Hurricane Bob Pt. 01

Chapter 1

It was July 1985, and I was 21 years old. I was young and full of life. I had a great job that paid exceptionally well, in the high-tech Mecca of Research Triangle Park, or RTP, between Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I had a beautiful, new girlfriend of three months, named Consuela, but we all called her Connie. I had an even newer Porsche 911, a condo in the hottest complex in Raleigh, and more money than I'd ever had before in my life.

Everything was perfect.

I had started working just over a year earlier, and in that first year, I hadn't taken a single day off for vacation. So, in July, my boss insisted that I take a week off.

"You're young!" he told me. "You should be out having fun. Look at me! Don't end up like me! Take that pretty girlfriend of yours out of town and have a blast."

So, that evening when I got home, I told my roommate, Mike, that I would take off a week at the end of the month.

"Can you keep an eye on things while I'm gone?" I asked.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know exactly. Dave suggested I take Connie someplace fun, so I was thinking maybe Myrtle Beach. Get a hotel room on Ocean Boulevard, within walking distance of the Pavillion."

I should probably tell you a little bit about Myrtle Beach for those of you who weren't blessed to grow up in the Carolinas. In the late '70s and early '80s, Myrtle Beach was THE beach for fun between Daytona, Florida, and New York, hell, maybe the North Pole for that matter.

In North Carolina, all the beaches were mostly just mile after mile of empty white beaches, dotted with houses, fishing piers, and the occasional hotel. The most sophisticated area was Wrightsville Beach, but it was just a couple of blocks of shops and a big fishing pier. Atlantic Beach, Emerald Isle, Surf City were all great places to take the family or to enjoy the natural beauty of the ocean.

For teenagers, they were boring.

Myrtle Beach was different! It was electric. It was exciting. There was a "downtown" area, with a boardwalk called the Grand Strand, overlooking the ocean. You could grab an Orange Julius from a girl with herpes sores all over her mouth, or French Fries, from a place that pretty much only sold oily, thick french fries. There were artists, musicians, and booze aplenty.

I grew up in Fayetteville, NC, about a two-hour drive northwest of Myrtle Beach. As a teenager, anyone who was anyone would spend the summer at Myrtle Beach, and party, party, party. Then you would spend the first month of the new school year reliving their adventures with your friends. If you wanted to be popular, you had to be seen at least once at the Pavillion, the Grand Strand, in the Magic Attic, or if you had a fake ID (or were a cute girl), Mother Fletcher's.

The main attraction in downtown Myrtle Beach was the Pavillion, located on the water at 9th Avenue and Ocean Boulevard. It had first been built in the early 1900s, but after burning down a few times, they replaced it with a large, two-story concrete building sometime after the second world war. It housed a snack bar, pool and foosball tables, and the ubiquitous Eagles surf shops that carried pastel-colored t-shirts and Panama Jack sunglasses, which were all the rage.

Upstairs at the Pavillion was the famous dance club and music venue for teenagers called the Magic Attic. I saw many of my favorite rock bands, including Nantucket, PKM, and Black and Blue, whose major claim to fame was the song Hold on to 18, and that their guitar player Tommy Thayer replaced Ace Frehley in Kiss in 1994.

Across Ocean Boulevard was the Pavillion Amusement Park, featuring tons of rides, amusements, and roller coasters. Along Ocean Boulevard were covered walkways, benches to sit and watch people. It all had a theme park kind of feel to it. As teenagers, we spent a lot of time cruising the strand.

We would spend hours in our cars, preferably hatchbacks with the hatches up, blaring ACDC, or Molly Hatchet from our stereos cruising up and down Ocean Boulevard. Girls would jump in, ride a few blocks, drink a beer or take a few hits from a joint, then jump back out. I didn't have a hatchback, but my friends did.

Myrtle Beach had its own culture. There was a particular style of dancing called Shagging or doing the shag. If you wanted a date, you had to know how to shag. The first time I ever heard shagging referred to as something OTHER than dancing was in the Austin Powers movie. To me, and everyone in the Carolinas, there is, was and will only ever be, one kind of shagging, and it's done upright on a dancefloor.

You shagged to what we called Beach Music. Ok, this was not Jan and Dean or the Beach Boys. Sorry, all you west coasters. Beach Music was the sounds of the late 50s and early 60s R&B songs from bands like the Drifters, the Embers, Chairmen of the Board, and the Catalinas. I listened to Heavy Metal bands in my car, but when we had girls around, the Beach Music was on. You would have been surprised how quickly a girl would lose her bikini to the crooning sounds of Up On a Roof or Under the Boardwalk.

