The Laughing Cherub Blog

COME EARLY, STAY LATE: A CHRISTMAS STORY

2011-12-24T12:27:00.016-06:00

BY MARY ELIZABETH RAINES

On Christmas Eve, 1998, my father spoke to me the best words that anyone could say.

Let's back up for a moment. Daddy had been a stern man. He was a minister. Even though he took his faith seriously, he did not really know how to express love and tenderness. I perceived him as a harsh, rigid, distant and critical parent. It took me many years to get over my resentments about that, but I did.

Rev. David A. Leach, 1921-1999

Back to Christmas Eve. Daddy and I were on the phone, making plans for the next day, Christmas, when I was going to make a trip to the senior community where he and my mother lived. They had been divorced for many years, but curiously, in their old age, they’d both moved across the country to live in the same retirement community. Each had a separate apartment. I doubt if they were romantic, but they did enjoy one another’s companionship.

“What time would you like me to come?” I asked my father.

And here is where he spoke the Best Words that anyone could say to another human being.

“I want you to come early and stay late,” he said.

I was blown away. Think about how incredible those words are! A person has to like you a lot to say that. With my father, I'd never been sure about being liked.

Christmas Day was wonderful. Mother, usually a very dominant and chatty person, faded into the background, and allowed it to be a time of sharing between my father and me. We talked and talked.

"Unless you're the lead dog on the sled team, the view is pretty much the same," he remarked wryly at one point in our day. For all his sternness, you see, Daddy possessed a wonderful dry humor.

In his apartment was a fabulous and expensive crèche made of paper mache.

Among the elegant figures, however, he had planted a silly-looking, out-of-place plastic lamb. It was supremely ugly.

I picked it up. “What’s this?”

“That?" he grinned with a twinkle in his eye. "Oh, that’s the black sheep.”

Later that Christmas afternoon, we took a walk. My father had always been a cynic; for him, the glass was not just half empty, but would doubtless soon be dropped and broken. Thus, on our walk I asked, “Daddy, what’s it been like to be a pessimist all these years?”

“Wonderful,” he replied with a glowing smile. “Everything has always turned out to be much better than I ever expected!”

As night fell during our visit that Christmas, an ambulance pulled up to the health care center next door to his apartment. My father's energy faded visibly at the sound. I thought it might be because of a recent experience of his. He'd needed to go to the emergency room for a bowel obstruction, which turned out to be the after-effect of a minor surgery he’d had a number weeks ago.

Daddy described what that visit had been like, and it wasn't pleasant.

“They shoved a tube down my throat to look at my stomach,” he said. I noticed that he began clenching his fist so hard that the knuckles lost their color.

He continued.“It was the single most painful thing I have ever felt in my life. I would rather die than have that done to me again,” he said. Vehemently.

These words came from a man who was so stoic that he once ate a whole chicken dinner when he had the stomach flu just to set an example for his children; his belief was that no matter what, you don’t cave in to illness. A nurse later confirmed that the particular procedure he described was possibly the most painful thing that could be done in an emergency room without anesthetic in those days. Certainly that was the case for my father.

I am a hypnotherapist, and know that not only can we alleviate pain easily; in some cases we can even create complete anesthesia.

“Daddy,” I said, “if that situation should ever happen to you again, call me right away before they stick the tube in you. Either I’ll drive out, or I’ll get the best hypnotist in the area to the hospital, and you won't have to undergo that kind of pain…”

But he did not listen to what I said. Even though I have an international reputation as a hypnosis teacher and writer, to him I was just a child who didn’t understand.

He repeated his words: “I would rather die than have that done to me again.” The statement turned out to be prophetic.

That night, when I said goodbye, I spontaneously hugged and kissed my father. While it might not sound like a big deal to most people, it was to me. My relationship with him had always had a cool distance to it, and our family simply did not touch. The hug and the kiss sprang from my heart, though, and not from my mind.

And as I hugged him, tears began spilling from his eyes. It was a sweet, quiet, and yet monumental moment of love and healing. We both felt it. Daddy's tears melted away the remnants of any of the difficulties we’d ever had.

“I love you,” he said, his voice choking softly.

I left, and still remember how he stood at the top of the stairs and watched until I was out of the door.

And that is the last time I ever saw my father conscious. Less than a week later, I received a phone call. He had been taken by ambulance to a large city hospital where he had been put on machines to keep him alive.

It turned out that once again my father had experienced the symptoms of a bowel obstruction. Rather than go to the emergency room and have that tube shoved down his throat again, however, he told no one. For four days he stayed alone in his apartment, vomiting, as his bowels began to perforate and his organs started to shut down. The medical staff couldn’t understand why he didn't call for help, but I knew. When they finally got him to the emergency room, he was the sickest man in the entire hospital.

And what was the first thing they did? Shove a tube down his throat.

His words echoed in my mind: “I would rather die than have that done to me again.”

And so he did.

For four days I stayed at his side as he lay there in an induced coma. Finally, it was time to pull the plug on the machines keeping him alive, and it was up to me to make the decision.

I still remember the nightmarish sensation of walking down the hall of that hospital, knowing that I had been handed the power to choose the day and hour when my own father would die. It was the most anguishing experience of my life, no matter how necessary or right. I was pronouncing a death sentence on my own father.

After they turned the machines off, the monitor that beeped in conjunction with his heartbeat gradually began to slow down. Finally, there was silence. His heart had stopped. I fell across his chest and cried, “Oh, Daddy!” As I did that, to my astonishment his heart actually began to beat again: thump thump thump. What a testimony to the power of love! And what a wrenching moment! It couldn't keep on, however; his heart soon stopped beating for good.

Some of those who have had near-death experiences claim that after the body dies, we go through a life review where our soul sees and feels each reverberation and consequence of everything we have ever done to anyone in our life, good or bad. My prayer was that my father not see or know that anything he'd said or done had ever harmed me in the least way. Forgiveness is a grace, and that grace healed all the negativity that had ever occurred between us.

I still keep the ugly little plastic lamb from the Nativity scene at my desk.

And I will always remember the Best Words in the World:

“I want you to come early, and stay late.”

*****

(c) M. E. Raines, all rights reserved. Please do not reproduce in part or in whole in any form. Feel free to share links to this true story.
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WHEN I WAS KINKY

2011-09-06T23:13:00.007-05:00

by MARY ELIZABETH (LEACH) RAINES

For a while, I lived in Hollywood. During my time there, my dating life was almost non-existent.

Here’s why:
1. I was not thin.
2. I was not blonde.
3. I was not a member of the Academy.
4. I was not rich.
5. I had never had botox or lip plumper, and I possessed my original breasts.
6. I was not bi-curious.
7. My idea of doing drugs was to take an aspirin if I had a headache.

That said, I did become the focus of heightened sexual attention one night. It was, as they say, waaaay cool! I was at a party and my becoming an object of lust was completely accidental. It happened like this:

Sometimes by chance, everyone in a room stops talking at the same time and there is a space of awkward silence. We’ve all been there. At the party I was attending, just such a gap occurred—a surprise lull in the flow of chatter. All conversation suddenly dropped away.

Well, almost all. Except for mine. I happened to be making a comment to another party-goer at that very moment. As the other sounds ceased, my remarks were amplified, projected boisterously into the otherwise dead room.

Here’s what I said: “I can get really kinky.”

Everyone heard me.

My declaration was followed by several seconds of stunned silence—reverence, perhaps. (It being Hollywood and all.) Then it was as if someone had turned on the floodlights. In a flash, I became the object of intense and fascinated scrutiny by more than a few turned-on party-goers. I felt sexy! I felt desirable! By golly, it was fun.

They liked me. They REALLY liked me!

But it didn’t last long.

My short sweet burst of popularity came to an abrupt end when the truth about my purported kinkiness emerged. I had only been describing what happens to my hair when it’s humid outside.

Sigh.

Even though my love life was sparse in those years, it wasn’t totally devoid of romance. (For proof, see my previous post, The Movie Star Who Wanted Me.) Occasionally I even dated. Once, for instance, I met a man in a café, and we went out to a nightclub the next evening. He was a well-mannered and good-looking European man who held some promise, even if he was a tad dull…dull, that is, until the end of the evening, when he managed to turn the conversation to a new topic.

My would-be beau began telling me, with animation, about certain women he knew who enjoyed wearing dog collars. That's right. Dog collars. As he spoke, his pupils grew larger—and maybe other parts of him as well. There were some clear hints that he enjoyed being the one who held the leash.

I imagine he was looking for Ruff-Ruff sex.

My response was that I needed to go home (alone!) and do some drugs right away (please note what my propensity for drugs entailed in the introductory paragraph, #7).

Okay, so I was mostly dateless when I lived in Hollywood. I was, however, well entertained, for I lived in a strange little compound populated by movie and TV folk who were themselves somewhat kinky.

In this eccentric show-biz community, for instance, lived Gary, a cameraman from the original Twilight Zone series who wound up committing suicide by hanging himself; we found his body swinging from the rafters. But that’s a story for another day, and yeah, probably not the most shining example I could give of being entertained.

So, okay, another resident of our compound was Santa Claus. Well, actually it was an actor named Harry, but he looked exactly like Santa, with the requisite round tummy, twinkling eyes, snub nose, white beard and jolly laugh.

Harry had started out playing Falstaff in the theater, and had gone on to earn a modest living with bit parts on TV shows like Cheers, Knots Landing, Batman and Night Court. It was when he reached his senior years that Harry found the perfect niche. He became a professional Santa Claus, and enjoyed modest success playing Saint Nick in a number of movies, commercials and TV shows.

Not long after I’d moved into the compound, my landlord, Bob, and I were chatting one afternoon on the street in our favorite spot next to the garbage cans (more about that later), when Harry-aka-Santa came down the steps of his apartment. He walked over to a parked car, where a friend of his emerged.

Lo and behold, Harry’s friend was another Santa look-alike, right down to the cherubic smile and rosy cheeks! The two were the same height, the same heft, had the same white flowing hair and beards, and were even dressed in identical garb. Both wore purple t-shirts. I couldn’t tell one from the other! Confused, I looked at Bob.

“All the professional Santa Clauses in Hollywood know each other,” he said. "They belong to a club."

