Erin and the Florida Incident (Part 4 - Final)

I.                   Goldberg 

My family, cousins included, Erin, and I departed Orlando, and headed to Fort Meyers, where my dad’s boss owned a condominium that he let us rent out.  Of course, when telling people about it, my dad tended to refer to it as his condo:  “Yeah, I’m taking the family to Florida this summer and staying at a condo we got down there.  Our condo is in Fort Meyers.  Yeah, my condo in Fort Meyers is pret~ty nice.”

It was a spacious, four-bedroom condominium that had a lot of mirrors… seriously, like a wall of mirrors.  It looked like a comfortable safe house Scarface would use.  The condo was great when I was younger and more easily impressed; when I was so young that I not only didn’t mind sleeping in a walk-in closet, because all the bedrooms were taken, but insisted upon it!  However, as I grew into a jaded, cynical teenager, the deficiencies of the condo became more glaringly obvious.  For one, it wasn’t remotely near any of the beaches, which made it instantly lame, even for a kid.  Secondly, the place was overrun with lizards, which are charming at first, but after hearing enough horrific “crunches”, feeling a lizard’s death spasms underneath your flip-flop, and walking around the rest of the day with that odd feeling of having gum stuck to the sole of your shoe, it gets old.  Finally, the worst thing about the condos was that it was made up of 90% elderly people, making it a glorified retirement community.  Nothing soils a party atmosphere than the sight of walkers, scooters, and the occasional ambulance (though, in a different context, the presence of an ambulance might be considered the sign of a kick-ass party).

Despite having several months to prepare for a trip to a place primarily known for its beaches, Erin had forgotten to pack one of the most essential items one should bring to a tropical peninsula: a swim suit.  It really was quite an astounding oversight but, as it would turn out, a very fortuitous one.  Before arriving at Fort Meyers, we stopped at a duty-free shop for her to buy a cheap bathing suit.  My mood had lightened a little since my emotional breakdown at Disney World, but I was still a little on-edge.  On a whim, I bought a t-shirt that featured a cartoon headless man holding a sign that read:  WILL WORK FOR HEAD. 

 

I modeled it for Erin, laying it on rather thick:  “Huh?  Huh?  What do you think?  Pretty funny, huh?  It means I want a blowjob!”  The only way I could be less subtle would be to forcibly pull her head to my crotch.  Much to the chagrin of every man on Earth with more common sense in these matters, I would go on to wear that shirt like a sign of protest throughout the rest of the trip… and throughout the rest of my stint in high school.  My ancestors would breathe a collective sigh of relief when I finally retired the shirt for college.      

I also took advantage of the stop to delve further into my nerdy interests in order to escape the immediate reality of my shitty situation.  I had finished the Babylon 5 book that I brought to read during the trip.  I didn’t bring anything else, having not expected, in my right mind, that I’d have either time or inclination to read anything.  So I stocked up on several magazines that covered the gamut of my interests, including Gamepro, Cinescape, Mad Magazine, and Wizard.  If these magazine selections, combined with the Babylon 5 novel, and the goofy blowjob shirt haven’t painted a stark portrait of why I didn’t get laid in high school, you needn’t fear, as it gets worse in college.

I used the magazines not only to mentally block Erin from my consciousness, but physically block her from my vision by holding the magazine ridiculously close to my face.  Occasionally she’d try to break the ice by asking what I was reading to which I’d curtly respond:  “Huh?  Oh, nothing you’d be interested in – just video game stuff.”  Then I would turn to my little brother and begin a conversation about the article I was reading.  “Oh my god, Jon, the more I read about Final Fantasy VIII, the more I become convinced that my life will be complete after I play it.”

“What’s Final Fantasy?” Erin asked.

I dismissed her question with a wave of my hand and didn’t bother to look at her.  “Oh, it’s just a thing.  It doesn’t matter.”  I continued talking to my brother.  “So, the main character’s name is Squall, which is an awesome name, it means ‘storm’ or something.  He uses this badass weapon called a ‘gunblade’, which is like a gun with a fucking sword sticking out of it.”

“Cool!” my brother exclaimed, reaching to take the magazine.

I yanked it back. “Hey!  Hey!  No touching!  Get your own magazine!  Gawd!”

“Can I see it?” Erin asked.

“Pfft,” I spit, rolling my eyes.  “You wouldn’t understand.”  I continued thumbing through the magazine in silence. 

