Gina wanted to go shopping along Fifth Avenue that Saturday, and all my excuses were so dismal that I had to tag along. I didn’t know anyone who did anything in the daytime, and figured I’d have to work on that. I swung by her house around noon, fifteen minutes later than I had promised. She was waiting on her stoop with the shocked expression of a bride left at the altar. Since I’d known her, Gina had never managed to be on time for anything. Not school, not any of the jobs she’d lost, and certainly not any of our dates. The only exception was shopping. For shopping she was on time—if not early—and responded to any delay with the understanding of a drill sergeant. Even though I usually arrived early for just about everything except work, I could never resist sitting in the car around the corner from her house until I was at least ten minutes late for our shopping trips. There was no way it balanced out all the time I spent waiting for her over the years, but it made her a basket case, and I took some satisfaction in that.
I stopped at the pump in front of her building and got out, opening the trunk to toss in the several handbags that she seemed unable to do without, but which she never wanted to carry from store to store. She came around to the back of the car and put all her bags in except the one containing her pumps. She’d have to put them on before venturing into any of her regular haunts. She stood up on her toes and I bent down a little and we kissed. Gina was exactly five feet tall and I was just a shade over six. Kissing standing up was awkward if she wasn’t in heels, but she wore them almost all the time. She even had a pair of high-heeled slippers. She owned sneakers, but only wore them to and from places—yuppie style—and always changed before we got out of the car. I couldn’t even get her to keep them on when we visited her brother in Staten Island and just sat around the house.
We kissed until she couldn’t stay on her toes anymore, then I closed the trunk and we got in the car. She began lecturing me about the importance of hitting the stores early on a Saturday. I raised the volume on the radio and nodded my head vigorously whenever she paused to take a breath.
As soon as we were moving she slipped out of her sneakers and began rustling around in her bag for her shoes. She was wearing black jeans and a black denim jacket that was fashionably baggy to the extent that it would have been large on me. The bottom half had dozens of holes the size of half-dollars, each hole ringed in brass. Her bag matched the jacket exactly, except the holes were on the top half of the bag. Probably took a lot of testing in some design house before they realized that everybody would lose their change otherwise. The bag was large also, and glancing over as we drove it was impossible to tell where the jacket ended and the bag began. I reached across and poked a finger through one of the holes in her side and Gina let out a squeal. She came off the seat a few inches and scuttled as far away from me as she could. Gina was about the most ticklish person I’d ever met.
“Stop it,” she said, trying to be serious while stifling a giggle.
She kept her eyes on me while she finished changing into her heels, and as soon as we hit a red light she tried to get even. We tormented each other that way for the ten-minute ride to Bay Ridge, and by the time I found a meter and parked, my side hurt from laughing and we were both teary-eyed.
The shopping strip ran from Seventieth to Ninety-fifth, more or less, and we’d worked out a game plan over the years. I’d drive to Seventy-fifth and park there. Gina would shop the five blocks downtown of the car and I would sit in the nearest bar and have a few beers. When she was ready, I’d throw all the shit she’d bought into the trunk, drive five blocks further, and repeat the process. There was usually a ball game on in the bars and I could count on catching it from beginning to end, minus the five or ten minutes of shuttling the car. It’s known as the art of compromise.
The sky was starting to cloud over and the wind was kicking up a bit when she pulled me out of the third place. There were only two innings left so I was going to try for a ten-block jump and hope to make this stop the last.
“Remember that place?” Gina asked, giving my arm a squeeze.
“What place?” I said without looking up from arranging the trunk, which had seemed empty at the beginning of the expedition.
“That place,” she said, pointing across the avenue dramatically with her left hand extended in front of my face. I looked.
“Sure,” I said. “It used to be Ernie’s. It was a decent club. Jesus, it looks like they’re turning it into a Chinese restaurant. This neighborhood is starting to suck.”
“It was where you first kissed me. Do you remember?”
I closed the trunk, walked around to my side of the car, and opened the door.
“Gina, I don’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday.” I got in, reached over, and unlocked the door for her. Her expression hung somewhere between a pout and a snarl.
“You’re such a goddamn romantic. It was our first date. You took me there after the movies. I was impressed cause you knew everyone and nobody proofed us. You kissed me up against the—”
“Jukebox.”