As I watched, the two Santys hugged. Their hug grew in intensity. They wrapped their chubby arms around each other in an embrace and, belly pressed against belly, gave one another an extremely generous and lengthy kiss. Full on the lips. My jaw dropped and I stood there by the garbage bins, dumbfounded.

Although it may have made my story spicier if I were able to relate having had an affair with Santa Claus, this was not to be. Harry, as it turns out, was quite gay. But at least I can say in all honesty that—hold onto your hats—I saw Santa kissing Santa Claus.

The aforementioned garbage bins from our complex were a favorite gathering place of ours. Whenever cops came into the neighborhood—frequently—or a movie star disembarked from a limo at the studio across the street—also frequently—we would stand by the garbage cans to stare or gossip or exchange greetings.

It was also a fantastic place to hunt for treasures. Most of them were contributed by Lotsa Lotty, a member of our community who had at one time been a famous stripper and porn star.

In her heyday, she’d possessed silicone breasts the size of human heads. Now, decades past her prime and flat-chested after a double mastectomy, she buzzed around the compound in her bathrobe, glasses and curlers, sweeping the sidewalk—for she was a compulsive cleaner—and chattering into her telephone headset.

As a newcomer to the compound, I’d become alarmed one day when I heard groans and screams coming from behind Lotty’s closed door. I ran to Berta, the former Broadway actress who lived across the patio, and breathlessly suggested that we should call 911 because Lotty was making funny noises.

Instead of responding to my panic, Berta sank back onto her divan—Berta spent most of her days reclining on her divan—and murmured, “Oh, I’m so glad to hear that. Lotty really needs the money.”

It turned out that Lotty, no longer in demand as a porn star, earned her living by doing phone sex. I grew accustomed to seeing her standing at her kitchen sink, ferociously scrubbing a frying pan and waving cheerfully at me through the open window, while crooning words into her headset like, “Oh yes, yes, whatever you want, baby…oooh, ahhh, it’s huge…”

Back to the garbage bins. Even in retirement, Lotty often received gifts from her still-avid fans, for she had become a kind of cult figure. Her philosophy was easy-come/easy-go, and she despised clutter. Thus, whenever she grew tired of something, or if a gift wasn’t quite to her taste, she discarded it immediately, regardless of its worth. Lotty would even throw out expensive clothing when she got tired of it, despite the fact that she could have made a tidy amount of cash taking her used garb to a shop that specialized in reselling the clothing of former stars.

A person could find anything from designer pocketbooks to jewelry to appliances lying on top of our garbage cans, waiting for some enterprising scrounger—or me!—to give the unwanted stuff a new home.

One day I noticed a hair dryer sitting on the garbage cans. It was a big hair dryer. I needed a hair dryer, and this one looked as good as new. Snatching it up, I took it home and tested it. It worked wonderfully and immediately joined my bathroom appliances.

It wasn’t until some weeks later that I had the opportunity to ask Lotty why she had thrown out a perfectly good hair dryer.

“Oh, it’s because of one of my phone-sex clients,” she said. “He likes to call me up and ask me to ‘do it’ with my hair dryer while he talks to me. One day he sent me a new hair dryer to use, so I threw out the old one…”

By association, my hair may be even kinkier than one would ever want to know.

(c) 2011, M. E. Raines
Copying or reproducing in any form prohibited. Please feel free to link to this article.

See Mary Elizabeth Raines' newly released novel, UNA, on Amazon

THE MOVIE STAR WHO WANTED ME (AND HOW I WAS SAVED BY COMMUNISM)

2011-06-16T23:28:00.011-05:00

MARY ELIZABETH RAINES

Wow! A movie star wanted me. Me!

And yes, I mean “wanted” exactly in the sense that you’re thinking.

I had never thought anything like that could happen to me, although I’d certainly dreamt about it. All of us—at least those with normal hormones and reasonable imaginations—have entertained the fantasy of having a romantic encounter with a movie star. Even movie stars themselves sometimes get crushes on other movie stars.

Robert Redford (you’ve heard of him, right?) tells of a time when he was a starving young artist in Rome, before becoming an actor. He spotted Ava Gardner and her entourage in a restaurant, and went a bit gaga over seeing the famous temptress. Gardner noticed, called the smitten young man to her side, and gave him a little kiss.
In the films he's made since that time, Redford has kissed many of the world’s most desirable actresses, and in his private life he is happily married—yet, what does he talk about with a moony smile and a far-away look? Having a crush decades ago on a movie star who acknowledged him and actually gave him a smooch! We can all fall prey to fantasies about those we see on the silver screen, you see.

And now it was my turn.

I had become the object of desire of my very own bona-fide movie star, whom I shall call Chad. Chad was a genuine star, too, not just some minor actor who’d spoken a few lines in a B film.

Maybe you’re thinking Chad was ugly, and thus easy to get. (I’m not superficial in the least, but hey, let’s get real: being attractive increases a person’s odds. Ava Gardner would probably not have summoned an unknown Karl Malden and given him a kiss.)(For those who don't know, Karl Malden was a first-rate actor, now deceased, who possessed a bulbous nose and an unfortunate face.) Not every lead actor is good-looking, especially if he’s straight.

My movie star, however, was both beautiful and completely heterosexual. In fact, he was so handsome that there were stories of women who’d keeled over and fainted when they saw him take off his shirt on the giant screen. Maybe a few guys, too. (I presume that they fainted from lust, although, to be fair, the theater might have been overheated.)

All females know Chad’s type. You usually see him on the covers of romance novels: that kind of chiseled, masculine man who makes any woman passing by want to drop both her grocery bags and her pants, fling herself down on the sidewalk, open her legs and cry, “Take me now!”

When he fell for me (hah!), Chad was definitely not a kid any more, but still gorgeous enough to cause massive major-league drooling. His thick hair was perfect, tousled to just the right aw-shucks degree, yet fitting for the finest black-tie affair. His clothing revealed just a bit of bare chest here, just a ripple of an arm muscle there. His lips seemed designed to curl around the rim of a champagne glass, and his charming grin revealed luminous white teeth befitting a toothpaste commercial. If he chanced to glance at a woman, his bedroom eyes twinkled as if he knew all her secret fantasies—and liked them.

In Chad’s most famous film, he’d had numerous love scenes with a well-known and very beautiful actress, whom I shall call Linda.

“Chad,” I once asked him, “what was it like kissing Linda in all those romantic scenes you had together?”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” he replied slowly, a great big likeable grin spreading over his face, “The very first time we were in a clinch, it was a scene where we were sitting in a car. The cameras started to roll, so I kissed her. After the director yelled ‘Cut,’ Linda turned to the cameraman and hollered, ‘Retake!’”

By this point, you are probably frantic to know all the finer details of the affair I had with Chad.

The movie star.

Except that I didn’t have one.

You see, by the time I knew him, Chad was nearly 90 years old. Granted, he was the hottest nearly-90-year-old man I’d ever met, but the age difference was still daunting. He could have been my grandfather.

He had reached the pinnacle of his stardom during the 1940s. This explains why women in the cinemas fainted when they saw him shirtless. Women tended to do that more in the 1940s than they do now. (Today a shirtless man would have to be playing a guitar and screaming into a microphone to get that kind of attention.)

Chad’s Hollywood career had been cut short because he was a member of the communist party; he had been blacklisted during the McCarthy era, and no one would hire him to star in any more films, or so he claimed.

In addition to being a communist, Chad tended be a little quirky. He was, for example, the only self-proclaimed nudist I have ever met. I personally never saw him strip down, but in his younger years, he apparently frequented nudist camps. (Which makes me wonder if communists have nudist camps…hmm.)

Another quirk was that Chad had once been what they called a Muscle Man. He worked out and lifted barbells long before it became popular to do so, and it certainly served him well in his senior years. His excellent physique was one of the reasons the producers wanted him to take off his shirt in the movies; he was just about the very first actor who ever did that.

I’d met Chad through our mutual friend, Bob, who happened to be my landlord in a funky little compound in Hollywood. A group of unusual film people lived in this compound, including a world-famous porn star, a professional Santa Claus, cameramen, actors, script supervisors—and me. We were all friends. There was a shared central patio where we would have picnics and parties. Chad, being Bob’s best friend, was welcome to any event we held.

Even from inside my house, I could always tell when Chad had arrived, because I could smell the pot. Among his quirks, you see, my would-be boyfriend was what they call a stoner. An inveterate pot-smoker, he proudly grew his own marijuana and he would always light up a joint the moment he entered our patio. I personally hate illegal drugs, and am not even all that crazy about the legal ones. Everybody else in our compound pretty much stuck to booze to get their jollies.

Except for Chad.

Who was almost 90, remember?

He continued to smoke pot until one eventful Labor Day, when he showed up late for one of our festive outdoor potlucks. Squeezing into a seat next to me on the bench of the picnic table, he silenced everyone and then he made a dramatic announcement to the group:

“Guess what, guys?” said Chad.

“What?” I shouted. (Chad didn’t hear too well.)

“I’ve stopped smoking pot!”

“You’re kidding me!” I said.

“Why would I be hitting you?” he replied, confused.

I raised my voice, shouting directly into his ear, “You really quit?”

“Yeah, I did. I found out smoking pot is bad for my health.”

We applauded boisterously, and everybody fawned over him for awhile. Meanwhile, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a big white handkerchief that contained a strange kind of loaf wrapped in tinfoil. Was it some kind of weird hors d’oeuvre for the potluck?

While I was still wondering what this foil-wrapped goody was, Chad stuck it in his mouth and took a huge bite.

“Yup, I stopped smoking pot,” he continued, looking very self-satisfied and chewing voraciously. “Now I eat it instead.”

As the 13-year-olds say: Eeew.

Perhaps Chad had misinterpreted the term POT-luck.

Chad and my landlord, Bob, were about the same age. Like Chad, Bob was a vehement communist. The two had been friends for decades and both were deeply entrenched in the film business. Bob wasn’t a star, though. He had only done a little acting; his main job was as a script supervisor. He had been trained to do this by John Ford, and had worked with a long list of the giants of film, including John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Joan Crawford and Jimmy Stewart. And Chad, of course.