***

When we got to the condo, Erin and my mom immediately went down to the pool, while I opted to stay inside and watch Happy Gilmore, which was the only movie my dad’s boss had available at the condo, so we probably ended up watching it more than the FDA would recommend is healthy for a normal human mind.  While lying out by the pool, Erin finally broached the subject of my sour attitude with my mom.

“So, have you noticed Craig’s been acting… weird?"

Mom took a deep breath and continued facing the sky as she answered.  “What do you mean, exactly?”

“Well, it’s like… it’s like he’s really mad at me for some reason and I don’t understand what I did.  You know?”

“Yep.”

“Why would he be mad?”

Mom took off her sunglasses and regarded Erin with a look of surprise.  “You really don’t get it, do you?  Why do you think Craig took you on this trip anyway?”

“Because we’re friends,” Erin answered with a shrug, as if this were the most obvious answer in the world.

Mom rolled her eyes and slipped her sunglasses back on.  “Yeah right.  If he wanted to bring a ‘friend’, he would have brought Johnny or Matt.  He brought you because he likes you.”

Erin had to take a moment to let this sink in.  Despite how obvious this information should have been, it was genuine news to her.  Erin’s brain had to readjust and reprocess all of her memories of our friendship since the beginning with this new piece of crucial information in place to fully understand the scope of this revelation.  It was probably like finally figuring out a crucial word in order to solve a crossword puzzle.  So it was perfectly understandable when the only vocal response afforded to her was a simple, succinct: “Oh.”

Erin and mom sat in silence for a beat, before Erin broke it:  “I still don’t get why he’s so mad at me.”

“Erin, honey,” my mom said patiently while turning to face her:  “I really don’t know how to say this, but… a guy doesn’t pay your way to Florida for nothing.  When a guy goes through that much trouble and expense for a girl, well, they tend to expect… something… in return.”  

Mom's explanation hung in the air for a moment before Erin finally caught on.

“So… what does he want from me?” Erin responded irritably.  “A blowjob or something?”

Mom shrugged and lay back down.  “It probably wouldn’t hurt.”  She sat back up and added:  “Not that I’m telling you to give my son a blow job or…” She looked Erin up and down.  “…or 'something', for that matter.  I’m just saying that’s probably one of many things he was expecting to get out of this trip.  It’s certainly not the main thing… although that’s probably why he bought that stupid shirt.  He really, really likes you, Erin, and he just had a different vision of how this trip was supposed to go.  I think he expected you to be his girlfriend after this trip.”

“What should I do?”

“I really don’t know.”

***

What Erin decided to do was probably the wisest thing either one of us had done since the trip began: she went to stay with my cousins for a night at their beachside hotel.  I could not have been more relieved.  I finally had the space I needed to work through the helter-skelter of emotions that had overtaken me since we crossed the Kentucky state line.  I needed the time away from Erin to reaffirm my sense of self-worth, my very masculinity.

So I did it by watching professional wrestling.  There isn’t much on this Earth that helps a man recover his composure like the spectacle of violence, even fully-choreographed, simulated violence.  I was never into sports, so professional wrestling was as close to a “manly interest” as I ever got.  It was Monday night, which meant WWF’s Monday Night Raw and WCW’s Monday Nitro.  I was particularly excited because that night on WCW Monday Nitro, a professional wrestler named Goldberg, who was enjoying an unprecedented winning streak, was getting a title shot against Hollywood Hulk Hogan.  If one isn’t a wrestling fan, it’s difficult to explain why this was exciting, but I’m going to attempt it anyway:  for months, Hollywood Hulk Hogan, the leader of an evil faction of bad guy wrestlers known as the New World Order, had retained the World Championship by using devious means like cheating or simply leaving the ring, and losing via countout, but according to the rules, a champion retains the title if he loses via countout or disqualification.  Meanwhile, Goldberg, a completely unknown palooka in nondescript black tights, began rapidly gaining notoriety by starting a winning streak never-before-seen in professional wrestling; by the time he got his title shot with Hogan, he was well into a hundred wins versus zero losses.  Naturally, as Goldberg defeated one opponent after another, like an unstoppable juggernaut, fans wondered if he’d ever face the champ, Hollywood Hulk Hogan.  

