Charlie. A biker with dark hair, a thick mustache and beautiful,
wide smile. He was an "independent" from Chico who had recently moved to
my town when I met him. Like so many of the circumstances in those
years before I turned 15, I don't remember exactly how we hooked up.
Hook up in the old fashioned way - not the modern, overt connotation.
Because Charlie, was, if anything, a gentleman. Yes, he worked in a porn
store. Yes, he rode a hog and wore leather. Yes, he wouldn't fuck me,
no matter how badly I wanted it. Although, he did screw my best friend
at the time, Tracey. I was hurt and traumatized. But of course, looking
back, I realize how kind he was to me - he protected me when he could
have taken advantage. I thought it was because I wasn't pretty. That's
what you think when a guy says he's "flattered" by your crush. I think
though that he knew under my tough-girl persona, I was innocent and
pure. Meaning, I believed in the power of good and I didn't get how bad
things could really get.
Tracey, for her part, got hurt by his big cock. She said it was
huge and it made her walk funny for the next few days. He must've done
some damage. I didn't want to feel vindicated, but of course, I did. And
I still longed for him, even if I couldn't really picture what that
longing come to fruition would mean.
Before I confessed my crush and Tracey went turncoat on me, I went
to visit Charlie at work. He was way up at the top of Commercial street,
at the aforementioned porn shop. I had never been anywhere like that. I
wasn't old enough and I didn't really have an interest in hanging out
around lecherous winos and pervs. But, Charlie - god, he was such a
hunk. He was probably only 20 at the time, but he seemed years older,
sophisticated, macho, kind, in control - all qualities I craved (still
do if truth be told). So, I dolled myself up with my full coat of
foundation from my forehead to my collar bone, blush, melted eyeliner
applied on the wet inside skin of my eyelid under the lashes, blue
eyeshadow, Mabelline, and Bonnie Bell lip gloss. Plus I set my hair with
two containers of hot rollers and finished it off with a curling iron. I
hated the smell of burning hair, but it was a necessary evil. I put on
my Famolare molded rubber wedge sandals, bell bottom jeans, t-shirt and
unicorn necklace, topped off the whole look with a silk flower on one
side of my head and took off on the long walk up the busy street to
visit Charlie.
Between us, Tracey and I probably smoked a pack of cigarettes
walking up with the loud traffic zooming by in time with the traffic
lights - loud and bright and then quiet for a minute before the next
group of cars came. We went by the cemetery which gave me the creeps but
was also familiar - I mean, where else do you think stoners went to get
high when the cops were cruising the bottom of the park and no one was
home at Charlie's house?
We passed the Circle K where the old man let us drink beer in the
backroom so he could drool all over us, and the gas station where I
sometimes hung out with the country-music loving attendant listening to
Eddie Rabbit on the 8-track.
Seems like I hung out at almost every establishment on that
street - and that was only the right side going up the hill toward the
freeway. Come down the other side and you'd go by Carrow's where me and
my friends Danny and Lori ordered extra crispy fries with a side of
barbecue sauce and coffee that got refilled all night long. We scrounged
together enough money for smokes and the fries and coffee and sat there
till morning talking about sex and drugs and people we knew.
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