It was a whale of a summer, the Supreme Court had outlawed prayer, the Russians were putting missiles in Cuba, and James Meredith was trying to enroll in the University of Mississippi. As I’ve written before, I was a young laborer in a steel mill in Western Pennsylvania called Edgewater Steel. The mill was on the Verona border, right on the Allegheny River. It was also the summer that I found out a lot about sex.
Now in a prior column, I mentioned the first time I exercised my franchise was when I talked about voting for the first time with my father. However, my first experience of exercising my true franchise came a couple years earlier than that with a rather overweight woman by the name of Betty. I hesitate to use Betty’s last name because I don’t know if the statute of limitations has run out on this one yet. Betty’s nickname was the “Wood Witch.”
I was 13-years-old playing baseball with the older guys and after the ballgames on the afternoons that Betty’s mother and father worked, the fellows would all tramp through the woods and visit her. This, by the way, was also the first time I had a drink of alcohol. We went to Betty’s house and the guys got her into playing strip poker and then Betty would have group sex and at the time we called it “a train.” Because I was the youngest, I was the caboose. And by the way, Betty was two years older than I was at the time. After that, I was sure my mother knew I had changed just by looking at me and moreover, I started on my life of drinking.
Less than a week ago I shaved off my mustache and as you can see from the photo, I have had that ’stache for well over 30 years. I’m going through a rough patch in my life right now and I figured maybe it was time to ditch the ’stache. So I had it shaved off in this barbershop. I noticed the scar on my lip that I hadn’t seen for well over 30 years. It was from an altercation from one of my early sexual encounters I had in my life and my first affair.
This time it was the husband of some woman (Delores) that I had met at a nightclub in Verona, Pennsylvania called Billy Kay’s. In Verona there were bars called Blind Pigs, which were really bars without licenses, and I’ve written about them before and talked about them on the radio. They always had gambling. When I was 19-years-old working in the mill and drinking at Billy Kay’s, I met this exotic woman who told me that her husband spent all of their money gambling and drinking in Ma Benson’s Blind Pig, which was on the other side of the B&O tracks. She asked me to go back to her house and it was about midnight. They lived right off the Allegheny River on Railroad Avenue. She told me she needed money for the rent and the kids and I only had $80 in my pocket. I said, “Sure, how much do you need.” She said, “Wait right there” and went into the other room and then called my name. I went in and she was in her glory. Remember in the movie Young Frankenstein when Madeline Kahn sings in a high falsetto, “Oh sweet mystery of life, at last I found you.” Well, that’s accurate. I discovered the true meaning of life.
As you can see by this time, for me it was the bells. Her husband’s name was Felix and I was slipping her $40 or $50 every payday. One night, with my running buddies Tommy Holmes and Larry Matfay (who is a whole other story), we were in Billy Kay’s bar and I was told “Duck!” As I turned around, I turned into Felix’s right hand. He dropped me like a bad habit and was going to put the Florsheims to me until Tommy and Larry jumped him. Everyone got thrown out and Felix had cut me right on my lip with probably a cheap ass pinky ring.
Nobody had a lot of sympathy for me. I violated the 11th Commandment of Verona — that was another guy’s wife. And it also might be the seventh Commandment that God gave us about adultery. I just knew that I hid from Felix for at least two paydays and started drinking in the Steering Wheel Inn, which is another fine Allegheny River drinking establishment.
I later saw Felix. He was putting hot tar on a roof and it was about 110 degrees in Pittsburgh, and I was home from the service. Felix looked down at me and I gave him the finger and Felix pointed to his own lip, reminding me that he had “Sunday’d” my ass at Billy Kay’s bar on that wild Friday night.
I have no idea what this column’s all about except that after 30 years for the first time I saw Felix’s scar. I don’t want to let this be a lesson to anybody because no 19-year-old idiot is going to read this and say, “Yeah, I better not do that.”
Delores took me to school but it was Felix that took me to graduate school. So, now the Cubans are on their own, black guys have quarterbacked the University of Mississippi and no one prays in school anymore anyhow. But I remember Felix and it was a two hit fight. Felix hit me and I hit the floor.
Happy New Year. — Peter
Peter Boyles is a nationally acclaimed radio host who can be heard Monday through Friday on 630 KHOW 5 to 9 a.m. He has a monthly column in the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle. Visit Peter’s blog and comment on his column, or let him know anything else that’s on your mind, by going to the Chronicle Web site at www.glendalecherrycreek.com.