Finally, that Monday night, the fans were going to get what they wanted.  My brother and I were glued to the TV in rapt attention, while my dad watched impatiently, occasionally complaining at how fake wrestling was.   As desperate as my dad always had been for me to be interested in sports, it was fascinating how disparaging he was of the only thing close to a sport I was at all interested in.  “Why do you watch this crap?” he would ask.  “It’s so stupid.”

“It’s better than football,” I’d shoot back.

“Pfft, at least football’s real!”

“Yeah… real boring,” I’d mutter to myself.

 “What was that, piccolo?”  When my dad was irritated by me, he had a tendency to call me a “piccolo”.  To this day, I still don’t know what it’s supposed to mean.

“Danny,” my mom interjected.  “Let the boys watch their wrestling.”

“They’re just lucky nothing else is on.  I’m going to bed.”  Dad got up and petulantly retreated to his room.

  

The match was fairly short and unspectacular as far as technical wrestling matches go – neither Goldberg or Hogan are well-known for wrestling matches that feature a variety of moves or holds.  Their matches tended to a simple, yet tried and true, formula: kick, punch, clothes line (or shoulder block), finishing move set-up (the “big boot” for Hogan or “the Spear” for Goldberg), followed by their respective finishing move (the “Atomic Leg Drop” for Hogan or the “Jackhammer” for Goldberg).  That was pretty much exactly what we got, but the build-up for the match superseded the technical skills on display, so we were thoroughly engaged from beginning to end.  After receiving not one, not two, but THREE of Hogan’s patented Atomic Leg Drops of doom, Goldberg managed to kick out of a pin, much to the horror of Hogan and to the shock of everyone watching.  As Hogan reeled in disbelief, desperately calling for back-up by the NWO, Goldberg sprung to his feet, delivered a Spear (which is essentially a full-body tackle), and finished Hogan off with a Jackhammer (which is suplex that turns into a full-body power slam), winning the match and becoming the new champion. 

My brother and I were absolutely floored.  We cheered, clapping our hands.   “Keep it down!” my dad yelled from the bedroom, hushing us up instantly.  

I went to bed that night inspired by Goldberg’s surprise victory.  Predetermined though it may have been, watching Goldberg overcome all odds and pull off such a remarkable win made me consider how quickly and totally I had descended into despair over this trip.  I began to consider that may all was not lost after all!  I still had not told Erin my true feelings, so I still wasn’t sure how that would go – maybe it would completely change the courses of the whole trip!  I went to bed with fuzzy optimism that this trip could be salvaged after all.

II.                   Sand Fleas

Erin and my cousins came over to the condo early the next day.  I had gone to sleep with a new resolve to finally tell Erin how I felt, and my resolve had fermented into a steely determination by morning’s light.  That morning I stood ready to receive Erin with open arms and an open heart.  However, when she walked in, I immediately knew something was wrong.  She walked in, dragging her feet sluggishly, her arms hung limply at her sides, her hair put up in a frizzy pony tail, and bags under her eyes suggested either sleep deprivation or a hangover (or both).  In other words:  she kind of looked like shit.

“Hey, um, Erin… how are you…?” I asked with no small amount of uncertainty.

“Miserable,” she stated flatly, and walked right by me to her bedroom.

 

“What gives?” I asked my cousin Melinda.

She shrugged. “We were hanging out in the outdoor hot tub at our hotel last night, and we met some cute Cuban guys.  They were getting really flirty, so Erin got uncomfortable and decided to go take a walk on the beach.  We tried to warn her about the sand fleas…”

“Sand fleas?”

At that point, Melinda’s cute friend Kristy cut in.  “Sand fleas are these little critters that only come out at night.  It’s generally a bad idea to hang out at a beach if it gets too late or they’ll eat you up.”

“Huh.  Well, it’s not serious is it?  I mean, it’s like mosquito bites, right?”

Kristy shook her head.  “Oh no, it sucks.  I got bitten up once.  It’s not like one or two bites.  They attack by the hundreds.  When I say she got eaten up, I mean she got eaten up!  She’s been sick all night.”

I walked over to her bedroom and softly knocked on the door.  “Erin?  Are you alright?”

“No…” she replied drowsily.

I opened the door, without any forethought as to her privacy, but she was simply lying on her bed in her clothes, which comprised of a t-shirt and sweat shorts.  Her legs were grotesquely ravaged with large, red bite marks.  Kristy was right – these were not simple mosquito bites.  She looked like she had smallpox.  “Do… do you need anything?”

