Don't Be Lude

As I've mentioned in a number of other stories, my family had a summer home in Atlantic City, NJ and I spent many a summer season prowling that old wooden boardwalk with my friends in search of adventure and girls, always girls.

I've always been a whore. My father respected and encouraged that.

My father... As tough as that man was, I could get straight to that man's heart, and his wallet, by mentioning that I had the possibility of getting laid. It worked every fucking time. Pussy was my personal four leaf clover. Okay, I'm lying, but I'd like to pretend it was. Fuck off, they're my memories.

I remember when my father and I had the sex talk. It was pretty damn funny. I was about thirteen or so and he sidled on up to me.

"Steven," he said, "We need to talk."

My father looked embarrassed; horribly so. Good.

"Sure, Pop. What's up?"

"We need to talk about sex, son," my father said. There was quite a bit of uncertainty in his voice.

"Sure, Pop. What did you need to know?"

My father's face grew red and drifted into purple. I didn't know if he was embarrassed, pissed off, or what, but he just spluttered something and stalked off in a huff. Ah, good times.

But our typical conversations would usually go something like this:

Me: "Dad, can I have $20?"

Back in those days, $20 could get you places.

My Father: "No. You work, use your own money. I'm not giving you $15. I'm not giving you $10. What the hell do you need $5 for?"

Like it was a fucking negotiation or something. How much was the vig going to be?

Me: "I'm broke and I have a date. I might get laid."

My Father (reaching into his wallet): "Don't use words like that. Here you go, Is $20 going to be enough? Don't tell your mother."

And then there was this famous conversation after I started high school in Atlantic City when I was fourteen. We were headed back to Florida and the transfer paperwork from my high school had a typo in it that made me a year older. In my mind, this opened up a world of salacious opportunities and I did a little research. As it turned out, the State of Florida's Department of Motor Vehicles would accept school records as proof of identity and age. Suddenly, I was eligible for my learner's permit an entire year earlier than I should have been. I had a plan.

I approached my father and I told him of the typo and my scheme. He refused to be a part of it. What the hell? My father was into all kinds of shady shit, why not this? I tried and I tried, I fast talked as much as I could; I was literally tap dancing, but still my father stood firm, so I pulled out the big guns.

"Dad," I said, "You just don't understand."

"I understand plenty," my father said, "I said no and that's final. Don't make me tell you no again, or you'll regret it."

Fuck that. I wasn't about to give up, this was totally worth a beating.

"Dad," I pleaded and then I dropped the magic words, "This could get me laid."

"Your mother will kill me."

I was winning. I knew it and he knew it. I pressed home my attack.

"She doesn't need to know," I told him. "I'll never say a word. Seriously, Dad, I could totally get laid."

When the collapse came, it happened all at once.

"Alright," he said, "We'll go to the DMV on Saturday morning. Don't tell your mother. She's going to kill me."

I couldn't believe it, I had won.

I got my permit and then I got a motorcycle. It got me laid. Oh, did it ever.

I just wanted you to understand how my father was when it came to me and girls. We're going to go back to Atlantic City, now.

It was the Summer of 1980 and I was almost fifteen years old. I thought that I was hot shit with my license that made me a year older than I was and it set the stage for a whole new world of trouble. Trouble of the best kind.

I worked a lot in the summertime, usually having two jobs and I also dabbled in a few other things to help supplement my income. I had a close relative that moved a lot of drugs and I would purchase weed and Quaaludes from that relative and then sell the weed to my friends and the ludes would make their way to other friends, or I would sell them for top dollar at the local discos. Nobody really cared about your age back then when it came to getting into bars. If you had money to spend, you were in.

On this particular day, I had scored three hundred Quaaludes from my relative and I needed a safe and secure place to count the pills and then divide them up. Our condo was out; my parents watched me like a hawk and they didn't trust me for shit. I've never understood why, I was always such a wonderful and loving son. Responsible, too.

