the beach with a group of boys—we started out doing this on weekends and ended up playing hooky sometimes so we wouldn’t have to wait for the weekend. People would park at the lot near the beach, and we’d offer to watch their cars for them for, you know, a quarter or a half-dollar, depending on what kind of car it was. I guess they figured it was worth it to have air in their tires when they finished at the beach. Well, as soon as we had, say, five dollars each, we’d forget our car-watching and go to some other part of the beach ourselves, sun a while on borrowed towels—we borrowed more towels!—and have chili or tacos for lunch, and then go hunting for snatch.”
Clete looked at Margaret to see how she would react.
She maintained her neutral expression, interest without commitment; Henry seemed to want to hear this story for some reason she didn’t yet understand.
“Our big thing was older women.”
“How old were you at the time?” Henry asked.
“Oh thirteen, maybe fourteen later on,” Clete said.
“How old were the older women?” Henry asked.
“Oh,” Clete said, laughing. “Everything. Seventeen or forty, it didn’t matter. You know those planes would come over the beach hauling some ad? Well, we had our own way of advertising. There’d be four or five of us, and we’d walk down the beach just where the sand meets the water so we’d attract the most attention, and, well, it’s hard to put this, we were all at attention in our bathing suits, and believe me people would notice. And you didn’t have to walk too long or too far before some chick would say something and you’d be going somewhere, sometimes one for each of us and sometimes we’d share. We learned something, which is there are a lot of women in California, some of them real good-looking, who want something different than a vibrator once in a while. Sometimes we’d get money, too, but that wasn’t it. We could make all we needed off of the car-watching.”
Clete took time out for a bite of hamburger.
“I thought surfboarding was the big thing in California.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Clete said, munching. “Excuse me,” he said, holding his napkin up to his mouth. “Shouldn’t talk while eating.”
When he finished he said, “Down around where I lived, south of L.A., you didn’t let good waves go by as virgins. We had to chip in for a surfboard at first, but after a time, we each had one, and one of the guys was sixteen and got himself a heap, and we strapped our surfboards to the roof—you should have seen us in a wind—and we went out to the beach to collect the dough, and the chicks, and the waves. We had some bad times with a truant officer, though, a real snitch. He told my mother a whole bunch of lies, like he gave her more dates that I was supposed to have missed school than I really did—I kept track, you know—and he said we were into dope, which we weren’t, not then anyway. Next time my father came home, my mother laid it on him how I was into a bad bunch, et cetera, et cetera, and he took off his two-inch belt. His pants were too wide for him, and he tried to strop me with one hand while holding up his pants with the other. Well, I just grabbed the belt and yanked it out of his hands and stropped him. You should have seen my mother yell.”
Clete looked to see how his story was going down. “Had to leave home after that,” Clete said. “No two ways about it. I came back later when my mother was out, shoved the stuff I wanted into a suitcase. I wasn’t going to be on my own bareass, excuse me.”
“I would estimate that to have been about eight years ago,” Henry said. “Am I right?”
“Close.”
“What have you been doing since?”
“I got chased a lot—cops, storekeepers who saw me lift something, you know. Worst was the creeps. Can I be frank?”
The waitress brought coffee and a moment’s surcease.
Clete watched the waitress leave. “They’ve got some mighty fine young women
Clete looked at Margaret to see how she would react.
She maintained her neutral expression, interest without commitment; Henry seemed to want to hear this story for some reason she didn’t yet understand.
“Our big thing was older women.”
“How old were you at the time?” Henry asked.
“Oh thirteen, maybe fourteen later on,” Clete said.
“How old were the older women?” Henry asked.
“Oh,” Clete said, laughing. “Everything. Seventeen or forty, it didn’t matter. You know those planes would come over the beach hauling some ad? Well, we had our own way of advertising. There’d be four or five of us, and we’d walk down the beach just where the sand meets the water so we’d attract the most attention, and, well, it’s hard to put this, we were all at attention in our bathing suits, and believe me people would notice. And you didn’t have to walk too long or too far before some chick would say something and you’d be going somewhere, sometimes one for each of us and sometimes we’d share. We learned something, which is there are a lot of women in California, some of them real good-looking, who want something different than a vibrator once in a while. Sometimes we’d get money, too, but that wasn’t it. We could make all we needed off of the car-watching.”
Clete took time out for a bite of hamburger.
“I thought surfboarding was the big thing in California.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Clete said, munching. “Excuse me,” he said, holding his napkin up to his mouth. “Shouldn’t talk while eating.”
When he finished he said, “Down around where I lived, south of L.A., you didn’t let good waves go by as virgins. We had to chip in for a surfboard at first, but after a time, we each had one, and one of the guys was sixteen and got himself a heap, and we strapped our surfboards to the roof—you should have seen us in a wind—and we went out to the beach to collect the dough, and the chicks, and the waves. We had some bad times with a truant officer, though, a real snitch. He told my mother a whole bunch of lies, like he gave her more dates that I was supposed to have missed school than I really did—I kept track, you know—and he said we were into dope, which we weren’t, not then anyway. Next time my father came home, my mother laid it on him how I was into a bad bunch, et cetera, et cetera, and he took off his two-inch belt. His pants were too wide for him, and he tried to strop me with one hand while holding up his pants with the other. Well, I just grabbed the belt and yanked it out of his hands and stropped him. You should have seen my mother yell.”
Clete looked to see how his story was going down. “Had to leave home after that,” Clete said. “No two ways about it. I came back later when my mother was out, shoved the stuff I wanted into a suitcase. I wasn’t going to be on my own bareass, excuse me.”
“I would estimate that to have been about eight years ago,” Henry said. “Am I right?”
“Close.”
“What have you been doing since?”
“I got chased a lot—cops, storekeepers who saw me lift something, you know. Worst was the creeps. Can I be frank?”
The waitress brought coffee and a moment’s surcease.
Clete watched the waitress leave. “They’ve got some mighty fine young women
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