There were Influences, and then There Were Influences: Books & Magazines

Ronald Tipton and I outlined a novel idea in 1956.  We called it, Attention Teacher! It was a fictionalized account of our Junior High Years. We divided it into two parts. The first was, “Frank March’s School Daze” that I would write and the second, “Which Way is that Hill” to be written by us both. We wrote the Introduction and I began the first part, but we never finished. We were looking at those years in a humorous way. I reworked some of “Mother’s Carey’s Chickens” into the beginning, since that story was about the early days of Junior High. I did cover several of the events that happened to me in junior high, most of which were included in this series. I do not know whether Ron ever wrote anything further or what happened to it if he did.

If I was writing light and funny stories about my school days, which the opposite of what I felt at the time, my reading tastes were moving in a different, darker direction. Warner Brothers released Nicholas Ray’s film “Rebel Without a Cause” in October 1955. It was the start of a literal meteoric career, that of James Dean. I wanted to see that film, but I missed it. I didn’t see “Rebel Without a Cause” until my wedding night, but that’s another story. I didn’t see the movie, but I bought a book in 1956 entitled, Children of the Dark by Irving Shulman.

I loved the book. I could identify with the main characters so well. I read the book several times. I had no idea at the time that Irving Shurman had written the original treatment and story for Rebel Without a Cause and this was his novelization of that film.

I then bought his novel, The Amboy Dukes, another tale of alienated teenagers. Columbia Pictures turned this into a movie in 1974 called “The Lords of Flatbush”. “The Lords of Flatbush” launched a couple famous careers as well. It starred the unknown actors Henry Winkler and Sylvester Stallone. Winkler has said he based “The Fonz” character in “Happy Days” on Stallone’s performance in that movie. They had filmed Amboy Dukes previously under the title “City Across the River” in 1949. I wonder if anyone ever thought of doing a film based on the book and simply calling it,  “The Amboy Dukes”?

I wanted more stories about trouble kids. (Gee, I wonder why?) The film “Blackboard Jungle” had appeared in 1955 and I saw it along with Ronald I believe, one of his ticket prizes from “The Achieve”. The Auditorium Theater nearly burst at the seams when “Rock Around the Clock” blasted from the speakers. (By the way, The Auditorium today is a senior center.) They based the film upon the book by Evan Hunter and I begged my mother to buy me the book by him. She mistakenly got me The Jungle Kids, a collection of short stories published in 1956 to feed off the success of the film “Blackboard Jungle”. At first I was disappointed. But then it was okay; those stories greatly influenced me. The Jungle Kids was another book I read more than once. I reread it so often the cover

tore loose. Hunter showed up as a writer of some episodes for “Alfred Hitchcock Presents’” dramatizations in 1957. (He wrote the screenplay for Hitchcock’s, “The Birds”. I followed this up by reading The Blackboard Jungle and Second Ending.  Second Ending, sometimes known as Quartet in H was a gritty story about a jazz trumpet player’s slow slide down the pit of drugs.

These stories of alienation and juvenile crime were to influence several of my stories over the next couple years. I was identifying with the main characters in most of these. I was feeling very alienated and was soon turning to a life of crime myself. I was shoplifting.

I really didn’t want to shoplift. I know that sounds like a cop out, but I was not a kid with larceny in his heart. Gain by theft was not my desire. It was more gain of desire. The only time I had ever stole anything was some change from my mother’s purse and the guilt I felt from that was palpable. (I know, I haven’t forgotten that Coca-Cola.) The reality was I had been an ultra honest boy otherwise. No, it was not the deadly sin of Greed, or even Envy, that drove me. It was Lust.

My fantasying was taking another turn.

My parents move left me living with my grandparents. I had lived with my grandparents before, but this time it was not the same. My grandfather had stepped in and been a surrogate father when I was younger, taking me with him on trips and adventures and giving me gifts. I loved my grandfather very much, but his fall at work and resulting shattered leg changed him.

