It was a great day and seventeen was a great age to be too, Balga (no Bodgie) thought. Why, he was almost a man. Yeah, a man, he felt as he strutted along with the two dolls conscious that the squares on the street were eyeing him—envying him for the clothes he wore and the two chicks that looked as tough as he felt.
Yeah, tough chickees that did the night trade on Roe Street. He was in one of his pulp novels. Yeah, this was the life to live he knew. They turned into that infamous street where Leslie left them while he continued on to Audrey’s crib which they entered with a giggle. She started to put on her working gear, a simple shift saying that the hoop skirt was okay for standing up, but not for lying down. ‘This is better,’ she said, twirling around so that her scanties showed. The girl went out the back. She came back with a soda and more pills which they gulped down.
Audrey kept the front of her crib closed. She sat on the bed with him. He began talking telling her how he had just been out of Clontarf orphanage for a few months and was just feeling his way.
‘Just feeling?’ the moll asked, somehow making it sound dirty.
‘Yeah,’ he replied as he awkwardly took her hand. ‘In Clontarf it was all boys. We never talked to or touched a girl, never held a hand ever!’
‘Uhuh, maybe it was for the better. They say fresh meat is much better than stale.’
‘Yeah,’ Bodgie agreed wondering what she meant. He felt as shy as hell and wanted to scarper. He told her that he had to go soon.
‘Come on, man,’ she retorted, ‘be my Bodgie to your Widgie, and help out. Hang until eleven and do Steady Eddie’s duties. He looked after us and we need another bloke now. Anyway, it’s your birthday so have a real gone time with me.’
Saying this she stretched out on the bed and Bodgie stared down at her. He was feeling a little dizzy. ‘What were those pills?’ he asked her.
‘A bit more than Ted’s and you can jive all night on them. Wish we had a radio here, or something for music, but it’s not allowed.’
Now Bodgie’s mind was off on another wonder. What would he do if a customer came?
‘Man, you are a bit slow,’ the girl told him flashing her legs at him.
‘Oh that,’ she pouted when he told her what he had been thinking. ‘There’s a back room where you sit and keep an eye on things; but not tonight. This is a quiet night and I’ll keep the place closed. Leslie can handle the trade while I handle you,’ she said with a laugh and then grabbed Bodgie’s hand and pulled him down next to her. ‘Now for that birthday present,’ she whispered then mock ordered. ‘Take off your trousers and take it like a man.’
Bodgie was used to obeying orders and began to do so. He didn’t even feel embarrassed as he knelt to take off his blue suedes and then his pants. As he carefully folded his trousers and looked around for somewhere to put his jacket, he caught her pushing up her dress. She reached out and pulled him on top of her. She shook her hips, reached out to free his dick of his underpants, did something similar to herself and guided him inside her. Bodgie got up on his elbows as she bucked a few times to get him moving. He began and continued finding it so natural that he even thought of a song to go with his rhythm: “The Stroll”. Nice and slow and come on baby make it last. Stroll, don’t run; walk not talk and slow to the rhythm that beat him into an intoxication. Bodgie began singing softly then stopped with a gasp. There was nothing that he thought or felt. He closed his eyes on the void and began moving slowly. Just strolling, just strolling. Turning over and strolling some more into a realm that held all meaning. Oh yeah, man, oh yeah, man! His body began to rise to a crescendo in spite of itself. ‘I love to stroll,’ he moaned. ‘Let it all come out, baby, give me all of it’ Audrey whispered and thrust a few times with her hips. As Balga spunked deep within her he knew that he indeed was a juke box baby at Seventeen.
‘Wonderland,’ he murmured.
‘Fresh meat is always the best meat,’ she said, and got up to fix herself.
Bodgie lay there in the afterglow feeling fine and wondering why his teachers, The Christian Brothers had condemned what he had just done as one of the worst of all mortal sins. ‘I’ll never understand them,’ he whispered to himself, as Audrey came back from the back.
‘Hey,’ he exclaimed in surprise, ‘I pronounced them as them. Now—then as then, thee as thee. Wonderful,’ and he explained to her about his speech impediment and how he had tried and tried to be rid of it and now it had gone of itself.
‘Oh that,’ she retorted, ‘I thought it was part of your American accent. I found it cute.’
‘I can always keep it up,’ Bodgie replied, but when he tried he found he had lost it. His speech impediment had gone and never came back. At times he had wished the same might happen to his skin colour, but alas he was stuck with that for life. ‘A part of my American self,’ he said more to himself than to her.
‘What is?’ Audrey asked.
‘My skin colour.’
‘Oh, I supposed all the people in New Orleans were coloured, just like Fats Domino and your dad.’
‘Sure, sure, he said feeling that he was caught in a lie that he would have to live with; but then it was better than being a native, an Abo. He couldn’t even begin to think of what Audrey’s reaction might be if he confessed that to her. Yeah, you never could tell how people would take it. Best to keep it hidden until you knew what the cat or chick you dug really thought of such a thing.
These thoughts were upsetting his mind. He remembered the job he had planned and needed to cut out. ‘Hey, time for me to prowl,’ he whispered to the girl beside him who seemed to be dozing or in some wonderland of her own.
‘Why?’ she muttered, opening her eyes and bringing herself back to their scene.
‘Cause I got this little job to do. We’ll groove again tomorrow, won’t we? Make it a date and I want you to tell me all about yourself and where you grew up. You’re a city doll in my country flic, Next time, we meet we’ll get a car and try that dance place, the Snake Pit. The only place in town you can jive to the bop.’
‘Whatever,’ she replied with a yawn. ‘Sure, sure, if you gotta go, you gotta go,’ she added sitting up and watching him pull on his trousers. ‘Tunnel loops,’ she commented then added: ‘Before you go give me some skin. I’m widgie to your bodgie even more now.’
‘Skin?’ Bodgie queried.
‘Yeah, but not this,’ she said flashing a white thigh to show a tattooed stick figure with a halo, ‘our very own hand shake. You’re one of us now and when you go East you give them the sign. There’s lots of Saints in Melbourne.’
‘Huh,’ Balga grunted. Being with Audrey wasn’t just being with any girl. She knew things that he didn’t and could open doors for him in that mythical east. ‘Let’s go strolling, strolling, take my hand, baby and lead me to that wonderland,’ he sang.
‘Uhuh,’ she said, ‘so stick out your hand and I’ll show you.’
He did so.
‘Nice long fingers, you should take up the guitar,’ she commented.
‘Yeah, but they are the reason why I have a powder puff punch,’ and he told her about his short lived boxing experience, to which she retorted: ‘You were lucky. Boxing is a mug’s game.’
How could she know that, he thought, but let it go as she showed him the bodgie hand shake. There was a simple version that could be extended into a complicated one if you really wanted to get into greeting someone or testing them. The simple one was merely the brushing of palms after the shake, but the second version employed all five fingers. You went from finger to finger twisting your hands and finally brushed the palms. Balga practiced on Audrey enjoying caressing her palm and fingers as he did so. Her palm was crisp and cool. ‘Your skin is fine like wine,’ he muttered, still self conscious about using such compliments.
‘You a bodgie now’, she said.
‘Yeah Bodgie to your Widgie,’ Bodgie replied softly.
‘Yeah I’m widgie to your bodgie,’ she whispered back.