For nighttime entertainment, the preppie crowd went to a little club up the road called Bahama Joe's. I think I went once. It wasn't my scene. Rednecks went to the Bowery, where Alabama was the house band for a while. I much preferred the hot girls, flowing booze, and wet t-shirt contests at Mother Fletcher's, which was within easy walking distance of the Pavillion. They played loud, fun, contemporary music, but the reason people went there was simple: get drunk and find someone to fuck.

[I heard that in 2004 the local community suddenly became outraged at the lewd, drunken behavior of teenagers in wet t-shirts at Mother Fletcher's, closing the place down. Hell, Mother's was well-known for precisely that from long before my first time there in 1980 and well past my last in 1986. I think the real reason for its demise had more to do with tax revenue than the behavior of drunk girls showing their boobs.]

Back then, there wasn't a direct route from Fayetteville to Myrtle Beach. Most people drove down I-95 to Dillon, South Carolina, then took US 501 all the way to Myrtle Beach. You would turn right on 3rd Avenue S, and head all the way to Ocean Boulevard. That would drop you in the heart of Myrtle Beach, and you would cruise north along the beach and through the Pavillion.

I hated to do the same thing as everybody else. So, I would drive my 1972 Monte Carlo down the country backroads along the most convoluted course you could imagine, all to shave twenty minutes off the drive. I made that run so many times, I could do it in my sleep. I could probably do it right now, almost forty years later, assuming the roads are still there. I would haul ass on those big-banked, two-lane country roads. The cops were too busy out on the main highways ticketing all the preppies. They left a good-old-boy like me alone, doing 90 with my Thrush glasspack purring.

I remember one time, a bunch of us met at the high school on a Sunday morning to drive down, spend the day, and come back. I wanted this girl, named Gina, to drive down with me, but instead, she rode with this douchebag in his brand new Firebird Trans Am, with the t-tops like Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit. We all left together and agreed to meet up at the parking lot of the Pavillion when we got there.

I waited in the parking lot for thirty minutes until the rest of them started showing up. I did everything I could to get Gina away from the preppie douchebag, the whole day, but he had something I didn't.

Money.

I came from a dirt poor family. We lived in a mobile home until the summer between 4th and 5th grades when the four of us moved into a 1200 square foot, 3-bedroom house. My parents never took us to Myrtle Beach as a kid. We went to the empty, natural North Carolina beaches, where we only had to pay for the gas there and back, and the fee to fish on the pier. My mom packed all the sandwiches and kool-aid, so we never ate out.

I never even heard of Myrtle Beach until 9th grade, when all the girls I had crushes on talked about it non-stop. I got a part-time job, worked my ass off, and saved up a thousand dollars. When I turned 16, I bought a used car, and that Sunday, my buddy Rick and I drove down to Myrtle Beach for the first time.

I went back every weekend and spent as much of my summer there as possible, as a beach bum. I worked odd jobs, here and there, to get enough money for a motel room, which I shared with two other guys, beer and food now and then. I became darkly tanned, and my hair sun-bleached blonde. I learned to surf and spent many nights sleeping on the beach. I was careful to avoid the cops, who would haul you in, call your parents, and blackmail them into sending them the money for your fine via Western Union.

I also became very familiar with the dark underbelly of Myrtle Beach. Drugs and prostitution were commonplace among the teenage drifters who lived there. They were mostly homeless. Many of them were runaways. During my summers, I was pretty much one of them, except I didn't do drugs and sell my body. I had been offered several times by older, mostly married women to fuck them for money. I fucked them and only once accepted the money, and only because she shoved in my pocket without me knowing it, while she sucked my cock.

That actually explains my earlier comment about the girl at Orange Julius with herpes sores. Her name was Tina, and she was a year younger than me. I met her early one summer on my first weekend down. She was cute as hell, and we hung out, got drunk, and had sex.

She was from Ohio. Her friend had stolen her suitcase, purse, and all her money. I felt sorry for her, so I let her hang out with me in my room for a few days. I thought she dug me, and we were tight, but I came home from my job, emptying trash cans on the beach, to find her fucking some dude in our room.

He looked up at me. He was an old dude, maybe thirty. Ok, to me, at the time, he seemed ancient. He snapped at me, "Wait your fucking turn, I paid for an hour, I'm getting an hour!"

I went outside and sat on the railing, drinking a beer while they finished fucking. I heard the bed banging on the wall and him grunting. I never heard Tina making any sounds, not like when we fucked. She was a screamer.