Even when the cast came off and he returned to work the pain remained and so did the liquor. He hit the bottle as soon as he came home from work and didn’t stop until he fell into a stupor. He would lie on the sofa in the dining room and mumble. He was not a happy drunk; he was a mean one. He lay night after night, cursing out people in his head.

He didn’t want anything to do with old friends. They came to call when he was laid up in  the cast, but he was so short with them they eventually drifted away. He had stopped going to the foxhunts, too. He just lay about the house and drank. I don’t know how my grandmother stood it, except she was a tough woman.

We were watching television one evening when he staggered in from the dining room and yelled something. Both my grandmother and I went, “Sh-h-h!”

“Don’t you shush me, you goddamn boy. Y’can go t’hell. Damn worthless kid.”

He staggered back and collapsed on the sofa. I was stunned. I came to where he now lay on the day bed and told him I was sorry, but he cursed at me, then he took a clumbsy swat toward me with his hand. I ducked aside and from then on I tried to stay as far from him as possible. I would go around the dining room table if passing to the kitchen just to keep away.

My parents were gone north to live and I would soon. I would have to give up the job I enjoyed doing and the money it brought. I might have to give up my friends Ronald and Stuart. On top of this, I believed I was flunking Ninth Grade. All I had felt were left to me were my Pirate Ladies, but I couldn’t even fully engage in my fantasy the way I had. My grandparents never went anywhere and left me alone. I couldn’t frolic about their abode half naked.

I lay in bed at night and created a new fantasy. This one was more voyeuristic. I was still passive in this scenario, but I wasn’t a prisoner and she wasn’t a Pirate. She was an exhibitionist. She didn’t have a name. She didn’t have a clear face, so she had no real person identity. She was simply my concept of pretty and sexy. She may have been Betty from the Archie Comics. My imaginary self would be in some public place, even in a classroom at school. It varied. This girl would be in my line of sight and she would do something provocative. She might be bending over so I could see a lot of cleavage. She might be sitting with her skirt pulled up showing her thigh.

She would catch me looking and smile. She would then expose more. She might undo a button on her blouse; she might hitch her skirt higher. Eventually she would approach me. She would lean near and tell me to dare her to do something. Even in my fantasy I would get flustered. I might tell her to undo her blouse more or lift her skirt so I could see her underpants. She always complied. She would ask if I didn’t want to see more. I would nod and she might pullher bra  up and show her breasts. I had never seen a woman’s breasts, except some pinup calendars of young models in revealing bikinis, but I did have a general idea what they looked like. I could picture her breasts. She would ask if I wanted her to take off her panties. I would nod and she would slip them down her legs, but her skirt would always drop too. I did not know what a woman’s lower anatomy looked like. I couldn’t even imagine it.

 My curiosity had long been growing. I wasn’t nervy enough to ask a girl “to play doctor” and no real life girl ever approached me asking for dares like my imaginary one.If any real girl had done such a thing I probably would have run away and avoided that young lady from then on. I would have been way too shy to comply.

I went into Sam Charles’ Newsstand often. I had for years. Sometimes I got a soda there or bought my bubblegum-with-baseball-cards. I would buy some candy bars on occasion or browse his comic books. Now I was going there everyday after school and on Saturday afternoon to pick up my newspapers. Any time I ventured inside I saw those magazines toward the front middle of his display racks. I had paid them naught attention a few months earlier, but now my eyes wandered to them every time.

They called them “Men’s Magazines”, but more commonly “Girlie Magazines”. They  weren’t like Esquire. These magazines had lots of photographs of scantily clad, maybe nude, women. Their titles were “Escapade”, “Cabaret”, “Nugget”, “Dude”, and “Adam”.  The board holding them on the rack hid the covers, except for the titles, behind wide panels.

There was a sign on this section of the display. “Anyone under the age of 21 cannot browse or purchase these magazines.”

I really, really, really wanted to look inside these magazines, but I wasn’t twenty-one. I couldn’t buy them. I had to steal them, which was how I justified to myself what I was doing. You know, I was the victim here; they drove me to steal. I would have fit right in with a lot people today.

