rejection. When I had a paper route and one of my customers cancelled their paper I took it personally. I’ve never liked “no” and consequently I’ve been a “yes” guy all my life. The thought of Steve saying no to The Statics would be a no to me and therefore too humiliating to face. I waited, hoping for the right moment.
One day I came face to face with Mr. Flint in the hall.
“Hi,” he said casually without slowing down.
“Uh, heard you play in the gym a while ago,” I began.
“Yeah, that’s a gas,” he replied as he spun around and continued walking backwards.
“I guess you wouldn’t want to quit The G.T.s and join The Statics would ya?” I blurted out, cringing.
“Ah, yeah ... cool,” he answered turning away. “Wanna come to a party?” And off he went. A sovereign so in control of his domain that he could make decisions that would alter the course of the rest of his life, and his subjects, without consultation or even a second thought. It must be great to be King.
There was a pretty girl named Jennifer in my geography class who was dominating all of my fantasy time. My urges towards her were still very innocent. I hadn’t had time to develop any serious perversions yet, or at least didn’t need to embellish the purity of my clean, down-to-earth lust.
Jennifer had long silky brown hair styled like British singer, Cilla Black. She had a cute turned-up nose and big brown eyes. When she locked them on me my heart skipped a beat. She liked to wear tight skirts and low cut blouses. Not that she was any kind of a bad girl. Far from it, she was very sweet.
The party that Steve had invited me to was a make-out session at the home of Hershey in-guy, Dave. Dave's parents were out of town for the weekend.
Fortified by my success with Steve and my invitation to such a hip party, I did the unimaginable; I walked up to Jennifer at her locker after school and said, “I thought maybe you'd like to ... I've been invited to a house party and ...”
She flashed those eyes at me and pretended to be suspicious. “A house party?” she teased, “I know what happens at a house party.”
She turned away but not too far. I took a deep breath. “Would you like to accompany me ... you know, would you go with me?” I asked sounding like a complete moron.
Jennifer smiled at me and said, “Yes.”
Many of the guys were driving now but, as I was still only fifteen, I had no wheels. I was so new to the Hershey Team I didn't feel it was my place to ask one of the guys for a ride. But the promise of nookie overpowered my embarrassment and I picked Jennifer up on foot. She didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she snuggled against me all the way to Dave’s place.
As soon as everyone arrived, all of the couples found a sofa or a chair or a spot on the floor and out went the lights. Jennifer and I flopped into an over-sized armchair. I was panic stricken. I had never really made out with a real-life grown up girl before so I had no idea of how it worked. For a few awkward moments we held each other, frozen in the dark. Suddenly, as if by magic, I understood what it was I must do. There must be a ministry in Heaven that supervises the science of kissing because the second our lips met we were skilled artisans. Our first kiss lasted for two hours. I was bold and she was willing and, while Percy Sledge sang, When a Man Loves a Woman, endlessly on the radio, I expertly explored every curve of her squirmy young body.
My hands, seemingly possessed, knew where to go. One hand examined the treasures under her sweater while the other found its way up her skirt. My trembling fingers touched the forbidden slips, garters, hooks, belts, whistles, straps, wires and frills that until now had only been available to me in my dirty little mind. Jennifer liked it when I fondled her breasts and she got very hot when I stroked her panties. At the height of passion she started moaning and she rammed her tongue down my throat. I figured that must be good. No clothes were removed and there was never even the hint of sex. That secret had not yet been revealed to me. Miraculously, I didn’t go off in my pants.
Afterwards, I floated her home. Our feet never touched the ground. We were enchanted by love. We stood holding each other on her front porch for a long time. She kissed me one last kiss and then she was gone. On my way back to my house late that night I danced in the streets and shouted The Young Rascals’ Good Lovin’ at the top of my lungs.
Churchill announced a February dance which, for some reason, they made a Sadie Hawkin’s Dance (even though the real Sadie Hawkin‘s Day is in November sometime). I was distressed about this because I was the only boy left without a license to drive and knew I would feel like a loser if I had to walk my date to the dance.
Jennifer rushed up to my locker after school. Her wide eyes sparkled like jewels and her radiant smile lit up the hallway. “I just heard about the big dance,” she gushed, “where the girls get to ask the boys!”
She was shaking with excitement. I turned towards my locker and fumbled with my lock. “That's a stupid idea.”
“No! It's a wonderful idea,” she continued undeterred, “has anyone asked you yet?”
The warmth of her luscious body in my arms was so fresh a memory and I could still smell her sweet perfume. “Ah, no; nobody's asked me. You know, I don't think ...”
She tugged on my sleeve and said the words I feared most, “will you go with me?”
I stood there like an idiot with her waiting nervously beside me. The turmoil raging inside me was unbearable. I wanted to be with her, I loved her, but I couldn't even drive her to the dance. My shame was too great to bear.
I muttered, “I ... can’t,” slammed my locker door and hurried away.
Jennifer was the first romance of my life and I fucked it up. She never spoke to me again.
The Statics continued to practice with Mark and Steve. Somehow we had united the two most popular guys in school - both of the coolest international spies of our time, Bond and Flint, together in one band. Neither could play that well but then, neither could I. Mark was proficient but did not have rock & roll in his blood. Steve possessed a little talent but was short on skill. Steve was also hampered by poor equipment; he was playing an Ibanez bass and using a Belltone guitar amp from Sears - pretty low-tech even for 1966.
I was too caught up in the excitement to appreciate just how lousy I really was. I played those drum rolls that had gotten me into the band in the first place very stiffly. They sounded like “I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can”.
Frank and Bob, however, were very good on guitars and vocals and they were both way ahead of everyone in musical style. We dug into a lot of The Pretty Things’ material like, Buzz The Jerk and we did a reasonably fair cover of most of the pop songs on the charts at that time. The Beatles scored a double Number One with both the “A” and “B” sides of their latest, Rain and Paperback Writer. The Stones were in the Top Five with Paint It Black and some of the other hits of the day included; Red Rubber Ball by The Cyrkle, A Groovy Kind of Love by The Mindbenders and Kicks by Paul Revere & the Raiders.
Our last gig as The Statics could have been forgettable but it offered me a lesson in performance that would resonate for years to come. We had been asked to participate in a Battle-of-the-Bands at the school basketball game Friday night. Our rivals, and Steve's old band,
