An Utter Distraction
You are an utter distraction. I think to eat, to bathe, to go for a walk or even exercise; all I want to do is hold one another in our gaze, feel your hands gently cupping me under caves and kissing the secret doors to my inner most corridors. Tears beat inside my chest, begging to get out but I hold them by the hand and lead them into a waiting room.
“Wait, not now.” I tell him. “I have a lot of homework and it has to be done by tomorrow morning.” Max moves in on me. Touching me gently between my thighs where my legs meet one another, I know I am in for it. I am lying on my side, stretched across my bed with my math book in front of me. Mama is working the graveyard shift and Daddy’s away on another trip delivering wine bottles to a wine-bottling factory in Southern California, which means he won’t be home until late tomorrow night. It’s five o’clock and Max has come over after baseball practice. He is sitting on my little white desk chair papa picked up for me at a yard sale. He is covered from head-to-toe in red dirt and sweat. His hands are large, the veins in them thick and the skin a very dark brown. Tracing my knees now, he comments that I look adorable in my roller derby uniform. Wearing white tube sox with blue and yellow stripes, and blue shorts with a white trim around the edge and up my hips I watch as he traces the lines from the hips, down over my thigh and swirling small circles around my knees down to the stripes in my sox. He takes in the air in one fell swoop, reaches up for his baseball cap, removing it at the brim with one hand, the other stroking his thick black curly hair. My stomach flips and my toes curl and placing one finger along my shin, the other to my face, just behind my ear, and then kisses me on the lips. My top leg quivers and I reluctantly ask, “Don’t you have homework? I’m supposed to help you with your math.”
“Yes, but I just can’t help but want to kiss your beautiful i-vor-y skin and touch these long, long legs.”
Max was really good at mixing words and meanings. He made everything sound dreamy, and forbidden. I was only fourteen and still a virgin but I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out. Even though I was fully dressed he had a way of making me feel naked. I had a good dose of Christian upbringing, enough to know that sex before marriage was a sin but what I didn’t know was that the potential for sex, the anticipation and the hesitation would feel greater than the consequences that may come if I did have it. Max made it difficult to say no and although he didn’t ask me outright, his touch begged for it and my body fought for it. My mind seemed outnumbered by these two powers. Darn my church and darn my Grandmother’s voice that said, I had to wait till I was married.
My conscious won out that day and would continue to do so for many more. I couldn’t help but wonder about my own parents. I never noticed any passion between them. Once Mama started to work they were always so darn busy. Once in a while they still have their friends over for card games and drinks, but mostly it seemed they were either coming from or going to work. If I did finally have sex, I thought Mama would never understand because she probably didn’t know what it was like to feel like Max and I did. My parents met when my mother was seventeen and my Daddy was twenty-one. He was already working as a truck-driver and mama had a job in the ticket booth at The Fox Oakland movie theatre, just off Telegraph in downtown Oakland. They met during World War II at a dance hall. From movies, I imagined my mother and father making out in the back seats of cars, kissing in corners of large dance halls, where dance lights failed to reach and smoking cigarettes. She looked to me like May West, a full-figured woman, blonde hair, and deep red lips. My father was a tall Englishman, proud of being from Texas. He was a slick kid with slick friends and cool cars from the look of those old black and white photos. I remember watching Withering Heights with her one day and she said it was a time of unrequited love. At the time, I didn’t know exactly what that meant. But I asked her if she and daddy were in love and she gave a short laugh and said, “Of course,” and remarked that I was being silly for askin’.
“Hey Red! Those people in lanes eight and night ain’t going to bus themselves! Wake up from your daydreams.”
Yep, so here I am. Nineteen years later. Working at a fucking bowling alley as a cocktail waitress. I untie my apron, place it on the bar and kindly remind my prick-face boss Wally that my shift ended twenty minutes ago.
“Oh and I’m playing in a tournament in about an hour. Just waiting here for Jimmy to show up.”
I think to myself, what a prick or better yet, a vile little man unable to ever grow a pair. I watch him saunter over to the counter to inspect the bowling shoes and fantasize giving him a swift kick in the ass.
“Hey Wally, I’m going out for a cig. If my daughter calls, please come and get me.”
I walk through the bar and out to the parking lot of the bowling alley.
“Charlie!” I say her name just to feel close to her but it only ever makes me feel more distant. My baby girl; what is she doing today? Is she thinking of me or even missing me? I’m tearing up and looking down at my outfit, this short jean skirt, these high heels and this loose-fitting blouse. Charlie would hate them all. She’d tell me to wear a longer skirt and ask why I have to walk the way I do and why I have to show my cleavage. I feel the shame pressing down on me. Tears well up and I begin to pray, begging God to fix me. Just then I hear the sound of a car roaring up and the music of Journey spilling out of the window. I look up and see that its Jimmy driving in his new pickup truck. Charlie hates him. He’s too young, she says and he’s gross and smells she adds, but I chalk it up to her being sixteen and hating everything I do. The shame begins to subside and a heat of desire pours down my legs. I put out my cigarette on the ground and light up another. Jimmy walks up carrying his bowling bag and shoes in hand. Strutting up to me, and planting a kiss right on my mouth, he grabs my ass. I respond with a squeeze on his bulging crotch and flick my cigarette and put it to his mouth. He takes a long hard drag.
“Am I still coming over tonight?”
“I don’t know. Are you?”
“No kid tonight?”
Taking my cigarette back, “Nope.” Taking a long drag, I toss it to the ground and stomp it out with my foot.
“Come on hot stuff. Let’s get in there. I thought I’d throw the ball a little before my game and afterwards we head to your place.”
He opens the door for me with one hand, his metallic blue bag in the other. The sound of the action on the lanes pours passed us out of the door as if it were trying to escape. We go in. The sound of laughter from the bar, the pinball machine’s ringing, the gliding sound of bowling balls and the smell of smoke and liquor swallow us back in.
Just as Jimmy said, after the tournament we head back to my place. As I open the door, Jimmy’s hands were on me, his grip strong and forceful, my head spinning and realizing he had lifted me up. His arms were long and lean and surprisingly strong. I laugh and squirm a little. His mouth was on my breast, biting my nipple and wetness seemed to pour out of me in a way I had never experienced. My body opens up to him completely and before we make it to my bedroom, he’d lays me down on the floor and is taking my clothes off. I shake with excitement and a little terror and I cling to him more tightly. My legs grip around his waist and I try to pulling him into me. His back muscles are strong and wide; as I lift his shirt over his head, his skin appears like a moonbeam in my dark little living room. Standing up, he quickly undoes his pants, I stare at his long legs, strong and defined like a horse and then he leans over me, hands on my hips thrust his size and weight into me. I gasp for air and surrender.
I lay awake in bed, Jimmy next to me, sound asleep. I look over at Charlie’s picture on my nightstand – she and I at a park by the Marina. That day we ate crab sandwiches and onion rings and took turns pushing each other on the swings until we both felt sick. I asked a stranger to take our picture with one of those disposable cameras I bought at Clayworth’s. It seems like so long ago; a time I cannot get back. I push the picture away from me and whisper, “Good night Charlie,” and look over at Jimmy.
Our naked bodies stretched out, sweaty and depleted. He snores intermittently, not too loud, just enough for me to find him endearing. I wanted more from him at that moment though. I felt angry with him for sleeping. I get up, grab my pack of smokes, the bottle of gin and snag the picture of Charlie and head out the front door of my place.