I had a dish washing job back then. It was the summer of ‘65 and I had
just graduated from Northeast High. Viet Nam was starting to heat up and
sooner or later a draft notice would arrive in the mail. Meanwhile, I
figured I could earn a couple of bucks and maybe, maybe even lay enough
aside to pay for a semester or two at the state college. Not that I
cared much about school or book learning, but I didn’t much care about
anything else either. Until that summer.
There were two of us back there in the dingy backroom of that dingy
roadside diner. The wheezing ceiling fan periodically annointed us with
blasts of dust and dead flies. Dense clouds of rank-smelling steam gave
the place its distinctive atmosphere. We called it the Swamp.
I was the one in charge of the pots, scraping congealed grease off the
heavy cast-iron griddles and frying pans, and cleaning the remains of
cement-hard mashed potatoes out of dented aluminum cauldrons. Marnie
did the plates and silverware in a chipped ceramic sink the size of
a washtub. The ancient electric dishwasher sometimes lent a hand –
on the infrequent occasions when it was working.
Marnie was probably still in her early thirties, but she looked older.
Much older. Her hair was starting to streak gray and her face was
wrinkled and a bit leathery. She had been married twice and had three
brats in school. She didn’t have much in the way of formal education,
but she was surprisingly well-read and had a lively intelligence.
Ah, the conversations we had. I felt completely at ease in her presence.
I could talk to her about anything without worrying about making an ass of
myself. There was more to the world than baseball and hot cars and girls,
and Marnie was the one who first gave me a glimpse of wider horizons.
“You really oughta stay in school, Dave. How’re you gonna make
something of yourself unless you put something inside that empty head
of yours? You’re smart, I can tell. Why’re you wasting yourself in this
shitty little dump of a town, anyway?”
“Because, well, I was born here and anyway where’m I gonna go?”
She just stood there and smiled. She had a luminous smile.
Well, we got to be quite good friends. I told her my troubles and even
got to the point where I could talk about girlfriend problems with her.
Girlfriend problems? I wished I had them. Girls had been avoiding me
like the plague. Unsurprisingly, I was still a virgin. Virgin? I had
kissed a girl exactly once, and that was more of a brother-sister kiss
than a passionate one. For that matter, I was still kind of fuzzy about,
you know, the “birds and bees” stuff. This was back in the early 60s, you
see. The Dark Ages. Before universal sex education. Before Universal Sex.
“Dave, look. You’re not ugly or anything. It’s just that . . . well,
it might help if you took a shower every once in a while, and maybe even
brushed your teeth. You know, take care of yourself, show a little pride
in your appearance. Learning a few of the . . . what we used to call
’social niceties,’ that might not kill you either.”
I didn’t know quite what to make of that, but gradually it got through
my thick skull. I stank and had bad breath. And I was a clod. That might
just explain a few things.
It stung. I gritted my teeth as I scraped the remains of half a dozen
Blue Plate Specials into the plastic trash barrel. *I stank.*
“Oh, it’s not all that bad, Dave. You’re young. You’ll learn. By the
time you’re my age, you’ll probably have gone through quite a few wives
and girlfriends. And besides, underneath several layers of dirt — and
your youthful ignorance and clumsiness — you’re actually kinda cute.”
“Damn it, Marn, you’re just saying that to take the edge off the kick
in the the teeth you gave me a minute ago. Damn you! Damn it all! Just
about all the girls I’ve ever known think I’m poison, and you’re saying
it’s all my own damn fault. How the bloody hell do you expect me to feel?
Grateful?”
“I’m sorry. Dave, I have an even worse flaw than body odor and bad
breath. I’m an insensitive bitch. A bitch! You’re basically a good
guy. And you’re my friend. We’ve helped each other over many a rough spot
in these few weeks we’ve known each other . . . and here I am crapping
all over you. Now *I* feel like shit.”
We stood there silently for a few minutes — I scraping away at an
encrusted pot, and she industriously scrubbing a sink full of dirty
dishes. Then she turned around and looked at me. She had a twinkle in
her eye.
“Let’s see if I can make it up to you in a small way. Hold on to your
hat.”
She turned around, and then, and then . . . dropped her skirt, bent
over . . . and flashed her bare behind at me. Christ, those full round
globes! I couldn’t stand it. I had to do something. I had to –
To see what happens when Marnie opens her asshole up for this young guy, click here.