I met my first girlfriend just two blocks from where I lived in Williamsbridge, The Bronx. It was September 1972 and I had started my senior year at high school. I was seventeen years old and my romantic experiences at school had been, frankly, non-existent. Maybe high school was overrated as a dating location, but I hadn’t found a single prospect during my three years there. By that point, I was starting to think ahead to college and the better opportunities I assumed I’d have when I got there.

I wasn’t thinking about any of that as I came around the corner of 211th Street and started north on my own street, Bronx Boulevard. It was a sunny, warm afternoon and my mind was wandering.

I passed a group of kids about my age standing near the curb. I think there were two girls and three guys. I didn’t know them; in a city like New York, it was hard to recognize neighbors in my own building. One of the girls noticed me and said, “Hey kid, how are you doing?”

I stopped and said, “I’m doing pretty well; how are you doing?” I was merely being polite at that point.

She wasn’t so polite, “How old are you anyway? Are you even old enough to shave?”

I got that she was putting on some kind of show for her friends; she wanted some validation from them by acting like a smart-ass. Usually, my tactic in life was to be nice to people – too nice, in fact – but she had riled me up a bit. Without really thinking too much, I replied, “I’m seventeen. How old are you? Have you even had your first period yet?”

Probably that was a bit much, but it got an instant reaction. Her friends started laughing. Her face fell, and she seemed upset as she said, “I’m sixteen, and I’m going to be seventeen in November!”

I had to top myself, “Really? I would have thought you were still wearing a training bra.”

Her companions laughed again and she tried to change the topic slightly, “When did you turn seventeen, anyway?”

“All right, it was last May.”

She seemed vindicated, “You see? I’m only about six months younger than you are.”

Somehow, I came up with a retort, “So, you’re like Liesl in The Sound of Music, and I’m like Rolfe.”

Her friends got that, and so did she. She tried her best to reply, “So, are you joining the Nazis?”

That one was pretty good, I thought. I said, “No, but they do have great uniforms.”

She smiled at me,  “Yeah, especially their boots!”

Then another thought came to me. I could have this girl if I wanted her. I had never thought that before about any girl. I had stumbled upon a truth I didn’t fully realize until much later. Sometimes, when challenged by a woman during an approach – although this one had approached me – it was better to push back and get her a bit upset rather than just appearing meek and boring.

Her shit test – if that was what it was – had a sexual subtext in that she had brought up my ability to grow a beard. I had escalated it by referring to her menstruation and then her breasts. Maybe it was the boldness in her responses that I had noticed. Even though I had just met her, I felt like I was being fully noticed by her and I had her full attention.

That was enough for me to try something I had never done before; I decided to continue on my trajectory with her. I crooked a finger at her and said, “Come over here; I want to talk to you about something, in private.”

“And what would that be?”

“Come on over and find out.”

She looked at her friends as if she needed permission from them to do anything. Then she followed me up the block for a few yards.

I had surprised myself with the move I had made on her. I briefly looked her over to gauge who I was dealing with. She looked younger than her age, which is why I had first taken her to be about fifteen. (And she had called me “kid!”) She also wasn’t that big. She was about five-foot-four, and her figure was quite slender.

Her clothes – she had jeans, a pullover blouse, and a jacket - and her general appearance had a look of junior high school about them. It wasn’t that I was a particularly snazzy dresser either. Her dark hair was pinned up in a sort of random, messy manner. And yet, I thought she was rather pretty, or she would be if she had put some effort into the way she looked. I improvised something. “Are you hungry? Because we could get some pizza at that place on White Plains Road.”

She was still in her sassy mode, “What, one slice of pizza?”

I shrugged, “Have two of them then. I’ll pay for it. Do you have to get permission from your momma or something?”

“Me? I’ve been on lots of dates, I don’t need to talk to my mom about them.” I didn’t believe her; I doubted that she had ever been on a single date yet. Yet I noted that she had just referred to this outing as a “date.” I wasn’t going to tell her it was my first date too.

“So I assume we’re going then?”

“Sure, let’s go.” She briefly looked back at her friends, as if she was considering telling them. Then she turned and we walked up the block. I briefly wondered what they were thinking, but I really didn’t care. Rather, I was more concerned about what was on her mind.

She was quite sociable on the brief walk up to White Plains Road. I said, “I’m Henry, or Hank really, D’Amato. I live up in the next block up.”

“Well, I’m Margery Carlin.”

“Is that your building back there?” That was the one at the corner of 211th Street where I had first seen her.

“Right, that’s my place.”

I found out that she was attending the local high school, Evander Childs, and she found out that I was going to one of the specialized schools, Bronx Science.

“Hah, Bronx Science is for nerds.”

“Maybe, but we’re all nerds going to good colleges.” That was mostly true, anyway.

“So where are you thinking of going?” I looked at her, but I could tell it wasn’t a put-on.

“I don’t know, maybe Columbia.” That indeed was one that I was considering.

She seemed impressed, “Do you think you’ll get in?”

I decided to be honest with her. “I guess I won’t know until I try.”

