Return to Paradise

"People can be such jerks at times."

"I remember how segregated the trains were. All the minority girls got off to go to Walton, then the white kids got off for Science, and finally, the minority boys went up to Mosholu for Clinton."

"Were there a lot of tensions?" Lynn had always taken two buses from her home on Holland Avenue in the East Bronx.

"It wasn't usually overt, but it was a stark lesson in how New York really is -- or actually the whole United States in fact."

I remembered something else, "Near the end in Morris Heights, I was afraid to walk up the steps from Jerome Avenue because all of these tough kids were hanging around at the top. I'd wait until a northbound train came in so I could walk up with those passengers."

"Don't feel bad, it was a reasonable precaution to take."

"Yeah, that got to be a really bad neighborhood. Once my father's car got stolen -- it was the one before this one, a '64 Biscayne. It turned out that this Irish junkie had taken it. He didn't even bother to change the plates; he was just using it as his own personal transportation."

"So he got caught."

"I think he went maybe three days before the cops stopped him. He left behind his rosary beads, which you saw hanging off the mirror of the Pontiac."

"A God-fearing addict. You know, there is one more thing we have to do. We have to go to the school to pick up our yearbooks."

"That's in about four days."

She asked me, "Could I meet you up there? I'm curious to see what your photo looks like."

"I've seen it already. It's just, you know, me." I looked at my watch. "It's still pretty early. We should drop off the car and then get a drink. We can take a bus over to 204th and Bainbridge. There's a ton of Irish bars over there."

"Why not just drive there?"

I shrugged, "Forgive me, I guess I'm a stickler about drinking and driving."

"I get it. At least I'll never wind up wrapped around a telephone pole."

*****

On the morning to get the yearbooks, we emerged from the building and leaned on the railing looking at them.

Lynn said, "You look cute, but man do you look serious."

"I learned a long time ago not to smile while posing unless there is actually something to smile about. Otherwise, it just looks phony. Let's see you."

There she was, a serious-looking dark-haired girl. I felt a thump in my heart while looking at her. The picture had been taken a couple of months earlier, and she was going to be my girl soon after.

Lynn said, "If you go back to your page, you will see that alphabetical order has forever put you on the same page with Ms. Dubinsky."

She looked very serious too. Lynn said, "You can be sure she would never have had a thing to do with you." Then she started going through her book. "So which of these girls do you think about?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. Which ones do you masturbate about?"

"Jesus, you sure are blunt."

She smiled at me, "That's me, bluntness is my middle name."

"I'll tell you what, when we find a comfortable place to sit down, I'll go through them with you."

She said, "As I told you before, of these four hundred females, I bet you could have arranged dates with several of them. Probably they would have banged you too. But, I know, high school is not easy."

"That's true, but then you came along." I still wanted to know why she had picked me, and why she had waited so long. But I knew I couldn't ask her those questions.

Perhaps she alluded to that, "I shouldn't complain. Honey, you were ripe for the plucking." She laughed at her own joke.

Then I said, "Some of my choices -- I mean of these girls -- would surprise you."

"Maybe not. I know you have some quirky tastes in women, but that is nothing to be ashamed of." She paused. "I guess I wasn't one of them."

I almost said, I'm sorry, but I knew that was wrong. I fumbled around for an answer.

She smiled, "That's all right, I was just busting your chops."

At that moment, Miriam Dubinsky came out with a female friend and her yearbook. She gave a skeptical look at me and Lynn. We said perfunctory hellos and then she kept going. Lynn watched her go. "She does have a nice little ass."

There was a story about Miriam that I would never tell Lynn. It was on par with Lloyd Dobbler's later bit with his boom box. I had obtained her address while working (without pay, of course) in one of the school's offices.

One bright Saturday in the previous April I went out to Bayside in Queens to look at her house. It was a long trip, requiring me to take the #7 train to the last stop at Main Street in Flushing. Then I had to transfer to a bus. I got off before Bell Boulevard, the last major cross-street before her house. Somehow I was too young and dumb to realize that this had an element of stalking in it.

Then I chickened out. It didn't seem likely, but I wondered what would happen if I ran into Miriam. How would I explain what I was doing miles away from any place I would naturally visit? It would be awkward indeed. And it was a tale I never could reveal to Lynn. She already knew too much about my obsessive Miriam behavior because she had witnessed some of it first-hand.

Now, of course, the yearbooks had almost everybody's address and phone number printed in the back.

I looked around the empty street, then down to the bus stops over the Concourse Yards. "It's only eleven o'clock. What are we going to do for the rest of the day?" I must have been comfortable letting my guard down around her, because I had asked her to make the choice.

She was completely deadpan as she said, "Let's go to the movies. What's playing on Fordham Road?"

"I don't know, I didn't check the listings." Then I said, "Maybe we should try that plan I suggested, you know, what else we could do in the back row."

"But I'm wearing blue jeans today."

"So what? Just pull them down."

She gave me a mock-annoyed look. "You're a very bad boy. You need a good spanking yourself."

"And who's going to do that?"

"I will, of course." She smiled, "Believe me, I need to get some payback soon."

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