“I don’t care… just wanna sleep…” Erin answered faintly as she drifted between sleep and awake.  I quietly closed the door.

***

Erin spent the bulk of the day doing what she seemed to do best – sleeping.  She’d emerge from her room only to sleep on the living room couch for a change of scenery.  My mom bought her some medicinal cream to put on the bites, and Ibuprofen for the pain.  We all tried to stay out of the condo for the most part to give her space while she recovered.  As the day wore on, she became slightly more lucid and active, alternating between watching TV and napping on the couch.  When my parents were confident that she wasn’t going to die, they decided to go out on a date that night.

Under better circumstances, this would have been the perfect opportunity to have the talk I wanted with Erin.  Never one to be deterred by something as trivial as “horrible timing”, I was determined to have the talk anyway.  I couldn’t back out now, or my confidence would dissipate like a barely remembered dream.  I don’t know if I had too much caffeine that night, or it was the release of a week’s worth of tension, but I was super hyper for some reason.  As soon as my parents left, I put on a silly Panama hat I’d been wearing since we got to the condo, because it complimented my obnoxious “Will work for head” shirt so much, and began chasing my brother around the condo complex with a water gun, as if I were an overactive 5-year-old.  Sometimes we’d run into the condo, squirting the guns at each other, occasionally squirting Erin on the couch, who would understandably react with barely contained rage:  “Could you two PLEASE take that shit outside?  I’m fucking sick!” she would growl.

Curiously, her anger only seemed to fuel me more.  I even took an odd, almost sadistic pleasure from her annoyance.  For nearly the whole trip, I was the angry one, while she was totally oblivious.  Now I was finally having fun, while she was the absolutely miserable.  A dark part of me found the role reversal too delicious to ignore.  “Take what outside?  This?” I squirted her again with the water gun.

 

She shielded herself with a blanket.  “Stop it!”

“Oh, quit being such a baby, it’s just water!” I squirted her again.

“Why are you being such an asshole?” she asked.

“Asshole?  I’m just kidding around!” I dejectedly sat on the other couch.

“Well, I’m not in the mood.”

“Oh, well, I’m sooo sorry,” I said mockingly.  “I forgot that this trip is all about you.  However, you know, sometimes in life, things just don’t the way we want…” 

Let me stop for a moment to point out that, for a moment, the briefest fraction of a second, I was cognitively at a crossroads.  Consciously, I knew that this was an awful time to have this conversation, but emotionally, I could care less.  I had a choice between conscious awareness, or instinct, and emotional satisfaction, or impulse.  This is a crossroads that would become very familiar to me in later encounters with the opposite sex.  In some of those encounters, I would choose the correct action – conscious awareness.  In this instance, though, I chose the wrong action.

After that ever-so-brief moment of decision, I continued on:  “I invited you on this trip because I like you, and, well, I just don’t feel like you appreciate it!”  So there it was, out at last, but instead of being honest about my feelings with Erin in a way that was more heartfelt and sincere, I wrapped my feelings in a steaming hot passive-aggressive bean burrito and threw it in her face.

She threw off the blankets, and sat up, the flea bites as red as the fury on her face.  “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT ME TO DO ABOUT IT?” she screamed.

I was stunned.  For one, I had never seen Erin so angry since I've known her.  Any of the cockiness that I had summoned for this confrontation immediately drained away, leaving me completely disoriented and somewhat speechless.  It’s like when your friends goad you into a fight with someone bigger than you, but you realize all too late that instead of helping you, they’re content with simply watching you get pummeled.  It’s the same feeling you get when you put all of your money on play, but the roulette ball lands in red.  The only words I could manage were:  “Um… well… I guess I just mean… I guess I just mean…”

 “WHAT?” Erin yelled impatiently.  “WHAT?  YOU MEAN WHAT?”

I stood up, took the Panama hat off, and threw it across the room in frustration.  “Just… FUCKING NEVER MIND!” I cried, stormed out of the condo, and slammed the door behind me.  With no particular destination in mind, I ended up at the swimming pool, which was closed, but the gate was unlocked.  I needed a place to throw a fit, and to think, and the pool was perfect for both.  The moment I got there, I picked up a chair and threw it in the water.  “FUCK YOU!” I screamed at the chair.  “FUCK!” I screamed to nobody in particular, throwing punches at the air.  I made a complete circuit around the pool, throwing all the furniture in until my rage was exhausted. 