My friend Sue had a sister named Kathy, who was a few years older than I and lived in the same building that we did. Kathy was also one of my biggest customers. Her parents would let her stay in their condo all summer long and would only show up on the weekends, when they would drive down from Cherry Hill, a suburban enclave in New Jersey, but was more of a suburb of Philadelphia. I went down to the beach and I approached Kathy and explained what I needed to do and I asked her if I could use her apartment for a few minutes, telling her that I'd make it worth her while. As luck would have it, my parents were also at the beach and they took notice of the two of us leaving together. I looked over at my parents and waved to them. They didn't wave back. Instead, they looked at me suspiciously. Somehow, they always knew when I was up to something, not that they were the most trusting of souls to begin with.

Kathy and I went back to our building and she brought me up to her apartment. Once inside, I pulled the bag of ludes out of my pocket and I dumped them on a small table by the door. Those fucking things were rolling all over the place. We started counting everything up, to make sure that the amount that I had was accurate. When we were finished, we would divide them up into piles of ten and wrap them in aluminum foil; they looked just like a roll of Lifesavers when we did that. It was so cute.

Just as we started counting, someone started pounding loudly on the front door.

We both looked up, startled. We hadn't been expecting anyone. I looked at her and she looked at me. Who the fuck could it be? Whomever it was, it couldn't be good, we had three hundred fucking Quaaludes on the table and they were in full view of the door. Fuck, fuck, fuck...

The pounding on the door continued.

Kathy's voice was cracking with fear as she asked me what we should do.

I whispered back to her, "Stop freaking out. Calm down and ask who it is."

Kathy gulped, took a deep breath and sounded a lot like a big ol' hoot owl when she asked, "Who-who is it?"

"It's Tony. Is Steven in there? Tell him to get his ass out here, right now!" yelled the voice at the door.

It was my father. Fuck. Shit. Fuckshit. What the hell was he doing here? Shit. I was well and truly fucked. Maybe he'd understand that I was just trying to make some extra money. Maybe he wouldn't actually kill, me either, but I knew that I was just bullshitting myself. My father wasn't going to understand shit and I was a fucking dead man. Hell, even I understood that much.

If I thought Kathy had been panicking before, she seemed about to piss herself at that very moment and I don't think that I was too far behind her. This shit was getting out of control. I had to think of something.

Like a lightbulb that sizzles and pops, I had an epiphany and I knew what I had to do.

I looked at Kathy and I said, "Don't worry, I've got this. I've got a plan."

You'd think that would have calmed her down, but noooo... Why do people always get nervous when I say that I have a plan? They always work. Mostly. Sometimes. On occasion, maybe. Fuck you.

I got up and started walking towards the door, unbuttoning and unzipping my pants as I went. I pulled my shirt out of my jeans and then I messed up my hair. I unlocked the door and cracked it open enough for my father to see me as I was pulling my jeans back up and started zipping them. I could tell from the look on my father's face that he thought that he had interrupted something and that I was getting dressed. My father's face turned cherry red. It was working, I was going to get away with this. For once, one of my fucking ideas was actually working. I felt giddy with joy.

"What's up, Pop?" I asked him. "Need something?"

My father was speechless for a moment and then he started spluttering.

"I just wanted to know where you were," he said. "When you're finished here, come and find me. I need to talk to you about something."

He was trying to save face. My gambit had totally worked and I was going to live to see another day. The relief that I felt was palpable. This... This right here... This is why I'm a fucking evil genius and you're not.

"Sure thing, Pop," I said as I closed the door in his face and locked it. I turned around and started laughing my ass off.

Kathy looked at me as if I'd gone mad. I told her what I'd done and she started laughing too. Insanity, like laughter, is contagious.

"I can't believe he fell for it," I told her. "He really thought we were having sex."

Kathy looked at me a little funny and she said, "What would be so hard to believe about that?"

Oh? Ohhhh...

It was a while before I went looking for my father.

Thanks for stopping by!

If you enjoyed reading this story, you might enjoy this one as well:

If the Shoe Fits

Don't Touch That Dial - Sneak Peek

Here's a sneak peek into the next story. There are just a few paragraphs here, but it's almost finished. I'm just working on the editing and the ending, but it's getting there. Edit: Apparently, I'm rewriting the entire story, but it's important to get this one right. Let me get started by painting you a little picture...

