It went this way: I would tell the go-between, Darla, how I felt about Debbie. Debbie would tell go-between Darla how she, Debbie, felt about me. And go-between Darla would tell both of us whatever the hell she felt like telling us.
And so, after an evening of slow dancing together at the YWCA, Debbie would give me a sorrowful look and would return my silver friendship ring. Immediately I would rush to Darla to find out why. Darla would explain that I had insulted Debbie, somehow or other. I would plead my case to Darla, who would resolutely promise to do her best for me with Debbie.
The go-between’s prestige depends on getting the best boy possible for her client, and therefore a schmuck like me didn’t stand much of a chance with a cute girl like Debbie and a shrewd go-between like Darla. Soon I was seeing Debbie’s round blue eyes staring woefully at me from across the gym floor while some older guy (an eighth-grader) would approach her and ask for a slow dance, and the vampire Darla would be sitting smugly in the corner, a smile of vicarious pleasure on her homely face.
Fortunately, Darla moved away that next summer, and in the eighth grade I made a comeback with Debbie, who was working freelance now. We even spoke occasionally.
And then disaster: Debbie became part of a crowd of “popular” girls who served as go-betweens for each other. A closed shop. This fleet of go-betweens was even more depressing than Darla, as they had boyfriends of their own and were in the go-between business for the sheer, sadistic hell of it. Talking to six of them during one day about the current state of Debbie Lee was like getting six different and equally upsetting opinions from doctors examining something malignant. By the time I was in the ninth grade, I had gone steady and broken up with Debbie Lee no less than sixteen times, investing in three rings (two wore out-swear to God) and having very little direct communication… though we had taken to talking to each other on the phone every once in a while, usually in the presence of some go-between who was staying the night with Debbie and was constantly on the extension phone, giggling in.
Most frustrating of all was the fact that I had never kissed Debbie, in sixteen rounds of going steady. We’d never lasted long enough at one crack to get that far. And, since boys in the ninth grade are incredibly horny, something had to give.
What gave was that I took up with Debbie’s best friend, a lass named Maureen who had a 38-24-36 figure (at fourteen!) and an IQ considerably smaller. Maureen put out (which means she let me kiss her and give her a moderate grope now and then) and, being Debbie’s best friend, Maureen naturally told Debbie all.
I began getting irate phone calls from Debbie, wanting to know why I had never tried any of this kissing and groping stuff with her. Hadn’t she, Debbie, been attractive enough to stimulate such activities on my part? I assured her I would be glad to do those things with her, but I was going with Maureen right now; I stood firm, because true love with Debbie was one thing, but groping 38-24-36 (at fourteen!) was something else again.
Gradually Debbie began to drop further hints that she was interested in me again. She broke up with her current boyfriend: a sophomore in high school, no less, with a car of his own. She accompanied Maureen and me to dances and movies, her blue eyes on me all the time, full of sorrow and longing. In a darkened movie theater, Debbie would grasp my hand; in the gym at the ninth-grade party, she’d ask me on a ladies’ choice and would snuggle close till we were cheek to cheek, among other things. I took the hints and broke up with the luscious Maureen, who promptly took up with Debbie’s sophomore. Free again, I made my intentions known to Debbie.
Who wanted nothing whatever to do with me now.
Of course.
Until a year later, in high school, when I had a car of my own. That got her interested again, and I asked her out on a date: homecoming. I offered her my class ring at the dance after the game, she accepted, and it looked like tonight would be the night-I’d kiss Debbie Lee at last!
And then on our way out of the dance, as I waited outside the restrooms while Debbie powdered her nose or something, a short, tough, red-headed upperclassman cornered me. He was, as fate’s sick sense of humor would have it, a distant cousin of Darla, the go-between who moved away.
He said, “Pat Nelson’s back in town.” He had perfected a way of talking without moving his lips.
“Really?” I said. Politely.
“You know who Pat Nelson is, don’t you?”
I knew who Pat Nelson was. Pat Nelson was a hood (pronounced like “who” with a “d” on the end), and I wanted nothing to do with him or his friends. Pat Nelson had been caught stealing sports equipment from the locker room at the junior high several years before, and had recently stolen a television set from a church. He’d been spending most of his time lately at Eldora, a reformatory for “wayward youths.” Pat Nelson was pretty damn wayward, if you asked me.
“I know Pat,” I said. “Pat’s a good guy.”
“That’s right,” the upperclassman said defensively. “Pat’s a hell of a good guy, and don’t forget it. And don’t forget something else…. He don’t like it when guys go messing with his girl.”
“I don’t blame him,” I said. “I wouldn’t want anybody messing with my girl.”
“Don’t be cute. Me and some other friends of Pat’s seen you with her tonight.”
Panic.
“Oh?” I said.
He prodded me with a finger attached to a short, beefy arm; his gray tee-shirt had full moons of sweat under both. “Stay away from his girl, if you know what’s good for you.”
What a corny line! I couldn’t believe this guy! I would’ve laughed in his face if I hadn’t been scared shitless.
“Pat’s got a knife,” he said.
“Good… good for Pat.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“I thought you maybe said something.”
“No. What’s Pat doing home? I thought he was at Eldora.”
“He’s got good conduct leave.”
“Oh.”
“And he’s back in town to stick his knife in anybody who messes with his girl.”
“Who,” I asked, knowing, “is Pat Nelson’s girl?”
“Be reasonable, Mal,” Debbie said later as I dropped her off at her folks’. “Pat’s a nice boy, misunderstood. I felt sorry for him, so I wrote him a few letters, that’s all.”
I didn’t see Debbie anymore after that. I loved her, but her sympathy for underdogs had gotten out of hand. I decided not to go out with girls who wrote to guys at Eldora who came home on good conduct leave with knives.
She went steady with Pat Nelson all through high school. She used to be in classes with me sometimes; she’d give me meaningful looks with those big baby blues, and I’d hurt inside from wanting to return them. Once I did, and a friend of Pat Nelson’s (he was big on go-betweens himself) told me to stay the hell away from his woman. (Somewhere between sophomore and junior year in high school, the ownership term for females shifted from “girl” to “woman.”) I left Debbie alone after that, because I had a feeling Pat and Pat’s go-between had gotten the information that I had exchanged meaningful looks with Debbie from Debbie herself. I began, as I got older, to consider Debbie a troublemaker, and spent the rest of my high school days in the company of girls who were easier to get a kiss out of, and whose previous beaux were nonviolent sorts, who carried nary a pocketknife.
But I never loved any of them like I loved Debbie. You never do, you know. You never love again as you do at thirteen, with so super-charged a combination of idealized adoration and puberty-stirred lust. Once your face clears up, the complexion of love changes too.
I should’ve kept that in mind when Debbie Nelson nee Lee called me up and wanted to come over.