She said, “I suppose I’m going to wind up somewhere in CUNY.” That was the city university system. I didn’t know it then, but in a year that’s where I’d wind up too. Anyway, at least Margery had ambitions of going to college, which to me was a good sign.

When we sat down with our slices at the pizzeria, she seemed more subdued than before – or at least, she had dropped her smart-ass attitude. I know I was feeling a bit nervous myself. I had never so much as had lunch with a girl at the school cafeteria, and now I was here with one I had known for about fifteen minutes.

Yet I thought, it was pretty easy to get her to come with you. I had simply asked, and she had agreed. And I had found her just two blocks from my house. Maybe I had always overestimated the difficulty of these things. It was my first attempt at a pick-up, and it seemed to be working.

I noted near the beginning that she responded to our conversation rather quickly. What got to talking about our classes – the standard student topic of course.

She said, “So do they have a lot of math classes at your school?”

“I suppose so; I don’t have another place to compare it to.”

“I’m not that good at math.”

“We’ve got some real prodigies over there – but I’m not that into it either. I mean, I can do it when I have to.”

She said, “You know what my favorite class is? It’s English.”

“All right, why is that?”

“Well, it’s because I like poetry.”

“Anybody in particular?”

“Yeah, Emily Dickinson for one.” She had caught me off-guard with that, but she had a follow-up. “I’ve even memorized a few of her poems, some of the shorter ones. Would you like to hear one?”

I figured I had nothing to lose, “Sure, go ahead.” For a moment I didn’t take her seriously, as if she was kidding me perhaps.

She took a sip of her soda, and she seemed to take a moment to prepare herself. “Okay, here goes.” I wasn’t really expecting her to do it, and I was surprised when she knew the first eight lines.

I had never heard it before. “What is the title of this thing?”

“Most of her poems didn’t have titles. They’re usually identified by the first line; in this case, it’s, ‘My Life has stood - a Loaded Gun.’ ” She hesitated for a moment and said, “Should I continue? It’s pretty short.”

I was trying not to gape at her. “Yeah, okay, go ahead.”

There were twenty-four lines in total. Then she stopped, and for a moment I didn’t know what to say. Well, I was assessing her differently, that was for sure. Her voice, for one thing – she had lost that harsh New York brazenness I had heard back on her block. She wasn’t smiling at me, but she was looking intently at me with her dark eyes.

I had to come up with something, “So what does this mean to you, I mean this poem in particular?”

She replied, “I get the feeling from all her work that she was a very intense but lonely person – I mean, Dickinson herself.”

I dug into my very limited knowledge about the poet, “I heard that she mostly kept her writing secret. She didn’t even tell her family. Most of her stuff was published after her death.”

“That’s right, she wrote about 1,800 of them and only about ten came out in her lifetime. Well, I wouldn’t do it that way. I’d want people to read what I wrote.”

So Margery writes poems too? For a moment I thought she was going to offer to show me something of her own to read, but that conversation was getting a bit heavy. She seemed to regress a bit into her teenage girlhood. She smiled and said, “So Hank, do you think I’m pretty?”

She was being coy, teasing me, so I teased her back, “Actually, I think you should dress a little better.”

She didn’t get offended, “Really? How should I do that?”

“You know, wear a skirt, nylon stockings, shoes with heels.”

“I have those things for special occasions.” Then she said, “I could wear those for you if you wish.”

It took me a moment to realize that she would dress up for me. I tried to remain as nonchalant as possible. “If you want to, then sure, I’d like to see you that way.”

Then it struck me that her willingness to wear a different outfit was only part of it. A bigger, and very obvious truth hit me: she was already proposing that we would see each other again, that we would have a second date. What exactly did this chick see in me, a random guy who had been passing in the street?

I realized that I didn’t need to know that. She saw something in me, and that was enough for the moment. I in turn saw something in her. Perhaps she was just lonely and looking for some attention. But then, I was also lonely and looking for attention

And she was smart. She had, with her poetry discussion, revealed a deeper side of herself I hadn’t imagined was there. She wasn’t just the street brat I had first thought her to be. I briefly looked around the pizzeria, one I had been in a number of times before. It seemed very ordinary. However, what was going on in there between Margery and me perhaps wasn’t so ordinary.

Just to have something to say, I asked her, “So do people call you Marge or Margie?”

She was surprisingly emphatic with her answer, “No, never! It’s always Margery.”

“Well, it’s always okay to call me Hank. By the way, just curious, are you Irish?” Ethnic identity was always an important topic in New York.

“I’m half Irish and half German.”

“Hey, despite my name, I have those on my mother’s side too.”

Then she went back into her sassy attitude, “You’re kind of on the skinny side, you know.”

Despite my inexperience with girls, I recognized that as a test, and I threw it back at her, “And honey, so are you.” I caught her brief smile when I used that term of endearment. “In fact, that’s why I thought you were about fifteen years old at first.”

She put on a tone of huffiness that I suspected was a put-on. “You were wrong; I’m not a girl anymore – I’m a woman now. When you see me dressed up, you’ll know how mature I really am.”

