Category: reminisce

I had a good Father’s Day today. The family piled into Sharaun’s car to head to church (not just because that’s where the carseat is, but because it’s cheaper per-mile than the Explorer too), came home and took a family-style nap (using both couches while Keaton napped), and then went back up to church for this Father’s Day barbecue thing they were doing. Just being outside was nice, and, for me, getting the time to hang out with Keaton on the playground and in the bounce-house things was a nice way to spend “my” day. The preceding weekend days were nice too, with an annual luau party at our friends’ place keeping us out until the wee hours on Saturday, and a nice post-work happy hour and dine-out with the crew on Friday. So, not bad. And now, it’s time to start another week. I’ll be in Oregon again a couple days this week, but I’ll do my best to keep bloggin’.

I got a story today, here we go.

I remember when you asked me to stay the night

Your parents were out of town and you had asked me over to “hang out.” On the surface, I was there to hang out… but something inside me knew there was a good chance I might be there for more. It was the Fourth of July, and when I got there it was still light outside, but you were dressed in those tiny little shorts that girls like to wear around the house or to bed. You know the kind, the ones that cheerleaders wear to carwashes; the kind that are thin and gray and cotton and look cheap like they probably came from a rack near an aisle at Target. You had them rolled up around the top elastic, folded up into themselves a couple times so they were even shorter on your legs. And, oh, your legs. Great legs: tan, athletic, and smooth. You had on a nondescript t-shirt, hanging somewhat loose on you, the looping armholes extending far past your arm and exposing skin as you moved. No bra; no bra at all. I remember that probably because of those portholes in your sleeves, I bet. You looked amazing to me, but, then again, I had always had a crush on you… you knew that.

Your house was huge and empty, just you, me, and that little dog. We watched TV on the couch, and you cuddled up right next to me. I put my arms around you and pulled you onto my lap, but didn’t dare do anything more forward. We sat there like that for at least an hour; I in pointed agony, wanting something to happen but not willing to extend myself without a few more go-aheads from you. I wonder if you felt the same way?

Or, maybe that’s the kind of thing that’s different between males and females? Here I was dying because I wanted you to let me know it would be OK to kiss you or more, and maybe your female brain was thinking nothing of the sort – maybe you were thinking how nice it was to not be alone, how “good” I was to come keep you company, whatever. Maybe not, maybe you were dying for me to be bold, wondering why I was resisting… I guess I’ll always wonder.

Eventually, as time passed, we wound up in your room upstairs. You know, that’s a distinct feeling: Being young and being asked upstairs into a girl’s room knowing her parents are cities and towns away for days. I mean, I was fresh in college, but I still lived with my folks; and you, you had yet to graduate high-school, being in your last year. But that feeling of careening, some kind of swirling towards the inevitable: both of us in the room together, the room where you sleep each night, on that bed right over there. The room that smells of a thousand intoxicating girl-smells, lotions like berries, sprays like flowers, soaps like honey and sugars and candies, all mixed together into a deadly mustard gas of womanly wiles. We were there under the pretense of listening to music, a pretense that has worked well for me, and in my head I was busy watching your body language for a green light.

Somehow we end up in your closet, a large walk-in. I’m flicking through your hanging clothes, commenting on them. I can’t remember why, maybe I knew that chicks dig talking about clothes, maybe it was a plan. I comment on a few particularly sexy-looking ensembles, about how awesome I bet they would look on you. We are both all smiles and slight touches and unnecessary hugs around the hips; we’re fawning, sickly if observed from the outside of our little bubble I’d bet. I, however, still don’t dare make a decisive move – I don’t cross that final line; I’ve always been somewhat cautious like this – slow escalations, that’s where I work. “I want to see this on you,” I say. A stroke of brilliance, appealing to both my lechery and your vanity, it can’t lose. “I’m going to pick out some clothes and I want to see you in them.” “OK,” you answer, “Go.”

I choose some dresses, some tight shirts, some small jeans, and, as a final grain of sand intended to tip this scale – a swimsuit, bikini. I leave them on a small dresser in your closet with you and walk back into your room so you can change. You do not close the closet door, but there’s no way I can see in, it’s around the corner and I’ve taken a seat on your bed.

It’s intimate for some reason, sitting on someone’s bed, and that just added to the moment. I could hear you changing. You came out first in one of the dresses, it was a lot more fitting than that droopy t-shirt, and your lack of bra was now pronounced – you held your hands to your chest in a halfhearted effort to hide the fact, but soon dropped them to give me a little twirl in the center of room. Trying to communicate intent, I told you you looked amazing. After a quick faux catwalk stamp around the carpet, you’re back in the closet.