I heard what I assumed was him busting his nut. A couple of minutes later, the door opened, and he came out. "She's all yours," he said with a laugh. "Hope you don't mind sloppy thirds. I didn't use a condom. Neither did the n[racial slur deleted]r that was in there before me."

What can I say? It was South Carolina in 1980.

I waited a few more minutes before going in. Tina was in the bathroom; I could hear the shower running. I sat down calmly in one of the two beat-up chairs by the table where I kept my beer cooler. I grabbed another Old English 800 out of the ice and noticed more than half were missing.

A few minutes later, the shower stopped, and Tina came out, drying her hair, another towel wrapped around her naked body.

"Sorry," she said with little emotion. "I thought you were coming back at three."

"We got done early," I said, not addressing the elephant in the room.

"We never said we were like boyfriend and girlfriend or anything," she offered.

I didn't say anything.

Finally, I asked, "where'd all the beer go?"

"Drank it," she said. "Tyrone had a couple. That last guy had one."

"So, not only are they using my room to fuck you, they drank my beer?"

"Sorry," she said, then started counting the money the guy left on the counter. "Asshole!" she snapped.

When I didn't respond, she looked at me. "I told him thirty bucks, but he only left twenty. I was going to pay you back for the beer."

"You been whoring in my room every day while I'm working?" I asked.

She nodded. "Not the first day," she said. "I spent that one with you."

I didn't say anything.

"Free," she added. "I never charged you."

"I didn't know you charged anyone," I said, then added. "Hell, I didn't know you were fucking anyone else."

"Sorry," she said again. She had that lost puppy dog look on her face. "I guess I have to find someplace else to stay."

"Yep," I answered.

"Now?" she asked.

"Yep," I answered.

"Ok," she said. "Can you lend me fifty bucks for me to get a motel room? I mean, after all, we fucked, and I never charged you."

"So, now you want money?" I said with a chuckle.

"I was considering that you letting me stay here paid for the sex," she said. "Now you are throwing me out. I mean, if you let me stay, I'll let you keep fucking me, for free."

"No, that's ok," I said. I took off my shoe and peeled off some bills, handing them to Tina. "Here, that's twenty. I think that's the same amount the other guy paid you."

She gave me a dirty look. "You fucked me more times than he did, and I sucked your dick a bunch."

"I thought you liked sucking my dick," I said.

"I did," she replied, "but I gotta be able to eat, you know."

I peeled off another twenty. "That's for all the blowjobs."

"I'll pay you back," she said, trying to smile. "Tyrone said he'd pimp me out, and I can make a lot more with him than on my own."

"Oh, that sounds like a great idea," I said sarcastically. I guess Tina didn't get sarcasm.

"Yeah, I thought so, too," she replied. "You know, I was a virgin when I came down here three weeks ago."

"And now you're a whore," I said. She winced at the word but nodded. She slipped into her jean shorts and t-shirt, tossed what little clothes she owned into a brown grocery bag, and rolled it up under her arm.

She headed for the door, then stopped to stand in front of me. "I actually do like you, Bob. Can I have a hug?"

I peeled the spandex cover off my beer and handed it to her. It said Mother Fletcher's on the side. "There, that's a beer hugger," I said, then turned to watch the Andy Griffith show. It was the episode where the Darlings came down from the mountains and tried to force Andy to get married.

"I meant from you," she said. "Please?"

"You should go," I said, sipping my beer and staring blankly at the TV. She left. When the door clanged shut, I jumped up and called the front desk, asking for some clean sheets. Then, I pulled out the phonebook and flipped through it, looking for the local health department. An hour later, I was getting tested and a "just in case" shot of Penicillin.

Fortunately, my tests came back negative. I can't say the same for Tina. Toward the end of the summer, I ran into her again. She looked like hell. She'd lost twenty pounds, and she was skinny, to begin with. She saw me down by the Pavillion. I was working at Orange Julius. She asked me for money, saying that she left Tyrone after he had beat her up. Instead, I gave her a free drink and introduced her to my boss Chuck.

"Chuck, this is Tina," I said. "She needs a job. Why don't you hire her."

He looked at her and shook his head, "We ain't got no openings."

I took off my Orange Julius hat and tossed it on the counter. "Now you do," I said. "I quit."

"What?"

"I quit," I repeated. "I have to go back home next week anyway. I don't want to waste my last few days working."

He looked at Tina again, "Can you start right away?"

She nodded.