I was scared to death the first couple times. I looked like the thief I was, pacing back and forth past that section and constantly looking over my shoulders. Finally, not seeing anyone looking, I grabbed a couple at random and stuffed them inside my shirt. I continued to look at other magazines, the ones next to those like "Argosy" and "Fiend and Stream", for a couple minutes and then walked out. I counted out my papers and pushed my bike up the street. Once beyond the newsstand I took the magazines out of my shirt and pushed then under the newspapers.  

If nervous during the theft I was sweating now. I was anxious to have a peek inside these magazines now that I had them. I couldn’t just sit down on the curb there in the business district and start gawking at the pictures. I had to serve my customers along Lancaster Avenue. The anticipation was overwhelming. I hadn’t gone far until I had the puberty teen's embarrassment. I pedaled on hoping my bike and bag of papers hid my condition. As I walked to a porch to place the paper I kept fingers crossed no one would step out to greet me.

My first opportunity to take a glance came on Uwchlan Avenue. I only had two deliveries up this street and there was a bit of space between houses where I could pause and not look suspicious. If any one saw me they might think I was checking my address book. I pulled up one of the magazines and spread it atop my papers. I quickly rifled through the pages, hardly stopping at any. I could only be there a couple of minutes, I had to look quick.

What I saw send shivers through me but was also a bit of a let down. Most of the women wore bikinis or lingerie like Betty Page here on the left. They positioned any nudes behind a bush or potted plant. Leaves hid the parts I wanted to see.

This I discovered was the standard fare of 1950s Girlie magazines. There was still much kept hidden. Some of the magazines were more risqué than others. They would show a bare bottom or even a bare breast, but nothing below the waist up front. I don’t know if Sam Charles was stocking any of those new magazines called “Playboy”, but I never stole one if he was. Even Playboy didn’t show everything in the 1950’s. They airbrushed their notorious centerfolds so there was no public hair, no anything. I was coming to believe women actually did have nothing below the waist. (This was to prove embarrassing in the near future.)

I would stop along my route in any place affording some privacy and flip through the pages. This was hardly satisfying. I also faced another problem, disposal.

I wanted to go someplace where I could leisurely look at the magazines, but where would that be? I thought Devil’s Nest in Stuart’s woods. It wasn’t practical. I had my bicycle. Where could I put my bike while I went back there? If I was living at 417 Washington I could have taken them home. My father wouldn’t be there and I could easily sneak them pass my mother if she were home from work. I could then hide them up in my attic playroom. Mom didn’t often go up there except to sweep the floor. She never went through my things.

I wasn’t living at 417, though. My parents had moved and I was at 424 Washington. Taking them there was too risky. Where would I hide them? Everyone knew I hated the attic, so it would certainly raise questions if I began spending time up there. My bedroom was simply temporary and my grandparents had things in the bureaus that they sometimes came in to get. My grandmother was a much more thorough cleaner than my mom. She would find anything I tried to hide, even under the mattress. I did bring a couple home once thinking I could burn them when I took out the trash. The trouble was they burned slow. I had to keep poking at them with a stick to keep the flame going until everything was unreadable ash. It took too long to do.

The only thing I could do was dispose of the evidence each time before I went home. I would steal some magazines, peruse them best I could when and wherever I could, and then ditch them in some trashcan or dumpster along my route. This was getting to be a lot of work for a quick look-see at a semi-naked woman.

I decided my best bet was the weekend when I didn’t have school. Besides I didn’t want to keep snitching magazines when I picked up my papers. It would look odd if I was loitering about the magazine racks every day. If I went early on a Saturday I could walk to the store. I could then go to that woods and take my time looking at the pictures, which is what I did.

If I were alone in the woods I would pull out a magazine and look at it. If not I would keep walking and come back later hoping I could be alone. While I was down in the hole I could fantasize as well. My Pirate Ladies didn’t come chasing me. My imaginary exhibitionist girlfriend showed up. I could pretend it was she in those pictures.

Then she began daring me. “Oh,” she would say in my head, “you see me. I dare you to show me yours”. I was much too jittery to completely undress anymore. I would drop my pants. “I want to see more,” she would say and I’d push my briefs down also. Sometimes I would just open my fly and expose myself.