“You remember! You just gotta be a bastard about it, that’s all.” She put her head on my shoulder and locked her arm through mine as I pulled into traffic.
At moments like that I knew I could rule the world if I wanted the job. Holmes himself had nothing on me in deductive reasoning. Ernie’s never had a pool table or a real dance floor to speak of. No video games. What would I back her up against? Bar? Too crowded. Ladies’ room? No class. Phone booth? Always occupied. Jukebox? Bingo. She almost had me wishing I really remembered.
“Tell me about your first kiss,” she said.
“What’s to tell? It was great. You were really hot that night.”
“Not our first kiss, your first kiss. The first girl you ever kissed.”
“You serious?”
“Sure.”
“Gina, I have absolutely no idea. That’s like asking me about my first beer.”
I got shot down on my ten-block jump plan, because just then Gina saw a shoe store that she had to “stick her head in.” I double-parked and told her I was timing it.
I had lied through my teeth about not remembering my first kiss, but she was walking on clouds about the jukebox thing so I didn’t see any reason to start telling the truth. Besides, it might’ve led to something resembling conversation. I had had a first, and then a first, now that I thought about it.
Just before my fourteenth birthday I asked Donna Vitale out on a real date. A going-to-the-movies date. She accepted. We’d go to the Fortway because it was within walking distance. We settled on a day that was probably a Saturday, and fell a few days after I turned fourteen. I didn’t go to school on my birthday. Never have. I was sleeping late and my mother came in and woke me around ten. She said my father was on the phone and wanted to talk to me. I picked it up from the bed.
“Hey, big shot. You feel any older?”
“Hi, Pop.”
“Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.”
“Whattaya doing today?”
“Nothing. I got nothing planned yet. Everybody’s in school.”
“Come on down to the depot. I wanna take you to lunch.”
“You want me to come to the depot?”
“Take your lazy ass outta bed and come down here. Me and Chuckie wanna take you to lunch. I can’t take my kid to lunch on his goddamn birthday?” He sounded drunk already. I checked the time again. Must have been his day in the union office.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll come down. When should I meet you?”
“You should meet me when you get here. Come on down.” And he hung up.
I was out of bed and hunting through clothes the next time the phone rang. I picked up. It was my father again. “Take a shower,” he said.
“What?”
“Take a shower. It’s hot out today; take a shower.”
“I take a shower every day. What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothin’s wrong; it’s hot out. I wanna make sure you take a shower.”
“So I don’t smell too bad around the garbage?”
He hung up. Even at that age I should have known better. My father was very sensitive about being in the garbage business. He liked the Sanitation Department to the extent that he loved the politics, titles, and being involved with the union. But he was a real dandy. Never wore his uniform to work. He always left the house in a sports jacket and slacks, with the collar of a lightly perfumed shirt rolled down over the jacket. He carried his uniform—cleaned and pressed undoubtedly to military standards—in an opaque garment bag and changed at work. I never saw my father’s hands dirty. That impressed me as a kid, but later I realized he must’ve been deadwood to work with. He hated picking up garbage and hated being reminded that it was what he did. I think it was why he ultimately faked his injury.
I caught a bus to South Brooklyn and got there around noon. The depot also housed the union offices and one day a week my father hung around doing shop steward business, which, as far as I could tell, meant doing nothing at all. Chuck Davis, “Chuckie D,” was my father’s partner. Two shop stewards per day were assigned to the union office on a rotating basis, and my father and Chuckie always got the same day. Chuckie was a black version of my old man, which was probably why they got along so well. He was heavyset, with a short, tight afro and a salt-and-pepper goatee. He was every bit the Beau Brummel my father was. It was a good thing they were both union reps, because if they ever had to work on the same crew, nobody’s garbage would get picked up.
I’d been to the office once or twice before so I knew my way around. They had a big-boned Polish blonde out front who was a receptionist and secretary. Behind her desk was a doorway that led to an inner office with two more desks and chairs, where the reps conducted all that official union business, and a sofa, for the official union naps. The blonde waved me in and I found my father and Chuckie, as I’d expected, half-crocked. Chuckie was at his desk; my old man was sitting on the sofa. They both had paper cups with ice, and a bottle of Wild Turkey stood on the desk in front of Chuck.
