or female, in the EN-tire school—all three grades, the basketball team, and faculty included.

  Bare Belly Versus Beer Belly

  My legs were not the only inordinately long body parts I was given in lieu of the short ones I had specifically requisitioned from the Dispensary. My torso also turned out to be about a mile long. And the other fashion staple that made its first appearance on the teenager’s wardrobe Must Have lists about the same time as the miniskirt was hip-hugger pants…and the midriff-length top—not usually in combination, though.

  However, once upon a time, I had managed to go downtown shopping by myself with my own money. I can’t recall exactly how either of these unusual circumstances came to be, but somehow, some way, that was the situation I found myself in, and, of course, no good was to come of it.

  I went into a store called Vogue, where they had what I imagined to be the hautest of couture available for purchase in Jackson, Mississippi, and I guess I was feeling pret-ty haute right about then, being on my own shopping with my very own money and all. I sauntered in, feeling very sophisticated indeed, and graciously declined the salesgirl’s offer of assistance, preferring to browse unmolested for a bit.

  And then what to my covetous eye did appear but a two-piece outfit that I was quite certain Ann-Margret would wear—Annette Funicello would shoot herself first, Tuesday Weld and Hayley Mills might wear the top or the bottom—but never together, they’d never dare—and so I thought it perfect. They had only one in stock—it was in my size—and it was ON SALE—I could not believe my good fortune. I took it to the fitting room and, with hands trembling with excitement, removed whatever drab nun-suit Mama had made me wear and pulled on the top. I was not too surprised when it fit—I was fairly easy to fit on top—but it did fit perfectly. It was made of a cotton gauze fabric in a bright vertical-stripe pattern—a little busier than I would normally choose—but it had long, billowy sleeves, a low neck, a fitted bodice, AND it came to only about three inches below my bustline—omigosh—now, if only the PANTS would FIT!

  Finding Pants That Fit has been my lifelong and mostly futile quest. I am always the wrong size at the wrong time. My daughter, Bailey, is the exact size today that I was waaaay back then—and she is, like, practically a SAMPLE size. She can walk into any store anywhere anytime and grab anything in a size 2 or 4 off the rack, put it on, and look like she just stepped off a runway.

&n
bsp; When I was that size, they had not even INVENTED anything smaller than a 5, and a 5 was too big around and about nine yards too short, whatever it was. Those size 5s looked like they were made for third graders with tits.

  Anyway, I’m in the Vogue dressing room and I’ve got on the FABULOUS striped-y midriff top and, positively quaking with hope and dread, I slowly stepped into the matching striped-y HIP-HUGGER pants—and I could not believe what my very own eyeballs were showing me—they fit as if my body had been painted in multicolored stripes and the paint had pooled on the floor around my feet. They were tighter than my actual skin—but in a good way—they were cut so low, they nearly showed my appendectomy scar—and they were even LONG enough to wear tall sandals with—this was an outfit straight out of Tiger Beat magazine. I could imagine Ann-Margret wearing this outfit on a casual date with Elvis after a long day on the set of Viva Las Vegas. I could imagine ME wearing this outfit…somewhere, sometime, with somebody—maybe one of Herman’s Hermits or the Dave Clark Five.

  Of course, I bought it.

  I was so stupidly excited, I took it HOME and could not WAIT to try it ON for Mama. Wish I had a snapshot of THAT face. She didn’t say a word though, just pressed her lips together REAL hard and did something she just almost NEVER did. She went and got Daddy. The reason she never did that was because, of course, he generally thought whatever Judy or I were doing was darlin’, smart, and/or funny so he was not exactly what you’d call your Big Guns. This was one time he did not fail to back her up, though.

  I was still in my room, preening before the mirror in my new skank suit, and he took one look at it and said in a voice I rarely if ever heard from him—very firm and very stern—“You are not going out of this house wearing that.” And he walked away amid my banshee imitation.