City Boy

 

                                              By Robert M. Grossman

 

 

 

         His cousin Jake was two months younger but always seemed ahead of him. Even though Philip was from the big city, he learned from Jake’s small town ways. Jake was the first to teach him how to shift gears in the family Oldsmobile. He showed him how to cast a line in the stream in back of his house. He taught him how to play pool at the hall near their grandpa’s fur store. He was the first to get him laid.

 

         Philip was from Chicago and Jake from Bloomington, which was about three hours straight south on Route 66. Their grandfather, like so many who came to America around the beginning of the 20th century, crossed the Atlantic in the steerage of a vessel, landed in New York, then moved on. His path took him to Terre Haute, Indiana and finally, after a few other stops, to Bloomington, Illinois. It could just as easily have been Decatur, Danville, Kankakee or, come to think of it, Winesburg, Ohio. He was skilled in the fur business, so in due course he opened his own store. After four years of getting things off the ground, he returned to Poland and brought the rest of the family to the new world. It was the same story for so many eastern European, Jewish immigrants that settled in small towns throughout the Midwest during that period. There were too few of them to be a threat to the Christian folk, and besides they were generally good business people, good citizens and good neighbors.

 

          Philip was 16 at the time he convinced Jake to take him to the local brothel, which turned out to be not all that far from their grandparents’ house. It had apparently been there for years, quietly accepted by the community. Philip was home for the summer from his first year away at prep school where there were no girls on campus and no brothels in town. He was ready.

 

          As soon as he arrived at his grandparents’, he ditched his sister and brother and raced over to his uncle’s house to tell Jake what he had in mind. Jake said he would take care of it that night. After a big family dinner, the two of them casually departed, telling everyone they were going to a party over by the lake.

 

         When they arrived at the brothel, the madam, who was clearly in charge, greeted Jake with a knowing smile. Philip couldn’t take his eyes off the girls who were lounging on soft-cushioned couches in their bathing suits and bathrobes. The lamps were dimly lit but bright enough to make out their inviting features.

 

         Jake asked if Joanne was available.

 

         “For you, Jake, sure. She’s got a break now. Joanne, come on over.”

 

         “She’s not for me tonight. I brought my cousin Phil for her. He’s from Chi town.”

 

         Philip felt like shrinking into the corner. The thought of squeezing him into a tight schedule with someone that Jake had been with time and again made him want to retreat to his grandma’s house. But as Joanne approached in her deep red bathing suit, he could see that she was only a few years older and actually quite pretty. He immediately focused on her breasts which were partially hidden but uncovered enough to keep his eyes bulging towards them.

 

         She smiled at him after nodding at Jake, took him by the hand and led him up the stairs of the quaint, old house. The hallway on the second floor was decorated with wallpaper that looked the same as at his grandma’s, and the bedroom was as warm and cozy as the one he slept in there. As soon as he gave her the three dollars, she squirmed out of her bathing suit, which she let drop to the floor, and helped him off with his clothes.

 

         “Jake told me this is your first time. Just do what I say.”

 

         Philip was so consumed by the sight of her breasts that he paid little attention to anything else. She gave him a condom and then led him to the bed, placing him on top of her. He immediately propped his chin in the palm of his hands so he could continue to stare at her breasts as they bobbled right in front of his eyes. In the meantime, she guided him into her and directed him to start moving up and down. As he began, he had the immediate feeling that he had inserted a plunging rod into a car engine whose oil was in serious need of a change. It was obviously not what he expected - whatever that was - and he couldn’t wait ’til it was over. He continued to suffer his sandpaper journey until she tapped him on the shoulder and told him he was through. He quickly but carefully removed himself.

 

          She got up and went straight to the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Philip glowered at the ceiling. “Is this it?” he pleaded almost out loud. He quickly began to focus on how to elicit some benefit from this ghastly initiation. He saw her bathing suit lying on the floor where she had squirmed out of it. If she couldn’t find it when she came out, he could at least watch her breasts bobble about as she went from place to place looking for it.

 

          He reached down and grabbed it. There was a closet facing him, so he opened the door and pitched it as far back as it would go. He then gently closed the door, quickly dressed himself and quietly sat down on the bed.

 

          Joanne came out of the bathroom and stared at the floor where the bathing suit had been. Philip, for his part, stared at her wondrously voluptuous breasts.

 

          “Where’s my bathing suit?”

 

          “I haven’t seen it. Did you put it in a drawer?”

 

           She walked over to the dresser and opened each drawer. His eyes stayed riveted.

 

           “You know I didn’t put it there. Where is it?”

 

           “I really don’t know,” he lied.

 

          “Get up,” she ordered him.

 

           He got off the bed. She loosened the covers and ran her hands down both sides of the mattress all the way to the bottom corners. Then she looked under the bed. He continued to gaze with delight.

 

          “It’s not here.”

 

           She next went to the door to the room, opened it and eyed the hallway, probably thinking he had thrown it out there. Finally, it occurred to her that the closet would be a good place to look. Philip watched while she got down on her knees and worked her luscious rear end as far into the closet as it would go, realizing that this would be his last chance to observe any part of the forbidden fruit. And, indeed, it was, since she soon found where he had thrown it. She placed it over the front of her body as though he had somehow accidentally caught her naked, pointed to the door and told him to get out and never come back.

 

            Over the years Philip visited the family in Bloomington but, as commanded by Joanne, he never returned to the brothel. Jake, who certainly would have succeeded in the big city, decided to stay there, making his mark in business and with Joanne. He never married and died at the young age of 38. The brothel died with him.

 

            Philip continued to live in the big city, but had lasting memories of all Jake taught him. There are those who try to bring the nostalgia of small town America into the present, often reinventing “the good old days” that weren’t. Philip’s approach is not quite as politically correct. Each morning before he heads for his downtown office, he opens the door to his closet, gazes wistfully towards the floor and as far back as he can see, then makes a selection from the array of double-breasted suits on hangers he has collected over the years, deciding which one to wear that day in memory of Joanne.