Mae West and Her Clichés
by Peter Lieber
Mae West once said, "Give a man free hands and you'll know where to find them." The flaccid stereotypes lying therein give me pause, but my species ceases to do much to combat the theory. My challenge to Ms. West would be to locate the free hands of the feminine persuasion and tell me honestly if she didn't find them in roughly the same places.
At Ocean Park High School, Jessica Walters could put her hands anywhere she pleased, and much to the chagrin of the other 227 males who prepped there, she chose to exclusively leave her mitts to the scrupulous utilization of Dennis, "Froggie," McGeehan, my best friend since elementary school.
Froggie's prep school legend borrows its storyline from the litany of tales starring handsome athletes who brought fame and glory to rural American towns through their exploits on the athletic fields of battle. But Froggie's plot had a twist. God had endowed Froggie with the will to use his brain instead of relying wholly on his brawn. He stopped at nothing to escape the limelight when the prototypical legend usually ended up sponging the leftover accolades of townspeople who brag to their neighbors about having personal relationships with them. They ended up bloated and aged, working at the local mill or pier, coaching part-time, living on the free drinks sent down the bars of their local watering holes by crotchety old-timers who spent their days and nights rehashing the glory years of other people.
Froggie boxed up the accolades - the trophies, ribbons, medals, plaques, certificates, newspaper articles and even the high school yearbook. He put them in storage. He erased his days in Ocean Park, Maine. He left the frigid waters of Saco Bay behind, bid its trails adieu, turned his back on its rocky shores. He left Jessica behind too. She was off to the University of Maine. Straight up 95. Someone had put Froggie in the country's corner, and now he would bust out, feed his brain a world away from the tourist towns, the fresh fish, the calm monotony of small-town Maine.
I followed him south, dropped anchor at Brown. Froggie at Columbia. There was ivy growing between us. We dove into it. We garnered degrees, graduate degrees. We met women. We settled down to families in Long Island towns. Froggie planted his flag on the north shore in Port Washington. I took my clan south to Massapequa. Both were coast towns, just like Ocean Park, but less rocky, less salt in the air. Our visits home were limited and spent with family. We had our own shores now.
We went to Yankee-Sox games together, rooting for the Sox, scoffing at our transplanted status. Our kids played together on weekends. We took boat trips. We were happy. Our wives were fine, strong women who were good mothers to our children. They were attractive and passionate, fun-loving and caring. We were lucky to have escaped. We had found what we were looking for.
Froggie and I walked down the concourse ramp at the stadium after Game Seven, sporting our demure Sox lids, secretly hugging and slapping five at every opportunity while slightly fearing for our lives. The curse had been reversed. The Sox had finally thrown that fat fuck off their backs. Our fingers and toes were numb, not because of the autumn chill, but because of the euphoria of grown men when other grown men triumph over other grown men. Because of the embroidered B that proudly slapped every New York lifer in the grill that night. Because finally.
We squeezed through the stadium gates, sneaking knowing winks and smiles to other Boston fans that had bravely sported their colors. In the parking lot, New Yorkers cursed and pouted, whined and moaned like it had been 86 years since their last title. Of course, we hadn't won it yet, but this was the Yankees. We had just removed the casts off our legs. We could now sprint toward a championship.
A group of women ran past us and one jumped on Froggie, planting her lips firmly on his. She was drunk, as evidenced by the warm stench of rum on her breath and the disheveled manifestation of her entire ensemble, including hair and make-up. Her friend pulled her down.
"Let go, Marissa," she said. "He's not Derek Lowe!!"
"Wait, this guy is cute," Marissa stammered.
"Leave him alone," the friend said, turning her attention to Froggie for the first time. She had her Sox hat pulled down low. "Sorry about her."
"Not a problem," Froggie replied. "F the Yanks! Go Sox!"
She held on to her friend's arm and suddenly stood completely still. We kept walking.
"Froggie?" she asked tentatively. Her voice had a raspy tint that I knew he would answer.
"Jessica?" he replied pleasantly. "Oh my God, what are you doing here? I haven't seen you in.Jesus, what's it been?"
"At least ten years."
"Are you just down for the game?"
"Well, God forbid I give these people the satisfaction of knowing I slinked into their evil world, but I actually live out in West Chester."
