!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!
On the drive back to Woods’ Hole, Mike turned on his motor-mouth. “That place we were, that’s the bay where the Pilgrims landed, right?”
Not waiting for an answer, he went on. “My mother, she says she’s got an ancestor, Francis Eaton, I think, who came over on the Mayflower. Francis and Sarah Eaton. And they had a little boy with them, too, Samuel. Sarah died right away, but Samuel must have been rugged, he grew up and had a family. ‘Good stock,’ my mother says. I’ve always felt connected to this place, this coast, from the north shore of Boston on down to Cape Cod. I was born there, remember?’
“In Salem, right?” I quickly interjected, but he gave me no space to go on.
“I get tired of jokes about witches. so I always add we lived in Lynn, right across the street from the ocean. It feels like home here, I think.” He stopped to take a breath.
I wanted to ask if he was thinking of staying in New England after college, but before I could, he blurted, “Oh! That other present! I was driving out of town, there’s a record store on on the strip, I saw a big poster on the window – The Beatles! I bought their new album. They said it just came out today. It’s there in the bag. Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to wrap it or anything, or make a cute little card, like you always do.”
He seemed ready to go on forever, so I reached around and found the album. Pulling it out, I felt almost blinded by the cover, filled with all those people in so many different costumes. And in the front, four boys from Liverpool, dressed in old-time marching band uniforms, all hair and mustaches, John with his wire-rims.
“…I want to get glasses like that. My lenses are so thick, I bet they’d weigh less, those frames, less pressure here on my nose.” He looked over at me as we pulled into the ferry line-up. “I remember the first time I heard them. It was in a parking lot at the shopping center by our house, Saturday morning. My sister was driving, she must have been almost 17 then, so we had the radio on, and I Want To Hold Your Hand came on. It was so different than anything I’d ever heard before. I was only 14, of course, so what did I know. But those cymbals, the harmony, the chugging guitars. I could get why girls all over Europe and England were screaming and fainting. Not that I ever did myself, but I understood the emotion.” He looked carefully at me again, and asked, “What about you? Were you one of those screamers?”
I screwed up my eyes, trying to remember. The Beatles were another thing which had scared me. Eddie and Linda were always talking about them, that February of 1964. When I got the chance, the music I liked was softer, folk music, quieter musicals, and Barbra Streisand. Every Jewish girl wanted to be her, I thought. I was a freshman then, still trying to figure out where I fit in school and with all the girls there. They seemed to have lost their minds sometimes, about the Beatles. I felt so anxious around those girls with their unchecked emotions and loss of control
“I don’t know. It was hard to understand. I mean, I like their music, they’re very melodic, their harmonies are entrancing. You can’t deny the impact they’ve had on how some people view the world. I never felt a crush on any of them, but when there’s a bunch of fourteen year-old girls in a car, and their song comes on, and all the other girls are shrieking, it’s kind of hard not to. So, yeah, I guess I screamed over them, but maybe it was more I was being a part of some other girls’ fantasies. Does that make sense?”
“We’re so much older, now, huh? We’re aristocrats, not peasants, and we don’t let emotion sway us so much anymore, is that it?”
“What’s that mean?”
“Well, to me a peasant is someone that life just happens too. They follow the crowd, and try to sound smart, but really they’re just putting on airs. Aristocrats don’t have to show off, they already know who they are.”
The ferry arrived, disgorged its load of vehicles. He eased the Lancer onto the lower car deck. I wasn’t sure I knew what he meant, so I tried, “Maybe it’s in the words they use. Maybe that’s the difference? An aristocrat would simply say “sofa’, while a peasant might use “davenport’?”
All the way across the Sound, we tried out various pairs of words, deciding which might be aristocratic. “Car”, I’d say. “Automobile,” he’d counter.
“Refrigerator”
“Icebox”
“Purchase”
“Buy”
“Walk”
“Perambulate,” I tried.
“Wait. Who would ever say perambulate?”
We began laughing, fogging up the windows in that little red car. By the time we got to “bicycle” and “velocipede”, he cried, “I quit, you’re right. It’s stupid, either way. Just say what you want to say, the way you want to say it. As long as the word feels right.” He caught his breath, his face slowly falling from near hysteria to a quiet smile. Then, “That reminds me. Did you know I got a bike?”
