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Subject: {SJR}JDR"The Adventures of Me and Martha Jane 14A"( bf mF mF+ )[51/52]
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The following story is posted for the entertainment of adults. If you are
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This particular series is by Santo J. Romeo. That might even be his
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story, however, is a hot one.
========
**** WARNING **** WARNING **** WARNING ****
THIS DOCUMENT IS A SEXUALLY GRAPHIC STORY ABOUT AN INTENSE SEXUAL,
EMOTIONAL AND INTELLECTUAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A TEENAGE GIRL AND
A YOUNG BOY AND THE COURSE OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP OVER A PERIOD OF
10 YEARS. IT IS A DRAMATIZATION ABOUT REAL PEOPLE AND THEIR CON-
FLICT WITH SOCIAL EXPECTATIONS. IF THIS SUBJECTS OFFENDS YOU OR IF
SEXUAL LANGUAGE UPSETS YOU, OR IF YOU DON'T WANT THIS MATERIAL SEEN
BY UNDER-18 OR OTHERWISE UNQUALIFIED PERSONS, DELETE THIS DOCUMENT.
THIS DOCUMENT IS COPYRIGHTED 1994, 1996 BY SJR. SO--HEY, YOU CAN
COPY IT BUT YOU CAN'T CHANGE IT OR SELL IT UNLESS I SAY SO.
====================================
THE ADVENTURES OF ME AND MARTHA JANE
by S.J.R.
sjr <73233.1411@CompuServe.COM>
============
PART 14A:
In Memphis I was, on purpose, the last one off the plane. I lugged my
carry-on at my side and then flung it over my shoulder as I entered the
damp, hot daylight. The wrenching familiarity of everything I saw had me
thinking: fifteen years to get somewhere, and in three and a half hours I
was fifteen years behind.
My mother, Aunt Frances, my sister Ann, and my great-aunt Mary met me
at the arrival gate. I hugged each of them perfunctorily. My Aunt
Frances, as usual, seemed confused and was not quite certain where I'd
been for ten days. I was not smiling and I knew it and I didn't want to.
My sister asked, "Did you see the Empire State Buildin'?"
"No," I answered. "Never got there. I saw it from the street."
Great Aunt Mary shrieked, "Did you buy anything at Saks Fifth
Avenue? They always have a sale".
"No," I said, "I never made it to Saks."
As we drove down Airways Boulevard we passed a newly constructed
Holiday Inn. Great, I thought: every building and every street in this
town is going to remind me of Martha. I gazed out the window. The
sameness. The boredom. The torpor. The bleaching sun. The enervating,
choking humidity. The empty sidewalks. The empty stores. The churches,
churches, churches, and the revival camps. Signs directing traffic to
Elvis Presley's house.
"Did you see the Statue of Liberty?" my sister wanted to know.
"Yes," I said.
"Well, what was it like?"
"It's a big, tall statue sitting in the middle of New York Harbor on
a tiny island."
My mother said, "Well, didn't you have a good time?"
"Yeah," I said, weakly feigning enthusiasm.
Mom said, driving at twenty-five miles per hour in a forty-five-mile
zone with both hands clutching the steering wheel so tightly that her
knuckles were white, "Well, it don't sound like it. I guess you did,
look at him. You can tell he did, 'cause he won't say so. I guess that
means you had a good time. Well, let's see, what happened while you were
gone? I had a corn removed, the thing was killin' me so bad, I went to
Doctor Stabnik's and told him 'cut it off before it drives me crazy.' And
it was hot down here, I mean really really hot! And your daddy's been
working at the store, of course, so nothin' new there. And your aunt
Margaret's gonna have another baby. And, let's see, what else happened?"
Aunt Frances shrieked from the back seat, "You were in New York,
Speedy? Is that where you went?"
I sighed, "Yes, Aunt Frances."
My Great Aunt Mary shrieked from the other side of the back seat,
"Speedy, I hear they have a lotta niggers in New York. Is that true?
Did you see a lotta niggers up there?"
I thought: god damn, I've got to get out of here. At least I would
finish the day with a call to Martha to let her know I arrived home
safely. For two days no one noticed that I wore new glasses.
September, 1957.