Years ago, someone had given Bob a huge paper-mache head of the actress Bette Davis. The piece was worth a great deal of money, but Bob, being a good communist, made a deliberate point of not paying attention to the material value of things.

We had a metal stake in our patio garden and Bob worried that someone might trip and fall on it, so one day he brought out the huge Bette Davis head and placed it on top of the stake, kind of like a protective knob.

“Bob,” I cried, “it looks like you’ve impaled Bette Davis’ head on a pike in the garden!”

Bob had known the actress well. A strange smile crossed his face.
“Good,” he said, and walked away.

Chad and Bob were quite serious about their communism. They used to get together with a couple of other Hollywood geezers—a famous photographer and a well-known set designer—and the four old men would have meetings that involved a lot of lengthy and intense conversation, head-shaking, wine (pot for Chad), despair, and occasional yelling.

These aging cronies, all of whom had been blacklisted to some degree or another by Hollywood, embraced communism with the idealism of fresh-faced freckled Cub Scouts. I always suspected that if there were ever to be a communist takeover, Chad and Bob would be among the first to be lined up against the wall and shot. Having a communist for a landlord was very handy, however, so I didn’t complain. Communists—at least the naïve ones—feel guilty if they charge too much for rent, and they readily share things like appliances and household tools. I wasn’t about to rock the boat.

Besides, it was communism that saved me.

Let me explain. Chad hadn’t asked me out yet. He’d told Bob of his lusty intentions, but I wasn’t supposed to know anything about his longings yet. I dreaded the day when he would reveal his passion to me, because then I would have to reject him. For all his quirkiness and marijuana, he was sweet and I didn’t want to hurt him.

Chad, it turns out, had been taking prescription pills for high blood pressure. The medicine had an unfortunate side effect. It made him impotent. He confided in Bob that he was planning to discontinue his medication so that he could fulfill his manly duties with me. Unfortunately, doing so would seriously jeopardize his health. What to do? It was a dilemma.

After Chad shared his secret with Bob, the latter naturally ran straight away to knock on my door of one of my friends in the compound and tell her the whole story. She, in turn, came right over to my house and told me.

This is how I learned that a movie star wanted my body.

A week passed, and the day I’d been dreading finally came. Chad stopped by and asked if I would come outside and sit with him; he said that he wanted to share something with me. I walked to the patio with a sinking heart. Rejection stinks no matter which side of it you’re on. Bob was also waiting there. I sat between the two of them.

Chad began to court me in earnest. His way of doing this was unconventional. As soon as I sat down, he grabbed a long, musty yellowing piece of paper and thrust it under my nose.

“Read this,” he demanded. Then he sat back with an anxious sigh and waited.

The paper he handed me must have been well over 50 years old. It had been painstakingly mimeographed, which is the way documents were duplicated in the days before copy machines, and it was crammed with columns of words, words and more words that had been typed in tiny crooked print extending nearly to the edges of the page. There were capital letters and exclamation marks sprinkled excessively throughout the narrow columns. I’d guess that about 2,000 words had been jammed onto that one page.

While Chad squirmed with anticipation, I politely scanned a few of the sentences. Now, I am a good reader. I will happily read Thackeray or Sir Walter Scott, for example, and enjoy them. I have a volume of Melville on my night table. Trying to make sense of this stuff, however, made my head ache. It was incomprehensible. Typewritten letters formed shrill, ranting sentences that were both illogical and mad. The experience was as unpleasant for my nose as it was for my brain, because the paper beneath my gaze reeked of mildew.

When I looked up, I saw with dismay that Chad had brought along a huge cardboard box full of similar decaying papers. They had been stored in his garage for years. The poor man had carried all of these tedious, tiresome manifestos to the patio in the hope of sharing his beliefs with me. He imagined that after I read them, I would be inspired to see politics in his pathetic, crazy way, and become a convert to communism.

He was deluded, of course, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Before I could figure out how to tell Chad diplomatically that it just wasn’t going to happen, Bob reached behind me and nudged him. The two began conversing over my head as though I wasn’t even there.

“What’s the matter with you? Are you f**king nuts?” yelled Bob, who did not endorse diplomacy in the same way that I did.

He yelled because of Chad’s hearing loss, although Bob was somewhat prone to yelling regardless.

“She doesn’t want to read them,” he shouted. “You’re never going to get her that way.”

“I’m never going to get her in the hay?” replied Chad.

Close enough.

“She doesn’t want to read them,” repeated Bob in exasperation.

“Need them?” asked Chad.

“READ them. She isn’t going to READ them,” screamed Bob. “Look at her. She doesn’t like them!”

“No?” Chad seemed surprised.

“NO!” Bob shrieked.

“Oh,” said Chad sorrowfully. “That’s too bad.”

He paused to think for a moment.

“Well,” he finally said, speaking over my head to Bob as though I weren’t present, “I can’t be with a woman who doesn’t believe in the party.”

As easily as I had been snagged, without even saying a word, I was off the hook. Like I said, I was saved by communism.

Although it may have been absurd to consider having an affair with Chad, I did enjoy him. He was easy on the eyes, and he told good stories.

Like this one. When he had been a muscle man, he used to own a gym. His clients had included the movie stars Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in the days before they became famous.

Chad fondly recalled a time when he was giving Kirk Douglas a rubdown and, as a practical joke, applied kerosene to Douglas’ testicles. Apparently his poor victim had run naked through the gym, screaming at the top of his lungs.

Chad laughed and laughed as he told that story. It made me wonder what would have happened to me had I been naked and at his mercy.

Fortunately, that never happened, although I confess that my heart always beats a little faster whenever I watch him take off his shirt in his old movies.

Copying or reproducing in any form without the author's permission is prohibited.

Please feel free to link to this article.

See Mary Elizabeth Raines' inspiring novel, UNA, a new release on Amazon

MY JAW-DROPPINGLY GORGEOUS DAY

2011-04-20T15:51:00.004-05:00

by MARY ELIZABETH RAINES

It was the early 1980s, and I was driving to the East Coast to reconnect with a man whom I hadn’t seen for years. In my youth, what a crush I’d had on this sweet unsuspecting fellow! He, however, had never shown the slightest interest in me beyond that of a cordial friendship.

Now, more than 15 years later, I was going to visit him.

And his wife.

And his children.

Before I proceed any further, let me interject a disclaimer: I am not a shallow woman. I hold in disdain the kind of people who focus on superficialities and appearances. To me, a janitor has the same worth as a CEO; an 85-year-old grandma with a face full of wrinkles and hairs on her chin wearing K-Mart sweatpants is just as important to me as the latest hot Hollywood star boasting jewels and a designer gown.

Speaking of Hollywood… While working some years ago on the set of the TV show West Wing as a Professional Background Actor (translation: as an extra), I had the pleasure of meeting the show’s star, Martin Sheen. Sheen was an activist and a good guy. He’d even been jailed for his activism. He refused to discriminate against anyone; he treated his producers no differently from the way he treated me.

One night, when the cast was being transported some distance for a shoot at an airport, rather than use a limo, Sheen hopped into the van that was carrying all of us extras.

He plopped down right in front of me, sitting next to an old wizened fellow.

“Where do you come from?” Sheen asked the man cordially.

“I just got out of prison,” the old guy answered. “I’m on parole.”

“No kidding!” exclaimed Sheen happily, clapping the man across his back. “Me too!”

His enthusiasm was not fake. He was simply the kind of person who refused to buy into status or appearances.

Like me.

That being said, it was my intention to appear as jaw-droppingly gorgeous as I possibly could at my reunion with The Unrequited Crush.

Why did I care so much how I looked for a man who had never even seemed to notice that I was a girl?

Well, if my host were to see me in all my splendor and appreciate the alluring vision I presented, and if he were, as a result, to experience even the slightest pang of regret at having never seized the opportunity of indulging in me when he’d had the chance…I certainly wouldn’t mind!

As for his wife, who was a talented and smart woman, my stunning appearance wouldn’t do any damage to her either. It could only serve to boost her confidence, since my former not-beau had chosen her when he could have had me, the jaw-droppingly gorgeous female! How could she not feel good about herself?

Talk about win-win-win!

The only problem—and it was a daunting one—was that of looking jaw-droppingly gorgeous. As soon as the date for our reunion drew near, I knew that I had work to do, for I am not a natural beauty. External devices would be required.

To this end, I deliberated for hours about exactly how I would style my hair.

I went on a crash diet.

I bought new underpants.

The rest of my wardrobe fell into place when a friend offered me a hand-me-down blouse. It was an expensive silky blouse that was quite flattering on me. I had no idea how she could part with such an exquisite garment. (I would, to my great dismay, find out later.)

The day of the meeting finally came. I dressed both with excitement and immense care before the long drive, wearing the new underpants, pulling on my sexiest open-toed high heels and, of course, putting on the flowing blouse.

It was a dreadfully humid day, so I decided that I wouldn’t attend to my makeup until I got close to my destination. Granted, I looked a little pasty-faced, but that was preferable to arriving on the doorstep of my youthful love interest with smeary lips, blotchy rouge, and raccoon eyes from melting eye-makeup.

I patted down the natural frizz of my hair, and then sprayed it mercilessly until it was as hard as the aluminum siding on a suburban tract house, hoping to close off all possible escape routes for even the smallest bit of fuzz. Just in case, though, I stuck a few bobby pins in my hardened hair at weird but key places. I would remove the bobby pins when I put on my makeup.

And I was off!

After several hours, as I was driving on a crowded turnpike skirting New York City, my gas gauge began dipping down near the empty mark, so I turned off into the designated gas station. Self-service had not yet become the norm, and this station was one of the kind where attendants still pumped the gas for their customers.

Do ever I miss those gas stations today! In most respects I am an ardent feminist, a woman’s libber from way back, but I’m sorry: pumping gas is just plain unfeminine.

I am not the only evolved woman who believes this. A childhood friend of mine named Joyce Jillson actually wrote a book once called Real Women Don’t Pump Gas. It was a clever response to another popular book that came out in the 80s called Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche.

In her book, Joyce drew a chart that showed the highlights of a woman’s life. Almost at the top of the chart was losing your virginity. At the very top? Telling your friends you lost your virginity.

