All of the Above

Ladd Callander was more nervous in the line of cars entering Sunset Drive-In than when he rang Karen Wright’s doorbell. It turned out that her parents weren’t even home. She didn’t tell him that until half-way to Lapeer. She could have told him. He could have saved $5 bucks. He was fairly certain that this movie was just a pretence. His growing apprehension was for their imminent play.

Their purpose now seemed to be understood. Karen had appeared next to him in the Greyhound bus seat when the lights went out on the way home from their senior trip. A cheap-assed day excursion to a Michigan dude ranch. Some kind of a spiteful reprisal by the School Board for the failure of a millage vote. Except, anyway, most everyone paired off to make the event memorable on the four-hour ride home. Karen’s lips parted immediately. Not even a flinch as his hand found its way under her bra, then anywhere. They pledged to get together during the summer.

Commencement and an Open House came and went without Ladd who had landed in hospital with appendicitis. Karen’s name was on the card that the kids had signed. Her get well soon, underlined.

 –It’s Clint Eastwood. You didn’t tell me. I love Clint Eastwood.

Ladd put the family Rambler into drive, eased forward another car length.

 –Yeah, the man with no name. A Fistful of Dollars plus the next one.

–Tell you the truth, it really didn’t matter.

Karen reached to touch his leg then scootched closer.

 –I started to think you weren’t going to call me.

–I’ve been kinda grounded. Don’t lift this, don’t push that. I was shaky for a few weeks.

What happened was that he had been shaved for the appendectomy. He didn’t want to be totally naked with half his pubes gone. His average penis and inexperience might prove comedy enough. And the stitch pattern of his scar was still enflamed. There would be pelvic muscles involved; some strain, if solo practice was an accurate preview. He lay on the couch for most of a sweltering June, his parents and brother gone to employments. A window fan thrummed him into sweaty sleep. 

When the car at last reached the ticket booth, Ladd read the hand-lettered sign: $5 Carload Night. He remembered that some friends were bringing beer and those nasty cheroots that looked like gnarled little dog turds. They would light one each time Clint did. Why not all wear serapes, too, for Chrissake.

The Rambler crept wide and slow past the playground area beneath the screen. Mosquitoes shouldn’t be too bad yet. The day’s heat bore down on the dusty track.

–We got here just in time. Back rows are filling up.

–It’s not close to dark yet.

Karen leaned a playful nudge into his shoulder with her flushed cheek. Further along the perimeter drive, Ladd spotted Richard Brunet’s old Plymouth, three guys leaning  against the hood. At least they hadn’t tried to park next to the Rambler.

He aimed the car into an easy slot in the second-to-last row, where there were no neighbors yet. The sightline humps were low here, the screen visible without craning necks–if anyone back here actually looked at the movies. Ladd rolled the glass down all the way and brought the battered speaker in from its post. He turned up the volume with a crackle of static to local advertising. Heads and faces of passengers in nearby vehicles were still visible, bodies temporarily in seated positions.

When Ladd turned back, Karen’s mouth was waiting. He remembered her sweet-corn taste that he had enjoyed on the bus ride; considered briefly, again, that everyone probably had a characteristic flavor. Like the way some houses smelled like furnace oil. Or hot-dogs.

–Would you like anything to drink? I’ve gotta use the bathroom.

 –A Coke maybe?

–How about some popcorn? Any kind of candy?

I’d love some Raisinettes but they get stuck all in my teeth. I guess I’m fine.

Someone at Brunet’s car wolf-whistled but that was the extent of their harassment. Ladd went into the Men’s bathroom. While at a urinal, he heard the lever on the condom dispenser being pulled, the quarters dropping into the box. It sounded like too many sharp edges and moving parts near the cheaply wrapped latex. He washed his hands and left without investing.

The line of customers inside Concessions was long. Ladd still itched a bit under his Bermuda shorts. He might have waited another week but staying home all day had become tedious. He couldn’t start at the pickle factory until cleared by the family doctor. News flashes and film of the quick Israeli war left a litter of smoldering Egyptian armor but was over too quickly. Ladd was left with nothing for entertainment but game shows and soap operas on the black-and-white TV. His parents could bring him nothing of interest from the town library. He finally picked up the phone.

He used a cardboard carrier for the two behemoth sodas. Karen had moved to the backseat. She opened the door for him.

–They must have been busy.

Karen blew her straw wrapper into the front.

–You’ll put someone’s eye out with that.

–Yeah, that really shot out a long way.

Ladd saw a fleeting amusement cross her face.