I started my sophomore year at Christian Brothers High School. And I
kept the paper route and the Saturday delivery job. Those would be, I
vowed, my future tickets back to New York. I started a diary. After two
weeks I had nothing to remember, so I threw it away. Instead, I typed
fifteen- and twenty-page letters to Martha and mailed both within a
week. I spent a week searching for a birthday card for her, and on the
inside of the card I wrote "I Love You." But then I thought better of
it, and tried to erase the "I" to tame it. I couldn't erase the
ballpoint letter without damaging the card, so I made a special trip to
buy another card like it and wrote instead, "Love you. Steven."
She answered both letters with one. As usual, she handwrote only two
or three pages. I had grown to expect as much, especially in light of
her workload. Her letter ended with, "P.S.: Ronnie sends her love. She
wants you to come back. And Marilyn thought you were cute. And, honest,
we all miss you. Especially Ronnie. Hon, did you make an impression on
her! (wink)."
Her letters had never been markedly intimate. I suppose she thought
(and I agreed) that my parents might read them. I saved all of Martha's
letters in a shoe box, along with a few incidental papers and other
scraps to throw my parents off. And I thought little of the relative
brevity of her writing; had she typed them, I supposed, they might have
been longer.
Between September and Christmas I wrote several long, plaintive
letters asking Martha to suggest some way to get me to New York, or at
least out of Memphis and into the northeast. She answered the letters
with one, again, asking me to be patient and make my grades at Christian
Brothers so that I could get a scholarship to an Eastern school as she
had done. But graduation from high school seemed eons away. I knew her
suggestion was sensible and was, in the long run, probably my best
option. Each day I grew more temperamental, pouring out my frustrations
into longer and longer letters. I sent a shorter letter to Ronnie, whose
last name I couldn't recall, and enclosed it with a letter to Martha for
delivery. I received Christmas cards from both of them.
On New Year's Day, Martha called me long distance.
"Steven," she said, "you sound so miserable. Please try to cheer
up. You're in a great high school, and you can win scholarships through
them. It's really a feather in your cap, and it's a very prestigious
name."
I breathed into the telephone, "Martha. Martha, I hate this. I hate
all of it."
"Remember what I told you about feeling sorry for yourself. Remember
what I told you about being yourself. You'd be so much happier if you
were in the theater and doing other things at school."
"But if I don't work, I can get back to New York."
"Steven, you're crazy. It would take you at least six more months to
save that much money again."
"Okay, then six months from now is June. So I could come up this
summer."
"Well, if you want to, but...Hon, that won't get you up here perma-
nently, though, will it? That only gets you here for a few days. If you
won a scholarship up here, and with your theater work adding to your aca-
demic record, why...if you did it that way, you'd be here forever. Not
just a few days. Doesn't that make sense?"
I didn't answer.
"Doesn't that make sense?"
"Yes," I said, "it does. You always make sense. I never seem to
make any sense."
"Oh, Steven. There you go again. Good lord, a few months home and
you're right back where you started. Well, hon...I guess you better save
and come up here before they make you a total wreck down there, and...
maybe we can figure out something else in the meantime."
"Next summer then?"
"Just keep working, and we'll set up something later. Summer's a
long way off, kiddo."
I told her I had received a Christmas card from Ronnie.
"Really? She told me she would send you one. She has a boyfriend,
you know. A steady. She met him Thanksgiving. I guess she must have
finally taken our advice, because he's a far cry from the idiots she used
to hang around with. And how about you, Steven?"
I stuttered and paused and told her, "Oh, I get around. A little."
"Steee-ven?" she said skeptically. "A little?"
"Well, I'm -- y'know, I'm busy doing a, uh, a play at school in a few
weeks."
"I thought you were still working on your paper route?"
"Well, just for a few weeks, I'm doing both, but...I'll be off the
paper route soon. It's just until they find someone else to take the
job."
"Oh, hon, that's good. I'm glad you're back into it. I'm so glad
for you. Hasn't it made you feel a lot happier?"
"Yeah. Of course it has."