Here is something interesting about the author. She eventually became an astrologer, and it was she whom Nancy Reagan secretly consulted while hubby Ronald was president. She also chose the astrologically fortuitous date for the release of the movie Star Wars.

I knew Joyce before her astrology days. She lived next door to me when I was in the third grade. We didn’t have blogs back then, but we did the next best thing: Joyce and my sister and I put our heads together and created a neighborhood newspaper. We tried diligently to sell copies to people on our block; they only cost a nickel, but our readership never went beyond about five people. We put out two editions before we turned our attention to something else.

Back to pumping gas: Joyce was right. It is not something a woman should ever have to do, at least not this woman.

Why not?

First, whenever I pump gasoline, some of it always seems to dribble on my shoes.

Second, my fingers wind up smelling like Exxon instead of Shalimar.

Third, I always feel icky when I have to grab onto a nasty gasoline pump handle that untold others have held. God knows where their hands have been!

So. It was a relief that someone else would be pumping my gas for me on this special occasion. I was especially glad because of the open-toed shoes I was wearing. It doesn’t feel good when gasoline drips through one’s nylons onto one’s toes. (Probably you have to be a woman to understand.)

The gas station attendant sauntered over to my car, and I rolled the window down. He was a scowling young black man wearing a grimy bandana across his forehead. His sweat-drenched tank top revealed muscular arms, and he spoke in a thick inner-city dialect which I couldn’t understand. He looked like he might be the member of a gang. A mean gang.

“Yeah?” he muttered in a surly voice. At least that’s what I think he said. His attitude meter was set on high.

“Fill ‘er up,” I said with a perky smile, pretending to be oblivious to the fact that he was scowling at me.

Racial prejudice was rampant in the early 1980s. Integration was still a recent concept. Mainstream role models like Obama and Oprah were young and unknown, and The Cosby Show, which would accomplish more to delete bigotry from people’s minds and hearts than any law could ever hope to do, wasn’t even on the air yet.

It was a really rough time to be black, young, and male.

I watched this gas-station attendant with growing compassion, thinking about how hard it must be for someone like him to find a job that paid a decent living; obviously pumping fuel in a dumpy gas station on a congested turnpike would be no one’s deliberate career choice. It was probably the only work this poor guy could find. His life must be lousy. It wasn’t fair.

I understood.

Unfortunately, I became smitten with the insane urge to make it clear to him that I understood.

We liberals do that sometimes.

When he had finished filling the tank and came to take my money, I launched an energetic barrage of sympathetic chatter at him.

“Wow, what a hot day,” I said, oozing empathy as I opened up my purse. “It’s got to be tough working in this kind of heat…”

I beamed my best “I’m-not-prejudiced” smile at him. He avoided making eye contact with me.

Determined to connect, I kept on chattering. Words spilled out of my mouth at a rapid pace.

“…Have you worked here long? It can’t be easy to find a job these days. Do you live in New York? Do you commute from there?...”

He didn’t answer. The more I chattered, the further he pulled away. The further he pulled away, the more desperately I tried to draw him in. I would prove to him that I was no bigot! I would make him see how much I cared, damn it!

“…because I don’t know what I would have done if I’d run out of gas on the turnpike in this heat. When it’s so hot outdoors, you must feel absolutely exhausted at the end of the day…”

As I blabbered, the observer part of me stood off to one side, utterly aghast.

“…Or maybe not. Maybe you don’t get tired. I mean, look at your muscles…”

Yikes. Now I not only had to let him know that I understood him and had compassion for him, but also that I wasn’t hitting on him!

“…Oh, it's not that I’m staring at your muscles!” I giggled, my voice artificially high. “I just said ‘look at your muscles’ because they show how strong you are, you know, so you probably don’t get tired as easily…”

I was floundering, unable to extricate myself, sucked so deeply into the whirlpool of my own fatuous jabbering that I had no choice but to persist.

“…and because of how much you’re sweating...but I don't mean that you’re sweating too much! It’s so hot! Hey, I’m sweating too. Everyone’s sweating. We’re all sweating…”

Avoiding the onslaught of the well-intended words pouring from my mouth, he held himself as far away from me as he possibly could, taking my money with a stiff arm. There was something peculiar in his facial expression; I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. As he started to hand me my change, he made very sure not to touch me, or even to brush my hand by accident.

“…Why, thank you for the change. No, no, no, don’t be silly. You don’t have to count it out for me. I trust you…”

And that was a lie, because I didn’t trust him. I felt compassion for his circumstances, I’m sure his path had been difficult, I would’ve liked to have given him a break, but that did not belie the fact that he was a menacing-looking man and by no means did I trust him.

On and on I rambled as he gave me the last of my change. Despite the fact that my mission had failed, despite the fact that I knew how goofy I sounded, I couldn’t stop talking.

Maybe it was the heat.

The guy’s expression, meanwhile, had compressed into something so unreachable that I’d have had better success at getting on a flight to the moon than of establishing any sort of rapport with him.

With crude mercy, kind of like shooting a crippled horse, he finally put an end to our mutual misery by stalking away from me right in the middle of one of my long, rabidly rambling sentences. He shook his head as he walked away.

Defeated, humbled, but mostly relieved, I called out a final weak goodbye and reached for the key to turn on the ignition. As I did so, I glanced at my reflection in the rearview mirror—and I saw, to my horror, the vision I had presented to the young man at the pumps.

See, in those days I needed glasses to drive. I owned some fashionable aviator-style glasses, but they were so bottom-heavy that whenever I wore them, they left deep red creases in the middle of my cheeks. The indentations would remain on my face for hours, looking like fiery wrinkles.

Needless to say, in my guise of being a spectacular beauty, I wasn’t going to wear glasses while visiting the former desire of my heart, nor did I intend to appear at his front door with dark red gouges in my cheeks.

So on the last rest stop before this one, when I went to the bathroom, I’d grabbed two large handfuls of toilet paper before exiting the stall. In the car, I had shoved these wads of paper mindlessly under the bottom rims of my glasses to protect my cheeks. As I gazed in the rearview mirror, I saw that the toilet paper was still there on my cheeks, two big crumpled puffs of it, with tails of perforated squares streaming down both sides of my face.

Furthermore, my gorgeous new silky blouse, which I was wearing for the very first time, had somehow become unbuttoned. That, it turns out, is why my friend wanted to get rid of it. I’m not talking about one or two buttons here. All the buttons had come undone. The blouse had slipped back to the sides, fully exposing me in my bra.

There sat I, grinning too hard and chattering like a crazed blue jay at that poor guy, with toilet paper wafting over my cheeks, bobby pins stuck in my hair at weird angles, and my open blouse fluttering in the breeze...

I imagine he tells his friends about me to this day. Maybe I’m on a blog somewhere.

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Read UNA, Mary Elizabeth Raines' novel of survival and transformation, newly released on Amazon

VIRGINITY, ALCOHOL, MURDER.....AND ME

2010-12-19T20:40:00.005-06:00

I suppose I could have had a wild party the weekend that my parents went away and left me home alone. Most teenagers who have an empty house to themselves would do that. Wild parties, however, weren’t my style. My idea of the most outrageously fun thing to do? I decided to cook a gourmet dinner for a couple of friends. Little did I suspect that alcohol and murder were afoot.

As for the virginity part of this title, let’s clear that up right now. Yes, I was, and so were my guests, but our dearth of sexual experience had absolutely nothing to do with the ensuing story. The virgin in question was not even a person. It was an appliance. A brand-new stove had been delivered to our house shortly after my parents’ departure. Nobody had ever cooked on it before.

The stove was a virgin.

(Keep reading. I promise that this isn’t a cooking blog, and eventually you will get to the alcohol and murder bits.)

My father was a minister, my upbringing was strict, and my girlhood had been sheltered and naïve—well, up until the weekend in question, anyway. The year was 1965. I was a senior in high school, and I loved to cook! I couldn’t wait to break in the untouched stove; thus my decision to create an elegant feast.

The two friends I invited to join me for this splendid dinner were juniors in high school who were a year younger than me: clean-cut Janet, and even cleaner-cut Fred (not their real names). (Since those are not their real names, you know that trouble lurks ahead!) Fred, an excellent musician, was one of my piano students, for I was an accomplished pianist even in high school. This will be important later on in the story.

We planned to feast by candlelight. I felt incredibly sophisticated. The April night air hinted at romance, a perfect setting for our elegant dinner. Roast beef was the main course, for I was not a vegetarian in those days. It was the first roast I had ever baked.

As I removed the baking pan from the new oven, Janet lit the candles, and I carved the meat in the flickering candlelight. The meal was a superb, if cholesterol-laden, experience, and the three of us agreed that it was the best roast beef any of us had ever eaten.

Much later, when I turned on the lights in the kitchen, I saw to my astonishment that the roast was nearly raw. To say that I had cooked it would be a gross misstatement. We hadn’t known the meat was raw when we ate it in the dim light of the candles, however, and it had tasted fantastic.

Who knows? Perhaps our wicked scheme was provoked by the pagan stimulus of the bloody meat…or maybe it came about simply because we were three high school kids enjoying a rare evening without adult supervision.

We decided (hold onto your hats) to hike down the road so that I could buy some beer for us to drink.

I’d never had even a taste of beer in my life. My mother and father (the minister, remember?) were vehement teetotalers who believed that drinking alcohol was sinful. A lot of their prejudices are still imprinted on my hard drive. To this day, walking into a bar or a liquor store makes me feel slightly squalid and icky, the way most people feel about strolling into a porno movie or a so-called “adult” store.

I had just turned 18, and we lived in New York state where, in those days, it was legal for an 18-year-old to purchase and drink alcohol. Fred and Janet encouraged this scheme joyously, as they both had some experience with beer and were eager to imbibe.

The nearest place I could buy the beer was a little country store about two miles down the road. Fred, Janet and I would have to walk there. The store was located right next door to my father’s church office. After I purchased the beer, we planned to drink it along the side of the highway as we walked back home. The thought of doing this made me feel deliciously dangerous and wild.

It was not an uncommon sight in the 60s to see certain teenaged types walking along the roadside, swilling down alcohol. Very few of us had cars back then, so we walked on foot a lot more than kids today. The teens who drank on the sides of highways were not the nice kids. They were not part of my crowd. They were the tough kids. We called the tough kids hoods.