I sat in the final pool chair and reflected on what had just happened.  This was about as far from how I intended the night to go as possible, but that was just typical of this entire trip, wasn’t it?  What the hell happened?  Had I lost my mind?  What the fuck was I thinking?  All I wanted to do was let her know how I felt, but instead I basically tortured her while she lye sick and helpless, then proceeded to turn what was supposed to be a tender, heartfelt confession into a hateful accusation. 

“What the fuck is wrong with me?” I asked God, the universe, or anyone with an answer, and buried my face in my hands.

“Are… are you okay?” a meek voice broke in, totally startling me out of my self-pity.  I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes.

I looked over to see my little brother, Jon, standing by the gated entrance to the pool and looking, with great concern, at the mess I had made.  “Yeah,” I answered sharply, before taking a breath, and answering more calmly: “Yeah.  I’m fine.”

“Is it Erin?” He asked, nodding his head at the drowned pool furniture.

“Yeah.”      

Jon opened the gate and walked over to me.  “Why are you so mad?”

I rubbed my eyes, gathering my thoughts. “I don’t know, because… because I really liked Erin and… and I thought she liked me, or that she would after this trip, but I fucked it all up, you know?  This… all of this… was such a huge fucking mistake.  I’m such an idiot.”

“You’re not idiot,” Jon replied, before adding: “Okay, well, most of the time, you’re not.  You’re only an idiot when a girl is involved.  Girls make you stupid.”

I laughed, which dissipated my anger significantly.  “True.  I just… really thought she liked me, you know?”

“She does like you.  Why else do you think she’s here?”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t like me the way I want her to like me.”

“I want a time machine like in Back to the Future, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get it.  Maybe you shouldn’t get so wrapped up in what you want and appreciate what you have.”

“How did you get to be so wise beyond your years?”

Jon shrugged.  “I just watch you fuck up and learn not to do that.”

I nodded thoughtfully.  “Huh, that makes sense.  I could stand to do that myself from time to time.”

I.                   Wardrobe Malfunction

By the time I went back to the condo that night, Erin had already retired to sleep in her room.  I went to bed that night, heavy with thoughts, and listening to track 17 of the Braveheart soundtrack to soothe my aching heart.  I’ve always found that track to be a source of inspiration whenever I needed it.  It accompanies the scene in the movie when the protagonist, William Wallace, gets executed by the British after famously shouting out “FREEDOM” in defiance.  The music perfectly captures the feeling of rising above one’s hardships to embrace something more important than one’s self.  I wish I could say I woke up the next morning with a more enlightened attitude, but if anything, I was simply more repentant and subdued.

 

When Erin woke up, my cousins were over while my dad cooked up a big breakfast.  She was feeling much better, and had regained much of her sunny disposition, although she was still a little groggy and annoyed at her chewed up legs.  We exchanged basic pleasantries, but made no mention, either vocally, or even through facial expressions, to our unpleasant confrontation the night before.  I think we mutually decided to just forget it ever happened and try to soldier on.  I know I preferred it that way.  

When my family and Erin decided to go to the beach, I opted to stay at the condo.  I thought it best for Erin and me to get some space.  Also, the beaches at Fort Meyers tended to be choked up with seaweed, not to mention people, and I was simply in no mood to go to a crowded, sweltering, seaweed covered beach.  I needed to some serious alone time in the cool, cozy environment of the condo… meaning, of course, that I needed to masturbate… a lot.  Don’t judge me, I didn’t have many opportunities to masturbate the entire trip, and the release of that… pressure… was desperately needed.  Once I got that out of my system (on multiple occasions and in multiple locations – once on the balcony), I did other things to take my mind off things such as draw, write in my journal, or just watch TV.  The day passed agonizingly slow, and I was bored out of my mind, but it was ultimately good for me to have some time alone to get into a better head space. 

When my family got home, Erin went back to her room to change without saying a word.

“Is… is she still angry with me?” I asked mom, while sipping probably the sixth Coke I’d drank all day.

“No, I think she’s just embarrassed because… well…” She looked around to make sure Erin wasn’t within listening distance and whispered:  “…her top came off at the beach in front of everyone!”