All names in this story have been changed. Where possible, I have avoided using them entirely.

That first sweet kiss and a first broken heart. The things that we choose to remember and the things that we choose to forget. We pick and we choose and we throw away the parts that we don't like, only keeping those that fit in with our preferred narrative. Memories are funny things; they have an ability to sneak up on you at the oddest of times, these dreams of the past that smolder and burst into flames, opening a rabbit hole that sometimes you tumble down, down into the vast kaleidoscope of days remembered and days that were best forgotten; days where you learn all that your heart is willing to reveal and the many dark secrets that it still keeps. Moments of mourning for all that once was, all that was lost, with all that remains now ashes and shadows. Ashes and shadows.

Atlantic City was the first city that I fell in love with, the first place that I ever truly called home, a home to summer loves and the world in which I came of age. Like scenes projected onto a celluloid screen, the past comes to life.

My family owned a summer home at the foot of the Boardwalk and California Avenue. It was a cramped little condo, so small that there was barely enough room in which to draw a breath, but it had a spectacular ocean view that never failed to steal my breath away.

The city was vibrant then, it lived and it breathed, undulating with the flow of people. The mind's eye takes in the vast panorama of the beach and the ocean beyond, partially obscured by the roofs of the shops and arcades that once lined the boardwalk. Laughing gulls drift lazily overhead like so many summer clouds, their cries a lonely chorus of ephemeral notes. Blink and it's gone forever.

Atlantic City is where I stole my first kiss, drowning myself in the sweetness of her lips, awkward and fumbling and sweet, making my move in a poorly lit tunnel beneath the old Convention Hall, my first kiss on my first date with the girl who would become my first girlfriend and in time, my first heartbreak. 

Salt water taffy and fudge from the candy stores; ice cream on a warm Belgian waffle; Mack Fries with apple cider vinegar; pizza on almost every corner; and that warm sugar scent of cotton candy in the air. 

Summer jobs; working at a real newspaper stand at night and hawking newspapers on the beach by day; casting custard across the counter at King Kone; hustling hoagie rolls for Amoroso out of the back of a bread truck; slinging slices and working the grill at Three Brothers from Italy; ruling the world from my lofty perch while making change at Fun Spot and Playcade arcades at the height of the pinball and video game era and a posh lifeguard gig at the California Villas, where the closest I came to saving lives was skimming bugs from the pool. Basically, I was a glorified pool boy, cleaning the pool, hauling lounge cushions and babysitting brats. 

The Ice Capades, parades and arcades on the boardwalk, fireworks over the ocean on the fourth of July, sand castles, skateboards, and tourist traps. The amusement piers; Steel Pier, Steeplechase Pier, Central Pier and my favorite, Million Dollar Pier, with their carnival rides, games and sideshow like atmosphere. I can still see the crowds running from the "Wild Ape Woman."

People were everywhere, you couldn't escape them in Atlantic City. Gambling had been legalized not long before and people would throng to the shore, emigrating en masse and emptying entire cities, while filling the catacombs and coffers of the casinos. Dreamers dropping dollars on daydreams.

And that's the end of the sneak peek. If you like what you've read so far, give this story a shot:

Primal Forces

There's No Place Like Home

I just happened to be driving by when I saw these.

Click on any picture to enlarge it.
Down in Back Creek Valley. Demolished.
Same place as the above picture. 
Demolished.

It's just an explosion of color in the Fall.

Back Creek Valley

We spend a lot of time down at Back Creek.

A lazy day along Back Creek.
We get a lot of ice storms during the winter.
I can't help wondering what that spider was thinking.

Click on any picture to enlarge it.

Like I mentioned, lots of ice storms.

Somewhere on the Shenandoah River
Staring off into eternity.

Take me home country roads

These are all pictures that I took of the area where I live. It's beautiful here in the Shenandoah Valley. There's nowhere else I'd rather be. I'll post more pics as I find the time, and, incidentally, as I find the pics; they're scattered everywhere, and they're much nicer than these. Comments are always appreciated. Thanks!