“Suzy,” my father yelled out to the girl, “bring us another cup a’ ice.”
“Bring two,” Chuckie said, “one for yaself.” He winked at my father.
They both got up and belched happy birthdays at me while simultaneously shaking my hand, slapping me on the back, and punching my shoulders. I was tense and embarrassed. They hunkered back down in their seats and Suzy came in with two cups of ice. She was chewing a fist-sized wad of Bazooka bubblegum and the sweet smell of it was so powerful that it cut through the bourbon stench that hung in the room.
“You guys are makin’ it a real party,” she said. “Thanks for the invite. I was gettin’ a complex sitting out there alone.”
“You never had a complex anything,” my father said, laughing. “We were just waitin’ for the birthday boy.”
“Oh fuck you,” she said, giggling, then walked over to me with the cups and handed me one. I took it, then looked over at my father.
“It’s okay,” he said, nodding to me. He turned to Chuckie. “I only let him have beer before.” Chuckie grunted approvingly. “I think we can let you try some good bourbon; just don’t like it too much.”
Chuck reached over and filled my cup and Suzy’s. I was perched uncomfortably on the edge of my father’s desk, and Suzy was standing very close to me. She hadn’t stepped back after handing me my cup and she hadn’t said a word to me yet.
“You ever tried bourbon before?” Chuckie asked.
“No,” I said. My voice sounded a little hoarse. The smell of the liquor was mixing in my nostrils with Suzy’s gum and making me kind of nauseated. I had nothing in my stomach and I’d assumed I was coming here for lunch.
“Well,” Chuckie said, raising his cup, “it’s a good day for firsts.”
“Cheers,” Suzy said.
We all emptied the plastic cups quickly and Chuckie refilled them, killing the bottle.
The Wild Turkey wasn’t so bad going down. My old man seemed disappointed that I didn’t gag, but then I’d been lying about never having had it before. Just the one cup gave me a buzz, though. Chuck stayed on his feet after pouring the second round. He tossed his back before the remains of his ice could have begun to cool it. My father followed suit, then stood too.
“Looks like we’re dry,” he said. “That’s no way to run a birthday party. Poor planning, right Chuck?”
“Piss-poor planning, man. No wonder this union’s going down the fuckin’ toilet.” They both laughed.
“We’re gonna get another bottle an’ bring back some sandwiches. You two drink slow; this stuff makes you loco.” He and Chuckie left, giggling and wheezing.
The situation was fairly obvious.
“How long...”
“About an hour,” Suzy said, smiling at me as she unbuttoned her blouse. “Plenny a’ time.”
I made myself throw down the second bourbon. I remembered hoping she’d spit the gum out.
I couldn’t work myself up to getting angry with my father about it, but lunch left me somewhat depressed. And concerned, of course. If sex made me feel this way, then maybe I was a psycho and would end up a fag or a priest. I thought that the experience would completely destroy my excitement over my upcoming date, which would have to be a letdown now. I was relieved to discover I was wrong. My night out with Donna Vitale was filled with all the thrills and awkward moments that someone without my hour’s worth of worldly experience would have gone through. When I walked her home that night I got a kiss. So I had a first, then a first.
Funny thing, though, my memory of Suzy, the chunky sofa gymnast, didn’t do anything for me. But Donna, in her hallway that night, with one kiss, could still get my dick stiff as a diamond drill. Just went to show what Gina knew. I was a goddamn romantic.
She emerged from the shoe store then, remarkably carrying only two small bags. She tossed them over the seat into the back as she climbed in and slid over next to me.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, resting her hand on my thigh, perilously close to that memory hard-on. “Whatcha thinking about?”
“What am I thinking about?” I yelled, pushing her hand away. “I’m thinking about where the fuck I’m gonna park this car when we get to Ninety-fifth Street. Do you see this traffic? If you could drive I wouldn’t have to do this shit.”
She put her hand back in her jacket pocket and moved to her side of the car, sullenly staring straight ahead. I turned the radio on. Loud. If I hurried, maybe I’d catch the last inning.