A middle-aged man looks back on a crazy night from his youth.
***
It was the summer of 1978 and I was dating this girl by the name of Janice, driving a beat up VW van and enjoying myself in the brief time I had before college would force me back to the real world.
Janice was a couple of months younger than I was and my fascination with her was purely physical because while I was no genius, Janice was as dumb as a stump and while I was headed to college she was going back to high school to give senior year another try.
We were what some called hippies. although a very mild suburban variety in that our free-spirited nature was ruled by our parents with whom we lived. I had fashionably long hair along with the VW bug which qualified my hippie status in the town of Colonie in upstate New York, since we seemed to be years behind the rest of the world.
Janice qualified as a hippie because she wore a lot of clothes and jewelry with peace symbols on them, rarely wore a bra and didn't shave her armpits. I was fine with all of that and was especially delighted that the breasts that were rarely housed in a harness were huge.
The part of being a hippie that Janice didn't understand was that hippies were supposed to be promiscuous, or at least that was what I had heard. Despite the other signs that led me to think otherwise, Janice was a virgin or at least that was what she claimed.
We did everything else a couple could do except have intercourse, and to be honest I had become rather obsessed with that. It was probably the only reason I kept going with her - the carrot at the end of the string.
Janice's 18th birthday was what I thought would be the perfect night to take her virginity, and since the Mohawk Drive-in was having a triple feature of pretty bad movies I thought that would make the perfect place for us to consummate our relationship. I was getting the impression that Janice's defenses were weakening and knew that time was running out for me with her.
"Smokey and the Bandit, Eat My Dust and Grand Theft Auto?" Janice whined when I proposed how we should celebrate her 18th birthday.
"It'll be outta sight!" I declared, either that or "groovy".
I had everything we would need; a couple of 6 packs of Genesee beer in a ratty styrofoam cooler that was seeing its last summer, a joint that I had bummed off a friend and a dozen condoms. Janice knew about everything except the condoms, which were going to be a surprise.
The dozen might have been overkill, but considering how horny I was it seemed like the right amount. Back then I probably jerked off that many times in a day anyway so better safe than sorry was my philosophy.
Besides, they wouldn't go to waste because they were vacuum wrapped. Good thing too because I was no sex machine, having had intercourse twice in my life up until then. Both of those events were with the same unfortunate girl who I think only did it with me the second time because she couldn't believe how bad the first time had been. My equipment was fine, mind you, but I had this problem with self-control or lack thereof. Quick on the trigger and not intentionally either.
So Janice had agreed to the date and was even on her porch when I drove up to her house that she shared with her mother. For some reason Janice seemed ashamed of her mother and tried to avoid me being around her so the porch thing was nothing new.
At that age most of us felt that way about our parents from time to time but the few times I had been around Mrs. Lambert she seemed alright. A little wacky maybe, and it also seemed like she tried hard to be cool, but other than that she seemed alright.
Janice and her mother lived alone in that modest little house on Wilkins Avenue since Janice's older brother had moved out and her father had split up with her Mom. Janice claimed that her father dumped her mother because she was too insane for him to take, but I didn't knew anything about that.
So up to Janice's house I drove that Saturday evening, and as I pulled up in front of the place a funny thing happened. Not funny in a ha-ha sense, but as I was about to stop the car it started doing this spastic dance it sometimes did like when it was running out of gas, but I had almost half a tank so that wasn't it.
After jerking and bucking it let out a sigh, pretty much saying "oh fuck it", and died. It wasn't a permanent death because a talented friend would bring it back to life the next day, but for that night at least, my fuck truck was dead.
"Bummer," Janice said as she walked up to me while I looked under the hood, which was what you were supposed to do even if you didn't know anything about cars. "Can you jump it?"
Jump it? I shook my head, happy that there was somebody even less knowledgeable about cars than I was, and as she rattled off a bunch of other lame suggestions I pondered my options.
There I was, standing on the side of the road with a busted down car and a pudgy girlfriend with a dubious complexion who might never put out. I was so pissed off that if it wasn't for those torpedo-like tits swaying free under that tie-dye tank top I would have said fuck it just like the car had.
"What do we do now?" Janice asked. "It's my birthday."
"I know it's your birthday," I said. "I got you a cake."
Indeed I had bought a Friehofer's sheet cake at the store, white cake with chocolate frosting, and while it didn't say 'happy birthday' on it, I did buy a package of little candles too so it wasn't like I didn't care, and when Janice saw it she got all dewy-eyed.
"Forks too," she added when she saw the plastic implements, not bothered by the prospect of eating a cake out of the box with me as we sat inside the VW bug and contemplated what to do next.
"We could hang out in the back," I suggested, so blinded by my raging hormones that I was fine with making out in the back seat in front of her Mom's house until it got dark, at which time I would give her another present besides the peace symbol necklace I had already given her.
That present was 6 and 5/8 inches of throbbing manhood that was already oozing in my pants, and while she was not unfamiliar with my dick (and had even measured in one afternoon up in her room when we had nothing else to do) she had never experienced what I could do with it.
"Oh man," Janice whined. "I want to fucking die. Let's go."
The cause of her dismay was her mother who was walking across the lawn and towards the van, and
while I was more than willing to go like she wanted unless she was going to go out and push it we were stuck.
"Hi Jeremy," Mary Lambert chirped. "Your van shit the bed?"
"Uh, yes Mrs. Lambert," I replied, putting on my best Eddie Haskell imitation for her.
"Guess that spoils your birthday party, huh kids?" she asked as she looked in the back at the cooler and the cake and the blanket already for action. "Where were you headed, the airport?"
