Underground Man

Man, I wish I were anonymous. That guy is everywhere!

I could have been anonymous. This whole thing could have been set up to completely hide my identity. But it didn’t occur to me that there might come a time when I would want to hide. This was supposed to be a writing excercise. I actually told my friends about this blog. Don’t laugh — pity me, the fool. Once I considered asking for a real writing job at an alternative weekly newspaper in Los Angeles. They needed someone, and they didn’t have a lot of money to pay. Perfect gig for me, I thought. I can write like crazy, I’m used to no money, I have a lot of things to say and my insights will be spellbinding to underground L.A. Then tomorrow the world.

But one of the job requirements was this: When you come for your interview, be ready with proof that you can meet a deadline, not just once, not just for a month, but with perfect regularity, for a long time, and I realized that I couldn’t do it. I mean, not that I was incapable of writing on a deadline, but that I hadn’t done it, I had a lot of other projects at the time, and I wasn’t absolutely certain I could pull it off. This is one of my biggest problems in life, I think — too courteous. I could have jacked them around long enough to get a few bylines, be invited to a few parties where there would be free booze and loose women, but no, I had to think ahead (for them!) and make the call that Jones was not right for the job.

That was a long time ago, but ever since then I’ve had it in my mind to someday take a shot at deadline writing. Not that this blog has a deadline, but I figure by writing in it as much as I do I am getting good at cranking stuff out on demand, which is so close to working on a deadline that I can finally be at peace in the knowledge that, hey, there’s one more skill I’ve mastered, on my way to being master of all things.

Also, I have noticed that I feel better if I crank something out that people are interested in, and that causes readers to comment. So I am encouaged to keep at it, in much the same way that a paycheck encourages me to go to work. It’s not a paycheck. It’s a kick.

I got a kick out of my very first real girlfriend. She’s one reason I’d like to be anonymous right now. I was a late bloomer, so I was maybe 15 before I got my hand under anybody’s panties, and they were hers. See, I can’t say her name, because I’m not anonymous. Why did I fuck this up? I can’t start over now. I have blogging buddies now. I will never be able to find new blogging buddies if I stop this blog and start a new, anonymous one.

Anyway, the venue was a ’57 Buick Super. The front seat was almost as big as my living room, so while there was a little bit of twisting around, it was nothing like what kids must go through today, in their Miatas. If any kids read this, let me know how you manage to make out. Tell me all the details. I can’t remember now the first kiss. Isn’t that sad? That first kiss must have been electrifying, because I had been having erections for years, so you know my body was saying find a girl, junior, for quite a while. I mean, I was so ready. I probably don’t remember that kiss because I may have blown my load right on the spot, as it were, and I was then preoccupied with concealing what had happened, and filled with shame at what I had done. Thinking back, I realize that I could not have been fooling her, the little bitch.

Ah, but Young Love! For a year and a half we made out wherever we could, mostly in the car, but also all over her parents’ house, usually while her parents were there, feigning sleep. I was agitated all the time, at school, at home in bed, trying to study, doing my paper route, thinking about her tits, her soft belly, her very generous behind, her eager lips and tongue. We sucked face and felt each other up thoroughly at every opportunity, but we didn’t go all the way. I thought sex without marriage was wrong. She actually attended a Catholic high school. Fucking was out of the question, or so I thought. Geez, I hope she never finds this and looks at the picture in my profile. Oh, lordy.

It wasn’t love, but an incredible simulation. It would have been enough to get us hitched, and then the fucking would have begun in earnest. No doubt we would not have tired of it for a few years, during which time many babies might have been born, and bingo! — instant family! One day we might have looked around and both said “This is not my beautiful house! And who is this person I am tied to forever? Have we ever talked?” I would have grandchildren by now, and they would be listening to hip hop.

But what did happen was that we went to colleges in different cities, and we just… stopped seeing each other. Oh, there are details that I am too ashamed to tell, but suffice to say that our Puppy Love sort of dribbled off. We got together once when we were in college, home for some sad holiday, estranged from each other, and she let me do her, but it was miserable. I knew she was fucking her psychology professor, a worldly older man, and I kept wondering what she thought of me, compared to him. Really miserable, don’t make me tell it.

At least ten years after that, I did a little detective work, found her phone number and called her on her birthday. She was surprised but guarded — who could blame her? We met for lunch, both of us settled now, so you’d think there would be no sexual tension, especially after our miserable final one-nighter. But if she was hot as a teenager (and she was), she was smokin’ as a twenty-something single mom career gal, and I found myself in lust all over again. Oh, Christ, I am really stepping in shit here. You don’t even know.

To my credit, I was a gentleman. I wore a tie and I paid for everything, even though it wasn’t, could not be, a date. In my mind we got a motel room after lunch and I did all the things I should have done when we were in high school, all the things I know now that she would have gladly done with me. In my mind we messed each other up good that afternoon, and every afternoon for a long time, in the park, in elevators, in taxis, on the ferris wheel, on the dining room table, shameless and filthy, wet and breathing hard, not hiding, not concealing anything, flaunting it all, big, bad, dirty fun.

It was a lost opportunity. It probably wouldn’t have gone as well as I pictured it, anyway. I promised myself something that day, and I can’t say here what it was, because I am findable, and not anonymous. But I still call her every year on her birthday, and sometimes we still do lunch. She should be a grandmother by now, but her daughter is a lot like her, and not cooperating. Our worlds are in different orbits, and between birthdays we spin off into distant voids, where we can’t see each other, but the gravity of Puppy Love pulls us back together once a year. I owe her a lot. She wasn’t my first time — she was better than that. She was before my first time.

I might write more about this, but I’m trapped. People could find out about me. I might be exposed. True feelings revealed. Those of you who have stayed behind the curtain, I envy you. Must get underground. I need counseling. I need a violent raquetball game, no thinking, just hitting and scoring. I need a good spanking. I need a fast ride down the coast, big V8 suckin’ gas, runnin’ hot, I’m a runaway with white line fever, a sunset tryst in a real hotel on the edge of the world, white linen tablecloths, white cotton sheets, white terry robes, love letters in the sand, and I will never, ever grow so old again.