I choked on the soda.  “You have got to stop bringing up the subject of Erin’s boobs whenever I’m drinking something,” I sputtered, coughing.  “What do you mean her top came off?”

“That bikini she bought at the duty-free shop doesn’t fit right.  She was in the water, a big wave hit her, whoosh, top gone.”

“Everyone saw?”

“Everyone saw.”

I threw my hands up in the air.  “Goddamn it!” I exclaimed my voice cracking as it does when I get aggravated.

“Language!”

“Well, that’s just great!  I’m sorry, it’s just… can’t one thing go right on this trip for me?  Just one?  I mean, honestly, my entire family got to see the boobs of the girl I like and not me?  What the hell?  Gawd!”

“If it makes you feel any better, it was very, very quick.”

“But if you had to pick them out in a line-up…”

“Oh, she’d be in jail like that!” Mom snapped her fingers.  

“Argh!”  My dad was walking by whistling the Andy Griffith theme.  “Dad, did you see…?” I began, as he walked by.

“Oh yeah!”  He answered, while cracking open a fresh beer.

I growled, squeezing my hand into a fist.  “This… trip… it just never ends!”

***

The next day I decided to join my family and Erin when they went swimming in the pool.  I was magically feeling a lot more social.  Nothing gives a guy a second wind than the chance of seeing breasts.  As ridiculous as it sounds, though, Erin’s wardrobe malfunction made me realize I had spent too much time of this trip sulking and being pissed off, while missing several opportunities to actually have fun.  If I hadn’t been so busy being such a baby, I might have been there to witness Erin’s topless beach adventure, and walked away with at least some measure of shallow, teenage sexual satisfaction.

Erin was wearing the same cheap two-piece bathing suit as before.  She was planning on going shopping for a better swimsuit with my cousins later.  I didn’t really expect anything would happen this time around – the way my luck was going, why would I?  Lightening hardly ever strikes the same place twice… unless its sights are set on me.  If Erin’s top did come off again, odds were one of the straps would hit me directly in the eye, scratching a cornea, and leaving me helplessly blind, while my family got yet another impromptu strip show. 

She spent the majority of the time sunbathing, but after awhile, I managed to cajole her into joining me in the pool.  I swam over and playfully splashed her. “Hey Erin,” I taunted.  “You wanna race?  I bet you can’t beat me to the other side of the pool while staying underwater!”

Erin laughed.  “What?  Uh, hell no, you’re going down!”  She hopped into the pool.  On the count of three, we both dunked underwater, kicked off the wall, and torpedoed to the other end of the pool.  What happened next is still a bit of a blur to this day.  To the best of my recollection, we both reached the end of the wall at about the same time.  I popped out of the water first and wiped my eyes.  My hands moved out of my line of sight, almost like a curtain being pulled, and what I saw happened as if in slow motion…

Erin’s face broke the surface of the pool first, followed by her hands to wipe the water from her face.  Her torso kept rising until I was unavoidably, undeniably, face-to-nipples with her breasts.  At some point during the race, her top must have been pushed down by the force of the water.  I don’t know if it is the same for women, but for men, unexpected nudity is a shock to the system – even more so if the girl in question is someone a guy is attracted to.  It can be almost surreal, because a guy will fantasize that moment with a girl for so long, so when confronted with the reality of the nude girl, it’s kind of like… meeting Harrison Ford.  Your rational mind would be like, oh, hey, it’s Harrison Ford, the actor, while another portion of your mind is screaming:  “OH MY FUCKING GOD, IT’S FRIGGIN’ INDIANA JONES!”  Unfortunately, for me, that part of my mind is most likely the one connected to my mouth so, yes, I would probably say that out loud.

 For so long, I had fantasized about this moment, in different contexts of course, and here it was, the reality, facing me like two firm, perfectly sculpted C-cups (at least) orbs, wet and shimmering with reflected light from the sun.  I could have sworn I heard a chorus of angels sing, although, it might have just been my own voice letting loose an elongated high-pitch squeal of joy that sounds not unlike a balloon being slowly deflated.  I didn’t have my glasses on, so my vision was blurry, but oh, my eyesight got good enough for that one glorious moment!

