I had absolutely no idea why she was staring at me. I really didn’t. I was embarrassingly naive. I’ll never forget the way her thick black hair framed her big, sexy dark eyes. It’s an image that burned itself into my memory. That’s all I could see of her, as the magazine hid the rest of her face, and the magazine rack hid her body. But, I’ll never forget those smoldering eyes burning themselves into me. I’ve never felt like that before... I felt like I was good-looking or something.
Eventually, I met Sheila properly. She and her mother came through my checkout line a few minutes later. She was in a Catholic girls’ school uniform. The skirt and white socks really complimented her figure. I was too bashful to make a proper conversation, but I remember kinda wishing she were there without her mother. Sheila and her mother came through my line a couple of more times over the next week or so. I never gathered the courage to ask her for her phone number in front of her mother. I was getting more and more interested and eventually I was on the very verge of asking for her number. I really was.
“WARREN! PHONE!” My grandmother bellowed from the back of the house.
“Who is it?” I inquired.
“I DON’T KNOW! SOME GIRL!”
My grandmother was a mean old lady. I walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone.
“I GOT IT!” I waited till my grandmother hung up her end.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Warren, How ya doin’?”
“I’m good. How are you?” It hadn’t occurred to ask who I was speaking to yet.
“I got tired of waiting for you to ask for my number...”
“Oh, yeah, I’m sorry... Ummm...”
This was getting interesting.
“...So I decided to see if maybe you wanted to go out somewhere, or something.”
“I’m glad you called! I’d love to go out! Wait, who is this?”
It wasn’t like girls called me all the time... or ever. The voice sounded good, but I couldn’t place it.
“This is Sheila...”
“Oh, cool, the girl from the store?”
“Yep, that’s me...”
“Wow...”
I was really tickled! Sheila was so good looking that it was almost intimidating. I was only a kid, after all. Sheila was 15, but I thought she looked older than me. She was all grown-up looking, and I was thrilled that she was interested in me! I got her phone number finally. We had a lot in common. I went to a Catholic Boy’s school, and she went to a Catholic Girl’s school. She lived nearby, in a different neighborhood, but very nearby. We weren’t able to date as much as I wanted to, because of my damned schedule that I was starting to resent. Her mother seemed to like me, and even her dad gave me a little smile when I picked her up for our dates. We were getting closer and closer.
Eventually, during one of our phone conversations, Sheila confided in me that she was a virgin. That intrigued me. I had never been with a virgin. I had hardly been with anyone at that stage, actually. But none of them were virgins. It seemed that Sheila was interested in losing her virgin status. My mind was racing! We’d kissed and all, but this was a HUGE step, wasn’t it?
I was excited and confused at the same time. Sheila was such a sweet girl. I knew her parents. This was in the late 70’s. My hormones were racing! I was really resenting my schedule now!
Our next few conversations drifted back to the topic, and it was driving me crazy. I was day-dreaming about it constantly. Work and school, school and work... Sheila was always on my mind. I was a good kid. I always tried to do the right thing. I really did. But what was the right thing in this situation? She wanted it and I NEEDED it! I really couldn’t think straight. I really couldn’t.
Finally, the night came. I drove to her house and had a short conversation with her parents before we left for our date. She was wearing a pair of light pink shorts and a green tube top. The last words out of her father’s mouth were, “Have Sheila back for 11.”
Those words rang in my ears. I was trying to be a gentleman, so we went to Luigi’s and shared a pizza and a lot of conversation.
“Have you thought about what I told you?”
She smiled and licked her lips.
“Umm, the virgin thing?”
“Yeah, Silly.”
“Constantly. I can’t stop thinking about it. Are you kidding, I don’t think about anything else.”
“Whatcha gonna do about it?”
I almost passed out. My blood pressure must’ve shot through the ceiling!
“Ummm...Are you sure?”
It was so hard to be cool when you feel like you could stroke out at any moment. Time was racing by. I kept thinking about getting Sheila home on time. I didn’t want to get either one of us in trouble. I know that doesn’t make sense, but it was on my mind. I never got a girl home late before, I wasn’t sure what would happen. I didn’t know the rules. I, as I’ve mentioned, was a kid. The only place I had to ‘do it’ was my back seat. I drove to the lakefront, but it was crowded that night. I couldn’t find a good place to park. Time was passing. Time kept passing. I finally found a secluded parking spot at the University of New Orleans, which was also near the lakefront.
We climbed into the back seat and consummated our teenage lust. It was clumsy, hurried and not nearly as magical as either one of us hoped for. I had one eye on the dashboard clock the whole time. It wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. I wanted to take my time and relax. This was feeling wrong. We got dressed in a hurry, and I sped her home. We made it with a few minutes to spare. I kissed her goodnight at her front door, and then I was back in the car, on my way home. I called her the next day.
“Hey, Baby, how ya feeling?” I was cool again.
“I’m good. I’m glad you called. ”
“Glad?” What a weird word.
“Weren’t you expecting me to call?”