This is a "hood."

There were clear demarcations dividing the “nice” kids from the hoods. You could easily tell who belonged to which group by their appearance.

Take the guys. While nice guys had regular haircuts, hood boys wore their hair in a highly-greased and distinct style: on the tops of their heads they either hosted stiff flattops, like little spiky patches of newly mown grass, or exaggerated pompadours, while the sides of their hair were longer and were slicked back to form what we called a DA. The initials DA stood for duck’s ass, which in more polite circles was called a ducktail.

The uniform of the hood guys consisted of very tight black pants, button-down dress shirts, and white socks with loafers.

Actually, okay, that was the uniform of the nice guys, too. Except nice guys tended to wear more plaid and V-neck sweaters and mock turtlenecks, along with pocket protectors so that their ballpoint pens wouldn’t leak ink through their shirt pockets. Also, their pants weren’t as tight.

Jeans were against the school dress code. Nobody wore them unless they were washing a car. And since practically nobody had a car, jeans were hardly ever seen.

Here’s what the hood girls wore: tight blouses or sweaters, and tight straight skirts that were so short they almost revealed the girls’ knees! Showing one’s knees was a pretty racy thing to do, but the hood girls were always shoving up against the boundaries of good taste. It would be another year or two before the mini-skirt burst onto the fashion scene, and even longer before girls were allowed to wear slacks to school.

Most teenaged girls of my generation, including nice girls, liked to line their eyes with black eyeliner, a-la Elizabeth Taylor in the movie Cleopatra. Even I did that! Hood girls did, too, but of course they overdid it and applied their eyeliner far too heavily. Their faces were plastered with globs of pancake makeup in pinkish-orange tones that rarely matched their skin tone (or anyone’s skin tone), topped off with smears of nearly white, ghoulish lipstick.

We liked our eyeliner in the 1960s!

While many of us sported some variation of a hairdo called the beehive, hood girls once again overdid it. They spent hours in the girls’ bathroom at school ratting their hair obsessively into massive, ludicrous beehives reminiscent of the wigs worn in the court of Louis XVI (but without the social status, of course); they possessed special long-tailed plastic combs for the task.

Now, that's a beehive!

School bathrooms were the domain of the hoods. All hoods, male and female, smoked in the school bathrooms. And, of course, they walked down the sides of the highways at night, drinking beer, as Fred and Janet and I were planning to do on our exhilarating spree.

Only a few scattered houses sat along the stretch of highway we traversed, and there were no streetlights or sidewalks, so we had to fend our way through the scrabbly weeds on the side of the dark road. We were exhausted and cranky by the time we arrived at the store, for it had become a depressingly damp and chilly night, the way spring nights can sometimes get, and our destination turned out to be a lot further away than we had thought. The store was housed in a run-down, dismal wooden building, the closest thing to a convenience store that we had in the 1960s.

My spirits, however, were slightly boosted by the scenario to follow. Janet and Fred, being younger, decided that it would be best if they waited for me outside the store, lurking in the shadows, while I sauntered in ever so casually to buy a six-pack of beer. A six-pack! Wow, did that ever sound tough to me! I was excited. This was a big deal.

“Just go and buy the beer, please,” said Fred. “Hurry. I’m cold.”

I entered the store as nonchalantly as I could, but the moment I stepped over the threshold, I was seized with a self-conscious panic. Maybe you have to grow up in a strict, religious family that prides itself on its abstention from alcohol to understand the extent of my panic. It was one of those panics that builds on itself: the more panicked I realized I was, the more panicked I became. The grumpy owner, sitting behind a counter, shifted his attention from his newspaper and squinted at me with what was clearly a disgusted look as I trod, footstep by noisy footstep, over the wooden-plank floors.

Where did they keep the beer? Could he see how nervous I was? Would my hands shake when I paid for the evil brew?

My mind began to spin more anxiously. When it came time to purchase the beer, the guy would undoubtedly ask to see my driver’s license. Naturally, he would notice that my last name was the same as my father’s. The minister. Whose office was next door! Oh dear, why hadn’t I thought of this before! The next time he saw my father, the surly shopkeeper would doubtlessly say, “Hello there, Reverend. I saw your daughter this weekend. She bought a six-pack of beer.”

What would I say to my father when he confronted me with this information? How could I explain? Why hadn’t this thought occurred to me before we set out on our quest? Like many other people of my generation, I was more terrified of my father’s wrath than just about anything. Fathers could be more wrathful in the 60s than they are allowed to be today.

My heart began to pound in horror at this imagined confrontation, as though it were banging frantically on the inside of my chest, begging to be let out. Trapped in a mounting state of self-consciousness, I found it curiously difficult to move, not unlike a cornered rabbit. My legs felt as though they were partially paralyzed.

‘C'mon. Get a hold of yourself,’ I thought. ‘Act like you’re just looking around.’

Breathing deeply, I shuffled stiffly over to the shampoo section, where I stood pretending to survey the various products as I composed myself. The store owner continued to watch me with a taut frown.

What was wrong with that man? Hadn’t he ever had anybody else in his store who was intensely interested in hair products?

And where, oh where, did they keep the beer? As I fingered the bottles of Breck and Prell shampoo, I glanced covertly around at the shelves and aisles. I didn’t spot any beer. Meanwhile, the store owner’s x-ray eyes continued to peer critically at me, watching every move I made.

Finally I snatched a bottle of cream rinse from the shelf. (Cream rinse was the name we used for what is now called conditioner.) Like a criminal hoping to appear normal, I felt that I would appear more innocent if I bought something unrelated to booze. I strolled toward the counter.

“Is that it?” the man demanded loudly. His voice made me jump. He sounded like he was yelling at me.

“No,” I gulped, flushing. “Do you have…um…any…um…”

Looking around frantically, I suddenly spotted something miraculous. I was saved! Right next to me, within arm’s reach even, stood a gleaming bottle of daiquiris! The sight made me giddier than a nun spotting a portrait of Jesus in her scrambled eggs!

I’d heard of daiquiris. They had alcohol in them. They drank daiquiris in the movies. There was a frosty picture on the label of the bottle showing an elegant cocktail glass brimming with the heady, tempting, frothy drink! How elegant it looked!

I made a fast decision. I would buy the daiquiris instead of beer. Surely Janet and Fred would rather sip on daiquiris than cans of beer! I knew that I would. Daiquiris were much more romantic. What a lucky find!

Rejoicing, I snatched up the bottle, steeled my nerves and turned back to the counter. To my delighted surprise, the guy never even asked to see my license. As soon as he had taken my money and put the cream rinse and daiquiri bottle into a brown paper sack, he returned to reading his newspaper. My luck was changing, and fast!

I emerged from the store triumphantly. As the screen door banged shut behind me, Fred stepped out of the shadows.

“My god, it took you long enough,” he exclaimed, his voice curdling with annoyance. Janet just huddled against the cold.

Triumphantly, I thrust the bag at her and watched as she uncrossed her arms and took it from me. First she pulled out the bottle of cream rinse. She held it up, staring at it blankly. It was pink.

“Cream rinse?” she said finally, her voice expressionless. “You got us cream rinse?”

“No, no, no,” I giggled, “that was just a decoy.”

Janet and Fred looked at me, not understanding. Both of them came from families who drank.

“So where’s the six-pack?” asked Fred.

“I got us something much better!” I crowed. “It’s in the bag. See for yourself.”

As Janet pulled out the bottle of daiquiris, I chortled with satisfaction.

Fred gazed at the bottle, dumbfounded. “I thought you were going to buy beer,” he said.

“But wouldn’t you rather have a daiquiri?” I replied gleefully. Sticking out my pinky, I pantomimed sipping from an imaginary cocktail glass.

Fred looked at me with astonishment, and then stepped closer. My piano student wasn’t smiling, and he was not making me feel comfortable. Carefully enunciating each word as though I were a very young child, he said, “You bought a bottle of daiquiri mix.”

“Yes,” I grinned, jiggling my feet around in a little happy dance. “Cocktails!” I pantomimed sipping again.

“No. Cocktail mix,” he repeated. “You got cocktail mix. Didn’t you know there’s no alcohol in cocktail mix? It’s just juice! You bought us juice.”

It took a minute for this to register. My happy dance stopped. All that effort had been for nothing. I couldn’t even mumble an apology.

With a disgusted tsk, Fred turned on his heel and stomped towards the store.

“Hey, where’re you going?” I called meekly.

He didn’t answer, and disappeared behind the screen door. Janet handed me back the cream rinse and stood there miserably, banging her arms across her body in an effort to get warm. She avoided eye contact with me.

Moments later Fred returned. He was holding a six-pack of Schlitz beer.

“Can we please go now?” sighed Janet. “It’s a long way back. I’m tired.”

“You’re only 17. How did you buy beer?” I asked Fred as we began heading back down the highway.

“They don’t care,” he said. “Don’t make such a big production out of it. It’s just beer, for god’s sake.”

I ignored their churlishness. It had been an awkward quest, but at last we were finally there! We were walking down the highway, being tough. Acting like hoods! I wished I had thought to put on a little more eyeliner.

The Schlitz beer had a brand-new device on it called a pull tab so that you could drink from the can without using a can opener. I had never used a pull tab before and didn’t know how. Fred had to open mine for me. Taking my newly opened can of beer from him eagerly, I took a quick swallow…and immediately winced. It tasted horrible! It was sour and bitter and sharp, like carbonated old dishwater with a tin-can pungency thrown in for good measure. This was what beer tasted like?

Maybe I was wrong. I took another sip. It was even worse than the first.

I couldn’t drink any more, and handed my can over to Fred. We continued our walk, shivering and kicking at weeds. Janet and Fred swigged on their beers in silence. There was nothing even remotely romantic about this.

“Damn,” I said, hoping that maybe swearing would help make me feel tough. It didn’t work.

Janet finished her beer only a short distance from my home, and handed me the empty can. Rather than carry it back, I tossed it onto the edge of the road. Like something a hood would do.

Aside: At that exact moment we were walking past the house of a high-school friend of mine from band who had a younger brother.

Me in H.S. band with, yes, my bassoon, not looking especially cheerful.

