My Serotinous Self

by Charles C. Cole

My dad had been offered a job out of state, taking Mom with him. My brother was fourteen years older than me, married with kids, while I had just finished my sophomore year in high school. My parents let me linger over the summer, living at my brother’s house, so that I could visit with my friends a while longer. My pals and I worked at McDonald’s in the morning and hung out at lakeside parties in the evening.

My brother was my parents’ firstborn. From his stories, Dad was pretty strict in the early days. I was the fifth child, following three sisters, so my parents had pretty much given up by the time I got to high school. I was also the last one at home and a square. Let’s put it this way: they sold me Mom’s green VW Beetle for $1, so I could drive to work.

Still, my brother wanted to be “the cool parent.” He was a lawyer. So long as I didn’t get in trouble with the police and kept the alcohol drinking to a minimum, I could come and go as I wanted. He and his wife called me their “skinny tenant.”

Five years before, at the occasion of my middle sister’s wedding, my mother had insisted I ride alone with him. “Mother thinks it’s time you learned about the birds and the bees.”

“I told her they teach that in school.”

“Are you good?”

“I’m good,” I said, though the only information I had was from a Playboy magazine one of my friends had secretly stolen from under his uncle’s bed.

One week, I was put on the night shift at McDonald’s. I was bummed to be missing the parties. Starting as a joke, Nancy B. had been flirting up a storm with me to get me out of my funk. At close, I was carrying the trash out to the dumpster when she held the door for me. She gave me a quick kiss on the lips as I went by.

“What the hell?” I said.

“You didn’t like it?” she asked.

At that point, I’d never had a girlfriend. I’d once walked a girl home in fifth grade, through the woods, and kissed her on the cheek. “Why’d you do that?” she’d asked, by no means taken aback. I told her the truth, “Because Jack Snyder dared me.” We held hands for a ways then, when we got to her house, her jealous dog bit me above my left knee. That was my sign to hold off in the romance department.

When I came back from the dumpster, I was distracted. There was a dark hardware/lumber store across the street.

“I thought you liked girls,” said Nancy.

“I do,” I said. “Don’t you hear that?” It might as well have been a cicada calling out in the still of the night: we could hear a hacksaw slowly cutting through metal. Someone was breaking into the woodyard.

“We should check it out,” said Nancy.

“Have Duke call the cops.” Duke was the shift manager. He hated teens, mostly because we didn’t invite him to our parties.

We stood by our open exit door with Duke and a couple of others, listening, waiting for the cops.

“He’s gonna get away,” I said.

“Drive over there, but stay in your car,” said Duke. “The cops’ll be there any minute.”

Nancy stood by my passenger door. “Let’s go!”

We pulled around to the side and I flashed my high beams at the tall fence. This shaggy haired kid about our age flew up the inside of the fence, his eyes were wide and he was heading our way. Just then, the cops pulled in and jumped out with lots of yelling. We drove back to McDonald’s.

We debriefed with Duke, but didn’t get out of the car.

“I clocked you two out,” said Duke. Of course, he did.

“Oh, damn,” said Nancy, “my mom’s at camp. I was supposed to get a ride home. Can you take me?”

“Do it,” said Duke. “You’re only young once.”

When we got to Nancy’s, there wasn’t a single light on. I was trembling. She had me shine my headlights at her porch, so she could find her key under a huge flowerpot. “Wait a minute,” she called, “until I know it’s safe.” She put some lights on and returned with a big bottle of wine. “I don’t know about you, but I’m freaked. Hang out for a while, until my nerves calm down.”

It didn’t take long before I felt buzzed. “Thank you for being a gentleman and taking me home,” she said, then she kissed me, then she used her tongue and kissed me again. “Are you okay to drive?” She kissed me again, then she led me back to her room. She had a mattress on the floor and, instead of a bedroom door, she had bright beads hanging down. The floor was littered with magazines and notebooks and record albums.

I had never done this before. I thought I could stumble my way through it. “Higher,” she said. “Right there. You’re so skinny.”

Afterwards, I asked: “Does this mean we’re dating?”

“If you want it to.”

When I got in my car to head to my brother’s, I was no longer buzzed and no longer trembling.

Nancy continued flirting with me, but I never drove her home again, though I offered. At the end of the summer, I moved away. We wrote letters briefly, but we stopped when she got a real boyfriend. She thanked me for not bragging to my friends.

At college, everyone thought I was “inexperienced.” Girls were something beautiful that I gawked at from afar but didn’t know how to talk to. I avoided parties.

When I finally fell in love, I was thirty. Nature has a way of defining me. I recently came across the term “serotinous,” basically meaning it’s time when it’s time. Here’s to late bloomers.