But it didn’t go further than that. I still didn’t know how to masturbate.

I still disposed of the magazines before going home.

After the first couple times stealing got easier. I didn’t spend much time pacing or looking. I would walk in, see the coast looked clear and snatch my loot and walk out. It was easy as pie, but I had sat in the kitchen enough as a child while grandmother baked to know pies weren’t always that easy. Mr. Charles busted me when I grabbed one too many girlie pies.

I stuffed three magazines inside my shirt and turned around. Sam Charles was standing

behind the counter next to his cash register. “You, come here,” he said.

I walked over to the counter.

”What you got under your shirt?” he said.

I knew he knew. I pulled the magazines out and laid him on the counter.

He picked them up. He was staring right into my face. He banged the magazines against the palm of one hand. “I ever catch you stealin’ these things in here again,” he said loudly and gruffly, “I’m gonna stick ‘em up your ass.”

“Yes, sir,” I whispered.

He made a motion with his head that indicated I better get out of his store right then and there. I did.

I was scared again. I was sure Mr. Charles would call my home or he would tell my grandfather when he saw him about town. Maybe Mr. Charles would call the police. I was thinking about Camp Hill once more.  I went home and waited for something horrible to happen.

Nothing ever did. Nobody ever mentioned my stealing, not my parents or my grandparents, not a teacher or any of the kids I knew, friend or foe, and no police ever came. I stayed away from Sam Charles’ Newsstand the rest of the time I lived in Downingtown. Eventually I went back to that store occasionally and nothing was said. I wasn’t glared at or given any evil eye when I showed up to buy something. It was as if it never happened, except I never stole another thing in my life.

School ended on June 8. Miss Hurlock handed me my final Downingtown report card; promoted to Tenth Grade. What a great relief. I remained at my grandparent through the night.  I stopped by their homes to say goodbye to Ronald and Stuart. The next day my parents came. I loaded my few belongings sans any dirty magazines in the car. We all had Saturday dinner together and then it was time to go. Downingtown was past history. I was still 14 years old.

THREE EXCERPTS FROM EARLY STORIES COLLECTED IN ACTS OF THE FATHERS (1962)

EXCERPT FROM “RESCUE” Written at age 14.

He squinted at the bright circle. It had dark spots, mountains on the moon. If they were looked at that way there was no face to be seen. The image was all in the mind. But the light of the moon was real and it fell into the open gorge onto the rocks jutting from the cliff sides. The pale light twisted the rock into shapes and it was very beautiful inside the canyon.

Art sighed. His right leg pained. He shifted weight to the other leg, which eased the hurt. In a short time his left leg began to pain more than he could bear. He inched down, pressing against the wall, and got to a seated position with his feet dangling over the edge. He swung his feet back and touched the hard wall beneath him. He could tell from this touch that it was very solid and he smiled briefly. This meant there was less danger of another cave-in.

He shut his eyes. The noisy scene crashed back in his mind; the sudden cracking, the tumbling rock bouncing against the peaked boulders below and the tearing of the path from the wall, chunk by chunk, coming in his direction, stopping just short of where he stood wide-eyed. Inches, a few last inches between his life and his death. He had watched it go, broken stones and pieces of gravel, falling into the crevice. Rocks flying into the river, forming rings and subtle splashes that were quickly washed smooth. Another few inches and it would have carried him with it. The thought was cold and he shivered.

The aches in his legs abated as he sat. For a while his legs were numb. After time passed they regained feeling and it felt strange having them dangle in space. Art squirmed harder against the wall. Having nothing to set his feet upon made him uncomfortable. How would he get back up without falling? The longer he pondered this, the more he had to get back on his feet to prove he still could. But the fear to try grew. He was gnawed by indecision. He placed his palms on the path along side his body. Perspiring, he straightened his arms and pressed down with his hands and pulled one leg up, placing the foot on the side of the ledge. He tried to push upward. Some of the gravel moved and a piece of the ridge broke beneath his heel. His foot slid off and he fell the two inches back onto the ledge.