This younger brother of hers was cute, but he was just a kid, so I never bothered to get to know him.

I think my friend became a psychiatrist. I’m not sure. I am sure about what happened to her brother, though. He became the head of a major film studio and for years was considered to be one of The Most Important People in the movie industry. As the author of several unproduced screenplays, I have more than once regretted the fact that I did not cultivate a relationship with this little brother person when I had the opportunity…but hey, who ever pays attention to their friends’ kid brothers, cute or not? Sigh.

So I tossed away the beer can. In those days littering was not illegal. It would be half a year before Ladybird Johnson’s Highway Beautification Act. There were not yet any national campaigns to clean up litter, and few people saw much of anything wrong with throwing an empty can onto the side of the road—few, that is, except for my parents, who were outspoken opponents of the sad stretches of garbage which used to line our nation’s highways and parks and campgrounds. Our family took pride in cleaning up litter. They even had a motto! “Always leave a place better than you found it,” they would say as they cheerfully went about cleaning up debris from picnic sites, and national monuments, and…well, you get it.

Throwing that beer can into the bushes was a supreme act of rebellion. I expected to get a little buzz from it. I didn’t. As soon as I threw the beer can away, I felt lousy about it. I feel lousy about it to this day…that, and not getting to know the little brother occupying the house behind the bushes where I threw it.

Our party was deflated, and as soon as we got back to the parsonage, Fred and Janet left. Wearily, I brought the leftovers of my elegant dinner back into the kitchen and turned on the overhead fluorescent light. It was then that I saw that that the roast which we had eaten so rapaciously was bright red, with trickles of scarlet blood still oozing out of its sides.

As a vegetarian, I am shy about admitting this sordid aspect of my past, but thanks to that night, I developed a taste for very rare beef that stayed with me for the remainder of my meat-eating years. Sometimes I would even consume raw beef in the form of beef tartar...and I liked it.

I have, however, never acquired a taste for beer.

A year after our failed attempt to be hoods, when I was a college freshman, feeling much older and wiser (and no longer a virgin), I returned to my home town and visited Fred. Fred borrowed his father’s car and drove me to the beach, where we parked and talked and watched the ocean until it was past-due time for him to get the car back home.

Just before turning the key in the ignition, for some odd reason he kissed me. It took me by surprise. He looked at his watch, then at me, and kissed me again. And again. And again. We both liked it very much.

“Wow,” he exclaimed with regret as we drove back. “I never realized you were like this!”

That was the last time I saw him. We said goodbye in a lusty daze, and I returned to college.

The next time I heard from Fred, I was in my 20s. He wrote me a letter. In it, he said that because of the musical coaching and encouragement I had given him, he was now traveling across the country on a nation-wide concert tour. He enclosed a program together with the glowing, ecstatic letter, in which he stated, “Everything I am today I owe to you.”

Not long afterwards, so I am told, he got married. And murdered his wife. He shot her during an argument, and ended up in prison. I always hoped it wasn’t our spree of drinking beer on the highway that night that corrupted him.

Read Mary Elizabeth Raines' newly released novel, UNA, now on Amazon

THE CONTESSA, THE GONG SHOW, AND THE LATIN LOVER MAN

2010-10-04T22:08:00.032-05:00

by Mary Elizabeth Raines
I blame it on the Contessa. She started it all when she serenaded us by singing Tiny Bubbles. A TV show called the Gong Show also figured prominently in this love affair, because, yes, it was a love affair. Sigh. It all began on a November evening in 1975…

First, let me tell you about the Contessa. When I knew her, she was probably in her 70s, and insisted, rather haughtily, that people address her by her title: Contessa. I don’t know her real name. There were rumors that she and her husband had actually been royalty from some obscure European country. I kind of suspect that she was responsible for starting those rumors, but then, what do I know about royalty in obscure European countries?

The Contessa was not tall, but I remember her as a woman of substance. She possessed a heaving bosom, a double chin and a fleshy waist. Her ample midsection was offset by numerous stiff layers of ruffles in the skirt of the faded, green ball gown she always wore, a dress that looked as though it could have belonged to a cast member of Gone With the Wind, or maybe by a character from a Dickens’ novel. Dancing slippers completed the outfit. She didn’t really walk; instead she tiptoed and waltzed around the room in little, silly prancing steps. I think she was trying to be delicate. Perhaps she hoped that people would envision her as floating across the floor, which was something women of her generation thought admirable, although, sadly, her movements were more like those of a tugboat on choppy waters.

The Contessa’s heavily powered face had arching eyebrows that had been artfully drawn onto her forehead with eyebrow pencil, and her sagging cheeks were flushed with dainty circles of pink rouge. You are probably ascertaining that she fit a certain type, and as a member of that type, it goes without saying that her lipstick was smudged high up over her lips in exaggerated, I-Love-Lucy cupid’s bows.

Please understand that I am not criticizing the Contessa for this. As I age, I am growing fleshy, too. And I recognize the irresistible urge to wear the same outfits and makeup that made me look cute as heck when I was 19; unfortunately, at 63, whenever I do that, I wind up looking more like a goofy old clown than a precious young thing. Even so, sometimes I can’t help myself; I cave in and go for it. At such times, I wear far too much makeup and stand around saying smart things like, “That’s groovy, man.” So I understand perfectly the mindset of this elderly woman in her green ball gown.

Egads...do I really look like THAT?!

To accessorize the gown, our Contessa wore just about every piece of jewelry she owned, and all at the same time, too. Her chest was blinding, covered with flashing brooches and glittering layers of necklaces, and her pudgy, aging arms jingled with bands of bracelets.

She was, if not exactly a flirt, quite coquettish, fluttering from table to table, sometimes leaning down and pressing her withered rouged cheek near to that of some youthful fellow, as though teasing him to kiss her. Again, I get it completely.

But now let’s go back to the very beginning. I was a young single woman who, at 10:30 p.m. on a November night, had just left my comfy bed with reluctance, and had driven to Sarno’s Caffe dell'Opera on Vermont Street in Los Feliz, a section of Los Angeles that borders Hollywood. The area was relatively safe in those days. Sarno’s served Italian food and they had a pastry shop.

In the evenings, Sarno’s Cafe became magical. Strangers would be seated at marble tables next to other strangers, and everyone drank wine and espresso, and anyone who wanted could get up and sing. There was an excellent pianist accompanying the singers. Most folks sang opera, but a few people, like the Contessa, preferred to sing pop songs. Like Tiny Bubbles. Some of the singers were very good. Some were not. In its heydey, Sarno’s was frequented by the likes of Tony Bennett, Sophia Loren, and even old blue eyes, Sinatra himself.

Herald Examiner Collection, Los Angeles Public Library-posted with permission

There were plenty of less-famous regulars who hung out at Sarno’s. It was all new to me. I had only recently moved to Los Angeles, and had discovered the place just a few days before.

On the night in question, I’d been crying somewhat melodramatically to my best friend, a vivacious gay man, about my desperately lonely state and my inability to meet men. (Ye gods, my situation was appalling. Nearly 24 hours had passed since my last date! What was I to do?!) My friend sagely suggested that if I wanted to meet someone new, it wasn’t likely to happen if I remained in my bed, complaining. He prodded me to get up, get dressed, and go out someplace…anyplace.

I did. Where else could I go at 10:30 on a Saturday night but to Sarno’s? I lived nearby. After I arrived, since all the tables were shared, the first thing I did was look around for someone safe and comfortable to sit next to. I found the perfect someone, an elderly, harmless-looking guy whose name was Miguel. He was one of the regulars. Miguel wore a cheap, obvious toupee, and he told me that he was an artist. Some of his paintings were displayed high on the walls of Sarno’s. (They looked a little clumsy to me, but what did I know?) Miguel proudly added that he was also a singer.

Here is where the Gong Show comes in. Some years after the Sarno’s incident, I was killing time one day by watching the Gong Show. If you’re not familiar with it, this mind-numbing TV nonsense from the late 1970s was hosted by a wired and weird guy named Chuck Barris. Here’s how it worked: assorted guests would perform—play music, sing, dance, juggle, tell jokes, you name it. There were three hip judges and a gigantic gong on the set. If any one of the judges disliked someone’s performance, they would jump up out of their seat, rush over and hit the gong. The interrupted performer would have to stop. The show was sometimes funny, and sometimes cruel.

And as I watched, who should appear as a guest but Miguel—yes, my very own Miguel from Sarno’s, still wearing the same toupee! He sang an aria. He was promptly gonged and also ridiculed, although he didn’t look as though he minded very much. I saw him again on two subsequent Gong Show reruns, and he got gonged on each of those, too. (The gong-strikers were right. He really didn’t sing very well.)

My connection to the Gong Show is even stranger than that. About 25 years after my fated visit to Sarno’s Caffe dell'Opera, I became friends with a woman who happened to be a world-famous stripper, porn star, and cult figure. She had gigantic breasts the size of human heads. For the sake of anonymity, I will call her Lotsa Lotty (although when one has showed the world all the parts that she has showed on the giant silver screen—in close-up yet!—I don’t think anonymity would really be in question).

Anyway. Lotsa Lotty, I discovered, had also been on the Gong Show! She told me, giggling, that she had played a French maid who came onstage wearing high heels, a short, short skirt, and a low, low blouse. Her “talent” was dusting. She bent wa-a-ay down over various objects, dusting them with a feather duster. She, like Miguel, ended up being gonged.

In fact, dusting wasn’t far from the truth of who she really was. She loved to clean, you see. With her hair up in curlers, she would wear glasses and an old frumpy housecoat, and sweep her patio ceaselessly while she talked on her portable phone to customers, for when I knew her, she was earning a living doing phone sex.

I remember passing Lotsa Lotty while she was sweeping outdoors one day. From behind her glasses, she gave me a bright smile and a wave, dustpan in hand. At the same time, in a low panting voice, while adjusting a curler, she was saying to her caller, “Oh yeah, baby, I can taste it. Yeah, I can taste it….”

Sometimes when I passed her place, I would hear screaming. It would momentarily frighten me. Then I would realize that Lotsa was just paying her bills. (Certain customers, she later revealed, insisted that she scream at pertinent points in the conversation.)