A somewhat explicit thought came to me. Yeah, baby, I’ll make you into a real woman for sure, just like you are going to make me into a man. Like I had in those first moments on the street, I was feeling oddly confident when talking to her. 

Our conversation turned to movies, specifically about The Godfather, which had been released that spring. I thought I’d impress her with a bit of arcane knowledge. “You know that scene where Michael shoots Sollozzo? That was filmed right up the block here, at Louie’s Restaurant.” That was about fifty yards from where we were now.

“I know, I was around there when they were filming it. Not that I really could see inside during that.”

I thought, this girl is several steps ahead of me. She seemed calmer, more self-assured than when we had first walked in here. What was that, only thirty minutes ago? She went on, “That was pretty cold, how he just shot those guys point-blank.”

“But he had already been in a war.”

“Remember what Sonny had said, that’s different, it’s mostly killing people at a distance. It’s not like shooting them in the face when they’re right in front of you.”

I improvised something, “Michael is like the loaded gun in the poem – his potential doesn’t come out until he shoots and kills them.” Man, I hope I’m not stretching the Dickinson analogy too much.

But Margery apparently didn’t think so. She nodded for a moment and said, “Yeah, Hank, I think that’s true – I mean what you said about Michael.” She was definitely in her serious mode at that point. I interpreted her look as, I’d like to have you. In fact, I already do have you.

It was then I had more serious sexual thoughts about her. Of course, I had such fantasies about other girls before. However, with this one, I felt that my desires might come true. I could see her small breasts pushing again her blouse.

Earlier I had noticed her slim hips and thighs inside her jeans. I wanted then to see her bare body, to touch and stroke it. I knew she’d be pale and slender when she disrobed. For some reason, in my fantasy, she had sandals on, not the sneakers she was actually wearing.  I remembered that line in ‘Paint it Black’ about girls walking by in their summer clothes.

Margery’s clothes weren’t particularly summery, but she seemed so – tangible is the word I would use as I sat just across the table from her. She was only a couple of feet from me and she was gazing directly at me. 

Like in the song, I did close my eyes, but only briefly so that I could focus myself. I was feeling in tune with Margery in a way that I had never felt before. That notion was both exciting and more than a bit daunting. Again it occurred to me, she’s there for the taking. All I’d have to do was ask. In fact, I wouldn’t even have to ask. If I made a move on her she would yield to me, just like I’d yield to her.

I’m just imagining all this about her, is that possible? Yet I didn’t want to seem too eager about her, so as we prepared to leave I didn’t mention seeing her again. Yet it would be nice to have her phone number so I would have the option.

She had already figured out the logistics. “Let’s exchange phone numbers.” I took a page out of my loose-leaf notebook and tore it in half. Then we had each other’s numbers, or our parents’ numbers actually. I didn’t commit to when I’d call her, or where we would go.

I walked her home, taking a more direct route along 211th Street as opposed to the more circuitous one we had used earlier to avoid passing her friends. This time they weren’t in front of her building as they had been before. For a second we stood there, both of us clueless, perhaps. Then she leaned forward and briefly kissed me on the mouth. A bit of her awkwardness was apparent as she said, “Hey, Hank, give me a call soon, would you? Or maybe, what the hell, maybe I’ll call you. You wouldn’t mind that, right?”

I didn’t know anything about dating protocol, but I figured I would agree to that. “Yeah, that’s fine, go ahead. Any time is good.” My own boldness surprised me. After more than three years, where did that reserve of confidence come from?

I saw the intensity again in her dark eyes. Then she turned and walked up the steps to the courtyard of her building. She didn’t look back at me, but I used the moment to again check out her slim behind inside her jeans. Then she was gone.

Wow, what was that all about? I considered how long I’d wait before I called her, assuming she didn’t call me first. I decided on the day after tomorrow. That would give her a day to think about it and wonder where I was. By instinct, I was figuring out how to play the dating game.

Then I walked up the block as I had intended to do about an hour earlier. I couldn’t quite get a grip on my feelings; I suppose I was both pleased and a little shaky at the same time. I hadn’t planned it, but it was likely I had a girlfriend now.

*****

That night, as I often did, I masturbated, but this time I imagined Margery. I could picture her straddling me, naked from the waist down except for the odd detail that she had white knee socks on.

I whispered, “Margery, you’re so sweet, you’re fucking me so well, you’re a natural at this.” Then I was ejaculating upwards into her.

When I had caught my breath and came back to reality, I had the familiar realization that the girl or woman I had fantasized about wasn’t there. But the situation was somewhat different now. We each had the other’s phone number. She had said she wanted to see me again, and she had even promised to dress up for me.

I worried that I was getting ahead of myself; maybe she’d change her mind by tomorrow. But then I was sure she wouldn’t forget me and this new thing with her was going to work out.

######

As far as I can determine, the Dickinson poem referred to here was not published until 1929, forty-three years after her death. “Paint It Black” of course is the Rolling Stones song from 1966.