By the time Shirley was 15 years old, Mom had joined Dad in drinking again. Now both of them would go away on the weekends and leave Shirley home to watch Lucille, Bonnie, Ronnie and me. Dad thought since Sonny was an older boy he didn't need watching. This meant we had no one to tell us what to do from Friday night to Sunday. Sometimes we would look up and there in the doorway was Dad. He’d slipped home to see if he could catch us and if we were staying home like he told us to. We couldn’t go anywhere or do anything, so we stayed home all weekend. Plus, there wasn’t anything for us to do on the weekends and no boys were ever allowed at our house - not even Sonny could bring friends home.
Because we couldn’t go out on the weekends, we got in trouble during the week since that’s when everything happened anyway. This one time my girlfriend, Shirley, and I went to the caravel in Logan and saw belly dancers. My friend and I couldn’t wait to see them dance but we were too young to buy tickets, so we hatched a plan to crawl under the tent, however, we couldn’t talk Shirley into it. So as soon as Shirley turned her back, my friend and I lifted the tent and crawled underneath. We watched the whole show - it was great. That same night, I met a boy (I thought he told me his name was Dick) who lived in Logan over in Black Bottom. We tried to get rid of him but we couldn’t so we went with him to meet his mother. I think she was a “lady of the night” because she looked just like one of the belly dancers. She made a big fuss over me when he introduced me as his girlfriend. I told him (Shirley did as well) that I wasn’t allowed to have boyfriends and he couldn’t come to see me at my house ever! I was fourteen at the time.
He didn’t listen because showed up at my house not too long after. We were all in the living room watching TV when all of a sudden Dad said, “Who are you?” everyone turned and look there was Dick sitting in a chair! He told Dad he was here to see me. I was sitting on the floor out of sight next to the stove and when I saw who it was, I ducked under the stovepipe then disappeared into the kitchen real fast. Dad asked him who let him in, and Dick said some boy did. Dad told him to leave because his girls weren’t allow to bring boys in the house or to be dating them. When he came through the kitchen to leave, I yelled at him for getting me in trouble and not to come back. It didn’t dawn on me but he had a twenty-five mile walk to go home. Dad called Sonny and me back into the living room where I explained I didn’t know he was going to come to the house. I also explained how we met. Sonny said that he was on his way out the door when he met Dick at the door. He asked for me so Sonny let him in, got him a kitchen chair,and sat it in the living room for him. The whole family had a laugh because we didn’t notice him sitting in the chair. Dick had been there for some time before Dad noticed him.
That boy always seemed to find me no matter where I was. He came up to Man to Aunt Hannah’s house where I was helping her with her boys - it had been more than a year since the incident at my house. I had forgotten all about him and then one day there he is on the doorstep. I asked him how he found me. After the incident at my house, I had lived in Logan with Aunt Wanda which was almost in his back yard and never once saw him. He said he gone up to Macbeth, asked about me, and someone told him where I was. He had only been waiting until I got old enough to date. I told him that I didn’t want to date him. That’s when he asked me why I called him Dick, I said it was because that’s his name, he said his name was Butch. I asked why he let me call him Dick, he said he didn’t know why. I had a glass of soda in my hand and I threw it in his face. God, did I feel sorry for him because I thought he was going to cry. I hugged him and told him how sorry I was but he should’ve told me I had his name wrong. I told him to go away and don’t ever come back. He was a good-looking boy, about eighteen at the time, and I never saw him again. Shirley said that’s why I didn’t have any boyfriends because of my mouth.
No comments:
Post a Comment