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The Hero Experience - Chapter 11

 
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 11:41 pm    Post subject: The Hero Experience - Chapter 11 Reply with quote



____________________________________________

Chapter 11

“Will you calm down? You’re making me nervous!” scolded Carl as we pulled up in front of Cindy’s house.

“I’ll try. Really.”

I was sitting in the front seat of the mile-long, powder blue 1963 Cadillac that Carl’s father had bestowed on him for the evening. I was staring out the windshield the way condemned men do when they know they’re looking at their last sunset.

Carl looked unconvinced as he got out to pick up Cindy. I stayed in the car where I could sweat in private. It was true that I was a bit tense, but it really didn’t worry me. The spots before my eyes, they worried me. And the buzzing in my ears. I also suspected that I’d put on too much aftershave. It hung thick in the air, and I wondered if the fumes were making me drunk.

Carl returned with his girl, who looked gorgeous in a pale blue summer dress with two skinny straps that held up the top and left her shoulders bare, along with an impressive portion of her upper body. If a Puritan woman had worn that dress back in the seventeenth century, the village elders would have placed a big red “A” on her chest so all the young men would know who they should definitely call up for a date.

“Hi, Brad!” Cindy said cheerily after Carl opened the door for her and she slid in past the steering wheel to snuggling up next to me. Suddenly I felt like a goof for not moving to the backseat before the happy couple arrived. The thin dress Cindy wore did nothing to prevent her warm presence from electrifying my left side where she pressed against me. Carl started the big Cadillac and pulled out of the driveway. As we headed down the street, Carl decided to torture his old buddy Brad by putting his hand on Cindy’s knee. The possessive intimacy with which his big hand caressed her made me want to lean away from them. My vision got noticeably spottier.

“You look mighty handsome tonight, Mr. Jones.” Cindy said in a voice so sweet that ants would fight over it.

“Thank you.” I had to resist the urge to out-shout the loud buzzing in my ears.

“I’m glad you asked Linda out. She feels awfully bad about breaking up with Andy.”

I replied without really thinking — always a big mistake. “I was surprised when I heard he’d dumped her.“ I knew it was the wrong thing to say the moment it came out.

Cindy’s cheery mood turned serious as she said, “Don’t say anything about the breakup to Linda.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“And if you do, don’t say it like that.” she added in a low voice, sounding a bit like my mother when she told me that if I uttered a certain four-letter word again, I'd be headed for the basement with my father and the belt that Paul Bunyan wore.

“I won’t. I promise. Really.”

Carl was grinning, dang his rotten hide. “Ah heck, Jones, don’t say anything at all. Just smile and nod.”

“Very funny,” I replied. Carl chuckled and squeezed Cindy’s knee. I was blinded by whirling spots.

Minutes later I was standing in Linda's living room, enduring an introduction and the silent suspicions which lurked behind her parents' eyes.

“Daddy, this is Brad Jones.”

“Hello, Brad.”

“Evening, sir.” My dry throat produced a raspy reply. Mr. McClure, Linda’s father, shook my hand and pretended not to notice my damp palm. Then Linda introduced me to her mother. Mrs. McClure had hawk-like features and steely eyes that probed my soul, looking for evil intentions.

“Linda told us that your father works for an airline,” she said, still smiling.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s nice. Is he a pilot?”

I knew that “yes” was the answer that would guarantee me a free ride into social acceptance in this upper crust family — but “yes” would be a big fat lie, and that was the kind of lie I was really bad at telling. So I stood tall and said, “No ma’am. He’s in the maintenance department.”

There was a brief pause, then she said, “That’s nice.” Her eyes got colder, but the smile remained. My husky voice probably sounded villainous, and my nervous expression was inspiring lewd images of her daughter and me doing things together that caused fathers and mothers to lie awake at night.

“Well, you two don’t stay out too late,” Mrs. McClure said, still smiling. I wasn’t fooled. If I brought Linda home at 9:30, she would probably think I had finished with her early.

“Have a nice time,” Mr. McClure said. I smiled and nodded, not trusting my Wallace Berry voice. Carl’s advice had been good: smile and nod.

We walked out to the Cadillac where Carl and Cindy waited. Carl was giving his date a nice long kiss as we approached. I opened the back door for Linda, and she smiled gorgeously as she got in. I decided right then and there that she was worth being nervous for. She looked slightly fantastic in a white cotton peasant blouse and a Spanish-looking skirt that swayed back and forth hypnotically when she walked.



As soon as I got into the car and closed the door, I became aware of how big and lonely the backseat of the Cadillac was. The front seat was high, isolating us from Carl and Cindy. There was enough legroom in the backseat for the Harlem Globe Trotters. And Linda had legs. I had noticed them right off. Yes, sir.

“What time does the movie start?” I heard Cindy ask in a far-off voice that drifted back to us from the front seat.

