I Try to Look at the Big Picture

This is a sequel to You Got to Lose to Know How to Win. This is taking place in The Bronx in 1977.

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I was a bit nervous about my second date with Janet Pankin. The first meeting had been set up by our families. Actually, they hadn't planned it all out for us. We introduced ourselves to each other through the mail, and we had worked out the details over the phone. As the male, I thought it was my job to pick the venue, and I chose The Piper's Kilt bar on 231st Street.

There were a couple of issues with the second date. For one thing, I had expected little from the first one, so I was more relaxed about it. I almost didn't care what happened; I thought she might not even show up. But she did arrive, and we had a fairly good time for a couple of hours. She was the one who brought up the idea of seeing each other again, and we had agreed to the Sunday evening right after our first one on a Thursday.

I was anxious because I had managed to graduate from college and reach the age of twenty-two without ever dating a girl. Somehow that had, year by year, eluded me. Through my own passivity and procrastination, I had never gotten around to asking anyone out. Perhaps unconsciously I was waiting for the ideal person to come along, so I did nothing rather than trying a lot of dates with different girls to see what happened.

A lot of people think that the 1970s were a time of wild sexuality, but that was only partially true. Some people got lost in the new sexual market place and never got the hang of it. That seemed to be truer for men than women, but it was possible that I just knew more about what my fellow males were going through. I knew some guys that were almost as bereft of female companionship as I was.

Thus our families stepped into the now antique role as matchmakers and arranged for me to meet the daughter of one of my mother's co-workers. This girl was my age and also a graduate of one of the branches of the City University system, Hunter College. I had gone to City College in West Harlem, or Hamilton Heights or Manhattanville or whatever one wished to call that neighborhood.

With this Janet person, it didn't matter if she was "ideal" or not; she was just there, take her or leave her. I guess I was impressed that after we had exchanged letters and photos, she had mailed me another note inviting me to call her. I had just been dithering around at that point in my usual confusion. I had no idea what was in my slender packet that had inspired her to reach out to me. Instinctively I knew that I shouldn't ask her. It was sufficient that she had gone ahead and done it.

I also knew little about her previous romantic experiences. From some of the things she had said, I guessed that those had been on the meager side. That was something else I didn't need to have details about. For her part, she didn't know much about my past either.

For the two hours I had been with her, she had seemed, well -- likable. I didn't notice any coyness or phoniness about her. Then she proposed a second date and even a third one, which I will get into later. It seemed that everything was beginning to fall into place.

At least that's what I felt on Thursday. On Sunday, I was waiting in front of the small Dale Theater just down the block from The Piper's Kilt. We were going to see Sorcerer, with Roy Scheider, but that didn't seem to matter much. I had picked it mainly because it was playing in a convenient location for both of us. It was a pleasant warm evening in early September.

What was on my mind now was that I had a stake in how this date turned out. I knew I should just relax and go with the flow, but I was having trouble with that. I decided that if I leaned against the wall of the building, it would give me a more confident look. I doubt that it did, but that was all I could think of.

A few moments later a livery car pulled up and Janet got out. She walked over to me and we greeted each other. Then we just stood there, assessing each other. She was not a willowy chick; her body had a nice solidity to it that I liked. Her clothes were simple but looked good: a white blouse, dark-gray trousers, and dark medium-heeled shoes. I thought her face looked pretty. She wasn't the kind of girl who turns heads on the street, but she looked good right now.

Our previous meeting had been entirely platonic except for the briefest kiss on my cheek at our parting. For this time, we didn't have a table separating us; we were just standing there about a foot apart. I decided on the tactic of projecting my own unease onto her. I tried to keep it light as I said, "You look like you're about to jump out of your skin."

That must have been the right thing to say because she smiled at me and said, "Oh really? Well, so do you." Then she seemed to know just what to do. She crooked a finger at me and said, "Come over here and let's get his done already."

She put her arms around my shoulders and kissed me on my mouth. It was a warm kiss and it went on for a couple of seconds. Then she pulled her head back and said, "Was that okay? Would you like some more?"

I understood that it was a rhetorical question and I tried to make a joke out of it, "Yeah, Janet, if you are giving out more of those, then I'll take them." She went back to kissing me, more intensely this time. She was bold enough to stick her tongue out and briefly lick my lips. I brought my hands up and gently held her sides.

I instantly understood why kissing was such a big deal, especially in movies. In the old films, during the time of the Production Code, kissing was a kind of shorthand for saying, yes, I want you, including physically. Maybe that held true in real life too.

When she was done, she put her arms down and held my hands in hers. Had she done all that because she really liked me, or was I just a convenient guy on the scene? I supposed it didn't matter; she had kissed me anyway. Her actions said to me, I'm your girl now.

Just to have something to say, I asked, "Do you know anything about this movie?" It wasn't clear to me what kind of films women liked, and I wondered if she was going just because it was the easiest course to follow.

