In the summer of 1965, a few months before I turned 14 years old, entered high school as a freshman, and got swept up in the angst and bewilderment of Vietnam era adolescence; when I still suited up in a hot, baggy, wool uniform for little league, still hunkered into multi-morning sessions of Monopoly under the shade of a friend’s carport, still camped out in backyards under tents erected of our mothers’ bedspreads slung over a slack clothesline, fabric corners anchored to our fathers’ well -groomed lawns with the wire brackets from a little sister’s Slip-and-Slide; the summer when we rode de-fendered, 20” bicycles tricked out in black banana seats and high handle bars; roaming on them the nearby housing developments from which we raced off with stolen 2x4s , sheets of plywood, cardboard boxes of nails, and rolls of tar paper with which we fashioned skate boards, boxcar racers, and one towering, leaning clubhouse where we read through piles of DC comic books and Mad Magazines while smoking our first cigarettes, cartons we had five-finger discounted from the A&P; that summer of 1965, last languorous summer when I had all the time in the world to do whatever I wanted including absolutely nothing, lying on my back over the cool, soft blades of grass, divining out of cumulus clouds figures and faces and myths and daydreams about the largess of life to come; that was the summer we stumbled upon a treasure trove, a cache of Playboy magazines.
Whether we found them in someone’s garbage (we were natural pickers) or in the bottom dresser drawer of KH’s much older brother (we were natural snoopers) or in some other way, I cannot recall. But finding them, we divvied them up, concealed them under our t-shirts, and hied our way back to the patchwork clubhouse. There we pushed aside the comics and Mad magazines to make space for the thick, saddle-stitched volumes of taboo, sin, and excitement. We had purloined at least a dozen. We spent the afternoon thumbing through them, calling one another’s attention to our discoveries (unimagined varieties of breast and nipple; geometries of nude buttocks).
We oohed. We hooted. We punched each other in the shoulder. We held up the centerfolds and in high, squealing voices (not far off our own as of yet uncracked ones) we animated them. “Oh, baby.” “Oh, dahling.” “Oh, I’m so embarrassed you big, hunka hunka man, you.” We cracked each other up. We made each other blush (some more than others).
For all the allure, though, of the coquettishly smiling and coyly nude models, that afternoon I was not falling for Miss June or Miss November. Neither the Bunnies of Las Vegas nor Ladies of London captivated me. Rather, it was a tiny silhouette that intrigued me; she who floated in the margins of the glossy, white pages, a mere outline. Adorned only in black opera gloves and black thigh-highs. Abundant black hair massing down her bare shoulders. She was the size of a martini glass, and would recline in one or in the palm of your hand. She leaned against your Gillette safety razor or sat on the bowl-edge of your pipe. Sometimes she sprawled over the top of the text. Sometimes she struck a defiant little pose, feet firmly planted, fists on hips. Often she liked to throw her arms up over her head in joyful abandon. Her nakedness never seemed to bother her. She never seemed to take notice of it, her nonchalant nudity was part of her appeal. She was playful, mischievous, beguiling. She was a voluptuous sprite scratched from a few strokes of India ink. I was crushing on her big time.
Years later, by the time my interest in the Playboy illusions had faded or been eroded, replaced by other illusions, I learned that she was designated a “femlin”—Female+gremlin, a terrible, inartful concoction. “Not worthy of her,” I thought. That was Hef, though. For all his reach after glossy style and high-browishness, there was always something inept, rough-hewn, and patched together at the core of his enterprise. Like a leaning, wooden clubhouse built of scrap stolen by a band of over-enthusiastic, improvising adolescents, who hammered in nails every which way and wrapped their claptrap in broken segments of tar paper. Still, upon hearing of his death—at his end an odd little troll in dressing gown and yachting cap—I am transported back to those places and buddies and discoveries, when I lie on the verge, though of what I did not know. Then, summers like that seemed not so much to go on endlessly (school was imminent) but seemed that they would always return. Hardly did I know they would not, could not.
RIP, old times. Goodnight, sweet sprite.
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—Photo Credit: Leroy Neiman