I wish I would have had the time, not to mention nerve, to give Erin’s boobs the proper level of admiration normally reserved for the masterpieces of Vincent van Gogh.  Instead, I glanced at them for as long as it took to realize what I was seeing, then panicked, and quickly dipped my head back into the water to pretend that I hadn’t yet resurfaced.  I should emphasize that all of this transpired in about the space of a few seconds: I resurfaced, she resurfaced, I see breasts, make a sort of high-pitched squeal, and immediately drop back into the water.  I sank to the bottom, holding my knees to my chest, bubbles trailing my descent, as I processed what happened.  When I rose back up, she was in the process of readjusting her bikini top, and was furtively looking around to make sure nobody had seen. 

“Umm…” I began, and then raised my hands in mock surrender: “You win…?”

I.                   The Trip Cruises to a Close

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“Craig, you’ve been in the shower for thirty minutes!” Dad pounded on the bathroom door.  “What are you doing in there?  Ya fiddlin’?”

“No!  I’ll be out in a minute!” I yelled back.  Ouch, ouch, this shampoo is kinda burning my dick, but that’s alright, work through the pain, work through the pain.  After I finished… showering, that is… I dried off and prepared for a short cruise that we were taking on the last night of the trip.  It had been a couple of days since the wardrobe malfunction, but since then my attitude had brightened considerably.  Nothing gives a guy his second wind more than boobs… okay, well, except for sex.    

Speaking of which, seeing Erin’s breasts had made me realize something critical that I had been ignoring since the first day I developed a crush for Erin: I was not ready for her.  We had a fantastic bond, and a great friendship, but I wasn’t as prepared to take it up to the next level as I had thought.   To put it in nerd-terms, I was trying to take on a Behemoth in Final Fantasy with a level three mage – it just ain’t happening.  There I had been, the moment of truth, the moment I had waiting for – Erin was practically nude in front of me, and my reaction was pure panic.

Realistically, I suppose my options were rather limited beyond pointing at her chest and nasally screaming, “BOOBIES!”  It wasn’t like I could have made some kind of move, what with my family there, and even if we had been alone, in the dark of night, with all of the necessary elements for getting laid in place, I’m almost one hundred percent sure my reaction would have exactly the same.  My reaction to her breasts, not to mention my erratic behavior throughout the trip, betrayed a fundamental lack of maturity to handle anything close to a sexual relationship at that point in my life.  I finally realized that a relationship with Erin beyond our friendship was absolutely absurd.  No wonder she had such a difficult time grasping my inability to figure out what she had already known since day one.

Now that the monkey of sexual desire was off my back (for the time being anyway), for the rest of the week, I tagged along with the family for more outings and even managed to have a really good time with Erin.  We all went miniature golfing at a jungle themed golf course, wherein Erin snapped a picture of me spanking a large statue of a gorilla while I covered my mouth as if I were aghast at the naughtiness of what I was doing.  We ate at a restaurant that claimed to serve the largest onion rings in the country, and took turns taking pictures of each other holding the onion rings up to our eyes like glasses.  As the week went by, we slowly repaired our damaged friendship back to its former sheen, complete with the “new car” smell.

On the final night, we were taking a short cruise on a small casino ship.  I was looking forward to it, as I had never been out onto the ocean before, much less have I been in even a moderately sized cruise ship.  We met up with my cousins, boarded the ship, and left port.  We all looked over the edge of the ship at the dolphins that swam alongside.  It briefly occurred to me that had Erin and I been dating, this would have been a really cool romantic moment, but I immediately shook that thought away and tried to appreciate that it was a really cool moment, and that was fine.

We all managed to have a fun time on that ship.  Erin danced the night away with my cousins, while my dad reigned over the Craps table like the master gambler he was, while I spent most of the time on the deck of the ship, lost in thought, and looking into the distant horizon of the ocean.  I wanted to crystallize my experiences of the trip into a solid lesson of some sort.  I reflected on why I had failed so terribly in what I had set out to do with this trip, and what I could do to rectify those mistakes for the future.  First of all, I wasn’t exactly the most attractive guy in the world – I was overweight; had a terrible, pasty complexion; huge, tinted pedophile glasses, and dry, wiry hair that I barely bothered to brush, much less style.  If Erin wasn’t the girl with whom I was supposed to spend my life with then I sorely needed to prepare myself before that hypothetical girl came along, took in the sorry state I was in, and found me sorely wanting.  I decided, quite erroneously, that the reason I failed with Erin was because I wasn’t worthy of her, or any girl’s, affections.  This completely insubstantial belief would become the cross I’d force myself to bare for most of my adult life whenever I’d interact with the opposite sex.  It’d become a poisonous mantra I’d periodically repeat to myself whenever I’d fail with women, almost like The Little Engine That Couldn’t: “I’m not good enough.  I’m not good enough.  I’m not good enough.”  I had to be better.  I had to be somebody, anybody, that wasn’t me. 