But she knew the answer, "It's about these guys in South America who drive trucks around loaded with dynamite."

I nodded and said, "Yeah, Janet, you nailed it."

"Hah! You didn't think I'd know, did you?"

For the first time, I dared check out her expression closely. She looked bemused, and I did see some genuine affection in her look. Some of my natural caution came out. I thought, maybe I am just Mister Right-Here, Right-Now, but so what? You've got to rein in these negative thoughts.

I said, "I guess I'll see anything with Roy Scheider in." He was close to the peak of his fame at that time.

"I guess I would too. I really loved him in Jaws."

"That movie hinged on him being in it." His regular-guy personality played well off of Robert Shaw's gruff sea captain character and Richard Dreyfuss's nerdy oceanographer. Some memorable lines came back to me. This was no boating accident. We need to get a bigger boat.

The Dale was one of those small, single-screen theaters that were beginning to disappear in New York. Janet and I were more relaxed now. I didn't like eating in theaters, so we both got sodas. We held hands at times and sometimes I put my arm around her shoulders. It felt quite natural now to touch each other in those ways.

From the way she was watching the screen, I figured, all right, she must like films about dynamite trucks.

Afterwards, we walked the two blocks to The Piper's Kilt to get a light meal and some beers. At the last moment, Janet changed her mind and got a white-wine spritzer instead.

She was ahead of me on the way in, and I noticed the tight seat of her trousers. Man, this chick has the most lovely round ass. I had the notion, or at least the hope, that I'd be doing more than just looking at it fairly soon.

After chatting and having our burgers for a while, we were on our second round of drinks when she pulled a surprise on me. I was impressed at how nonchalant she was about it. She said, "You were on that newspaper at City College, what was the name of it again?"

I had the feeling she already knew it. I had mentioned it in my introductory letter but I couldn't recall talking about it on our first date. "It was called The Salient. The name came from the World War II vets who started it in 1947."

"I remember you all caused quite a stir with it in the -- winter of 1974?"

"You heard about it at Hunter College?"

"Sure, it was quite well-known. Notorious, I'd actually say."

"Do you remember what it was about?" I figured there was a good chance that she knew that too.

She was finishing her second drink. "I think I'll get another one of these. I mean, I don't have to drive or anything." When it was delivered to her she said, in the most deadpan way, "Anyway, what you guys did was publish a drawing of a masturbating nun. She was using a crucifix to pleasure herself."

She had brought sex into the conversation in the most explicit way possible. I guessed that it was a test to see if I got flustered or not. I stayed calm or tried to appear that way as I said, "Actually, we did it again in the next issue. That time we printed it with a 'Censored' sign covering her crotch."

"Really? I didn't know about that one."

"Would you like to hear the backstory about it?"

"Sure, if you got one, I'd love to hear it." She was looking at me mildly but I could tell she was amused by this whole thing.

I told her about the two Bobbies on our paper. Our resident pornographers were a good way to describe them. One of them fancied himself a writer and was given his own pages to edit, the so-called Weird Section.

The other Bobby styled himself after R. Crumb and did whatever artwork seemed appropriate, which could be just about anything. I said, "He didn't have Crumb's wit or drawing ability, however, so sometimes he'd just reproduce a Crumb cartoon in our paper without permission."

"Anything in particular that you remember?"

She was really probing me at that point. "One of them was a Joe Blow carton."

"I've seen those. Which one was it?"

So I had an R. Crumb fan on my hands. I figured if she wanted to know, I'd tell her. "It was the one with the incestuous family."

"I know that one." She seemed delighted to reminisce about it. "I especially liked the ending where the mom dresses as a dominatrix to seduce her teen aged son."

Jesus, did this nice, modest-looking girl just say that? You did hear it quite clearly. I didn't think of myself as a prude, but I did have a certain reserve about discussing sexual matters. That may have been one of the reasons for needing a set-up date in the first place. Whatever Janet was doing, in this case, seemed to be going far beyond mere flirting.

I backtracked a bit. "Artist Bobby was a lapsed Catholic, and he held some kind of grudge against the Church. He said as much in this sort of apologia he wrote right after it. Well, he didn't really apologize; he was quite defiant I'd say."

"What made you guys think you could get away with it?"

"But we did get away with it! The students funded us through their activity fees, so I guess they had the final say on it. The two Bobbies graduated that spring, so that ended the craziness for a while."

"Do you still have those issues? I'd like to see them."

"Yeah, I have them. I'll bring them if you're curious." That seemed like an intriguing idea for a date; sit around with a girl and examine some smut.

A few moments later she asked me, "Do you want to become a journalist?"

"You mean an actual reporter? I didn't like all the details, the chasing after people who didn't want to talk to me." Something else occurred to me. "There's a lot of competition to work for the New York papers. We had one guy go all the way to Stuttgart, Arkansas, to get a job."

