Those of you who are from, like, zero up to about forty-five years old, I’m going to tell you a story that happened in the fifties. It’s about a girl named Bernadette Johnson. But I want you to know I’m not bragging.
When old people start to talk about “their time,” there is a tendency for young people to doze. And young people always say:
That was before my time.
But I just want young people to know we’re not bragging about what we had to do in those days. You’re not bragging when you talk about having to walk five miles in eight-foot snowdrifts. There’s nobody on the face of the earth born who woke up knowing that he or she had to walk five miles in eight feet of snow, with no shoes, who said:
Oh goody! I’ll have something to tell young people.
No, you don’t do that. You say the same thing anybody else would say:
And your parents say:
Because I had you.
Now, when I was a kid, there was no law protecting us from old people. Let me put it to you this way. There was no saying:
Well, he’s having a bad day.
There was no psychologist, no psychiatrist, that anybody paid attention to, because crazy people didn’t want to be crazy. See, crazy people get mad if you say they’re crazy. They didn’t want you to know they were crazy, so they were always trying to hide the fact that they were crazy. But everybody knew they were crazy.
Now, when I reminisce about the forties, I repeat, I am not bragging. I’m just relating my experience growing up and looking back on it today. It would be the same if Charles Lindbergh sat here to talk about his flight across the Atlantic in a single-engine plane. He’s not bragging; he’s telling the truth. He would’ve loved to have had a twin-engine jet, with instruments, and radar, and all of that, so he could’ve gone to sleep.
When I was thirteen, there was a girl, many girls, actually, and they always seemed to be armed with some kind of question I wasn’t ready for. One girl, she was just gorgeous. So I went up to her. Now, in those days you would go up to a girl and ask:
Would you like to go out with me?
You didn’t need to do much more than that. Just walk up and say:
Would you like to go out with me?
We were thirteen so she would just say yes or no. Even if she said yes, you weren’t going to do much, because girls were taught to make the male behave. If you tried anything, they’d say:
Stop!
It was like Olympic boxing.
Stop!
Yes, okay.
And our job was to try to sneak up on her, so that she didn’t really think we were touching or anything. But she would still say:
Stop!
And you would stop.
So I went up to this one girl and said, “Would you like to go out with me?”
And she said, “Why do you want to go out with me?”
I said the only thing I was armed with:
“Because I love you.”
And I did. I did love her. I really did. That’s why I told her I loved her.
She asked me, “What is love?”
Now, this is a thirteen-year-old girl, asking me “What is love?” I’m not prepared. I just thought I would use the highest form of a feeling for her and she would “go out with me.” What’s wrong with her? Asking me “What is love?”
“It means that I love you,” I finally said.
“But what is love?”
“I just love you.”
And I was getting mad at her. I don’t love her anymore. Never mind. You ask all these questions, man.
When I turned fourteen, there was another girl. She was beautiful. One of the really great-looking ones, and like all the great-looking girls, she had an ugly friend. So you had to talk to the ugly friend first and get permission to talk to the great-looking one. Eventually I got past the ugly friend and was able to talk to the great-looking one, and the first thing I said to her was “I would like to go out with you.”
She said—very nicely, I remember—she said, “I would like for this to be platonic.”
I didn’t know what the word meant. All I knew was that she said it like it was something she wanted. So I said, “Okay, great.”
I went home and asked my father, “What does the word ‘platonic’ mean?”
My father said, “It means y’not gonna get any.”
“Get any what?” I wanted to know.
“Good,” my father said, “you won’t miss it.”
When I turned fifteen, I figured out what I was missing. And so, at the age of fifteen, there’s a whole lot of lying going on. Boys lying about who got some. They used to call it “some” in those days.
Did you get some?
Yeah, I got some.
Then you’d help your friend lie and he would help you lie.
You see him get some?
Yeah, I saw him when he got some.