Outfit after outfit I watch you parade in front of me as I lounge on your bed. I complimented you on each one, told you how awesome you looked. I knew the swimsuit would be last, it at all, I didn’t expect anything else, didn’t even really expect you to put it on at all. But you did. You came out in that bikini and did that little twirl and my head almost exploded. You looked so good. I’m not sure if I asked you to come over to the bed or if you just did, but that’s where you ended up. And that’s where we laid together, my front to your back, legs entangled, my arms around your tiny waist, brushing your warm bare skin.

Looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t think it more clear of a sign – but I was still wary, not wanting to press ahead. I’d made clear to you several times before the level of my attraction to you, but we’d both been involved at the time. So we just laid there, listening to the Police’s “Greatest Hits” and spooning. Your hair in my face nearly pushed me over the edge, so to keep busy I began running my fingers through it, collecting it in bunches to lift it and let it drop, twisting it around my fingers. I traced the curve of your hip with my hand.

It had become dark out, we could hear fireworks. The stage was set.

There was one problem: As much as I wanted you right then, I wanted someone else even more. And, even though I wasn’t, at the time, betrothed to another – I had dabbled enough in no-good low-down double-timing to know it wasn’t worth it to try and have everything. I was, in a word, torn; in two words, torn and weak. You rolled in my arms, turned to face me. “Stay with me tonight,” you said, “I’m afraid to be alone, the noise of the fireworks scares me.”

WhizzzzzzzzzzPowwww! ZzzzzzzzziiipBaang!! The barges fired their ordinance.

“I, I can’t,” I say. “I, I probably shouldn’t.”

“Please, I really am scared. I know it’s silly, but I want you to stay. You can sleep here with me, in my bed. Don’t leave.”

And there you were, pleading with me to stay the night with you, wearing only a bikini top and bottoms, next to naked in my arms. Internet, if you could have watched me on a movie screen, you’d be throwing popcorn and yelling at me for being retarded. The women in the audience gripping their seats while praying I’d stay strong and decide to go with the truth in my heart, men stonefaced for the benefit of the women yet secretly wanting me to take the chance and go with the truth in my pants.

C-c-c-c-crack! BangBangBang!! PopSnapSnapPop!! Light fuse and get away.

“I want to, you know how bad I do,” I said. “But I shouldn’t, I just shouldn’t.”

At this point you became upset, and started to tear up. I was still holding you, looking at you, when your mood changed from pleading to anger that I wasn’t choosing to stay. “Why won’t you stay?, I can’t believe you’re not going to stay here!” You got up from the bed, changed back into that loose t-shirt and those cheerleader shorts, but continued to ask me, beg me, to stay. I have to be honest, I’m still not sure if you were upset because I wasn’t going to stay and keep you safe and warm by spooning you all night in your bed, of if you were incredulous that I was passing on a sexual opportunity that you were finally offering and sure I’d take because, after all, I’d told you so.

Whichever it was, that evening did not end well. I left you mad and alone, and I don’t remember hanging out with you at all until again until one afternoon years later when we bumped into each other 300mi away on the green grass of a different college altogether. We grabbed lunch that day, sat and caught up. I was happy that you didn’t look quite as beautiful as you did from my memories of that night. Don’t get me wrong, you were that night and that day, a gorgeous little thing – I think I’d just idealized the situation in my head.

You know, I never even kissed that girl – not even a peck; not once.

Well, just when I thought I’d run out of adolescent tales of lust and love and fiery loins – I remembered that gem. I have, however, almost exhausted my real-life experience. If an encounter isn’t here, or here, or here, or here, or even maybe here – then it’s likely too close to the chest to put on the internet.

[Funny enough, I started thinking late Sunday night that I had written about this before. And, I had… but it was nowhere near as verbose. Plus, I remembered the details a bit different there (tight-fitting tank-top vs. loose-fitting t-shirt, as an example). I wonder which is right? I like this version better, so I think I’ll remember it this way for a while. After all, it’s my memory – and I seem to remember the major parts right.]

OK, I’m going to bed. Here’s another amazing candid Megan did of Keaton to tie-off the post.  Goodnight.

Hi Thursday. Had a lot of fun writing this entry tonight, may try to do a “theme” thing along these lines. It may not translate well into fun reading, but for me it was like reliving a ton of good memories. Here then, my love-note to an old friend. Enjoy.

I remember the night we stole those tiny plastic bottles of Seagram’s 7 from your dad’s liquor cabinet. We had already split a cup of Jack Daniels and brought the bottle back to the level we found it at by adding water, and we needed something for the road. We were going out; going walking. It was one of the first time’s I’d ever had anything to drink, we were so young. I remember the thinking that the Seagram’s was smooth, not like the Jack Daniels, although they both burned like fire with each swallow. With several bottles in our pockets we set out into the night, avoiding the pools of light under the streetlights, slinking around with our miniature bottles. We weren’t out to cause trouble, we just wanted to know what it was like to be drunk. You remember where we went? We walked up Pinewood, took a left on Hamilton, and another left on Spirea. I can remember holding my arms out my sides like I was flying as we walked down the middle of the quiet streets.