"I've never even heard of that place."

"Nobody has."

Being a "writer," as opposed to a reporter, wasn't that easy either. I would need a day job, at least for a while, if I was going down that route.

I decided to order a glass of wine -- without seltzer -- as my final drink. As we got into our third drinks, the alcohol was having its effects on us. I got into a contemplative mood, and I thought about my job at a publishing company downtown. It was entry-level and boring as hell.

I wondered if in the longer run she would find some guy who was more ambitious than I was. There was no shortage of men like that in New York. Janet had a job at a brokerage firm. It had nothing to do with her major, but I suspected it was a step up from what I was doing.

Yes, I had plans to go to graduate school, but I had done nothing so far to get into one. There was still time to apply for a September 1978 admission, but meanwhile a whole unproductive year was going by. It was time to let go of all that pseudo-hippie bullshit from The Salient era.

I knew I was getting ahead of myself by thinking so much about the future. Janet interrupted my reverie, "Hey, come back to reality. What are you thinking about?"

I didn't want to tell her, so I lamely said, "I don't know, just some things."

She had a different agenda. "You know, you don't have to equivocate with me; I mean you can be forthright." She put one of her hands on mine.

I wasn't sure what she was talking about, and I admitted it. "What do you mean by that?"

"Like when you were uneasy talking about the nun drawing or the R. Crumb cartoon."

I said, "You know what that Bobby guy had as a caption with the nun picture? Supposedly she was saying, 'Oh my God!' "

"What a witty guy."

"That's the problem; he only thought he was."

Janet seemed to be in a playful mood, "I know something that will loosen you up." I already felt pretty loose after having three drinks. "We'll play a little game. Name an attribute of mine that's caught your attention."

There were only so many things it could be. I could have been romantic and said, your eyes. Instead I took a lower road and blurted out, "I've really noticed your behind."

But she liked that, "Hah, I'm not surprised! See, it pays to wear tight pants on a date." She briefly stood up and turned sideways. When she sat down again she said, "I think I have one of those ample rear-ends that are always in those R. Crumb drawings."

She then said, "You're actually blushing." She seemed happy about it.

I could feel my face getting warm but I tried to deny it. "No, I'm not, I feel fine." I wondered if she found it endearing rather than silly. I had heard that advice, just be yourself, on a date but I somehow knew that needed to be qualified. Dates, in the modern world, could be tricky.

Rightly or wrongly, I felt that the women held more control of them than in previous eras. That didn't mean one had to be a phony, but complete honesty wouldn't work either, especially near the beginning.

Just as we nearing the end of our time in The Piper's Kilt, Janet said, "You're taking me out in your car this week, right? How about Friday night?"

I did remember mentioning that on the previous Thursday, and I thought I could recall the general point of using the car. I tried to be as casual as possible as I said, "Of course, I remember that. Ah, where did we say we were going again?"

"I think I said it doesn't matter. As long as it's after dark and we could have some privacy." That seemed clear enough, but she elaborated on it. She put both her hands on one of mine and said, "Look, don't worry. There is no rush; we can take our time with it. I mean you and I and your car are going to be around for a while."

I got it, this chick was ready to go. Start with some heavy petting as the phrase used to be. I realized that I was dealing with a twenty-two-year-old woman, not a seventeen-year-old teenager. She wanted to make up for lost time, I assumed. I happened to be available for that. But again, maybe that didn't matter, because I wanted to make up for lost time too. Carpe diem, seize the day.

Her expression seemed to be both bemused and serious. I simply said, "Okay, Friday, sure -- I'll pick you up."

Now I had to find some relatively secure place to park with her. Doing that in New York City wasn't so easy.

I wished one of us had our own apartment, but there was no point in worrying about that; we didn't have one. I couldn't just bring her to stay in my apartment while my parents were there. She couldn't do that where she lived either. Paul, you've really got to get your financial act together, and soon.

I considered that the two of us were adults and we should just demand that we use our rooms as we saw fit. I hadn't met Janet's parents yet, but I knew mine well enough. It might be "my" room, by it was their apartment. I wasn't assertive enough to really press my case.

Thus it had to be the 1967 Impala or nothing. Jesus, what had our families expected when they arranged the introduction? Were they still thinking it was 1948? My mother had been only twenty when she got married, and my dad was about my present age at the time.

There was something ad hoc about what Janet and I were doing now. It was a very 1970s kind of arrangement, and we were caught between a way of living that was ending and a new one that was just starting.

She kissed me warmly again outside on the sidewalk, and we parted. As before, she got in a livery car in the line that started at the corner of Broadway.

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The Piper's Kilt Bar and The Dale Theater really existed at that time. There was newspaper at City College, with a different name, that did publish the pornographic materials as described in this story.