On July 20, 1969 over 600 million people around the world watched Apollo 11 landing on the moon. 10:56 p.m. EDT. I was not one of them. I was laying on my girlfriend's couch on the South Shore of Boston. Her divorcee mother was out with her Chilean pianist byfriend. Her younger brother was asleep upstairs. The TV was off and the fan was on. The outside temperature was in the mid-80s. Sweat swelled on our young bodies. WBCN was the hippie FM radio station. Playing the Velvet Underground's ROCK AND ROLL. Both of us trying to achieve satisfaction by dry humping ie fanatic rubbing of the lower reaches of the human sexual organs. Janet was a cheerleader at the town high school and I attended Xaverian, an all boys Catholic high school. She was very religious and planned of saving her virginity until her wedding night. I so wanted her and she so wanted me. We almost went all the way. No pentration. A little before 11pm I left and Janet turned on the TV. smelling of teenage lust. The hour before midnight. Hot with a light rain. I smelled my fingers. Janet. Teenage lust. The road was devoid of cars. It was late and everyone had watched the moon landing. Not me. I was walking into the rain.
Janet and I broke up the following spring. I had read Heinrich Boll's BILLIARDS AT HALF PAST NINE in which a young man after getting his first architecture job sees his future. All of it. Janet asked me to her senior prom. At that moment I saw my life. All of it, if I said yes. I said no and I have never landed on the moon, but I believe we were there.
No comments:
Post a Comment