***Sweet Dreams, Baby- With Thanks to Mister Roy Orbison

 

Sixteen and sex. No, I warn you, don’t settle back and think about your own sixteen and sex dreams it is not about that. About that first time you did the “do the do” as we called the act in the old Clintondale neighborhood in the early 1960s after Peter Markin heard Howlin’ Wolf on Be-Bop Benny’s Blues Bonanza on WKPX in Chicago call the sex act that in a song that he heard one Sunday night when the wind was blowing right and he picked the station up on his transistor radio and wowed everybody in Monday morning before school world with that bit of knowledge. (By the way the “do the do” was not  necessarily done at that age but the parties we will be discussing happened to congeal their fates at sixteen and so “sixteen and sex.” Nor is about your fundamental lack of knowledge of the do’s and don’ts beforehand due to the vagaries of learning about sex not from your parents who were the natural candidates to put you wise, or your house of worship which could have been a useful backup, or even better your school which could have eased the way by covering everything up in austere scientific terms so the faint-hearted or the blushers who did not opt out could catch on but rather learned on the streets. Learned on the streets from those just one step ahead of you and who were wrong more times than right. Jesus, and brother you can say that again.    

Well, maybe this little sketch is not all about that, about those  desperate moves you made trying to figure out about the opposite sex, trying  to figure what the hell the hormonal urges running rampant meant, running every which way not leaving you alone even when you were alone. Not about the what to do about how far to go, how far to let the other party go, or not go, or just wait until everything blows over. (And that “how far to go” was not relegated to the female sex since some mad daddy’s shotgun and worse made the issue more far-fling than that.) Worries too, about reputation, about what Johnny or Jane will, or will not, say, come mandatory Monday morning before school boys’ or girls’ “lav” talkfest or about being Susie being “fast,” Jason a dweeb or nothing but a man-handler or any of six varieties of goof in a goofy universe.

And here you thought you were so serious, had made such an impression, had got almost everybody in the before mentioned Monday morning talkfest believing you were the stud of the month or the “hottie” of the universe. But  you know you stayed in your room all weekend by the telephone waiting for that call to come in, the “what you doing tonight” call that will not come because the longed for party does not even have your phone number, and does not want to have the damn thing. Probably tossed it on some floor or in some rubbish bin the minute your back was turned. Tough luck, brothers and sisters my kindred heart goes out to you.  

So, no, no too, we will not be focusing on some backseat coupe, all Jimmy retro-ready, maybe fresh from a “chicken run” kill or  down by the seashore, up some hilled lovers’ lane, or in some midnight minute motel kind, at least not yet. No we will step back and take a breather, forget about Monday morning, about reputation, about knowledge, heck, even for a minute the “do the do” itself as hard as that is to believe. No, we are going to ease into this new relationship. Do the ABC work. Just get to know her, easy know her, and let things take their course from there. Our guy Johnny, but it could have been any of fifty thousand guy names in eight hundred languages, was going to set a new course, was going to take the few accumulated lessons that he had learned and change course in his life. No more of this frenzied, heated, beating some other guy’s time (or trying to) like he had just got finished doing with Lucy. No more Lucys, and as an amendment, make it a constitutional amendment if you want, no more dog-eat-dog fighting over girls, women, you know, frails. (Frail meaning girl, meaning today young woman, the young guys in the neighborhood, the Clintondale working-class neighborhood had a million “terms of art” for young woman-frill, chick, babe, twist and on and on most of them introduced by the king hell king of the corner boy night, Johnny’s corner boy night, Frankie Riley, but this sketch is not about Frankie and his mad capacity to make up names for girls strongly influenced by 1930s black and white Hollywood gangster movies and Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler’s hard-boil detective talk which he was addicted to so we will move on.)

That is exactly what Johnny Prescott had on his mind, that no more fighting over girls, no more, no mas, whatever way you wanted to express the new dispensation, as he noticed this cool looking frill across the field heading his way. The field that Johnny saw the cool girl crossing being, for those not from Clintondale, Johnny’s hometown, unofficially known as “the meadows,” a family outing place that no longer was well-used since a couple of years previously they had the big Gloversville Amusement Park going full blast but just the place to go and think through, well think through, sixteen and sex, boy sixteen and sex.