I finished the conversation with such bothersome pangs of guilt that
I wondered if I could ever speak comfortably with her again. I began
keeping copies of the letters I sent to her so that I could track any
white lies I wrote. I didn't say that I was working madly, exactly the
way I'd worked before. I didn't say that I was on the lookout for
better-paying jobs that would get me to New York earlier.
I tamed the complaining tone of my letters and mailed them less
frequently. The next letter arrived in mid-February. Another arrived in
April. Then, a birthday card.
I had a few disastrous flirtations. The Brothers held a sophomore
class prom. Those who couldn't find a date could get one through Brother
Lawrence's contacts with the Catholic girls' schools in town. At first,
my sister was going to fix me up with a blind date. After meeting
several of her girlfriends I decided I'd be better off with pot luck
through Brother Lawrence. How bad could it be, I told myself; after
all, my date with Marilyn in New York had not been such a trying
experience.
But trying it was. Being driven to and from the dance by my mother
helped little. The girl had been in plays at Saint Agnes Academmy for
Girls -- apparently, this was her sole qualification for being picked by
Brother Lawrence. Other than her drama interests, we had nothing in
common. She was, I discovered later, a local glamour girl from a rela-
tively wealthy family whose major social interests were football players
and other class heroes. I spent the evening introducing her to my class-
mates, and she spent the evening traipsing about the dance hall floor
with them.
It actually made little difference to me. Beyond a basic sexual
titillation, I had no interest in her or any other girls. My sole
interest was to save money and, hopefully, leave home. And, definitely,
make it to New York. At the Liberty Cash Grocery Number 23, Charlie
himself couldn't fire my interest in his numerous female contacts.
On my sixteenth birthday I received a driver's permit. My stepdad
refused to allow me to drive the family car, but to me the permit meant
I was one step closer to independence. I began planning the next step,
which would be to buy my own used car. Of course, that wouldn't be
legally possible until I was eighteen. But for severaI nights for weeks
I stayed up late, calculating the possibilities: the time required to
save a little more for trips to New York; saving for a future car of my
own; perhaps getting someone else to let me use their car for a larger,
more lucrative paper route; or using someone else's car to get me to a
better job after school.
For the time being, the driver's permit allowed me to drive my Aunt
Frances' or my Daddy Joe's car. Durng my weekend stays with them I began
taking them to work and picking them up at night now and then, or making
short drives to cafe supply houses. When Aunt Frances gave me three or
four dollars for gas, I'd secretly pocket some of the money. The first
few times I did this I remember saying to myself, "There ya go, Steven.
on your way to a life of crime."
That, and lying to Martha about my jobs and my long-range plans,
often kept me up at night.
By the end of July, I had received no letter for nearly four months.
I was so busy working that summer -- the paper route in the mornings and
the delivery bikes all day during the week -- that I had little time or
energy for the long letters I'd written earlier.
On the last Sunday in July, 1958, I was spending the day at the
Tremont Cafe when I received a telephone call just after dinner. I
stood behind the service counter talking to one of Uncle johnny's old
railroad buddies when Mama Rose answered the telephone.
"Butch, honey?" she called from the front corner of the store, near
the cash register. "You got a phone call, Butch."
"Who is it?" I asked.
"I dunno, Butch, but it's for you."
This could only be Martha, I thought, and I rushed to the phone.
"Hello?"
"Steven? It's Martha."
"Oh, Martha! Hello. I thought you were dead!"
"Well, not yet, hon."
"Your Southern accent has totally disappeared."
"Has it? Do I sound like one of those enraged New Yorkers?"
"No, no, you sound just fine."
"What's all that noise in the background?"
"That's the juke box in this place. Is it awful, or what? Here,
hold on, I'm moving the telephone into the corner behind the cigar
counter, maybe that'll help. There. Is that better?"
"Yes, a little. It's a little better. Steven, I had to call all
over town to find you. Doesn't anybody know where you hang out? I called
your mother, and she had me call your Aunt Frances, and nobody answered,
and then...well, anyway, I finally got through to you."
"Yeah, well, they don't pay very much attention to me, whether I tell
them where I am or not."
"Yes, I found that out. Well...how's school? How'd your play turn
out? Have you started anything for the summer?"
"Oh, it was, uh, really great. You know, no big deal, these things
come and go. I'll be in something else soon."
"You never wrote me about it."