You remember when we went to that girl’s house, her dad was a sheriff’s deputy right? Remember they had adopted a former police dog as their pet, that dog was so cool. Well, right up until he “alerted” on her boyfriend when he got there with a bag of weed in his jeans. Man, that was a stupid move. How embarrassing.

Remember when we were driving around late that one night, right around your old house. Some kid left his Big Wheel in the driveway and we pulled it into the street and ran over it at high speed multiple times. I’ve never felt more awful about any of my youthful exploits, that’s the one thing I wish with all my heart I could take back. I could still pick out the house… I wonder if the same family still lives there? I should drop-ship a new Big Wheel from Amazon with a note of apology, maybe they’d get it.

Remember that night up against the fence at Jordan’s place? I was scared for you guys, but he wasn’t messing with me so I just laughed. Sorry about that.

Remember how shocked we were that morning we all woke up from our drunken night prior to find him sitting in the Lazy Boy? He had that plastic squirt-gun my dad used to discipline the dog in his hand and he was pointing it at us as we walked out from the hallway, pulling the trigger and laughing as he squirted us with water. I mean, what was it? Only like a month or so since he killed that kid? I couldn’t even bring myself to pick up a toy gun, let alone pull the pretend trigger. That was the morning of the game where parents pay us to have their kids run off a cliff. Fantastic.

Remember we’d drive real slow by the pool in case she was lifeguarding that day? Good thing they put in those massive speed bumps, or else it’d be all obvious.

Oh, I got another one. Remember the contests we’d have at the park? You know, you had to take a hit from the joint, hold your breath, and then run as far as you could down the boardwalk before you had to take another breath. Then you had to stand in your spot until the next person came running, trying to best your position. After that you could leave and go back for another toke. I just remember running with the smoke bulging in my lungs, wanting so bad to laugh as I tried to reach the next person. I think that was the night we played karate on the water fountain. You remember how badly we kicked that thing? It came off the wall.

I remember thinking you were so stupid for coming to the last week of highschool drunk. I mean, you almost didn’t get to graduate or something, right? Gutsy.

Remember throwing lit strings of firecrackers out the windows of my moving car at bicyclists? That one time the I was going a little too fast and they blew right back inside without us noticing. My ears rang for a good half hour, and we had to pull over the smoke inside was so thick. That gunpowder and paper smell stuck to the car for a week I bet.

I remember when you told us we could spit in your house. You’d spit on the carpet and throw bologna on the ceiling. I guess I never really understood that. But when we stuffed that kid in a trashcan and blared “Blame it on the Rain” inside through that megaphone, I knew I loved the magic that could happen there. I think we could’ve damaged his hearing or something, why did we do that? Who else’s place could’ve been the staging ground for the rotten-egg offensive? It truly was one of a kind.

Remember the satanic flier? The Mammoth Smoke? Rinker? The gift? Trying to grow weed in the planters at the mall? Buying rolls of pennies to throw at old people? The fort? Pete & Joey? Remember all the fire? That night at the beach with the cult? Remember when we made this song?

[audio:morphine.mp3]

Morphine, taken from The Renegade Collection, ca. 1993

(I can’t help but wonder if this was around the time we’d discovered Ween’s classic album, Pure Guava. While I was recording and converting the old tape to MP3 Sharaun told me vehemently, “David, please turn that off already – it sounds terrible; it sounds like a headache.” Ha! I told her to be glad I wasn’t processing the entire 30min tape…)

I remember we found this life-size stuffed dog sitting alongside a garbage dumpster at a Chinese restaurant. We came up with the bright idea of tying a rope around its neck and hooking it to the trunk of the car. Then we rolled real slow through suburban neighborhoods dragging the thing. When people saw it and assumed we had neglected to unleash a real dog from our car, a dog which was now being dragged slowly to death down the street right in front of their eyes, they flipped out. As they screamed, hollered, and tried to wave us down to alert us to our mistake – we’d flash huge smiles, wave right back in a friendly way – and speed off. I just wish we’d taken snapshots of the horror on their faces. It was a perfect spontaneous thing.

Man, after I wrote all this down and re-read it, I decided to send it to Andy (who I’m addressing all those “I remembers” to, since it wasn’t that clear) so he could fact-check me. It was then that he reminded me we’d made an effort long ago to memorialize these types of youthful activities, and that he had a copy. What showed up in my inbox was a scanned PDF copy of a printed e-mail exchange Andy and I had back in 1996.

Titled “The List of Power and Destiny,” it provides sparse documentation of our most memorable exploits together. Reading through it, was pretty happy with how many I’d remembered on my own for this post. Anyway, below is the entire List of Power and Destiny, just for reference. Oh, and, if you see something intriguing on there and want to hear more about it, drop me a comment and maybe I can accommodate.

Good post. Goodnight.