“Oh, yeah, I knew you were gonna call. I have something to tell you. ”
Uh-Oh. That sounded ominous.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Look, when you dropped me off last night, my mother was waiting on me...”
“I got you home on time...”
“Listen. She was sitting on the sofa, and I was standing in front of her...”
“Yeah...”
“...and while we were talking, she pointed at my crotch and said, ‘What’s that?’”
“What was she pointing at?”
“I was bleeding like a pig...”
My mind was racing. Why was she bleeding? Did I do something wrong? Did I hurt her? I was all confused and speechless. I was feeling very guilty. I definitely did something wrong, didn’t I? Could I fix it somehow? I couldn’t take it back, but could I redeem myself?
“Bleeding!?!”
“Yeah, like a stuck pig.”
“Ummm...what...ummm...” My cool had completely evaporated.
“Are you ok?”
“Yeah, I’m cool. Why?” I was so not okay.
“You sound like you’re choking or something...”
“No, Ummm... I’m uhhh... I’m good...ummm...What did your mother say?”
“I told her it must be my period, but she knew I was lying...”
Man! What a horrible conversation this was. I was kind of blindsided by all the information that was beating up on me. I liked her family, but now they must think I’m a wild animal. I was crazy about Sheila, but how could I show my face at her house anymore? Her dad would shoot me if I came around. I was certain of that! The telephone conversation sort of dwindled. I couldn’t pay much attention to it, what with all the crazy thoughts fighting for attention in my young head. I’m sure I said something like, “I’ll call you later,” at the end. That’s the sort of thing I’d say, I know me.
I TRIED to call her back later. I had the receiver in my hand and all. I had some of the numbers dialed, but I couldn’t dial all of them. Back in those days, the girl you were calling NEVER answered the phone. Somebody else always answered and you had to ask for the girl. Th
ere was always that uncomfortable period that you had to you make small talk with whoever answered, while you waited for the girl to walk to the telephone. What was I supposed to say to her Mother, Father or brother? I was going to get threatened and yelled at. I was going to be read the Riot Act, and I wouldn’t get to talk with Sheila anyway. Oh Man...
I tried to call a few times, but I never mustered the courage to actually make the call. Sheila didn’t call me, either. Her not calling only confirmed the fruitlessness of trying to contact her
Days turned into 30 years overnight
~*~
Sheila and I became inseparable. Well, as inseparable as two people can be that are separated by 5, 000 miles and 6 hours of time. We were able to video-chat from our cell-phones and we abused that ability. She would call and wake me in the morning and we’d chat until I got out of my truck at work. We’d chat during my 15-minute, 9AM break, then again during lunch. We’d chat while I was on my way home from work. We’d spend a few hours chatting before she went to bed. Then we’d do it all over the next day, and the next day, and the next. Finally, I couldn’t stand not seeing her in person. The frustration grew and grew. I felt closer to this lady than I’ve EVER felt. I know that doesn’t make sense, but I’m dealing with a limited vocabulary.
~*~
So, anyway, there I was in Europe, with Sheila sitting on my lap like we were the only people on earth. I found out that her mother wasn’t mad at me, even on that night a million years ago. Her mother knew what happened was inevitable. Her father never found out about what happened that night. They did wonder why I quit calling.
A thought occurred to me as we held each other. Back in the day, Sex Education consisted of informing boys that only two things would come from pre-marital sex: one, the girl would transmit a terrible, unspeakable disease or, two, she would immediately become pregnant and you’d have to marry her, quit school, take a horrible job because of your lack of education, you’d grow to resent each other and split, and you’d have to pay child support the rest of your life. Of course, there was always option three that BOTH option one and two would occur.
Never did anyone explain that there was a fourth possibility. That possibility that you’d make love to the right girl and that one thoughtless act would separate you. That possibility, that you could actually lose the right girl because of a childish lack of patience and that it might take you a lifetime to get her back. I wish someone would have told me that. It’s a horrible lesson to have to learn.
Thankfully, against all odds, I caught up to one of my Ripples.
~###~
Enjoy this sneak peek of,
Lost Legends of OZ
Volume II
Coming February 2014
~*~
BOOK I
Ozma of OZ
A Record of Her Adventures with Dorothy Gale of Kansas, the Yellow Hen, the Scarecrow,
the Tin Woodman, Tiktok, the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger;
Besides Other Good People too Numerous to Mention,
Faithfully Recorded Herein
Chapter 1
The Girl in the Chicken Coop
The wind blew hard and joggled the water of the ocean, sending ripples across its surface. Then the wind pushed the edges of the ripples until they became waves, and shoved the waves around until they became billows. The billows rolled dreadfully high; higher even than the tops of houses. Some of them, indeed, rolled as high as the tops of tall trees, and seemed like mountains; and the gulfs between the great billows were like deep valleys.
All this mad dashing and splashing of the waters of the big ocean, which the mischievous wind caused without any good reason whatever, resulted in a terrible storm, and a storm on the ocean is liable to cut many queer pranks and do a lot of damage.