"Get outta here, for how long?"
Understanding the nature of this encounter, I took a rest by leaning up on a Range Rover and steering clear of any part of the conversation. Until, of course, I was pulled in.
"For about five years now. Oh my God, is that Wesley?"
"Hi, Jess," I said, as she wrapped her arms around me in a hello. She smelled of perfume and beer and the ballpark. It was sexy as all hell. She had dirty blond hair sitting on her shoulders. She wore a tank top under a jean jacket and her clavicle bulged in the same inviting manner I remembered from underneath a thin scarf she had wrapped around her neck. I noticed Froggie staring at her ass. He remembered too.
"I can't believe you guys are here! Marissa, I went to high school with these guys in Ocean Park."
Marissa's head rolled, half nodding in acknowledgement, half in an effort to fall off its perch on her shoulders.
"I think your friend is gonna miss the celebration."
"I'm taking her to her husband now. She'll be fine. So, what about you two? What's the deal?"
"We live on Long Island," Froggie said. "We're working in Manhattan. I'm in publishing. Chuckles over here is in finance.
"Married?"
"Yeah, both of us," I blurted, somehow feeling threatened by her presence, as if she stood for all the things we worked for so long to get away from. Somehow, it was as if she were sent to knock us down from the lives we had built up. We bumped into her in a parking lot and my paranoia, unchallenged for years, surfaced faster than a Seawolf class tearing for periscope depth.
"That's great," she said, steadying her friend. "Well, listen, if I don't get her to her husband in a minute I'm gonna have a mess on my hands." She reached into her purse with her free hand, the one with the three karat rock drawing more attention than all the headlights in the parking lot. "Here's my card, Froggie. I would really love to get together with you guys and catch up. Call or e-mail me this week and we'll set something up."
She promenaded away, laughing with the drunken girl, more than likely rehashing in her head the dozens of lascivious positions she had bent and stretched into for Froggie's benefit all those years ago.
"Damn," Froggie said. "Why'd we want to move again?"
"Because you'd be sitting at McGinn's right now, cursing the Yankees with Mr. McCade, most likely while he threw up behind you. You'd be fat, old and poor and have nothing but trophies and ass kissers to your credit."
"Ah, the good ole days," he laughed.
"Besides, she doesn't live up there, anyway. And, you're both married, so don't get any ideas."
On the contrary, the ideas had already begun bubbling like water in a tea kettle. He e-mailed her the next day, telling her how nice it was to see her. Her response wasted no time in suggesting they get together, and somehow, as I figured, I was thrown right into the middle of it.
Hey Froggie,
It was a riot bumping into you! Almost as fun as the Sox finally beating those pricks. I only have a minute, but I wanted to see if you wanted to grab some dinner in town this week. I was thinking Thursday, and with Wesley too of course! It would be nice to get out of the house and talk about old times. I love New York but sometimes I miss the quiet of home. Call me this week. My cell is in the contact info.
Kisses.
Jess
"She wants to go out this Thursday," he blurted, calling from his office.
"Are you gonna go?"
"Yeah, but so are you, right? She specifically said to bring you."
"Oh, fuck that. Don't drag me into this. You know this has nothing to do with me. She has absolutely no reason to want to sit through a meal with me except that she might find that you've turned into a colossal jerk and my being there saves her the awkward moment when she may just have to tell you that she doesn't want to have an affair with you."
"Whoa, who said anything about having an affair? It's just dinner with old friends."
"Would you tell Carrie about it?" I asked, referring to his wife.
"I doubt it. She knows who Jess is. Why would I want to go through that clichéd conversation if nothing is going to happen?"
Because that conversation is not a cliché. I've seen marriages end over it."
""Oh, my God, will you shut the hell up. Melrose Place doesn't count. You're coming. We never go anywhere without the families anymore."