Fifteen years old. When you turned fifteen, you’d give twenty cents to Bobby Franklin, who was eighteen. Bobby Franklin would go to the drugstore and get you a condom, which you then put in your wallet and kept in your back pocket. After a while, it makes a ring, a round indentation in the leather. If somebody asked you:
Have you ever had any?
You don’t even answer. You just take out your wallet and show them the round dent in the leather.
Ten years later, I think I was about twenty-five, I found my old wallet in my mother’s house, in my bedroom, in the dresser drawer. When I took out the condom and opened it up, the thing just escaped, like a bird. It was so happy to be open, to fly away. Nothing but dust. Rubber dust that just exploded.
Yeah, I got some.
Oh yes. We were talking about Bernadette Johnson. Bernadette Johnson was fine. When somebody said Bernadette Johnson? Nothing else to say. She was fine. This word defines everything any fifteen-year-old boy would want in a girl.
Fine.
When you’re fifteen, sixteen years old, you say the word in a very specific way. You would narrow your eyes—the eyelids, you would narrow them. Not closed, but just narrow. And as you said it, the word would affect the facial muscles so that you made a face that would cause some people to think you were in great pain. Which actually, in a way, is the truth. The eyes are narrowed, and the face really does look like it’s in pain—a quiet facial reaction to pain.
Fine.
Pain. Not a bad smell. Pain. And then it’s like your head is on an axis. Your head swivels, goes from side to side, moving only about a quarter of an inch, then coming back about a quarter of an inch in the other direction. And you have the top teeth biting down, gently over the bottom lip, and you’re letting air come out. Sort of like listening to the most famous recording of “Body and Soul” by Coleman Hawkins—Coleman Hawkins on the tenor saxophone, blowing and hearing air before the note.
Fine.
So when you talked about Bernadette, you started with:
She…
That’s when the eyes narrow. And the e in “she” becomes three e’s.
And then the head goes up as if you were sending your face to Heaven.
Sheee iiisss…
And then your face drops about two inches down, and the whole head drops down too.
Fine!
Now, it’s not just a male thing, being afraid to speak up for fear of being rejected. But in those days, girls were taught that it was “unladylike” to approach a boy.
You will not—I don’t care how much you care for him, or how crazy you are about him—ever go up to him and say something.
So being a fifteen-year-old girl back then, because of the culture, you had to wait for somebody to come and ask. And sometimes it was:
Oh my God! Look at what’s coming to ask me!
In those days, even though females had to wait for males to come to them, I would imagine the females could tell you the way they “got him.” But as a male, it’s very difficult and frustrating to imagine that one would have to sit and wait.
I think where it was blown for the male was prepuberty, because in prepuberty little girls wanted to be friends. And because of the animal-gland secretions, without the opening up of the puberty, males could only think of aggressive behavior in terms of a chase, but not to chase to capture—to actually chase away. The poor female was left confused, because boys were knocking them down, knocking their books out of their hands. There were even these strange tales of having their braids being dipped in the inkwell of the desk of the boy sitting behind them. And this was supposed to be funny.
But the boys had this aggression, to chase, to tease the female, leaving the female confused and saying that these boys are mean, and asking, “Why?” And I believe that there are grown women of whatever age who have scars still. Little scars, or maybe good-sized ones, on their knees and elbows, from some stupid boys, age five or six or seven, flying through the air like they’d turned themselves into some kind of human heat-seeking missiles. And I’m sure that some of these grown women, to this day, worry when they sit in a theater, that some male behind them is going to dip their hair in an inkwell and leap up and jump on their head.
I still remember, at the dance, girls on one side, boys on the other. The music on the 78 record—and it wasn’t a diamond needle; this was just a plain old needle—blasting away, and these twelve-, thirteen-year-olds just standing there, afraid to make the long walk across the floor to the other side.
One of the most interesting aspects of human behavior is that they can stand there, I would imagine until they die, if the first person does not make that move. I don’t know what goes on in other cultures, but in ours, each age-group, whatever group you’re plumped with, at some point, before you ever get to dancing or whatever, you have to go through this awkward stage.