“Seven thirty-five,” was Carl’s distant reply.

The strangeness of the situation got to me, and I called out, “How’s the weather up there?”

The answer was filled with wit and whimsy. “Nice and warm,” Carl chuckled. I could picture his hand on Cindy’s knee, warming things up with its wispy friction.

Linda linked arms with me and pulled me close. “How was your day, Brad?”

I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, swallowed again, and said, “Fine. Yours?”

“Just fine.” She melted my tender young heart with a dazzling smile, and I responded with a moronic grin while I searched in vain for something to say. Only one thing came to mind.

“Have your ever seen this movie before?”

“No, but Andy said it was . . . good.” Her voice trailed off the moment she mentioned the ruthless cad who had broken her heart. I felt a sudden urge to inflict serious bodily harm on the swine. Linda was looking away from me. I hoped she wouldn’t cry. But she turned back quickly and forced a smile as she said, “I’m looking forward to it.”

Brave girl. Chin up.

I, on the other hand, needed to sit up. The big seat was swallowing my skinny body. In the front seat, Cindy was doing push-ups, squealing and giggling as Carl grabbed her ever-popular knee. We were a regular rolling gymnasium.

When we reached the theater and left the car, I walked across the parking lot next to Linda. Wonder of wonders, she put her arm around my waist and pulled me against her. Despite the fact that my knees had turned to Play-Doh, I managed to put my own arm around her slender waist. It occurred to me that Linda was suffering a rejection crisis. Her bold, affectionate gestures were an effort to combat her feelings of insecurity. I was willing to bet that she wasn't behaving as she normally would on a first date. I was getting the affection her ex-boyfriend was not here to receive.

Wow. Thanks, Andy!

Linda’s laughing eyes and bright smile were giving me delusions of grandeur. I tried to tell myself that I was just a consolation prize for a broken heart, but my own foolish heart was sitting on the launching pad, and it was all set to blast off into the wild blue yonder of love.

We bought our tickets and went inside the theater. A sparse crowd made it easy to find good seats, and I ended up sitting between Linda and Cindy, with Linda on my right in the aisle seat. She seemed to be fluctuating between bold temptress and demure Southern belle. She couldn’t decide which to be. Her frilly Spanish outfit was suitable for either.

Tonight’s feature was The Great Race, a rerelease of the wacky globe-hopping comedy from two years earlier. It starred Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, and Natalie Wood — who was dangerously close to being as lovely as the lady sitting next to me. That meant my vulnerable male senses were fighting a battle on two fronts — and if you think that’s easy, just look at what happened to Germany when they attacked Russia during World War II. I was a goner, and I knew it. Being Captain of the Bowmen might have helped my self-confidence a little, but I’d have to be Superman to face this female assault without crumbling into tiny pieces the way the planet Krypton did when it blew up for reasons nobody really understands — even the writers of the original comic book.

The opening scenes were all about how the hero, The Great Leslie (Curtis) could do no wrong, while the villain, Professor Fate (Lemmon) couldn’t tie his shoes without getting his nose caught between the laces. Professor Fate had more bad luck in the first fifteen minutes of the movie than that dumb coyote in those cartoons with the roadrunner. Professor Fate was crushed by a falling hot air balloon, blown up by his own torpedo, and nearly drowned in a muddy pigsty after his rocket-propelled rail car made an unplanned blastoff and ran out of fuel two thousand feet in the air.







That part about the muddy pigsty started Carl and me laughing for reasons nobody else in the theater could possibly understand. Carl kept looking at me and remembering what I looked liked when the heroic Bowmen came running back to the Jeep after wallowing around in a ditch. I kept looking at Carl and remembering how Stan sat down in a puddle and splashed around like a two-year-old in the bathtub to get clean enough for Carl to allow him back into the Jeep.

Linda and Cindy just thought we were enjoying the movie, which was fine with them, because laughter is contagious, and they were contracting a fatal case of the giggles.

But when the movie settled down to do a tiny bit of character development, Linda decided to reestablish her control over me by leaning close and taking hold of my arm again. By this time, I was ready for her to take the rest of me, but I was too busy being shy like Clark Kent. I couldn’t work up the nerve to put the steely muscles of my Kryptonian arm over her shoulder. At such close range, the effects of the perfume she wore would be considered illegal in most states. It paralyzed me like Kryptonite, and I sat there helpless and immobile.

Not so with Carl. It was as if Cindy were Kara Zor-El, a.k.a. Supergirl, the Girl of Steel, Superman’s cousin. And Carl’s hand was a magnet drawn to her steel knee with irresistible force. Carl had his right arm over her shoulder while his left hand squeezed her knee black and blue. It surprised me to see Cindy being so tolerant of Carl’s lustful advances. But after a few minutes, my faith in Cindy’s moral convictions was restored when Carl attempted to journey too far north of her kneecap and was halted by a firm feminine hand.

