“Just where are we?” I asked.
“This is the spot where all the hot-rodders come to make out. I guess they’ve all left by now. It’s late.”
“Yeah. We’re all alone,” I observed. I wasn’t feeling too original. Still, I remembered my duty. This might be a good chance to pump Lolly about her connection with Fink. “Tell me what kind of guy the fellow was who made it with you with that contraption,” I suggested.
“Oh, he was mature. Like you. Only he was more so. I really dig older men.”
“So you’ve said before. Did you see him after you got to New York?”
“A couple of times.”
“Why’d you stop?”
“He died. Choked on a fishbone.”
“What did you do when you saw him?”
“What do you think?” Lolly smirked. “You know you talk a lot,” she said. “What’s the matter? Don’t I appeal to you any more?”
“Sure you do.” It was the truth. “Did he ever help you out? With money, I mean?”
“What do you think I am?” She was indignant. “If you’re just going to sit here running off at the mouth, we might as well go.” She reached for the ignition key.
I intercepted her hand and reached for her with my other hand. As she leaned towards me to be kissed, I barked my elbow on the dashboard. She guided my hand to her breast and we inadvertently leaned on the horn. Hastily, I shifted position. The horn stopped blowing and the stickshift damn near impaled me. I changed position again.
“I love making out in cars,” Lolly whispered. “There’s something exciting about it, something that flips me.”
The jagged edge of the ashtray drew blood from my shin as I stretched my legs towards her side of the car in an effort to make contact with her body. “You have to be shaped like a spoon to make out in one of these bucket seats,” I muttered.
Lolly stretched her own legs across the console. Her skirt was all the way up now and her hips were bouncing invitingly. I reached to pull her panties down and the cover to the glove compartment of the consul almost snapped my fingertips off. Finally I just heaved myself on top of her.
My right foot was pushing the clutch to the floorboard. My left foot was half out the window. My head kept thumping against the canvas top of the roadster. The stickshift was trying to drill my belly-button through my backbone. Ah! The heat of youth!
“Wait!” Lolly panted.
“For what?” I was getting a cramp in my toes.
“Poppers. I have one.”
“Huh?”
“Poppers. Amyl Nitrate. It’s a gas. Just when we make it, I’ll break one and we’ll both sniff deep. Believe me, we’ll go right out of our skulls.” She held a small packet in a tinfoil wrapper under my nose. “Okay. Go ahead. I’m ready.”
This was it! I told myself. At last I was going to let go with my teeny-bopper, to let go everything and really make the scene. No more inhibitions! Just wild, wild sex --popper and all!
I raised myself up as best I could and then several things happened at once. First, the movement made Lolly break the popper prematurely. I caught a deep whiff of something that smelled like strong ammonia. Second, the motion made my rear end slam into the dashboard; the cigarette lighter popped out and lodged neatly between my nether-cheeks. Did I mention it was red-hot? Third, as I reacted by rolling wildly away from Lolly so I’d have room to claw the lighter loose, a blinding flashlight shone in on us from her window.
“You kids beat it out of here fast before I run you in!” The cop’s voice was gruff. He couldn’t see my face. He couldn’t see it because I was lying on it, reaching behind me gingerly to try to determine the extent of damage to my derriére. “You got that, son?” The cop reached across Lolly and patted my shoulder sternly.
“Yes sir.” I made my voice high, piping, the scared voice of an adolescent. The last thing I wanted to do was get run in for corrupting the morals of a minor—which is a laugh if I ever heard one.
“Then scram!” the cop ordered.
We scrammed.
We didn’t talk much as Lolly drove me back to my car. I don’t know what was going through her mind. I know I was incapable of thought, or speech. The popper had hit me with a delayed reaction. I felt like the top of my head was about to fly off. And I was having trouble not laughing and crying both at the same time. With it all was the realization that far from having an aphrodisiac effect, the popper seemed to have killed off my sex urge altogether.
Or maybe it was the cigarette lighter. Or perhaps the cop with his flashlight. Or maybe the roller-coaster effect of Lolly’s driving.
The amazing thing, I thought dizzily, is that the high-living, hot-loving kids of today ever manage to survive the hazards of their adolescent freedom!
Chapter Ten
The performance before an audience of The Mome Raths Outgrabe was to me as its director what the Vietnamese War must sometimes seem to Lyndon John- son. It was a nightmare catastrophe in the shape of a snowball rolling downhill, out of control and picking up speed as it plunged towards destruction. There was a moment before involvement in the disaster when I could have stopped it, but, like LBJ, I opted for commitment.
The moment occurred when I phoned the agent representing the playwright Hershel Pinkus to apply diplomatic pressure aimed at having him release this bomb to our group for production. The agent was as wily during these negotiations as a Mendes-France withdrawing after a Dien Bien Phu and impassively watching the first American “observers” tip-toeing into all-out war. He seemed reluctant to give up the territory, but beneath his reluctance there was a whispered sigh of Gallic relief.
“The rights are not available because the play is being performed in Trenton and that is considered the New York area just as Long Island is,” he told me. “I must protect the Trenton group’s interests.”
“We’ve poured a lot of manpower into this,” I pointed out. “Can’t you define the line of demarcation differently. Draw the neutral zone around Hoboken. Then let my puppets perform on their side of it.”
“But the lines have already been drawn,” he said doubtfully. “Trenton may feel you’re trying to infiltrate. We have to conciliate them. Why don’t you people consider complete withdrawal?”
“That’s not the American way!” I knew when to be firm. “With us, a commitment is a commitment.”
“But you’re asking us to give ground.”
“Don’t look at it as a surrender. Consider it a strategic retreat. Believe me, our interest in the play is the same as yours. We only want what’s best for the play.”
“When I think of the atrocities that have been produced by that attitude,” he sighed.
“It’s the democratic way,” I assured him. “Trust us.”
“Very well. Go ahead. It’s your headache now.”
Little did he know how prophetic his words were. I didn’t know myself until the play was actually on the boards. That was the first time I came to the full realization that my Vietnam of a play had been infiltrated by a cast of Cong bent on its total destruction.
At the time, when I hung up, I felt only satisfaction at overcoming another Cold War obstacle. I was smug as Henry Cabot Lodge pulling his first Vietnamese coup2 and shyly eyeing the New Hampshire primaries. After the play I still felt like Lodge-—Only then it was the Lodge who faced the Fulbright Committee3 . Oh, well, that’s diplomacy!
Diplomacy was also called for in the second call I made that morning. It was a long-distance call to the Rt. Rev. Billy Boxx. He was surprised to hear from me. I explained why I was calling.
“I am familiar with the situation, Mr. Powers,” he told me when I’d finished. “Indeed, I have gone out of my way to take an interest in it. But then one must fight sin where one finds it.”