Not only did I have to go through the ridiculous exercise of acting like I wanted to be out, rollicking in anecdotes about backseat assignations and last second heroics both in the bedroom and on the field, I had lied to my wife to cover for Froggie's lie to his. All guys lie to their wives. Whether it's habitual or rare, it happens. You could just be in a mood and want to stop by the bar for a drink on the way home. You don't want to hear it, so you don't tell her. She could ask you if you drank milk straight from the carton. You don't want to hear it, so you don't tell her. And whether the beer is still on your breathe or the milk is still mustached, you get over the lie, because it was small. It was your own. I had lied for him. We hit the 21 Club for dinner. Froggie brought a lot of his clients there and he walked into the Bar Room as if he were Humphrey Bogart himself strolling to his regular table. The place was what bar elegance would be if it were sponsored by the corporate world. It had all the right sports memorabilia. It had all the right corporate gifts. Froggie might have thought long and hard about lugging his box of accolades down from Maine and offering them up for the New York elite to huff and puff over.
Jess looked stunning, grown-up in a New York kind of way. Long gone were the days of pony tails and bubble gum. Now there were pinstripes and pearls, a low neck line, silk blouses and facials and long-legged sophistication. Froggie may as well have strapped on a bib. We talked about family, our schooling, our homes and professions. Froggie and Jess stared at each other like prey, like true New Yorkers who size up something they want before taking it down.
"So Wesley," she said, remembering that I was in the room. "Do you remember that time out at Bar Harbor, at your parent's summer place?"
"Which time? We went out there every summer."
"The time you had the party where Billy Ceffarati fell off the deck and broke his foot," she reminisced, never taking her eyes off her glass of First Growth Bordeaux or him, as long as she didn't look too obvious.
"Yeah, he got up to pee in the middle of the night and wandered outside. He fell off the deck trying to pee off of it."
"Right, holy shit," Froggie chimed in. "I remember that."
"Do you remember where you were when it happened?" she asked Froggie.
"No, I guess I was asleep."
"You weren't," I said. "Right, Jess?"
"Well, I should hope not."
"Wait, what am I missing? Where was I?"
"My parents weren't out there that weekend. You guys slept in their room, below the deck on the patio near the boat slip."
"Yeah, ok," Froggie answered, still not getting the memory Jess seductively attempted to plant in his head.
"Where are you going with this, Jess?" I asked.
"Apparently, nowhere," she said. "I never realized how insignificant my treatment of Mr. Superstar over here was in those days."
She picked at a Baby Arugula Salad with a fork and her eyes started whimpering. She must have had men wrapped around whatever she wanted in this town.
"So, now I'm the bad guy," Froggie said. "What am I missing here?"
"Wesley knows. Don't you, Wes?"
"This is asinine, Jess. You want to know, Frog? I'll tell ya. Jess has not lost any of her talents from the old days. She still knows how to hold your attention. That night, I didn't know you guys were in that room. I just assumed I would sleep there so I walked in. You were relaxed, so to speak, so you didn't notice. But Jess did."
She stared at Froggie, willing the memory out of him. She wanted him to remember what it felt like to have her hands on him, to feel her mouth on him. She was using me to jog those memories. I was feeding her exactly what she wanted, and at the same time fueling what I had hoped I would be able to help avoid.
"She was naked and on top of you," I continued, unable to look him in the eye. "She saw me and she didn't scream. She smiled and proceeded to go down on you until there was a loud thud and your attention turned to Billy Ceffarati outside, bellowing in pain. She got up and walked past me into the bathroom while you ran outside to see what was going on."
"You were in the room?" Froggie asked. "I must have been pretty drunk."
"Yeah, well, she said something to me on her way into the bathroom and I swore that I would leave that town, that piece of shit worthless town, after that."
"Do you remember what I said?"
"You said that would never be me in a town as small as Ocean Park. You said I would always be on the outside looking in on guys like Froggie."
In the days of Prohibition, the 21 Club was called Jack and Charlie's 21. You couldn't find a bigger speakeasy in New York City. Prohibition was a funny word to be throwing around that table. It was all prohibited. The temptations between two people who left a place to get away from its trivial traditions, its stereotypes, hovered like the thick smoke that used to hover over that room in the days of Sinatra or Hemingway. As for me, I had seen enough.
I excused myself to the restroom and didn't return. I slipped the waiter a couple hundred on my way out the door, not that it would have mattered to Froggie. I don't know what happened the rest of that evening, but it was a week before I heard from my friend again. He didn't have anything to say about it. I didn't ask. If he fell into temptation's hole, I'll feel sorry for him more than anything else. Mae West would have had a point. But more than anything, if he needed the thrill, to feel like a legend again, all he needed to do was get in a car and drive north.