“God, my God my God, I can’t get up.”

EXCERPT FROM “PURGATORY STORY”  (Written at age 14.)

“Oh God,” wailed Bill, “look.”

 Elk didn’t see anything except the stony shale of the wall.

“Look, Elk, we gotta get outta here fast.”

“More cave-ins?’

“I wouldn’t know about that, but look at my light. It’s dimming, burning out. We lose our light we’ll be in real trouble.”

Both boys ran down the narrow tunnels, always taking the left trail. At some spots the cavern narrowed to such a degree they had to crawl, inching on their stomachs, and at such times Bill feared the cave would dead-end and they would not be able to wiggle backward.

His light grew dimmer, until at length it barely shed any light at all.

“It’s going out,” he called back.

The light died and they scrambled forward into pitch darkness until Bill tumbled headlong down a decline in the ground. Elk followed and landed atop him. Both boys cried out, but were all right and able to stand. When they were on their feet, they cried out again but this time from happiness. Ahead was a round hole and through it they could see sunlight.

“An exit,” Elk yelled and pushed past Bill.

They ran toward the air. Elk was faster so was first to reach the opening. He ran into the sky and disappeared. A scream followed. Bill slowed and crept to the opening.

EXCERPT FROM “MOON WAS CLOUDY” (Written at age 15.)

Walking through the night air, he kept a hand in his right coat pocket. A fierce determination commanded his steps. He turned down the next block toward the center of Wilmilar. The courthouse clock was chiming eleven times on the west side of town.

His heart thumped in his chest echoing the striking clock. A small drop of perspiration rolled down his cheek. It paused at his chin as if confused where to go.

The clock struck and the drop splashed to the sidewalk.

Bossler lived alone, adrift from his parents, in a small alley apartment just off the main street. The apartment was a room over the grocery store where he worked after school. The town was dark. There were no houses in this area, only stores and a couple of gas stations, all of which were now closed.

Eric was sweating so freely his skin was slick. The evaporating moisture turned the sweat to a chill. All the while the clock struck its countdown. At a booth on the corner he made a phone call. His soft voice slid through the narrow wire and curled around the middle ear of Mike Bossler. Eric told him to be outside in ten minutes by the fruit stand. Bossler slammed the receiver down, walked out the door and down the steps to the street. “Why wait?” he muttered.

Bossler stood in front of the fruit stand to the right of steps leading down to the sub-ground shop. Walking around the corner a block away came Eric. He saw Bossler.

Amused, Bossler watched him come until Eric stopped just short of him. They stared at each other.

The end of chiming brought a dead silence. Eric leaped at Bossler, who stood ready for a charge. His arms encircled Eric’s waist, lifting the smaller boy off the ground with a bear hug.

“I’ll kill you!” Eric shouted.

Bossler snorted. Was this all the guy had, this weak oath? “Yeah, right, punk.” Bossler squeezed harder and laughed.

He didn’t notice Eric’s hand sunk deep in his right coat pocket. The hand came out and five inches of thin steel went into Bossler.

The arms went limp. Bossler dropped to the sidewalk. Eric’s watched his foe crawl on his stomach with the knife handle protruding as a long slash of blood trailed beneath him. Bossler crawled to the curb, where his head dropped over and his body quivered. Everything became still.

Eric was silent for a second, and then laughed a sick, high chuckle, which turned to moans and his moans became noiseless tears. He looked at the dead boy halfway in the street. Eric felt weak. He had an upset stomach. He reached back and leaned on the wooden rail along the steps to the basement shop. His legs shook. He let his weight fall against the wood for support.

Tarzan and the Pirates of Penance

Johnny Weissmuller, Olympic swimming champ turned movie actor, was still making Tarzan movies when I was a young boy. He put on a full suit of clothes complete with pith helmet and became Jungle Jim in 1948. His girth by that time made him look more like elephants had raised Tarzan than apes. However, the Roosevelt Theater in Downingtown was still showing all his old Tarzan movies right back to 1932’s Tarzan the Ape Man.