When he was younger, and before the amusement park took the air out of the place, Johnny and his family in their sunnier days (that too a story for another day, not a Frankie Riley king hell king of the corner boy night day but some such day) loved to ramble over the stone fences and scattered granite pieces that dotted the landscape and provided ground for the innocent to play in before the barbecue fires got hot and the family dug into the feast of hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad and cupcakes that formed the culinary delights that drove them to the park and family fun for that little breathe of fresh air time before the family civil wars started anew. But today was different, today he was here to think, to mope a little if he had to.    

Johnny knew, knew as sure as he knew he own think through habits that this frill (girl, okay) was also here to do some thinking. He had run into others, guys mostly, including a few older guys, like maybe college guys, who gave him that same impression, that trying to figure the girl world out stuff. Hell, he had sheepishly asked one guy, a college guy from the lettering on his jacket, who had been sitting on a bench whether he was thinking deep thoughts and what about. Answer: hell, you know the answer, “the torch,” the guy carrying the torch and nothing but. Being at the meadows making that burden a little lighter. So Johnny figured that she was here maybe doing a getting over a boy thing like he was getting over Lucy. She sure looked like somebody whom he could talk to if it came to that all light- brown hair, cashmere sweater showing a nice shape, a short skirt showing well-turned legs and later as she got very close some very pale blue eyes. Or maybe she was just here thinking that the way the boy meets girl rules were set up were just flat-out screwy. He hoped so. That would be his wedge, his edge on the conversation if what he thought was true about her moping about something. 

And as she, this girl okay, approached him, maybe five yards away just then Johnny recognized her from school, from Clintondale High. At least he thought so because although the high school was fairly big gathering in every high school student in town he thought it was small enough so that he should have recognized her, even if only from the “caf.” Maybe some assembly or some Friday night dance before Lucy took his time away. As she came very close in view he noticed that it was none other than Timmy Riley’s younger sister, Betty Ann, a sophomore a year behind him. At first he was going to pass because now that he thought about it, although it was clear that she was pretty in a second look way, and maybe a third look way too, she was known as one of those bookish-types that, well, you know were too bookish to think about sixteen year old boys and sex, or maybe boys of any age. And, well Timmy, Timmy Riley, was the star fullback on the Red Raiders football team, and who knew how he felt about his bookish sister and sexed-up sixteen year old boys.

But Johnny felt lucky, or maybe just desperate, and started to speak. But before he could get word one out Betty Ann said, “It’s a nice day for walking the meadows with nobody around. I come here when I want to think about stuff, about my future and what I want to do in the world. How about you?” Bingo, thought Johnny. Not boy troubles but some kind of troubles.  He was determined that he was going to talk to Betty Ann, and he thought as he pondered that idea, “I’ll take my chances with Timmy- the hell with him (unless he hears about his sister and me then it’s strictly only in my head, okay Timmy).” And they talked and talked until almost dark. Talked about the future, about how they world was rigged up before they could make a dent in it, had not been asked question one about what to do about it, and then Johnny kind of introduced the thing about Lucy, and about how he had seen the light on women (girls, okay).

Betty Ann said she had never had a serious boyfriend although she had been out on a few dates. She preferred to read and study if it came to that, although lately she had been feeling a little restless. Johnny became crestfallen after that burst figuring that Betty Ann was in that category of a “unapproachable” that guys were always rating certain girls as when they discussed stuff on the grapevine. Then Betty Ann told Johnny this little story that changed things in a big way. See Johnny had seen her before, seen her at the Fall Frolics and had danced with her out of some courtesy or other because one of his corner boys was interested in her and wanted Johnny to check her out. Nothing happened (with that corner boy either). But Betty Ann had developed something of a crush on Johnny, nothing big but she would watch for him around school. Of course she knew from that infinitely reliable teenage grapevine that was better than anything any intelligence agency could come up with that Johnny was with Lucy Barnes and so off-limits. But when Lucy busted up with Johnny she saw her chance, and she knew through that same teenage grapevine that Johnny was spending some time in the meadows moping. And that was that.    

 

Talk-weary but still no wanting to move more than three yards from each other Johnny pulled out his transistor radio and they listened to WMEX, the be-bop, non-stop rock ‘n’ roll station that was mandatory listening for those under eighteen, those who counted. And just then Mister Roy Orbison, “Roy the Boy,” came on to trill his latest, Sweet Dreams, Baby. That became their song. Oh yeah, and Johnny and Betty Ann began what became one of the great Clintonville High romances of 1962.