But I digress. Lotsa Lotty told me that when she had been on the Gong Show, a very handsome and famous movie star—someone you would know!—saw her, got a little crush on her, and wangled an introduction. They dated.

Now, Lotsa had dated plenty of famous Hollywood actors, but this particular guy was different. She confided in me that he was the best lover she’d ever had. (And of course, I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that Lotsa had SCADS more lovers than most of us!)

It wasn’t just that Handsome Movie Star was her best lover ever. He also treated her beautifully. He was unfailingly courteous, romantic, and kind—everything a woman could want. He actually even opened car doors for her! (We women really like that.)

“So what happened with him?” I asked, after she revealed all of this to me.

“Oh, he wanted me to take a vacation with him, sorta like a honeymoon, at this tropical paradise," she said. "But I didn’t go.” She returned to her sweeping.

“Did you have to work? You couldn’t get the time off?” I asked excitedly.

“No, not that,” she said. “I could’ve gone. But I said no.” She attacked some dust in a corner.

“Lotsa!” I exclaimed, “This famous movie star was the best lover you ever had in your life, he treated you like a queen, he absolutely adored you, he invited you to a tropical paradise for a little honeymoon…and you didn’t go?! Why not?!!?”

You have to understand the absolutely humorless, matter-of-fact way in which Lotsa Lotty replied to my question. Her answer, to me, exemplifies Hollywood.

“I couldn’t go,” she said, “because MY HUSBAND WOULDN’T LET ME.” (Italics and capitals mine.)

Back to Sarno’s. As I sat next to Miguel, of Gong Show fame, I said to him, “Listen, Miguel, you know the characters who come in here, and I want to be careful. If I start talking with some guy who’s a bad sort, would you let me know? Just nudge me with your elbow, okay?”

Miguel liked that, the role of being my protector. He leaned back in his seat and smiled.

And then I saw Him. He was standing in line, waiting for a place at a table to open up. (Sarno’s had lines.) He was sooo handsome and hunky—dark hair, dark beard, dark brooding eyes—a real Latin Lover Man. When he was finally seated, it was at the table next to ours. I noticed that he ordered a bottle of wine and kept to himself, not conversing with the other people around him.

After a while, everyone at his table left. He sat alone. And there was an empty chair next to me. Seizing my chance, I called over to Latin Lover Man, trying to sound delightfully casual, while my heart thumped with embarrassment.

“Why don’t you join us?” I crowed in a chipper falsetto. “No one should be alone on a Saturday night!”

An elbow suddenly dug into my side. Miguel hissed into my ear, “Watch out! He’s one of them!”

Ignoring Miguel’s furiously insistent elbow, I continued to plead with Latin Lover Man.

The object of my affection glanced up at me and muttered, “I’m a loner.”

I didn’t understand him. His Spanish accent was so thick that I had to ask him twice what he’d just said. Somehow, if you have to keep repeating the phrase, “I’m a loner,” it doesn’t have quite the same intensity the third time around. With his bubble of isolation popped, to my immense joy Latin Lover Man picked up his bottle of wine and came to sit next to me.

Miguel continued nudging me more violently and whispering ever-louder warnings, until I had to tell him to stop. “All right,” he shrugged. “Whatever you want. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.”

Here’s where the Contessa comes in. (Did you think I’d forgotten about the Contessa? Not a chance!) In her green ball gown, she placed some sheet music in front of the pianist, then pranced over to our table and serenaded us. Her aged voice was wobbly with an out-of-control tremulo. The Contessa sang Tiny Bubbles. She sang it quite badly. It was the start of my greatest romance.

The Latin Lover Man’s name was Juan. (I learned that after making him repeat his name four times. In the beginning, my half of our conversations consisted mostly of me saying, “What? Hunh?”) Eventually I figured out how to decipher his accent. He became my husband, and the father of our child, and then my ex-husband. But always my good friend.

My Latin Lover and Me

Here’s something weird. When I first came to Los Angeles, without knowing anything at all of the city, I was driving up and down random streets looking for a place to rent when I spotted a charming Victorian house tucked away with a sign on the lawn that said ROOMS. I was drawn to this house almost as if I had been magnetized. The man who answered the door said, “Oh honey, you seem very sweet, but I’m sorry; we only rent to men.” As I left, I felt strangely disappointed.

Later, I discovered that of all the places I could have chosen in this immense megapolis with its population of millions, the first property that attracted me happened to be the very same house where my future husband was living!

Juan also revealed something fascinating, or perhaps fated. Earlier on the night we'd met, he had been exhausted and was driving home to his room in the Victorian house, ready to climb into bed. Suddenly, he said, it was as if a hand reached down and stopped him. Then and there, without thinking, he did a sharp U-turn in the middle of the road and headed towards Sarno’s, because something told him he had to stop there that night. That happened right around the same time I'd pulled myself out of bed and, from the other direction, was also dragging myself to Sarno’s.

By the way, Juan wasn’t really a loner. And Miguel was wrong.

As for the Caffe dell'Opera, the devoted owner, Alberto Sarno, was tragically murdered a few years later and after a few more years, they closed their doors for good. I never found out what happened to the Contessa.

(c) 2010, Mary Elizabeth Raines
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LUST IN THE LEMON ORCHARD - The Obituary that Should Have Been

2010-09-14T03:35:00.010-05:00

On January 15, Aaron _____ passed away at his home in Santa Monica, California following a long battle with cancer. He was 79.

I found this online. It was the obituary of my longtime friend, Aaron. I was sad to see that he had died, and I was appalled and angry that these bleak words wound up being the final summation of his life.

Anyone reading such an obituary would form a picture of someone exceedingly dull and, well, gray: an elderly man, wrinkled, decrepit, seriously ill, declining helplessly into nonbeing, the victim of a malignant disease.

As I looked at the words on my computer screen, I wanted to scream, “No! That’s not who he was!”

When I think of Aaron, I don’t see any gray, except for a few scrumptious silvery strands in his thick, dark hair. No, I see vivid splashes of intense color! And exclamation points! The sparkling blue of the Pacific ocean! The cop-magnet red of Aaron’s cushy Mercedes!! The brilliant yellow of ripe lemons hanging from trees with glossy green leaves!!! Even white came alive when Aaron entered the picture. Envision, if you will, the seductive white of rock salt glistening on the rim of a foamy margarita…!!!!

The first time I noticed him, I thought Aaron was the coolest guy I’d ever seen. We met at a writer’s conference in Santa Barbara, California. It was the 70s. I was 28 years old.

I’d published a few short stories, and was excited about becoming a Real Writer. When I saw the conference advertised in the back of a magazine called The Saturday Review, I decided to drive the 3,000 miles to California in my Plymouth Barracuda. I’d never been to the West Coast before. It was my first time driving cross-country all on my own.

Aaron was a smooth talker, aloof, oozing more confidence than anyone I’d ever met. His garb was what cool guys who had money wore in the 1970s: aviator sunglasses, an expensive black leather jacket, and a shirt that opened part-way down his chest. He had a style of sitting and walking—his lean, strong body just a little hunched over as though he were constantly poised for that most intimate of embraces—which broadcast to any woman bothering to take notice that he was a good lover. And the women noticed. At least this one did. To seal the deal, I was sure that a man like him would never look at someone like me, which made him even more desirable.

Aaron was nearly fifty when I met him, and he was good-looking. After we became friends, he admitted nonchalantly that he had paid a lot of money for his good looks. Genes had given him a long hooked nose and no chin. His appearance was simply one more thing in life to master, and he mastered it magnificently by hiring the best plastic surgeon he could find, years before such surgeries became commonplace. That’s just the way he was. The result was a handsome chin and nose.

Even without Aaron’s presence, this Writer’s Conference hosted a pretty spectacular group, unequalled before or since. Ray Bradbury, the famous science fiction writer, was there. So were Charles Schultz, (the man who wrote the comic strip Peanuts), Joan Didion, Ross MacDonald, Maya Angelou, Alan Pakula (who was writing All the President’s Men), Eudora Welty, and Alex Haley (author of Roots). Eva Marie Saint, the famous actress, showed up. I went to a party with academy-award-winning author Budd Schulberg, who had written On the Waterfront, and one night I had a wonderful sexy argument over dinner with best-selling author Gay Talese about whether women would ever pay for male hookers the way men pay for female hookers. (I argued that yes, women would. Talese said no, they wouldn’t. He was right. But I was young.)

Alongside all these greats, in my view Aaron was by far the choicest man at the conference. Of course, he was completely out of my league, or so I thought. Aaron revealed to me later that he’d had his eye on me from the beginning.

I guess I was pretty enough at the time, even though I didn’t know it, with reddish-gold hair (now gray), fresh full cheeks (still have those damn cheeks!), a lusty heart (yup, still there), and the delicious, nubile body of a 28-year-old (nope). That week I wore the low-cut polyester sundresses that were all the fashion rage, and flirted with abandon, and drank far too much liquor, and also chain-smoked, because everybody chain-smoked in those days. It was all a ruse, of course, for in truth, I was dreadfully naïve.

Sophisticated woman? No, ruefully innocent!

I always sat dead-center in the front row when the authors spoke. Once, while in my usual seat awaiting the entrance of a speaker, feeling ultra-chic as I held a cigarette in one hand and a plastic cup of rosé wine in the other, an older woman came up to me and whispered, “Honey, your boob is out.” I looked at her quizzically. “Your boob’s hanging out,” she repeated in a slightly more vicious tone of voice. “Did you want it like that?”

I looked down, and sure enough, I’d pulled a massive Janet Jackson! My right breast had somehow tumbled out of my dress and lay exposed, a little bare apple, for the whole world to see. I was embarrassed and quickly tucked it back into my sundress. Throughout the rest of the conference, I kept looking down at my chest and rearranging my halter straps compulsively like someone with a weird tic.

Aaron entered the picture one night when some of us attending the conference met in a cottage to read aloud to one another from our work. Aaron read a piece he was working on. It was graphically violent, but well-written. The other women cringed squeamishly. I liked it, and said so. Then I read something of mine. It was kind of sexy. Aaron took notice. But then, he noticed everything. Perhaps, even, my moment of exposure.