Things may have changed by now, but I just remember the auditorium, or gymnasium, and the girls are on one side and the boys are on the other, and they stand across from each other, like there’s some giant moat. No alligators, no snakes, no electric wires, no quicksand, but to get from one side of the moat to the other was very scary. I think that each generation had to have someone who made the walk first. And that was the freeing moment. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a next generation. That walk, in itself, was the bravest move.
There we were, boys on one side and girls on the other, like human chess pieces. Everybody knows that in chess, the first move is very important. And the second move too. Plus, you have to think several moves ahead or you can get checkmated. The problem was, here were a bunch of fifteen-year-olds who couldn’t even think one move ahead. We’re all lined up, on the chessboard, as I said, with the girls on one side—who are talking with each other—and the boys on the other side. Everybody is thinking how to be cool, but even though we know we’re supposed to go over there, we just can’t go.
Now, this was in my day. Today, I don’t know what you do. You come in dancing or whatever. But back then, you stand there and the girls are there and the boys are supposed to do something. Finally it’s a long enough wait that it becomes kind of silly.
Actually nobody stands back and says:
All right, are we men or not? Let’s go get ’em.
But there is that one person, and I don’t remember who it was, but that fellow, that brave fellow who went across and freed us. And then we all walked across and asked a girl to dance.
There’s always a girl in one’s life who will disappear but the story remains. That one, for me, was Bernadette Johnson. As I’ve said, Bernadette was fine. Everybody said it, all the fellows I was with, all the guys who were my buddies.
Bernadette was fine.
But she also was a wonderful person. Because as fine as she was, she did not “ig” you.
What is “ig”?
It’s a word from my time that I will define for you.
You know how people say somebody “dissed” them? And you know what “dis” is short for: “disrespect.” So “ig” is short for “ignore.” As in, “She igged you.” Which means she ignored you.
Bernadette would not “ig” you, even though she was fine. Even if you looked like Rondo Hatton, the actor in horror films who was nicknamed “the Creeper.” He never talked, and he had that jaw and that long face and big hands and big feet. Really, he was a horrible-looking guy. They used him as a horror figure in movies like The Pearl of Death and House of Horrors.
The point is, even if you looked like “the Creeper,” Bernadette, if you spoke to her, would still say hello and make you feel like: Gee whiz, she is fine, but she stopped to talk to me.
When somebody had a party in the cellar, fifteen-, sixteen-year-olds had a party, with the parents upstairs, you just felt wonderful. There was fresh whitewash on the walls. And you could never really fully stand up if you were six foot one.
There was always punch on the table, alcohol-free punch. And the 78s were like two minutes long, so that if the song was slow, you could dance close. And I’m talking about dancing cheek to cheek for two minutes, which gave you enough time to put in a couple of smooth moves. But then the record was over and you had to walk the girl back to where she was before, and you went back to where the boys were. As you got older, you stopped talking about what happened. You just came back and that was your secret.
But even then, at these parties in the basement, Bernadette wouldn’t reject you. She just made you feel wonderful. In those days, the style of the skirt was very tight, tight around the waist, above the hip, and then it came tight around the side, went down, and then flared out down to some very thin, light lace socks and black flat shoes. Girls’ blouses had sort of that Spanish flair, and it was almost off the shoulder, and short-sleeved, slightly puffy, usually white, and it looked like a string or, I don’t know, a strip of elastic held things together. Everything was covered and so you had to look for it, which I still think is a lot of fun. As opposed to today, where some of the girls walking around make you wonder: Well, what’s left?
But there were a few girls who did reject. They didn’t do it in a bad way. When you asked them to dance they would say:
No, not right now.
Obviously the girl was waiting for somebody else, and now you’re standing there with nowhere to go. I do remember once I asked two, three girls in a row, but got rejected and just went back to where the fellows were.
