How I Didn’t Lose My Virginity

I was thinking, well, hell, what's the difference? I mean, I didn't really know all that much about the subject, except that she didn't want to do it because of "her period," but why exactly not I wasn't sure, and I figured, hey, if it's all right with her, it's all right with me. But I knew right away this wasn't going to happen, and then I got to thinking, maybe it was something about me, maybe I wasn't cool enough ... this is what it's all about with women? This is what I have to look forward to all my life? I started thinking, all this time, wasting a whole night, listening to this drunken fool, bathroom smelling like shit, my nuts aching, bladder 'bout to burst, for this? We gotta get outta here, I thought.

"Let's go, man," I said. "Just tell him we gotta go home."

"Yeah, all right."

Bill came staggering back into the kitchen like a half-cooked lobster. He started to say something, probably to begin another awful story, but before a word came out his mouth was hijacked by the loudest belch I ever heard, a projectile rasp that loosed a beery gas I could smell a few seconds later across the room, like it had traveled from another dimension. "Oh, jeez, 'scuse me," he said.

"Yeah, Bill, like, we got to go," Phil said.

"Oh, really?" said Bill. "I'm sorry. It's not that late. Ya know, it ain't like youse gotta go ta woik tomorra or nuttin'."

"Nah, you know, we got a long ride home on the train. It's cold out."

"Yeah, OK, well, youse guys are welcome anytime. Just give a call and youse can come over."

"Yeah, thanks, man."

"Thanks for the beer," I said. I automatically stuck out my hand to shake Bill's, then remembered where it had been, but it was too late to withdraw it. His hand was hard and calloused and dry as a mummy's, caked with dirt and I shuddered to think what else. I made a mental note not to use mine again until I washed it.

"Hey, Jen, nice to see you," said Phil. "I'll call you."

"'K," she said from the other room, apparently content not to come out and say goodbye, or even to expend more syllables than necessary.

"Nice meeting you, Jen," I said.

"OK, bye!" she yelled cheerfully.

We made our way back along the dock-like streets. It was well past midnight and the neighborhood was deserted. I had to piss furiously and I was shivering in the freezing cold, so we looked for an alley where we could duck in. I was disappointed and drunk and horny and more than a little annoyed, at Phil and the girl and her insane uncle and the whole situation, but somehow we found it within ourselves to laugh while we stood there shaking in the cold. We walked and talked about how there would be other times. Phil was an eternal optimist: "Don't worry, man, you gonn' git some real soon." We continued along in the dark, now making a joke or some pointless observation, then keeping silent, until we reached the subway. By then we were so glad to be inside and warm that we were able to laugh and talk a little more. Soon we were sitting in an empty subway car, its glaring fluorescence doing nothing to lighten our sour, beery melancholy.

We got off the train and parted at the corner of Phil's block. He gave me a few more random, meaningless words of encouragement and went on his way, and I walked the block or so to my house. The world seemed as empty and black as the night sky, but tomorrow would be another day, of course. So much has happened in all the years since then, but all I can seem to remember of that night is the emptiness and blackness of that sky.