"Ok, you're hired," he handed her my hat. "Put that on and come on back, I'll train you."

Tina was crying, and she hugged me. I couldn't stop her. "He won't pay you for a week," I told her. "You got money to live on until then?"

She shook her head, looking sad and helpless.

I took forty bucks out of my wallet and handed it to her. "Use that to live on, nothing else," I told her emphatically. She nodded and hugged me again.

Two Sundays later, I was back down for a day trip with one of my buddies. He wanted an Orange Julius. I didn't really want to chance running into Tina. Still, I was more worried about finding out that she'd gone back into prostitution. So, I agreed.

We went up to the counter and a girl game over to take our orders. She looked familiar, but she had little red, inflamed craters and blisters all around her lips and up to her nose. I'd had shingles, and they looked exactly like the sores I'd had, just much smaller. As I stared, she idly scratched one of them on the side of her mouth.

"Hi Bob," she said, without any emotion whatsoever. "Thanks for getting me this job. You saved my life. What can I get you guys?"

"I'll take a Pineapple, Julius," my buddy said.

"Ok, what about you, Bob," she asked.

"I'm good," I said. "I just came by to see how you're getting along."

"I'm good," she said with a smile. It must have hurt, because she winced in pain, then touched the sores on her mouth. "I just got some dumb rash. You think it might be poison ivy?"

Just then, Chuck came up from the back room. I couldn't help but notice the same sores around his mouth.

"No, Tina," I said. "That's not poison ivy. You better go to the Health Department and get it checked. It's free."

She nodded again, then made my buddy's drink. "Hey," I called out to her, dropping money on the counter. "This is for his drink. We forgot we have to be someplace. You drink it. See ya!"

I grabbed my buddy's arm and pulled him away. Tina and Chuck stared at us like we were crazy, then Chuck pocketed the money I'd left.

"What the fuck, man," my friend said. "I wanted that!"

"Did you want herpes, too?" I asked.

"Herpes?"

"Yeah, didn't you see her face?"

"Yeah, but she said it was poison ivy," he said.

I shook my head, "That ain't poison ivy, man, that's herpes."

"Fuck. Thanks, man," he said. "I never would have known."

Herpes notwithstanding, I loved Myrtle Beach. There was no place like it.

Now, here I was just a few short years later, driving a Porshe, dating a hot chick, living in a trendy condo, and making a six-figure salary. Of course, the only place I could think of to take Connie to have fun was Myrtle Beach.

"Myrtle Beach?" Mike asked a smile on his face. "Dude, count us in."

"Say what?" I asked, staring at my roommate. I didn't remember inviting them.

"Jackie and me," he said. "We want to take a vacation this summer, too. We were talking about going to the beach. Her folks have a house up near Southport, but Dude, it's all old people and little kids. I want to have some fun, too!"

"Oh, so you want to go the same week?" I asked. "We could get adjoining rooms at the hotel."

"Dude, that'd be sweet," he said. "You buy the beer; I'll bring a bag of green."

"Sweet," I said. "Connie's never smoked pot."

"Dude, we'll get her high, and maybe she'll finally spread her legs for you."

Connie and I had not had sex yet. So, my perfect life was not quite perfect. I'd been able to finger her, and she'd given me a handjob. Last week, I'd finally convinced her to let me lick her pussy, which she liked, so I'd been able to do it three more times. But, she wouldn't give me a blowjob and fucking was definitely not on the table for negotiations, not without a ring on her finger.

It was a bit of a sore subject with me, and Mike knew it. He always liked to push people's buttons. If he wasn't doing it to you, it meant he didn't like you. He was also a major flirt with the ladies. He wasn't the best looking guy, but he covered it up with his gregarious personality and bravado. I'd also heard from a couple of the women in our building that he had one of the fattest cocks they'd ever seen. That only added to his already overly-inflated ego.

The other thing about Mike that could be super irritating is that he was a bit of a mooch. He rarely offered to pay for anything, frequently would eat or drink everything he hadn't paid for, and he was always trying to make a deal.

But, Mike was funny, warm-hearted, and had proven himself to be a loyal friend. He looked at me like I was his little brother and was always trying to help me out. That's how I'd met Connie in the first place. I had been moping around the condo after a rough break-up. Tired of seeing me depressed, he and Jackie had insisted that I go out to dinner with them. Connie was our waitress, and as soon as I saw her, I was smitten. However, I was too shy to make a move. So, Mike flirted with her hard, even though Jackie was clinging to his arm the whole time.