The two people that were present at the Bushey residence on North Street in Colonie, New York had little in common besides the fact that they weren't happy about where they were on that Wednesday morning in late June of 1972.
The burly black man who was hard at work doing repairs on the garage didn't mind the work but the weather forecast called for thunderstorms, not surprising considering how humid it was already, and while he might be able to get most of the roof done before the rain, there was no way he could finish it.
That wouldn't have been so bad if the clowns at the supplier's hadn't broken the window that needed to be installed, and while that would have been something he could have done in the afternoon, a replacement wouldn't be ready until tomorrow.
This put Reggie Harrell in a bad mood, but there was no way that his day would brighten as it went on, and neither did the other unhappy person on that property that morning.
The reason that Donna was down was on her leg, a cast that she was wearing since she stepped badly off of a curb a couple weeks earlier, and not only did it force her to walk across the stage on crutches to get her diploma but it put a damper on her senior prom as well.
Donna was sitting at her bedroom window, bored to tears at the prospect of another two weeks wearing the cumbersome itchy cast and still upset at being dumped by her boyfriend after their disaster of a prom.
Dialing For Dollars was on the TV but Donna wasn't interested in the corny show, and had started watching the guy replacing the shingles on the garage roof. It looked like brutal work judging by the way the man was sweating already, and that combined with the sun made his ebony skin glisten.
"I wouldn't mind if you took that shirt off mister,' Donna said to herself, not that there was much to it anyway.
The ratty faded grey shirt was more like a vest because the sleeves were ripped off, and although the man was not a body builder by any means, packing about 40 pounds more than an insurance chart would say his 6'2" frame should carry, he looked sexy.
Besides, Donna mused, that body appraisal of the workman applied to her as well. She was chubby before the accident that pretty much immobilized her, and now with time on her hands and Twinkies in the pantry she feared that her own 5'3" body would become plumper still before the cast came off.
Donna giggled to herself when she thought about what her father would do if he had any idea that his baby girl was staring out a window at a black guy and trying to will his shirt off. Mom wasn't like that but Dad? Yikes. His blood pressure would go through the roof.
There were only about a dozen black kids in her senior class that numbered almost 400 so it wasn't like she saw that many black folks, and Donna thought back to last year when a black senior asked her to go to the Prom, and while she really would have liked to and it would have been cool for a junior to go to the senior prom she declined.
"Mommy - Daddy, this is my date Dwight," Donna pictured herself saying when the guy showed up at the doorstep.
Mom would have been cool, chirping something dumb like "Oh, a Negro! Wonderful!" while patting herself on the back for being so liberal and Donna would have turned red and tried to tell her mother than Negro was so sixties it wasn't funny.
Dad? Well, he wouldn't used the word Negro, that much Donna knew, and it would have been any guess which would have come first, Donna being disowned or her old man keeling over with a stroke.
"Ooh! Thank you Mister... whatever your name is," Donna chirped when as if he had heard her prayers, the workman peeled off the shirt.
He was a big guy, Donna sighed, and his man boobs were almost as big as hers, but a lot of his chest was muscle and the curly hair on his chest was sexy too, even if some of it was white.
"What a magical summer this was so far," Donna told herself. Everybody else was up at Lake George or cruising the streets with their boyfriends and she was staring out at a husky and sweaty black guy and wondering what the hair on his chest would feel like. It looked coarse but who knows?
"Pervert," Donna muttered to herself when she realized that her hand had gone between her legs, as it did often these days when she didn't bother to get dressed.
"Want to feel my pussy hair?" Donna cooed at the window and was very glad that the man was too far away to hear her going stir crazy. "Mine is pretty soft, and I hope you like a hairy pussy because I sure have one."
The teen grimaced when she felt the stubble on the inside of her thighs, and if she ever got to go swimming before this summer ended she would have to shave the perimeter or get laughed of the beach.
With nothing to do Donna decided that she might as well do a little gardening now. She feared that the workman already caught her staring at him a few times so steeping away was probably a good idea, but after hobbling to the bathroom she saw that the pouch of Bic razors in the cabinet was empty and after she reached into the shower she saw that the only one in there was one on the soap dish.
"No way," Donna said as she threw that thing in the wastebasket, because when she used that thing on her legs and armpits a few days ago, it was duller than Mom's meatloaf.
The other alternative was using Dad's razor, but the Bushey girls knew better than to do that. Getting caught using that might not have pissed Dad off as much as a black guy on his roof but it still was a no-no, so back to the window Donna went after making a pit-stop for a Twinkie.
"How old are you?" Donna sang to her fantasy man as his massive arms bulged as he lifted a pile of shingles like it was nothing, and with an unwrapped twinkie in one hand and her other hand slowly rubbing her pussy she guessed him to be around 50, and that would make him nearly as old as the only three guys she had made love too - combined.
"I know what the other girls say about black guys," Donna sighed while trying to suck the cream out of the sponge cake without biting it, although they probably didn't have any idea and were just repeating urban legends.
Donna woke out of her woolgathering when she realized that the giant on the roof was looking at her and had his hand cupped over his ear like he was trying to hear.
"Huh?" Donna said through the screen, before raising it up and sticking her head out the window a bit and repeating herself.
"I said if you're talking to me I can't hear you!" the man yelled, and after he smiled revealing big bright teeth Donna returned the smile.
"Oh sorry," Donna chirped back, and after thinking of a reason her lips could be moving she finally said. "Just singing along with the radio."
"Oh? What you listening too?"
"Um... Marvin Gaye," Donna responded after trying to think of somebody the man would think was cool, and after he asked what song it was she called back, "What's Going On!"
"Oh girl, you not only fine looking but you got good taste too!" the man said, making Donna giggle in return. "I'd much rather be in there than out here."
"It's boring in here," Donna said.