A few days later, he casually invited me to go for a ride in his red Mercedes. He drove me to a posh restaurant overlooking the ocean, where he bought me my very first margarita. Being with Aaron made me feel sophisticated. I loved the leather seats of his Mercedes. I loved looking out over the Pacific. I loved sitting next to this handsome, intelligent older man. I loved the taste of the rock salt on the rim of my margarita glass. I loved the taste of my margarita!

Aaron and I did a lot of glancing back and forth, and something powerful was building between us, but we didn’t touch…not yet. Not until he drove me to the lemon orchard.

It was a day of firsts: my first ride in a Mercedes, my first margarita, my first elegant restaurant, and now my first lemon orchard. I’d never even seen a lemon tree before, much less an entire orchard of them! Aaron drove the car over a rutted dirt road and only stopped when we were deep inside the rows of lemon trees.

When we got out of the car, it was whisper silent, more still than just about anyplace I have ever been. Neither Aaron nor I said a word.

Instead of speaking, he looked into my eyes and slowly walked to the nearest tree. He reached up and twisted a lemon off a low-hanging branch. Not taking his eyes from mine, moving closer, he plunged both thumbs into the lemon and ripped it in two. I don’t know how someone can rip a lemon in two and make it seductive, but it was the most sensual thing I’ve ever seen anyone do. Aaron handed me half, and then slowly bit into his part of the lemon, sucking the tangy juices, eyes still locked on mine.

Finally, neither of us could stand it a moment longer. I will not write about what happened next, because this is a PG-rated blog, except to say that it involved the hood of the Mercedes, as well as the floor of his cabin at the writer’s conference, just inside the door, as the bed seemed much too far away…

Our lust for one another was short-lived, but we remained good and dear friends for the rest of our lives.

Aaron, of course, did a lot more than seduce me in a lemon orchard, like: write two books, start his own successful hamburger chain, get rich as a stock broker and financial consultant, act in two movies, produce movies, open an upscale restaurant, and schmooze with famous film stars. He was an outstanding artist, a gourmet cook, and a cultured man. He had a gift for working with plants. He was a veteran who’d served in the Korean War. He “pumped iron.”

He did not always succeed. He once laughingly told me how he had been approached by some guys to invest in their film script, and how he had turned them away because their script contained massive profanity and violence with almost no plot; it was later produced as a movie called Rambo. Even with his occasional failures, he grew wealthy. Then he hit rock bottom as an alcoholic and drug addict, got sentenced to prison for four years for some complex financial fraud, and, humbled and sober, proceeded to climb his way back up again.

No matter what befell him, Aaron’s manner was polished and gentle...and incessantly cool, of course! He was one of the most accomplished men I’ve ever known, and whatever he touched glowed with color. And exclamation points.

In spite of his many life adventures, Aaron never forgot our orchard escapade. He continuously, joyously loved to remind me of that time. I never forgot, either.

Here is the way his obituary should have read: Aaron ___, a man who could wordlessly seduce a woman by ripping a lemon in two with his bare hands(!), died today, and the colors of the world may never be quite as vibrant and bright again.

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MY SECRET

2010-09-03T14:51:00.005-05:00

I have a confession to make. Nobody knows about this, so hang onto your hats, and please, oh please, let me know that you still like me after you hear what I am about to admit:

I am a cardboard box hoarder.

There. I’ve said it.

I will keep any box, of any size. This secret hoarding of mine has been going on for nearly ten years now. It has gotten wa-a-a-y out of control. My home and my garage are in jeopardy.

Here is my rationalization for needing to keep every box that crosses my doorstep:

Some day I will move. Boxes are necessary for packing. When that day comes, I am going to need boxes.
Some day I will actually make good on my intention to sell my extra doo-dads on E-Bay. When that day comes, I am also going to need boxes.

The thought of not having boxes for either of those eventualities makes me tremble a little.

As long as I’m confessing, I will admit that I also save used packing material, like bubble wrap and foam peanuts and those funny air-filled plastic pillows. Who knows when that stuff will come in handy?

It’s a compulsion, yes, although I do think that boxes aren’t the worst items a person can hoard. At least my hoarding is not as dreadful as collecting uncontrollable numbers of dogs or cats. Boxes don’t pee on things. They don’t smell (usually). They can’t scratch you. (Well, at least they can’t if you avoid rubbing up against them the wrong way).

As I tell myself how vitally I need all these boxes, that they will be useful some day, I confess that my collection has crept up on me and has begun to turn into an out-of-control problem. I’ve nearly filled up a spare room in my home, as well as the back half of my garage, with countless cardboard squares and rectangles.

The problem might be genetic. My grandfather, of Scandinavian descent, had three unmarried siblings who lived together when they were in their senior years. Their names were Hilma, Nora and Carl. We referred to them as “the Folks.” They were gentle people. As a little girl, I liked the Folks a lot. When they visited, they always brought me Peter Paul Mounds candy bars, because I had once mentioned that I enjoyed them. They paid attention, you see. They would also bring bags of pastel-colored marshmallows for me to toast.

Hilma, Carl, Grandpa, Nora with their father

The Folks did have one peculiarity, aside from their penchant for colored marshmallows. They never, ever let anyone inside their shared home. After Nora and Carl both died in the same night, we found out why. The two, who were quite elderly, probably had heart attacks (although the adults in my family speculated that they may have frozen to death, since they had never installed central heating in their old Wisconsin farmhouse). Naturally, the authorities needed to enter the house to get the bodies, and when they did, it was discovered that the Folks were desperate hoarders of the worst kind.

Here’s an example: believing that my relatives were dreadfully poor (although they were actually quite comfortable financially), the local church would make sure every few years to give my great-uncle Carl a warm winter coat. When people went through the wreckage in their house, they discovered a total of eight such coats, none of which had ever been worn.

It wasn’t just coats. The Folks kept every empty tunafish can, every newspaper and magazine, every birthday card, every shoebox, every coat hanger, every scrap of clothing, everything they ever owned. Nothing that came into their possession had ever been thrown out. By the time Nora and Carl died, the ancient, yellowed newspapers and empty cans and old magazines were stacked up nearly to the ceiling, and the only way to move through the house was by squeezing precariously along a series of narrow tunnels through the debris.

Okay, so hoarding is in my blood.

I, however, prefer to blame Trader Joes for my neediness where cardboard boxes are concerned. My problems arose from a traumatic incident that happened nine years ago, when I was leaving Los Angeles yet again.

(SIDEBAR: Periodically in my life, I move to Los Angeles, home of Hollywood, warm breezes, huge dreams, and equally huge roses that grow to be eight inches across. This magical city, for me, is like an incredibly handsome guy whispering sweet, sultry promises in my ear. He says, “C’mon baby. Come back. You want me? I’m all yours. This time it’ll work, I swear. I’m so hot for you, baby. The two of us are fantastic together! I can’t wait! I’ve missed you like crazy, baby, and I promise I’m gonna treat you right this time, the way you deserve to be treated. TRUST me. Oh baby, come back to me soon. It’ll be different. Please hurry.”

In my lust for him, I forget about all the times he has treated me poorly. Blind with delusion, I decide to trust him just one more time. After all, he wants me; this gorgeous guy really wants me! So eagerly, naïvely, I return to Los Angeles. The moment I get there, he breaks his promises. He becomes cold and rejecting. He dumps me. Eventually, I move away from California, discouraged and broken-hearted, my dreams crushed. As soon as I turn my back on him, he begins whispering in my ear again, making new promises and pleading for my return. This is my relationship with the City of Angels.)

In 2001, I was in the heartbroken cycle of that relationship (yet again), and had decided to move away from Los Angeles. I needed boxes for the move. Curiously, clean empty boxes are hard to find in L.A. In my search, I went to my favorite Trader Joes, a trendy and much beloved grocery store rampant in southern California. Everyone in L.A. has their favorite Trader Joes. On Los Angeles singles’ sites, a key question used by prospective lovers to establish rapport is “Which Trader Joes do you go to?”

Mine was on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. That store always made me feel good about myself. When I got there, a clerk told me I could take any box that I saw. I was delighted, and I immediately spotted an immense pile of empty wine boxes stacked up against a wall, all uniform in size, all strong, and just perfect for my moving needs. Even better, they were boxes that had once held my favorite Trader Joes’ wine, which at the time sold for $1.99 a bottle. The brand of the wine was Charles Shaw. To this day, locals refer to Charles Shaw’s Cabernet Sauvignon as “Two-buck Chuck.” But I digress. My where-to-find-moving-boxes dilemma was solved! In a jubilant mood, I took a grocery cart full of these empty boxes out to my waiting car, and returned gleefully for another heap.

And I was interrupted by a store manager. He stepped out in front of me, hands on his hips, glaring angrily as if I were a thief, and said, “I’ve been watching you. What are you doing?”

I ducked my head and stammered that a clerk had said I could take some empty boxes, because I was moving…

He interrupted me, frowning. “Well, sure, one box,” he scolded loudly. People in the checkout lines paused to stare at us. “But you’re taking them all! We need these boxes. We have customers who order wine by the case. If you take all these boxes, what are we going to put the wine in?” He did not expect me to reply. He stared at me in accusation.

Always before, I’d felt chic and cool and trendy while shopping at this particular Trader Joes. It was horrifying to be dressed down and humiliated like this in front of the other customers, as though I were some kind of sneaky bag lady. I still feel shamed and embarrassed when I think about it. An inward part of me vowed then and there, in a dramatic Scarlett O’Hara moment, that I would never scrounge for boxes again!

Sometimes I think that maybe I can overcome my addiction. I could really use the space. My storeroom and garage are becoming suspiciously like the Folks’ house and tunnels are starting to appear. I shudder, however, at the sacrifice involved in flattening the hundreds of boxes I have, and sending them all away to the recycling center. Who knows how that would go? I might plead and attempt to wrench the boxes out of the hands of the recycling guys, like sobbing hoarders do who are trying to get their dogs back from the Animal Cops.

I’m also pretty sure that the minute I get rid of the boxes, not only will I finally begin selling on E-Bay; Los Angeles is going to come sneaking back, whispering promises in my ear again, coaxing me into returning, and I will have to pack in a hurry. I must have boxes at the ready.

So that’s my secret. Don’t tell.

And don’t ask to look inside my garage.

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