Maureen O’Sullivan played Jane in the first several Tarzan films starring Weissmuller. It is interesting how over the years Tarzan’s loincloth grew wider and longer, while Jane traded her own in for something more resembling a dress. The Motion Picture Production Code, more popularly (or perhaps unpopularity) called the Hays Code, had much to do with this wardrobe change. It took the latter name from Will H. Hays, the President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America for 25 years.

Hays was hired in 1922 to clean up the movies. He was sort of the film industry version of Wertham. Hays was a former Postmaster General and Head of the Republican national Committee. The Motion Picture Production Code did not go into effect until 1930, and given scenes in the early Weissmuller Tarzan films, did not completely get a firm grip on censorship for a few more years.

The earlier films were very suggestive and risqué. There is a sequence where Tarzan and Jane go swimming, for instance. They stand upon a tree branch. Jane dives and Tarzan tears her dress off as she does. He then dives in after her and we have a long sequence of the two of them swimming underwater.

Jane is obviously naked (although she may have had some type of flesh-colored G-string on). At one point in this sequence, they are in a position underwater that suggests intercourse. When Jane emerges she swims to shore, where some fronds partially hide her body (covering the naughty bits as Monty Python would say) and she has to struggle to pull her dress away from Cheetah.

I went to these Weissmuller era Tarzan films as a boy. I was never a great fan of this genre, but you went and watched what this week’s matinee offered. I hadn’t realized that acted out before my eyes, was a whole psychology textbook. Were these actors exhibitionists? Were we in the audience voyeurs? In a way both things are true, but more likely the writers and directors were tapping into the audience’s secret sexual fantasies.

So welcome to Sexual Psychology 101, our subject is exhibitionism vs. escapism and fantasy.

I might have accepted the idea that I was an exhibitionist. Why else would I have been doing the things I did between ages of twelve and fourteen?

I was wrong.
An exhibitionist wants to display their private parts publicly, or at least semi-publicly. They can be non-threatening or threatening in their manner of display. Whether it is threatening or not depends more on the aggression of the exhibitionist. If his or her action is perceived as threatening there may be an arrested for indecent exposure. Most exhibitionists are not aggressive. They may be flashing to shock or get attention, but seldom do more then show themselves. Others may do it in an acceptable social situation, such as the Nude Bike Rides or women displaying themselves for beads at Mardi Gras. Whatever the circumstance these acts of exposure are in front of other people. Exhibitionists want other people to see them, such as the lady in the photo.

To have anyone see me naked was not my desire even in circumstances where nudity was acceptable. Someone requiring it of me or where it was considered expected did not make it any more acceptable to me. So if I was not an exhibitionist, what was going on?

What was going on was an almost universal experience known as Sexual Fantasy. Individual minds and imaginations create widely varying fantasies. Some people only fantasize mentally. Others incorporate a certain amount of acting, such as when married couples do roll playing to heighten their relationships. People may use fantasy during intercourse or in masturbation, which mine were not. I did not know about masturbation until I was fifteen. Mine was a form of escapism. When a person experiences repression or is suppressed by others they use fantasy to convert a negative to a positive experience. “If you were abused or bullied when you were small, then later in life you might turn being bullied into something pleasurable and fantasize about erotic submission or humiliation”.

Children are subject to emotional wounding. The subconscious is always trying to heal us when we suffer conflict or pain. Sometimes it does this by eroticizing these conflicts allowing our painful past to become a pleasurable experience. If not for this, our conflicts may turn to a more violent form of fantasying where we are inflicting pain and suffering on other. Those who move toward this second form sometimes begin to act it out antisocially, such as turning to rape or other violent behavior.

My boyhood fantasies were not violent, at least not to others and they did not incoporate the infliction of pain. They involved capture and humiliation at the hands of others. In my fantasies my subconscious controlled the bullying by my captors so that it aroused the erotic sensations I desired, rather than the humiliations of school and social life that I couldn’t avoid or control. My mind turned the negativity of my life to a positive rather than the alternative. The humiliation and anger I felt toward others did not become a fantasy of tormenting my tormentors. If I had developed fantasies that gave me pleasure from inflicting pain, I may have become that weird, quiet kid who shows up at school one day with a gun and starts shooting.