I grinned openly in the dark, happy that Carl could not just undress poor Cindy right there in the theater. I had begun to wonder.

However, things were looking up for yours truly. Linda saw me grinning, and she completely misunderstood the reason — but in a good way. She put her lips close to my ear and whispered soft words that endowed me with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.

“What are you so happy about, Brad?”

Her warm breath on my ear was reason enough to be happy. I said the first thing that came into my dizzy head. “I guess I just like the company I’m keeping.”

Now it was my turn to be squeezed. Linda tightened her grip on my arm and leaned a bit closer, increasing the mesmerizing effects of her perfume. I was now certifiably insane, and anything I did from that moment forward could not be held against me in a court of law.

Linda was thoroughly enjoying the attention she was getting, and she was all too aware of the affect she was having on me. So, it was snuggle-snuggle in the darkened theater while I slowly went mad. By the time the movie was half over, I was ready to go looking for a justice of the peace.

Carl and Cindy, however, were ready to go looking for a motel. Carl’s Marco Polo hands had gone exploring across Cindy’s lovely topography, and I had been following his progress from an uncomfortably close distance. Apparently these two had indulged in more summertime hanky panky than I had realized. I was pretty sure Carl had not yet taken that big step into manhood — but he and Cindy must have been dancing around the subject for weeks. Carl’s bold attack on her physical charms surprised me, though it was plain that the predetermined limits of his conquest were sharp and well defined. This, however, didn’t prevent Carl’s hands from running up to the boundary lines and gazing across at greener pastures. The line under discussion seemed to have been drawn at about mid-thigh, which was certainly higher than my Boy Scout hands had ever ventured.

Though Cindy’s hands invariably countered Carl’s when they reached the Mason-Dixon Line, she always giggled when she halted his advance. This, of course, encouraged him to try again, which he did. Between Carl’s roving hands and Linda’s warm affection, I wasn’t concentrating much on the movie.

It occurred to me that Carl and I were very different people in some ways. Carl wasn’t shy about venturing into new territory, metaphorically speaking. I, on the other hand, sat there immobile while Linda panted into my ear and groped up my bicep.

“Ow!” squealed Cindy as she lurched beneath a sneak attack from Carl, alias Lex Luthor Ladinsky. She whispered some stern words to him, and I saw his hand withdraw to a neutral corner. On my right, Linda chuckled at her friend's predicament. That was the last bit of encouragement I needed. I gently pulled my arm free of her grip and put it around her shoulder. Linda leaned against me with so much determined affection I was almost pushed over into Cindy’s lap, where Carl’s groping hands would have turned me into a mass of bruises before he realized what had happened.

I oh-so-casually laid my left hand on Linda’s knee. It felt impossibly round beneath the Spanish skirt. An electric tingle developed in the palm of my hand, and I knew that in a few seconds my whole body would be vibrating madly like a cartoon character in an earthquake.

However, all seismic activity froze the moment Linda laid her hand on mine. I fully expected her to remove it and call the manager to have me thrown out the rear exit. But she just gave it a little squeeze and snuggled closer.

Holy Moly.

A little voice in my head started giving me helpful advice like don’t forget to breathe and swallow occasionally to moisten your throat. I let my hand slip up one little mischievous inch, like a spider sneaking along a branch. Then I froze and waited for the sirens and the flashing lights and the vice squad.

Nothing happened. Linda was motionless. She looked like a beautiful statue hewn from pink marble by a master sculptor, entitled “Lady of Spain with Spider on Knee.” I was drunk with power, giddy with success — so I sent the spider hopping up another sneaky inch. Though I wasn't actually touching bare thigh, my heart was beating like a jungle drum.

Linda, on the other hand, appeared to have stopped breathing altogether. If she died on me, I knew that her mother, Hawkwoman, would track me across the continent and peck out my eyeballs. I was so amazed at my own lustful behavior that I must have lost my grip on reality, because my grip on Linda’s leg hopped up another inch, bringing it mid-thigh. The point of no return. From here on out, I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions. I would just be a crazed animal whose lust would demand satisfaction. I’d awaken from my trance when it was all over, like Larry Talbot, the Wolf Man from that old black-and-white movie. The theater patrons would surround us, astounded and amazed, while Linda and I would dress hastily and flee in shame.

My wandering brain was yanked suddenly back to reality when Linda suddenly gave a little sob and pulled away from me. “Excuse me, please,” she said and rose to make her way up the aisle toward the lobby.

Cindy whispered to me. “I’ll go see about her.” She squeezed past me and followed Linda out.

Carl gave me a puzzled look in the dim light and whispered, “What did you do, Jones?”