At the time the wind began to blow, a ship was sailing far out upon the waters. When the waves began to tumble and toss and to grow bigger and bigger the ship rolled up and down, and tipped sidewise--first one way and then the other--and was jostled around so roughly that even the sailor-men had to hold fast to the ropes and railings to keep themselves from being swept away by the wind or pitched headlong into the sea.
And the clouds were so thick in the sky that the sunlight couldn’t get through them; so that the day grew dark as night, which added to the terrors of the storm.
The Captain of the ship was not afraid, because he had seen storms before, and had sailed his ship through them in safety; but he knew that his passengers would be in danger if they tried to stay on deck, so he put them all into the cabin and told them to stay there until after the storm was over, and to keep brave hearts and not be scared, and all would be well with them.
Now, among these passengers was a little Kansas girl named Dorothy Gale, who was going with her Uncle Henry to Australia, to visit some relatives they had never before seen. Uncle Henry, you must know, was not very well, because he had been working so hard on his Kansas farm that his health had given way and left him weak and nervous. So he left Aunt Em at home to watch after the hired men and to take care of the farm, while he traveled far away to Australia to visit his cousins and have a good rest.
Dorothy was eager to go with him on this journey, and Uncle Henry thought she would be good company and help cheer him up; so he decided to take her along. The little girl was quite an experienced traveler, for she had once been carried by a cyclone as far away from home as the marvelous Land of Oz, and she had met with a good many adventures in that strange country before she managed to get back to Kansas again.
So she wasn’t easily frightened, whatever happened, and when the wind began to howl and whistle, and the waves began to tumble and toss, our little girl didn’t mind the uproar the least bit.
“Of course we’ll have to stay in the cabin,” she said to Uncle Henry and the other passengers, “and keep as quiet as possible until the storm is over. For the Captain says if we go on deck we may be blown overboard.”
No one wanted to risk such an accident as that, you may be sure; so all the passengers stayed huddled up in the dark cabin, listening to the shrieking of the storm and the creaking of the masts and rigging and trying to keep from bumping into one another when the ship tipped sidewise.
Dorothy had almost fallen asleep when she was aroused with a start to find that Uncle Henry was missing. She couldn’t imagine where he had gone, and as he was not very strong she began to worry about him, and to fear he might have been careless enough to go on deck. In that case he would be in great danger unless he instantly came down again.
The fact was that Uncle Henry had gone to lie down in his little sleeping-berth, but Dorothy did not know that. She only remembered that Aunt Em had cautioned her to take good care of her uncle, so at once she decided to go on deck and find him, in spite of the fact that the tempest was now worse than ever, and the ship was plunging in a really dreadful manner. Indeed, the little girl found it was as much as she could do to mount the stairs to the deck, and as soon as she got there the wind struck her so fiercely that it almost tore away the skirts of her dress. Yet Dorothy felt a sort of joyous excitement in defying the storm, and while she held fast to the railing she peered around through the gloom and thought she saw the dim form of a man clinging to a mast not far away from her. This might be her uncle, so she called as loudly as she could, “Uncle Henry! Uncle Henry!”
But the wind screeched and howled so madly that she scarce heard her own voice, and the man certainly failed to hear her, for he did not move.
Dorothy decided she must go to him; so she made a dash forward, during a lull in the storm, to where a big square chicken-coop had been lashed to the deck with ropes. She reached this place in safety, but no sooner had she seized fast hold of the slats of the big box in which the chickens were kept than the wind, as if enraged because the little girl dared to resist its power, suddenly redoubled its fury. With a scream like that of an angry giant it tore away the ropes that held the coop and lifted it high into the air, wit
h Dorothy still clinging to the slats. Around and over it whirled, this way and that, and a few moments later the chicken-coop dropped far away into the sea, where the big waves caught it and slid it up-hill to a foaming crest and then down-hill into a deep valley, as if it were nothing more than a plaything to keep them amused.
Dorothy had a good ducking, you may be sure, but she didn’t lose her presence of mind even for a second. She kept tight hold of the stout slats and as soon as she could get the water out of her eyes she saw that the wind had ripped the cover from the coop, and the poor chickens were fluttering away in every direction, being blown by the wind until they looked like feather dusters without handles. The bottom of the coop was made of thick boards, so Dorothy found she was clinging to a sort of raft, with sides of slats, which readily bore up her weight.
After coughing the water out of her throat and getting her breath again, she managed to climb over the slats and stand upon the firm wooden bottom of the coop, which supported her easily enough.
“Why, I’ve got a ship of my own!” she thought, more amused than frightened at her sudden change of condition; and then, as the coop climbed up to the top of a big wave, she looked eagerly around for the ship from which she had been blown.
It was far, far away, by this time. Perhaps no one on board had yet missed her, or knew of her strange adventure. Down into a valley between the waves the coop swept her, and when she climbed another crest the ship looked like a toy boat, it was such a long way off.
Soon it had entirely disappeared in the gloom, and then Dorothy gave a sigh of regret at parting with Uncle Henry and began to wonder what was going to happen to her next.