"No, I...I've been really busy with all that, y'know."
"Please write me, Steven, and let me know how you're doing. You have
me so worried sometime. I'm sorry I never come home, I'd be able to keep
track if I did, but...you know, I don't feel any better about Memphis than
you do."
"I understand that. It's no problem, Martha, really, uh...Listen,
I'll write and let you know everything. I'll write this week."
"Oh, good, I know you'll have lots of juicy news about your plays and
things you're working on, and let me know if you need any information on
colleges up here. I can get all you need."
"Yeah. Yeah, I'll do that."
"Steven...Listen, I...I had to reach you tonight, this has been on my
mind for a while now, and...Steven...hon, are you there? Are you still
there?"
"Yes, I'm here. Still here."
"Oh, I heard weird noises."
"I was moving the telephone set, Martha, it's so noisy in here."
"Oh, that's what it was. Well...Steven, I...Well, you remember I
told you, none of us knew what might be happening, and my own jobs were
so irregular and everything, and...Well, I might be moving to Connecti-
cut. To Riverside, Connecticut. It's about an hour north of New York on
the commuter train."
"Oh, I see. But you can still get to New York?"
"Oh, yes, that's no problem. And I still work in Manhattan for the
time being, but...Steven, I..."
"Yeah? I'm still here."
"I know you are...Steven...I..." Over the line, I heard her swallow
hard. "Promise me, now, you won't get upset or anything. I'm not really
sure how you feel about this, I'm not...I..." Again, she swallowed hard.
"Steven, I've met someone."
The juke box blared. The restaurant was crowded at the tail end of
the dinner hour. The music and the customers and the clanking pots
receded into nowhere. All I could hear was the telephone in my ear.
"I met him a long time ago, actually, but nothing ever really
happened, you know, and then...several months ago...Steven, promise me
that you won't...Oh, darn"
"I promise. Why do you want me to promise something? You've met
people before."
"Steven...I want to move in with him. For a few months. And try...
I want...Oh, Steven, I...I think I'm...I'm pretty sure we're going to get
married. Before the end of the summer."
"...Oh...I see, well, that's..."
"That's why I had to reach you. I didn't want you to get this in the
mail or anything like that, and I'm packing now. Can you believe this,
all the packing I've done, and I'm packing again! But I'm...moving in a
few days to stay with him in Connecticut, and I thought if you called I
wouldn't have the phone here anymore in Manhattan, and I...Well, I just
decided this weekend to say yes. And I couldn't do it without telling
you, Steven...Steven? Hon?"
"Yeah, I'm here, it's okay."
"Steven...Do you understand what I mean? I'm trying to say...Hon, it
was...Well, I didn't expect it. I just didn't expect it."
"Well, sure, you...uh...you really like this guy. Right?"
"Yes, I do, Steven. I do. Not like with you, in many ways, but...
well, it's just very different. I don't know how to explain it, and I
won't even try, but...Steven...sweetheart, I hope this doesn't...You know
how much I care about you. I've been -- Oh, hon, I've been so worried! I
sat up late with Ronnie, and then sat up all night by myself. I didn't
know what to do. I tried to write, but...That wouldn't do, and I knew I
had to call you. And now I...I still don't know what to do."
"Oh, but I'm...glad you found somebody. Really."
"...You're not just saying that? Steven, I'll make him buy me a
ticket down there and I'll beat your little behind if you're just saying
that. You know how I feel about you."
"No, really. Really, I'm happy, and I...Well, I hope it works. I
hope it's better than the treatment Ronnie ended up with."
"Oh, Ronnie, well...Ronnie's okay, I guess, I haven't heard anything
tragic lately, but...Hon, this isn't about Ronnie. This is about you. I
sat by this phone for three hours before I could call you, and I spent
another hour trying to figure out where you were. I had to find you and
tell you, and...I will write. I'm moving this week, but as soon as I'm
settled in Riverside, I'll write you a nice long letter, and give you my
new address and everything."
"Well, when I come to New York I'll be within train distance of you,
won't I?"
"When you come to New York?"
"Well, I...I'll be visiting up there, sooner or later. Hopefully
sooner, and...well...When would you and I be able to...you know, to get
together again?"