A heavy make-out session was renewed between slurps of soda. The purple edged fire of the horizon deepened. They began to peel out of their shorts; then Ladd’s Detroit Tiger tee-shirt and Karen’s madras blouse. Previews began a few minutes before full dark. The Dirty Dozen and Von Ryan’s Express were scheduled for the 4th of July. With fireworks. Karen unhooked her own bra.

They finished disrobing as the previews segued into the cartoon. Ladd stretched into the front seat to turn the speaker down. Images on the screen were not yet totally resolved in the faint gloaming. Children continued their acrobatics on the swings, silhouettes of their feet reaching an apex just below the projector beam. Karen’s single-scoop breasts were the ideal his hands had described a month earlier. She shuddered at the attentions of his tongue. He’d taken that very phrase from a lewd paperback mistakenly stocked in the Jewel Pharmacy rack.

–I’m ticklish.

With knees braced on the edge of the bench seat, Ladd tried to shake jockey shorts free of his left foot, but finally had to reach behind and brush them to the floor. That hand then drifted to the wiry triangle thrusting toward it, illuminated by reflections, the black like a photo negative against Karen’s silvered abdomen when he peeked. A Brillo, the adolescent taxonomy.

When was the moment to kiss it? Surely that could not be all there was to the process. He returned to her mouth. When and how should some manner of eating come into play? That had to be some kind of simile. His lips grazed the breasts again. He’d better try to go there soon. He began at her navel. Another shiver. Then into the dense curls, first with a simple kiss. Take cues and improvise from there.

–You don’t need to, Ladd.

Her hands lifted his face back to hers.

–I’ll cream like crazy and make too much noise. It’s nice though.

They can actually do that? There was so much about the whole business that was a mystery to him. He made a tactical retreat to Karen’s navel. This was sensitive in a different way, her intake of breath not quite a giggle. Then, with his weight not fully on her, his hands bracing between front seat-back and rear-seat front, three tentative and misguided thrusts against that pleasant friction. He gasped immediately, then panted backward toward relaxed sighs.

–Oh wow, boy.

–Sorry about that. You really got me turned on.

–You didn’t need to do that. I’ve had sex before.

–Well, I didn’t have a condom.

Ladd held his weight up off her. Karen moved only her hand, doing a maneuver he could never have imagined.  His, by now, ragged paperback never hinted at this. She began to spread, with her finger-tips, his abrupt essence, lavishly anointing. Perhaps he hadn’t been a total disappointment. He began slowly to settle part of his weight, but did not roll off entirely. What is a courteous interval?

–It wouldn’t matter to me. I’m condemned anyway.

One of her hands, a dry one, rested on his shoulder blade, now within reach.

–What’s that mean?

–Well, remember that Ann Landers test in the paper last year? where you answer these questions about your dating habits? Mostly multiple choice; yes, no. It was big news for a week or so. Supposed to predict if you’ll probably get knocked up.

–Yeah. We joked about it in Journalism class. We wanted to reprint it in the Saber. No chance. What about it?

Karen sat up. He hand still languished on her abdomen.

–My Mom made me take it and I failed. Badly. I graded in the worst category–condemned. They probably couldn’t print the word slut.

Ladd began to feel exposed. He heard the crunch of gravel between the cars, foot traffic trudging past their steamed windows. Still, he would not break the spell by scrambling back into his shorts. His inexperience and cowardice had already been made quite apparent.

–And she still lets you out of the house?

–Sure, because they put me on the Pill.

Ladd patted Karen’s thigh. She didn’t seem in a rush to dress either. Wow, the Pill. It was an excited gossip about some girls at school. Beautiful, high-achievement type girls about whom there were no other rumors. The parents were simply taking no chances. Futures could now be assured to an extent. The ones who should have been protected had parents who didn’t care or couldn’t afford it.

 –I would never think that word.

–Thank you.

Slut had more to do with a particular personality, Ladd thought. A mind set and behavior besides just the act itself.

–Sorry I didn’t do better.

Ladd nuzzled her behind the ear then kissed the sweet-corn mouth. He kissed a breast but balked at leaning down any further. recalling her finger-painting.

–I know you will next time.

But then she began groping for her undershorts on the transmission hump. Ladd searched the floor for his. Karen lifted his arm and sagged against him. He could be ready again by the second feature. The man-with-no-name had just plugged about four hombres, firing from under his serape. He could concentrate on the plot for a few minutes at least. Unless his mind drifted to that Pill business. He really should find out where Karen planned on going to college. He hadn’t really paid attention on the bus.