“A motorbike?”
“No, a regular clunker. I went to the police auction they have every April, and bought a rusty old maroon Schwinn for $20. It’s easier getting from my dorm to class to practice and all around than walking everywhere. Once the snow melted, I was itching to try that out when I saw some other guys with them. I’ve got a little basket in front, put my books there, it’s real easy.”
I looked around the car. “Where is it now?”
“We can store our stuff in the basement of the dorm for next year. We all have a little square space, so I don’t have to take everything home.”
“I remember when I was in the sixth grade, my parents gave me a bike, a real bike with big wheels and everything. I rode it to school in the spring and fall that year. But then somebody took it from the front yard that summer, and dad wouldn’t get me another one.”
“Me, too! Kind of, I mean. In fifth grade, my father started giving us a $5 a week allowance. Said we had to buy everything we wanted, clothes, snacks, baseball cards. So I saved it all up, didn’t buy anything for three months. I went out and bought a three-speed Raleigh, rode it everyday to school. There was a big swing set there, they’d take all the seats out, and that’s where we parked our bikes. It feels so free and flowing to go around W now, like that again. Reminds me of when I used to ride my bike to swim practice in the summers.”
“We have bikes at our summer house. That used to be fun, riding with Linda into town, looking at the boats come in.” He just nodded his head, so I went on, “What about swimming? Are your going to be able to do that this summer, with your job?”
“Nah, age-group swimming only goes to 17, so I’m not on a team anymore. What about your birthday wishes, you thought of one yet?”
It didn’t seem like the time to get too deep into anything, so I said, “OK, here’s one. Why don’t we take a bike ride on the island tomorrow. Go into town, or maybe down to the beach, just feel like kids again.”
The ferry was docking at Vineyard Haven, so he simply nodded while starting the engine. He pointed to the seat belt down on the floor. We slowly climbed up the ramp off the boat, and immediately I felt at home. Halyards clanged against sailboats’ metal masts. Water lapped softly under the ferry dock pilings. The grey weathered storefronts lining State Street displayed their crafts and tourist treasures. The evening sun hung low in our eyes as we headed towards Menemsha. I didn’t want my time alone with him to end, so I used another of my wishes. “Let’s not go to the house first thing. Pull off here to the right, we can go down to the beach, talk a walk and watch the sunset, all right?”
As we left the car parked by the fence lining the dune, I had to tease him into taking his shoes off and leave them behind.
“But my feet will get wet! I don’t have a towel. Then what about the sand? It’ll stick between my toes, and get in the sheets all night.”
He was serious, I saw. “Wait a minute. You spend every day, all summer, walking around a swimming pool, no shoes on, and you can’t stand walking on the beach barefoot?” I threw my sandals onto the red leather vinyl seats as he was closing my door, then ran through the gate and down to the water’s edge. I raised my sweater overhead, swinging it like a signal flag. “Come on in, the water’s fine!”
He appeared to sigh, shook his head, removed his shoes and socks, rolled up his pant legs, and slowly walked, head down, until he was two steps away from me. Then, he pounced, secured me in a bear hug, and pulled us onto the sand. We sprawled together, chest-to-chest, and lay there laughing for a bit. Getting up, we walked to the still-wet part of the beach, where the water was gently receding, leave little flecks of foam and bubbles in the sand.
He asked, “Have you got the catalogue yet? Do you know what courses you want to take?”
I had seen the thick soft-covered Harvard course catalogue for the1967-68 academic year, with that shield and “Veritas” on the cover. But it had been too intimidating to explore, so I had just day-dreamed about being in Cambridge, in the Radcliffe quad, then going to Widener library to study, or into a class in one of the red brick or sandstone buildings. I wondered what the other girls would be like, if I’d make friends. I wasn’t ready yet to return to student life. I wanted a summer of sun, and sand, and quiet. Mike and I had only a week here, together, before we’d be apart again. I wanted to block that off in time and space, not let the urgent pull of the future intervene.