One important night for me as a teenager began when I met up with a group of my friends from school at an Applebee's. We had all turned eighteen, and were out after curfew. There was Bobby, Mike, Curtis, Paul, and Paul's older sister Angeline. Paul was a half asian, half Filipino friend, and Angeline was sort of dating Bobby. Bobby considered himself the leader of the group; he was the most aggressive, and really wanted to be cool. I think everyone recognized that he was trying a little too hard, and that he tended to lie enough that you couldn't believe anything he said. He was the type to say, "Oh year, I got accepted to Harvard Medical School, but I told them 'no,' because I wanted to focus on my research." Like, OK, but maybe the truth to that story was that he had met an admissions person from Harvard who told him he should apply. My brother Eric was like that, too.
Bobby's mother had lost an arm to cancer as a young woman; he told me that he had once found her prosthetic arm in the attic, and used it to beat a kid bloody. He was at the top of the class in everything, and became a swimmer and got pretty strong. When I had been a freshman, I got beat up in gym class; a bigger guy, Tom, was trying to drag me into a trash can. I grabbed his pinky finger and twisted it back, and he got mad and hit me a couple times. Bobby had seen me, and probably recognized how upset I looked, and asked if I was OK. I still appreciate that.
Angeline sat next to me, and she felt my leg while we were talking. I did my Ralph Wiggum voice, "me fail English? That's un-possible!" She laughed and told me how cute I was. Had I ever had a girl touch me before? Not like that. I mentioned in an earlier post how one of my brother's friends girlfriends would climb on top of me while insulting me when I would go down to drink with them, but that was really unromantic; if it was sexy, it was in a really different way.
Angeline was so gorgeous to me. She smiled and laughed, she wore her hair to the chin, and she went to Vassar. She was twenty one, which seemed so adult compared to my eighteen years. I was so wrapped up in her, and I lost track of all time. Was she on Bobby's shoulder when we were talking then? My watch betrayed me. It had stopped, but the second hand continued to tick on the same second, making it look like it was still working, even though it wasn't. I got home, and my dad was furious. I was grounded for the first and only time in my life, despite being eighteen. Completely unfair.
Over the course of that summer and fall, I ran into Angeline with Bobby a few times, and got together with them. They came over to my Dad's house, and she licked chocolate sauce off my chest. Later, I came downstairs where she and Bobby were watching TV, and her fly was unzipped.
My Dad's car was a Volvo S-80, which was a nice car at the time. When my Dad had remarried Carmen, we moved to a large house in a wealthier suburb of Pittsburgh. Carmen had been widowed in her forties, and was wealthy from her first husband's estate. She also managed a downtown realty office, and had investment income from rental properties and a parking lot.
I mention this because I recognize that Bobby was hanging out with me and brought Angeline around due to my perceived status as a rich kid. My Dad's psychology practice, while successful, wasn't enough to provide for those appearances, until after he got married. Bobby's family had a nice, older, smaller home in a suburb closer to the city. His house was more like a college professor's.
In the Fall, I talked to Angeline on the phone a couple times. She sent me a package and a couple of letters from Vassar. There were some bumper stickers, and a few trinkets. I think we exchanged a few emails, as well.
A group of us went out to see a movie at the art house cinema in town. Bobby told me that if I would let him drive my Dad's car, he would let me have sex with Angeline. I said, "sure," and he did.