“Nothing! I mean . . . I don’t know.”

But I suspected that Linda had been trying too hard to carry on without old Andy the Evil Ex-Boyfriend, and it had suddenly caught up with her. Carl and I tried to watch the movie for a while, but it was no use. Without a lovely girl sitting next to us, filling our senses and clouding our judgment and raising our blood pressure to life-threatening levels, the movie just seemed like so much light and sound in a big dark room. After fifteen minutes Carl and I gave up and went looking for the ladies. We found them sitting on a bench in one corner of the lobby. Linda was red-eyed and shame-faced. Cindy whispered to Carl, and then Carl whispered to me, and I whispered to Linda that it was okay with me if we didn’t stay for the rest of the movie.

Linda kept her head lowered as we left the theater and moved out into the night. But she took my arm with a ladylike dignity that expressed her need for closeness. She didn’t speak until we were pulling out of the parking lot.

“I’m sorry, Brad. I guess I’m not very good company tonight.”

“I understand. It’s okay.”

She was looking down at her lap, the dark wings of her hair hanging next to both sides of her face, and it was hard to read her expression in the light of passing streetlamps.

“When you put your arm over my shoulder I suddenly felt like I was cheating on Andy. It’s stupid, I know, but I can’t help it.”

And suddenly I felt like a jackal, moving in on a weak prey for an easy kill. Linda had been going through the motions, trying to show affection toward a boy who was attracted to her, just to lift her own morale.

“For a little while I’ll feel okay,” she said softly. “And then, all of a sudden, it will come down on me like a ton of bricks.”

As we passed a streetlamp the backseat lit up for a moment, and I could see the tears on her cheeks. She reached up and pushed back the left side of her hair, hooking it behind her ear as she turned away from me and looked out the window. I gazed at a cheek as soft as velvet and an ear that featured all the tender folds and crevasses a man would ever need to kiss and caress. I wanted to kiss that ear and whisper to her that Andy was a fool. I wanted to make her laugh. I wanted to put my arms around her, smell the fragrance of her hair, nuzzle her neck, and squeeze her knee until she giggled and told me to behave myself.

“Would it help to talk about it?“ I said quietly, eager to do something that would ease the pain.

“No . . . but thanks. I’ll work it out. I’m sorry I spoiled your evening.”

“You didn’t. Somebody else did. I don’t want to mention any names.” I was smiling when she glanced quickly at me, and after a moment, she smiled back. The light of passing streetlights was very becoming to her. Not every girl can claim that.

The rest of the evening was nothing to brag about. We played the radio too loud while we sang along badly with the tunes we knew the words to and worse to the ones we didn’t. Carl showed a flagrant disregard for the fact that the Cadillac got two miles to the gallon by driving us all over Union Point, finding streets that weren’t on any maps. But through it all we lived under the cloud of Andy’s departure. Linda further endeared herself to me by toughing out the situation despite her emotional setback. Carl and Cindy were jovial enough by nature to keep things going, and they filled any conspicuous conversational gaps by goosing each other in semi-erogenous places.

So, all in all, the evening wasn’t a complete disaster. We dropped Linda off at about ten o’clock. As I walked back to the car, I was sure I could feel the hawk-like eyes of Linda’s mother peering out at me from one of the upstairs windows, watching to be sure I didn’t sneak around to Linda’s bedroom and climb up the gutter spout.

Somewhere in that house was a voodoo doll that looked like Andy, created by Linda’ s mother and carefully hidden from mortal eyes. The poor boy probably hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep since he and Linda broke up. He just lay there tossing in his bed, wondering about all those mysterious pains that needled him in the night.

After going to bed I laid awake for an hour, fantasizing about saving Linda’s life as Captain of the Bowmen. Andy would stand to one side, looking confused and ineffectual. Once the danger had passed and my beloved was safe, I’d peel off my mask and reveal my true identify. Linda would gasp, breathe my name inaudibly, and lay a kiss on me that would make my bowstring hum with sympathetic vibrations.

In between my fantasies of heroism I replayed the date in my mind. I remembered forty-three things I wish I’d done differently.

The windows next to my bed were open, and the night sounds of a thousand musical insects drifted in. A big, fat, full moon burned through a gap in the trees on the far side of my backyard and lit up the landscape with a silvery light. The moon reminded me that this would be a good time to fight crime, while the night sky was filled with radiance, and evildoers were denied the safety of the city’s dark shadows.

It would also make the Bowmen a little less likely to trip over stuff.

Unfortunately, we had agreed to lay low for a while after the muddy fiasco with the Battling Bickersons.

But laying low wasn’t the way heroes were supposed to do things. I vowed to tell my friends this the first thing in the morning. As I gazed out the window, sleep gradually hijacked any further thought, and the moonlit landscape did a slow fade-out . . . just like in the movies.

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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