But I don’t remember Bernadette turning anybody down. That’s how nice she was. She danced every dance. She spoke to everyone. In other words, she was sort of, if you wanted to define her, a teenage angel. Nobody ever said anything bad about her. Even the girls all knew that she was fine.
Bernadette didn’t have an ugly girlfriend. She had sisters. Four sisters, all of them fine. Bernadette Johnson. She was nice. She was hip.
She was fine.
Buzzy Reed told Ron Brown that Cleofus Smith said Bernadette dug (loved) Miles Davis records. I said, “What?”
So I went up to her—the thing about Miles Davis records armed me and made me brave. Ordinarily, I’d be scared to death to talk to Bernadette too much. But that day I went up to her.
I said, “Bernadette, I understand that you’re digging Miles Davis.”
She said, “I love Miles Davis, William.”
I said, “Well, I happen to have every one of the newest Miles Davis LPs ever made.”
She said, “Oh my goodness.”
I said, “Would you like to listen to the ones I have?”
She said, “I would love to, William.”
I didn’t hear anything else after that. I just started to walk away. I was so happy, I was just going.
She said, “William?”
I said, “Yes?”
She said, “When?”
I said, “What?”
She said, “When are you going to play your records for me?”
I said, “When?”
She said, “That’s what I’m asking you.”
I started to feel stupid. You know, that’s one thing that’ll climb all over you, when you know you’re stupid. And you’re in love.
She said, “Where?”
I said, “I’ll come to your house.”
She said, “Do you know where I live?”
I said, “No.”
She said, “Well, then, let me give you my address.”
After I got her address, I walked away. I was so in love; I was so happy. Bernadette Johnson. She gave me her address. But there was one problem.
I did not have one Miles Davis record.
But Joe Barnett did. So I went to my man, Joe. My friend, Joe Barnett. You see, that’s the meaning of a friend. Your child can’t be your friend. Your child’s got nothin’ you can borrow. Joe Barnett loaned me four of the latest Miles Davis LPs. Only thing I had to do was spill ink. He had a stamp that said, “Property of Joe Barnett.” So I spilled ink on it.
Friday finally came. I bathed three times. We didn’t have a shower, just a bathtub. Bathed three times because…
Gonna see Bernadette Johnson!
And after the third bath, I remembered that my father, who was in the navy and had been all around the world, brought home a bottle of Canoe cologne. So I filled the tub with about a foot of water, climbed in, and poured the whole bottle of Canoe—it was unopened, never been used—in the water. Emptied that bottle out. As I sat in the tub being marinated (burned, actually, or sautéed) the Canoe cleared up my athlete’s feet and I discovered parts of my body that I hadn’t thought about. A normal person would have gotten out of the tub, but I could think only of how wonderful I would smell for the lovely Bernadette.
Gonna see Bernadette Johnson!
Then I filled the empty Canoe bottle with water and put it back on the shelf in case some grown-up noticed and asked, “What happened to the Canoe?”
“Well, it’s so old, it just lost its fragrance.”
As I started to get dressed, I noticed that I was coughing.
What’s wrong? Why am I coughing?
And then I realized the Canoe was cutting off my breathing. Eyes running, coughing, the more clothes I put on, the more air would come up into my face and I couldn’t get away from the smell. I was upstairs in my bedroom. My mother was in the kitchen.
She said, “What is that up there? What are you doing up there?”
I said, “Nothing, Mother.”
She said, “What’s wrong with your voice?”
So I came down the steps, dressed, and I picked up the LPs. Even though my mother was way back in the kitchen…
She said, “What have you got on?”
I said, “Uh, I don’t know. It’s a new soap.”
As I left the house, I could hear my mother opening the windows.
When you’re fifteen years old, you’ve got two things going for you: stupidity and hope. Bernadette’s house was a block and a half from our house, and I’m hoping this smell will be gone by the time I get to her house. Because it was strong. Really strong. Like ewwww strong.
