You're Still Young
That's your fault
Yes, this is a line from a Cat Steven's song. It's a line that's often misinterpreted. In fact, I used it in one of my other stories, and the editor corrected it. When I asked why, he said, "You can't possibly believe that being young is a person's fault." He missed it, and I think it often gets missed. These days, with information about literally anything at our fingertips, I doubt a lot of young people could even accept it, let alone misinterpret it.
That was a Stevens' trademark. In the context of the other lyrics, Stevens is saying "you're still young, lacking wisdom, and experience, and of course, that's a fault of being young."
I don't think he means, "You're unwise, lacking experience and that's your damned fault."
So one day, I was thinking about something that happened to me when I was young, and then about a plot for a new story. Instead of people who've been married for twenty-plus years, it's about young newlyweds, plotting and scheming, no real harm intended, and the consequences.
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Relax; it's just a story, people.
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The real-life story, as related by a friend, which prompted the tale that follows:
I felt heartache for the first time, when I was eighteen, at the hands of a girl in high school, while we were both seniors. I'd met her two years earlier at the local roller rink and we were together ever since that night. Being the same age, we'd both spent plenty of time on the phone getting to know everything about each other, until we finally got our driver's licenses.
Dana, my girlfriend, had three cousins - a twin boy and a girl - her age, and another a year younger. The twins were the ones who'd introduced us. I was approached by her cousin Daniel about getting a bunch of tickets for the upcoming Bob Seger concert. Back then, he was just coming into fame. We went to the box office, carloads at a time, and staggered ourselves in line buying six tickets each and then reselling them at school.
The concert was awesome. The first of three was on a Thursday and I went with friends from school, but I was looking forward to the Saturday with my girl, Dana. We went in Daniel's Chevy Nova. 'We' included me and Dana, Daniel and his girlfriend, and his sister, Vicky, and her boyfriend Jeff. Jeff also went to Dana's school.
On the way home, with Daniel and his gal up front, and the four of us in the back, we were talking about all we saw and heard at the concert. At one point, Vicky and Dana gave each other a look - a signal I soon found out - and Vicky shuffled under her cousin as my Dana climbed over her.
Within seconds, Vicky was basically in my lap, and Dana was on Jeff's.
Vicky gave a sultry look - or something resembling one - and leaned in to kiss me. The kiss was hot! She didn't hesitate to give me full tongue, and was really into it. I don't know why, but as a teenager, I always kissed with my eyes closed. Suddenly I had a thought.
As I opened my eyes, I could see Dana, right there over Vicky's shoulder, her tongue dancing with Jeff's, just like Vicky and I were doing. Jeff was also getting a good feel of Dana's tits with both hands.
For reasons unbeknownst to me at that tender age, I quickly threw Vicky off my lap, which interrupted Dana and Jeff, who were looking at us with questioning gazes. Dana could see the anger written on my face. I looked up at the rearview mirror and saw Daniel had been watching the entire time.
"Take me home first," I ordered him. The car erupted, Dana was back on my lap saying "sorry," and from the others, there were "it was just a joke" and "just a game," and my favorite of all-time, although I'd need to get much older to understand, "It didn't mean anything."
The fruitless pleas turned to demeaning and derogatory comments, as the group tried to turn their stupid idea back on me. "Come on, Brian, stop acting like a baby. It was just to see what both of you guys would do," said cousin Vicky.
Those comments turned to "Little bitch, fucking pussy, and asshole" when I would not relent. I tuned them all out, just staring out the window. I knew I was the odd man out, and this got out at school, I'd have to endure more hassle. After all, it was the five of them against me. Dana kept trying to turn my face towards hers, but finally, after fifteen or so minutes she stopped and just sat in silence next to me.
Jeff was the one who finally pushed it too far, as Daniel entered my neighborhood. "Fuck dude," he said, "you're bullshit cry-baby attitude ruined a good time. Your chick deserves better." I didn't get any punches in with both girls basically between him and me, while they tried to grab my arms. I think I may have hit one of them in the shoulder, but Daniel had seen it coming and raced up and into my driveway.
"Fuck all of you!" I screamed getting out. Jeff was laughing, basically mocking me. I told him to watch his fucking back.
I thought hard about my actions for the next few days. I learned then that I was a one-woman man, and would always be. As much as Dana's actions hurt, I also realized that the lessons I learned about myself were valuable and life-long. Besides never wanting to share my partner, I knew I would always be the kind of man that wouldn't fold to peer pressure.