The realities of our early lives weave the tapestry of our sexual fantasies. We may think what we imagine is strange or “evil”. We may have guilt or embarrassment over what we fantasize and desire to erase it from our brain. This can’t be done is the conclusion of psychiatrists in this field of study. You can’t delete the fantasies from your brain as I could delete a sentence from this computer. You can’t control your sexual fantasies any more than you control what you dream in your sleep. In fact, attempting to do so may actually have the adverse effect of the fantasy embedding itself into your every thought and taking control of your life.

Now some people might look at my youthful fantasies as perverse, but in some scientific surveys this fantasy of capture and submission has ranked as the second most common. The facts remain that everyone has a secret life of sexual fantasies, some of which may be far more bazaar than any I imagined. The difference is I choose to be honest and talk about the secret world of my puberty, where most people take it to the grave. There is a word for people who claim never to have this secret world. That word is Liar.

There is also a word for people who have never engaged in one or more of the Seven Deadly Sins. That word is non-existent.

I am not a saint. I am a man of flaws, faults, foibles and failures. I am a sinner. If you tell me you are a person who never was, isn’t now nor ever will be a sinner, then all I can say is I don’t believe you.  Heaven help you if you believe that of yourself.  (You got that, Donald Never Did Anything to Ask Forgiveness For Trump?)

In other words, like two curious children behind the barn, I am showing you mine. You don’t have to show me yours in return, but go look at it before you decide to judge me.

Why pirates?

I can’t say for certain. Maybe it was because I read Treasure Island four times. Pirate movies were popular fare when I was a lad. In Pirate films there was usually a fair lady captured from a Spanish galleon and held against her will on the Jolly Roger ship. They often divested her of outer garments and tied her to the mast in bloomers and under bodice. Maybe my mind simply reversed rolls. My mind created female pirates and I was their fair captive lad. It reversed the looks as well, for Movie pirates were usually a scurvy lot, whom I would never consider pretty. But my lady pirates were pretty. My lady pirates were Vargas Girl Pirates.

It began one night when left home alone that my lady pirates showed up. It began as innocent play; not even play, just daydreaming to pass the time. I read a lot. Besides the novels of Stevenson, I had read the works of Jack London including Sea Wolf. Maybe I had been reading such stories at the time and began imagining myself as the hero, casted to sea in a shipwreck, finding presumed safety on a deserted island.

That was definitely the scenario for my fantasies. I played that scene over and over in my mind many times. My imaginary self always began by exploring his new surroundings and came upon a pirate ship anchored in the bay. Ah, rescue, he thought, but when he approached the people on the shore, who must have come from the ship, they attacked and he flees. He is surprised to discover this crew is all women. In his first escape, he loses his shirt. He already lost his shoes and socks in the ocean when he swam ashore.

He didn’t escape with the shirt on his back, but he did with his pants in place.

But not for long, soon they came upon him in hot pursuit. He fell and they had him. They dragged him back to the beach and tied him to a pole, after pulling off his trousers. The women have our hero captured and displayed in nothing but his briefs. He is embarrassed. They tie his hands behind his back and he can’t cover his arousal.

At first this was all. I was making it up in my head and it ended there. Our hero wasn’t the only one helplessly aroused. I had tied his hands behind his back because I knew nothing about masturbation. At that point there was nowhere further to take the fantasy. I got dressed and either turned on the TV or went to bed.

This being nothing but a narrative in my head, I could indulge it anywhere. When bored in a class I could picture my lady pirates. No one could see my hero get aroused, but what of me? A teacher could summons me to the blackboard at that moment? It would be bad enough caught with my mind elsewhere, but worst being seen in that condition.

In life habits, sins and fantasies are seldom satisfied splashing in the shallows. Sooner or later they want to wade to where the bigger waves are. They will take you to deeper water, regardless if you can swim or not.

My lady pirates were off the boat; they weren’t sailing away from the shore of my imagination for a while, and the island of Ninth Grade would be a hard one to survive.