It was already August and here I was, still a virgin. At least according to Webster’s.

I decided to launch a two-week initiative to convince A) Dana to go with me to Jeff City and B) spend the night. The overnight was crucial. If that didn’t materialize, I didn’t really want to go all that way and back on the crazy road.

“Why don’t we go up to Jeff City some night and go to a restaurant and a movie?” I asked, wholesomely. Dana balked but eventually agreed.

Then the hard part. Phase two: “By the time we eat and see a movie, it’s going to be late. And I don’t want to drive back on that dangerous road. So maybe we should, you know, stay overnight.”

“Whaaat!?” she replied. “Where?”

I couldn’t bring myself to say the word “motel,” which back then carried with it licentious overtones. Really. Just the word.

The next day, after fabricating my thoughts, I told Dana that I had a friend who lived up there with his parents in a big house and could probably put us up. She didn’t ask how many rooms the two of us would be occupying per se.

“Will his parents be home?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered, although it concerned me that she wasn’t getting it.

On the big day, I was off duty at 4:00 p.m. and Dana was off after lunch. I’d asked Ed if I could borrow the lodge wagon, which was never a good bet, but when I told him why, he immediately said, “Yes!”

And so we set out on our Jeff City adventure. I had a big smile and, thinking ahead, a stirring of the loins. Dana was happy, too. I had to wonder if Lewis and Clark were as excited about getting to Jeff City as I was.

We had the windows down, the radio up, and were singing along to “Surfin’ Bird,” the classic by the Trashmen: “Well, everybody’s talkin’ about the bird! A well a bird, bird, b-bird’s the word…Papa, ooma mow mow, papa ooom mow mow…” Dana favored “Come a little bit closer, you’re my kind of man…” by Jay and the Americans. There’s no accounting for taste.

I kept sneaking peeks at her. She was a beauty. I felt lucky. Her father probably kept his farmer’s daughter locked in the barn to avoid a stampede of clod-kickers.

We arrived at the movie theater in Jeff City just as Cleopatra was about to begin. Pulling out all the stops, I bought a large buttered popcorn. Sure, it was expensive, but I wanted to let her know how much she meant to me.

When the movie was over, we drove to Big Mo’s (or words to that effect) Steak House, “Where the Meat’s Bigger Than the Plate!” The shrimp in the shrimp cocktails were unnaturally large too, looking like they might have been harvested from water discharged by the cooling tower of a nuclear power plant. The baked potatoes? Footballs. The steaks were very tender and very, very thin, which lead me to wonder if Big Mo might be out back driving a truck over them, back and forth, again and again ’til they’d hang off the plates

After dinner, I went to a pay phone outside and made “a call” to the “parents’ home.” I spoke loudly, hoping Dana could hear.

“Hello, Mrs. Smith, This is Bill, that friend of Bob’s who needed two rooms tonight?…Oh no, really? I’m very sorry to hear that…freight or passenger?…Yes, a motel, that’s a good idea…Okay, I’ll try the Ramada? Thank you, goodbye.”

I hung up and turned to Dana. “Someone died. Hit by a westbound freight. They tried to save him at Jefferson City General but he didn’t make it. The house is full of relatives in town for the funeral.”

“That’s terrible,” Dana said. “What should we do?”

“She said the Ramada was nice and fairly affordable.”

“No. I meant like flowers or a card,” Dana said.

Dana was silent as she got back into the car. I was silent as I drove. We were both nervous. It was like we were on the verge of something very exciting but also frightening and perhaps stupid. Like when a roller coaster goes slowly up and up and you anticipate the thrilling, scary plunge. Unless she hadn’t figured out where I was going.

I pulled into the Ramada parking lot about as far from the office as I could. I’d just remembered that we were in a powder blue Ford station wagon with “Arrowhead Lodge” emblazoned in two-foot-high letters stretching from front to back.

“Wait here,” I told Dana, who had no intention of getting out.

“Gotta act confident,” I told myself. “Checking people in is your job.”

“Good evening,” said the desk clerk. “May I help you?”

“I’m a salesman in town for the Adhesives Expo,” I said. (I’d seen a billboard somewhere.)

I was perspiring heavily.

“Haven’t heard about it,” the clerk said. (Maybe the billboard was in St. Louis.) “So you’ll be here all week?”

“Just the night,” I said.

“Single?”

“No, the wife is with me.” They marry early around here.

I registered: Fred Butkus, 100 Main Street, Chicago. Then signed the form “Bill Geist.” Shit. I quickly scrawled that out and signed “Dick Butkus,” throwing family resemblance to the wind.

The form asked what firm I was representing:

I wrote: “Midwest Mucilage.”

“Good outfit,” I remarked.

The clerk pretended not to be paying attention to any of this.

“Your total is $28.50,” he said.

Whew! I thought. I worried that Big Mo might have cleaned me out.

“Your room is 102 right here on the first floor so you can come in through the front door.”

“Great,” I said, thinking Ugh. How was Dana going to get past the desk clerk?

I went back to the car and told Dana. “Ugh,” she said.

We had no luggage. Sure sign of trysters. I knew. I was a bellhop.

So we hustled in, looking at the walls, the ceiling, the carpet, anything to avoid eye contact with the clerk.

The key didn’t work. “Son-of-a-bitch,” I said. “Wait here.” So there she was, leaning against the wall in the motel hallway alone, probably feeling like a hooker.

I rushed down to the front desk and back, unlocked the door, and we bolted inside. Dana turned on the TV. The Andy Griffith Show was on.

“That’s where I grew up,” Dana said. “Mayberry R.F.D.”

I took two beers out of a small cooler I’d brought along.

Then two more and so on.

“Excuse me,” she said, and went into the bathroom. I heard her pee for the first time. Moments later she opened the door and emerged in a short T-shirt and underwear. I’m pretty sure I gasped.

She moved quickly to the bed, pulled back the covers, and hopped in. I stripped down to my shorts and joined her.

We were kissing passionately when she grabbed my shoulders, pushed me away, looked me straight in the eye, and said firmly: “I can’t.”

What do you mean you can’t?!

“I can’t do this.”

“Why not?!”

“I’m…Catholic.”

“Catholic!?” Where’s the relevance?! She’s probably a member of 4-H, too.

“How do you guys get such big families?”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“But you must have known…” I said.

“I can’t.”

“I’ll sleep in this chair,” I snapped.

“You’re sweet,” she said.

Sweet Jesus! I thought.

She went to sleep. I could tell by her breathing.

I sat in the chair, my feet on the ottoman, for a good hour or two, in the dark, pretty sure I’d never have sex in my lifetime.

If not now, this night, when?

Maybe next year. Next summer.