I got to her house, went up these wooden steps to the porch, and pulled open the aluminum screen door. Just doing that, the air came back at me, and oh, the smell!
I rang the doorbell. When she opened the door it sucked the Canoe fumes off of me. Tears formed in her eyes and she said, “Oh, come on in right away.”
As I went past her, she looked outside, wrinkled her nose, then turned to her mother. I heard her mother say, “No, it’s him.”
Meaning it was me who smelled.
Bernadette looked fine. But that smell was in the way of everything. When I went to say hello to Bernadette’s mother, she stood back and said, “Just stay where you are, son. It’s very nice to meet you.”
Bernadette’s father said, “Take care of yourself.”
And he left. He just left.
Then the mother said something to Bernadette about how she knows what time to say good night and then went upstairs.
Bernadette was so nice. She smiled. And she just looked so fine. But it was hot in the house and oh God, the heat, the Canoe, the heat, the perfume. Oh God! The smell just kept coming and coming. Bernadette was sitting there. She excused herself and when she came back she had a fan. It was one of those fans from a funeral parlor, So-and-So’s Funeral Parlor. You know, the ones you get in church. I don’t know why funeral parlors do that—make a fan telling you, you gonna die. You’re fanning the thing and it’s telling you you’re going to die.
So we’re sitting there on the couch and she’s just fanning herself.
So I said, “I have the LPs.”
She said, “Oh, let me help you.”
I said, “No, I’ll do it.”
She said, “Good.”
I think she said that because of the fact that I was about to move away from her. So I went over to the console, which I knew how to work because Joe Barnett had one. I turned it on, pulled the Miles Davis LPs out, put four of them up on the spindle, brought the holder back over to keep the four records in place, turned the speed to 33 1/3, and pushed the controls to “play.” The arm with the diamond needle (and a quarter Scotch-taped to the top) came up and did a searching move to set itself for the size of the 33 1/3 record, then dropped down, and the music started. I said, “Yeah.”
When I turned around, Bernadette was sitting on the sofa. Now, she could have sat in the armchair, but she sat on the sofa. I’m not thinking about “getting some.” I’m in love with Bernadette Johnson. I want to marry her. I will get a job, I will buy her a house, and we will have two cars. And I’m saving myself for her.
I sat down. She had her left hand on the cushion, so accidentally, my hand went down, and my little finger went on top of her little finger. And then she took her little finger and put it on top of three of my other fingers. I don’t know how it happened, but all of a sudden, I heard myself say, “Oh yeah.” I was so happy. I don’t know where it came from, just “Oh yeah.” Then I took her hand, asking permission first, and turned, and she was looking at me and she was smiling and Miles Davis was playing away.
Then I noticed her father leaning on the opening leading to the dining room. He’s got a revolver, with the cylinder open. And he’s got a stick with cotton, which he is using to clean the chambers. He looked at me and he said, “You live about a block and a half away, left-hand side of the street?”
I said, “Yes, sir.”
He said, “You got twin brick posts and an iron gate leading to your steps and the porch?”
I said, “Yes, sir.”
He looked at me and nodded a “yes” and said, “I just want to know where to come.”
He slapped the gun so that the cylinder went back in and made a noise. Click! And then he turned and went into the dining room.
I said, “Bernadette, I have an awful lot of homework to do.”
She said, “So soon? It’s Friday.”
I said, “And a good time to leave.”
I left so fast I forgot to take the albums. I called Joe Barnett and told him where to go and pick them up, and the next day Joe went over to get his LPs.
Four years later, he and Bernadette were married. I was one of the groomsmen at their wedding. Bernadette’s father came up to me and said, “I just want you to know something. I didn’t think anything was wrong with you except you just didn’t smell right. I just kept saying to myself, ‘I gotta live with a son-in-law smelling like this for the rest of my life? I don’t think so.’ ” Then he gave me a great handshake and said, “However, you do smell a lot better. Thank God.”