There was a long pause on the line. I knew she was still there. The
low, unchanging hum from her end of the line told me I was still connect-
ed. A couple of seconds passed. Only a couple of seconds. At the time,
it seemed like several minutes.
She said, gently, "Never, Steven."
I spoke quickly. "...Oh, well, *sure*, I mean...You know what I
mean, I mean...if I ever came up there, or...You know, I could visit, and
take the train up and, you know..."
"Steven...I'm going to marry him."
"Of course, of coure you are, I didn't...I didn't mean the question
to sound the way it did, I meant...you know, if I'm ever in New York, we
could meet for lunch or something, or...You know what I mean."
"If we marry, it'll be by the end of the summer. And we'll probably
come to Memphis. He can sure afford it, so I'd drop by and see your
folks. And I'd see you, of course. I'd love to see you again, sweet-
heart. Maybe you'll be doing a play, and I can see you. I'd love to see
you doing something you like, I wouldn't miss that for the world."
"Well, I'll let you know if I'm gonna be...doing anything."
"Hon, are you all right?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine."
"Oh, honey, I...Steven, if you want to say anything...Go ahead."
"...Don't be ridiculous."
"Steven."
"You deserve somebody. You need a home. You can't...you can't
shower in the kitchen forever. Anyway...why should things just stay the
way they are? You know? I know how you feel about me."
"Do you? Do you, sweetheart? Do you really?"
"Sure I do. You know that. And I have a...I have a girlfriend I've
seen a little of, you know. I mean..."
"Steven...you know I love you, hon. You know that, don't you?
Please, don't...Please, don't lie to me Steven."
"Well, we...we grew up together, and...y'know...but things change.
Things happen."
"Hon, my feelings about you have never changed. I told you how I
felt. I do love you, Steven. And I'm glad you're doing better down
there. And when we come to Memphis, you'll be around, right? In late
August or early September? That's when we plan to come down. I'd love
to see you, hon. Is that okay? Could I see you then? You won't end up
in the movies and go to Hollywood by then, will you?"
"I seriously doubt it."
"Haha, oh, hon. Oh, I do love you. I was so afraid that...Listen,
I'll write to you next week, and you'll get a letter soon. Okay? A long
one, this time."
"Yeah...okay."
"I have to go and call my mom, for what it's worth, and tell her I'm
moving, and...Hon, you're still my favorite. You're my one and only,
Steven, in so many ways. You know that, don't you?"
"Of course I do. And you're...You're my one and -- "
"Hon? What's wrong? Steven?"
"...It's okay, I, uh......almost dropped the phone."
"Listen, this is your Aunt Frances' business phone, and I know how
she is, and we don't want her to throw a fit. But I'll write. And I'll
give you my new phone number."
"...Yeah...Right. That's good."
"Steven, please don't...Well...Goodbye, hon."
"...Yeah."
"Write to me!"
"Of course I will. Goodbye, Martha."
"Okay, I...Goodbye, hon. You'll hear from me, don't worry...and I
...There's never enough time, is there?...well...Goodbye, Steven."
A click. Two clicks. A dial tone.
"Goodbye, Martha."
I listened to the dial tone for about half a minute. What was left
of her was out there in that dial tone, somewhere. I hung up the phone
and placed it near the cash register where it belonged. The juke box
hammered, "You Ain't Nothin' But A Hounddog". People ate and talked and
read their newspapers. I put my hands in my pockets and walked behind
the counter and into the kitchen. Mama Rose asked me, "Who was that on
the phone, Butch?"
"Nobody," I said.
I walked through the back room where a waitress was taking her coffee
break. I headed for the back door.
"Where you off to, sport?" she asked.
"Takin' a walk."
"Don't get lost, hon."
I went outside into the rear parking lot. It was dark. Hot. Humid.
Still. I opened the door to the ten-by-ten foot, firebrick, food storage
bin that was built onto the rear of the Tremont Cafe. I shuffled among
the bushels of carrots and the potato sacks and tomatos. In the dark, I
sat on a crate of cabbage. I cried for a long time.
====================================
THE ADVENTURES OF ME AND MARTHA JANE
by S.J.R.
PART 14A:
-30-
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