Erin popped out of the ship long enough to inform me that a conga line was starting and that I should come join it.  I rushed inside, all of my thoughts instantly brushed away by the prospect of getting to hold Erin’s hips (which I did).

 

I.                   Epilogue

Junior Yearbook

(Note:  I copied this directly, including all the line breaks, which gave her entry a strangely lilting, poetic quality that I found I quite liked.)

Craig,        

We are almost out!

Has this year been long or what?

Have you ever noticed

that if someone

doesn’t know you

that well, they write

the same thing?

Well, this years been

fun! (after I finally got you

to talk to me!) Don’t forget

me this summer okay!

I’ll come by to see you

guys K.  Anyways – your

a great guy!  Don’t ever

forget that!

Love ya!

Erin

PS. Reach for the Stars!

Senior Yearbook

Craig,

I will miss this school so much the teachers, the halls, Mrs. Flowers, crowded rooms… wait a minute, Hell no I won’t miss this place.  There is not one thing I like.  But that’s okay.

Your a great guy and you have a lot of potential.  You are very artistic and I envy you for that.  Since we are both losers and are because we are going to Western (come on 30 min. away.  What is that about)  I guess the fun won’t end in RHS.  I don’t know what I would have done without your jokes all of my 4 years of high school.  Your the Best!  Erin

***

 

Around 2008ish

I was nervously pacing back and forth in front of a local bar called the Brewing Company, waiting for my guests to arrive.  I was performing stand-up comedy in my college town of Bowling Green and several of my friends were coming out to see me perform for the first time ever.  I had been doing stand for about three years and moved to Louisville to continue furthering my craft.  The show was starting any minute and, so far, my friends were late – every one of them.  I wasn’t terribly worried over them showing up, so much as one particular person I had invited.

I felt a tap on my shoulder.  My heart leaped, but it was just the bar manager.  “It’s show time.”

Crap, I thought and went inside.  A local radio deejay went up first to make a few announcements and give away free t-shirts.  Then it was my turn to go up. The stage was one of the weirdest I had ever performed on.  There was a large, load bearing pole awkwardly placed in the middle of the stage.  While I did my set, I kept holding onto the pole as if I were about to perform a strip tease, although, in reality, I was simply incredibly nervous, all the more so because my set wasn’t going very well at all.  The audience politely listened… but that was about as far as they were willing to participate.

There was one very familiar laugh though.  Erin was sitting to the left of the stage, her legs crossed, her hands folded over her knees, smiling beautifully as she laughed at every word I was saying.  I began performing directly to Erin, as I had done in high school.  I let go of the stripper/load bearing pole, and felt a resurgence of confidence to bring my set to a more satisfying close.  The energy I projected onstage changed dramatically, and the audience began to laugh more at my jokes.  I closed out my set, brought up the next comedian, and hopped offstage to join Erin at her table. 

We couldn’t really talk during the show, so we both went outside.  I gave her a huge embrace.  “You made it!”

“Of course, I did!” She said, hugging me back.  “You were awesome!”

“Heh, thanks,” I said, scratching the back of my neck bashfully as I do when given a compliment.  “It wasn’t my best…”

“You’re just as funny as I always remembered you,” she said.

“Oh, then I must not have been as funny as I thought,” I quipped.  We stood in silence for a moment.  I cleared my throat.  “So… how’s Nathan?” I asked.  Nathan was Erin’s husband, whom she’d met around senior year of high school after breaking up with Burt the Muppet.  I had instantly taken a liking to Nathan when I met him, either because I had grown more mature by that point, or, more likely, because he was just a likeable guy. 

“He’s fine.  He had to work tonight, but that’s alright.  I hardly ever get to have a girls’ night out like this anymore.”  She gestured inside, where girls in question were still watching the show.  “We’re trying to have a kid now.  Oh my god, can you imagine me as a mama?”

I chuckled, “Couldn’t be any worse than you as a babysitter.”

She laughed. “Hey, I was a damn good babysitter!”

I nodded and smiled.  “You’re the best.”