Dana called all that evening and for the next several days. It was all landlines back then, so eventually, my mother just took the phone off the hook. When I finally did take her call, five days later, she was apologizing profusely. She claimed it was a spur-of-the-moment idea while she and Vicky were in the restroom at the concert, and she promised to never do anything like that again. I did accept her apology and we stayed together until we both went our separate ways to college.
Thirty-two years later, Dana and I reconnected after first marriages, raising our kids, and divorces. Ironically, when we first recalled the event, she told me she'd later learned that both Daniel and Vicky had planned the entire thing. Vicky wanted to 'steal' me from Dana, and since she went to my school, she must have thought she had a good shot. Daniel never liked me much, but he did have a crush on his cousin. Vicky only went to the concert with Jeff with the intent of making me jealous. Now, in our sixties, we can have a good laugh about the incident. Dana knows that she doesn't have to be 'in touch' with the old me - the young me showed her that being with another guy, in any way at all, would be devastating to our relationship.
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I don't know how it had turned to shit so quickly. I've wondered over the years, what if I'd handled things differently? Could I have, and still looked myself in the mirror? Highly unlikely. I am who I am. Of course, being unbending and unbreakable has its drawbacks. I've lost a lot of friends over the years, but then again, were those people ever really friends to begin with? Looking back, and tallying things up, I have to say 'yes,' when asked, "Was it all worth it?"
Emma, formally, Emily Jensen, nee Morrisette, was relentless. Her fiery red hair matched perfectly her personality. Both things were a result of her Irish lineage from both parents. Sadly, her mother had passed at an early age, one year before I met Emma. That had only inspired Emma to live life to its fullest. Her father, named Robert, just like me, seemed okay with me, although he was buried under the weight of being a widower with a teenager at home.
I met Emma because of my job. The restaurant I worked at from age nineteen to twenty-one was part of a three-unit group. Two were in the Detroit area, and one was near Flint. I'd already worked my way to shift lead and was hoping for a promotion to assistant manager. The restaurants were owned and operated by three brothers, about ten years older than me, and ranging from twenty-eight to thirty-two at that time. Lance Peters, was the oldest, and the one I worked with most at our Warren, Michigan store. The other two were Michael and Russ.
Lance tried to maintain a family atmosphere since it was a family-style restaurant. Two of the main cooks were childhood friends of the Peter's boys. The youngest, Brian, was married and a few years my elder. We also had twin sisters working the front counter, who were eighteen then and just getting ready to graduate, introduced me to Emma at a high school Co-op work program banquet. Emma was also eighteen at the time.
Emma was far more into me initially, and she pushed the envelope. When I didn't ask her out after the banquet, Emma would show up as a customer and sit at the counter with a melted bowl of ice cream for hours, trying to make small talk when I wandered over there. The twins were always laughing, and making little comments under their breath. When Emma wasn't there, either of them would constantly bother me about asking their friend out on a date.
Finally, I did, and by our third date, I was having real feelings for Emma. I began to see her as someone that I could spend a lot of time with, and over the next several months, my feelings grew even deeper. Eleven months after our first date, I asked Emma to marry me. She excitedly accepted.
A few things nagged at me though. Her 'all-out' personality could get her in some trouble if she wasn't careful. I talked to her about it a few times. When I told her to think before rushing into a situation, she was slightly placating, which pissed me off. We argued that night and she said she loved me and didn't want her personality to interfere with our love. I relented slightly. Okay, I simply relented, but I told myself we ended up in a stalemate. I wanted her to start taking a 'look before you leap' approach.
Her father and a cousin that we spent a fair amount of time with, named Cathy, always used her Irishness as an excuse for her persistence of being 'right' all the time. I actually think part of her attraction to me was that I didn't just fold when she argued her point as gospel. We got married in a small ceremony. My mother and younger brother had moved to California the year I met Emma. She and my father had divorced when I was fourteen, and neither had recovered financially. My dad lived in Texas, and we rarely spoke.
Emma's dad offered to front us four grand to get started after our nuptials. Emma and I had been tipped off to a single-wide mobile home in a nice park, twenty minutes north of the restaurant. In 1979, that area was still very rural too, which suited us. Brian, the cook from the restaurant, and his wife, Darla, had told us about the mobile home, which had been on the market for only eight thousand. With the money from Emma's dad, we put half down and ended up with a two hundred-ten dollar per month mortgage.
