"CHIMERA" - Artie Brewster's 'Memoir' - Chapter 1

Artie is an old high school friend of mine from Brooklyn. I haven’t spoken to him for 40 years. Somehow, he tracked me, and sent me the following in the form of an e-mail. He called it “Chimera,” which I had to look up.

Chimera N. Gr: chimaira Gr.Myth: 1. a fabulous monster; 2. An impossible or foolish fancy... Chimerical adj. 1. Imaginary; fantastic; unreal. 2. Absurd; impossible. 3. Indulging in unrealistic fancies; visionary.

I am guessing that means this “memoir” is mostly bullshit. But I’m going to publish it in my blog anyway, because bullshit memoirs seem to be acceptable -- these days. Here it is, only slightly abridged to clean up the dirty parts.

My Hebrew School rabbi insisted that the Genesis story about Creation was the emmis, The Truth. The way he told it, God, the Omnipotent King Of The Universe, created the world in six days. On the first day, He worked on the heavens, the earth, and the oceans. But The Know-It-All Genius was working in the dark, which apparently accounted for some of His screw-ups, like hurricanes, floods, and that slimy tarry stuff I always got on my feet at Coney Island. It wasn’t until the second day that He got the idea to flip the light switch.

I received this version of history with some skepticism, especially after catching the rabbi in the act of parking his car a few blocks away from the temple on Shabbas before he began to sneak up to the temple on foot. I had been ordered to walk the twenty blocks from my house after being caught by my grandmother pedaling my bike to Schul. I rode my bike every Saturday after that, hid it in an alley — until one Saturday, it was stolen.

The moral lesson revealed by that episode was not matched until my first day at Lafayette High School, which was spent on the basketball courts waiting for the teachers to end their strike. Was my duty to support the teachers’ struggle or to pursue my education?

Conflicted though I was between my father’s ardent unionism and my “socialization” as a dutiful Jewish boy, I’d tried to enter the imposing grey stone building on Benson Avenue in Bensonhurst. But some Bath Beach Italian guys, who wore leather jackets and carried argumentative switchblades, had taken a scrupled stance in support of the picketing teachers and, incidentally, extended summer vacation one extra day by blocking the entrances. That served as a practical solution to my own qualms — and taught me an important lesson. Moral choices should be delayed until events ripen.

And so it was that I had to wait until the second day for my first view of someone who almost restored my faith in some Greater Power. Penelope Miller, by the Grace of some unseen hand, was in my freshman English class.

In those days, Freshman classes were seated either alphabetically or by height; either way I was in the front and Penny Miller was near the rear. But I soon found myself twisting in my seat, and trying to steal looks at her, then quickly snapping my head away before she caught me staring. If our eyes met, I knew for sure that I would be struck dumb or turned into a pillar of salt or a slab of marble. The gulf between us was far greater than the five rows of chairs that separated us in Freshman English. There were volcanic peaks, shark infested oceans, and rivers of molten lava to cross.

It was immediately evident to me that there was something terribly amiss with this female type Thing. She was out of place in my world; she seemed to have descended from some etherial region of my imagination: a creature from mystic legend, science fiction, or a Hollywood inspired wet dream. Even at fourteen years old, I could tell at a glance that — if Penny Miller was human — all of my previous hormonal fantasies about girls had been childishly understated.

I couldn’t have described her then in words, and probably can’t now, so many years later. Using my slim fund of metaphoric knowledge as it existed the first high school year, I can say that the difference between Penelope Miller and all of the other females I had previously encountered was algabraic: If other females = X, then Penny Miller = X∞.

I should here explain that, sociologically, our school’s population in that era was roughly half American Secular Jewish, half Brooklyn Second Generation Italian. This produced an oddly compatible association of similar, yet unique sub-cultures co-existing in a bubbling stew of adolescent curiosity and fear.

I must admit that my instinctive preference was for the Italian, rather than the Jewish, girls. I believe now that this bias was due to my mother, who was Romanian, often mistaken by strangers for Italian. I shared her Olive complexion and jet black hair. My mother loved to flirt and tell naughty jokes. She danced and bounced her bosoms with frisky delight at family affairs. She loved to eat spicy food, and fancied herself a Gypsy. In the words of some forgotten comic, “Oedipus, Schmedipus, I loved my mommy.”

The more attractive of the Jewish girls I had seen tended to be on the standoffish side. They practiced a form of seduction which was so heavily encoded with barely audible innuendo that I was at a loss to figure them out. The Italian girls were less mysterious; they tended to be more blatantly erotic, at least in my fantasies, because they were more exotic, tantalizingly accessible, sneering with implied lust, and daring you to cop a feel.

The Jewish girls wore sweater sets and pleated skirts, white socks and “tennies.” They wore their hair in pony tails or bouncy natural curls. They were mostly named “Sharon” or “Eunice” or “Bernice.” The Italian girls wore sheer stockings and black pumps with straps that showed their heels, and tight skirts that showcased their asses, tight sweater sets that previewed their breasts — or at least their bras — in excruciating detail. Their hair was sprayed to a concrete immovable set, smelled strongly of alcohol and floral perfume. They were named “Maria,” “Gina” or “Marianne.”

In the first few months of high school, my hormones made few cultural distinctions. Stalking the halls, I might have been swimming in the warm Coney Island waters crowded with assorted females in bathing suits and hiding my boner.

Maria Mangeone’s stockinged heel as it lifted free of her shoe while sitting at her desk caused me strangling pain. A bra strap showing from Eunice Kagan’s sleeveless blouse was enough to give me cramps. The pink pilling that identified the forward curve of palm sized breasts hiding inside Bernice Moskowitz’ mohair sweater set me off. Gina Cappazola, sitting in the cafeteria across from Marianne D’Amato, freshened her lipstick while peering at her compact and my concentration was gone for the afternoon.

They were all attractive, at least in some particular. Certainly, it didn’t take much to attract me at that age. Some girls had one alluring feature or combination of features that I surveyed like a shopper while walking the halls or sitting in class: thrusting breasts, round firm tush, flowing hair, inviting full lips, teasing eyes.

But in my memory’s admittedly hyperbolic eye, Penelope Miller’s looks were of another species, a miraculous mutation, a monumental leap in evolution, a composite of all the best features I could have imagined in a girl — a superwoman. Her appearance was something I had never seen in real life and was totally unprepared for; I was unnerved by her flawlessness.

For one thing, she was neither definably Jewish nor Italian in appearance; I couldn’t fit her in with any of the other girls in the class. The phrase: “She looks like ____” (fill in the blank with any pitifully inadequate superlative, beginning with “a goddess”) could not be spoken without conscious understatement.

It wasn’t just that she had no particular “ethnic” features I associated with the other girls, some of which, in and of themselves were appealing. Neither was she my vision of some non-ethnic white bread paragon of the kind I had little contact with at that age, but had seen in movies and in magazines. She was neither comparable to Marilyn Monroe nor Audrey Hepburn, or any fantasy object in between. She was neither “Annette,” nor “Darlene” of the sexiest show on television, “The Mickey Mouse Club.” She was far above those shadows.

Penny Miller’s facial features were subtle and delicate, a perfect balance of sensuality, intelligence, and elegance. She was breathtakingly stunning, the kind you watch from a distance and avert your eyes as she nears, like oncoming high headlight beams. In repose, she exuded a sort of eerie calm, an unguarded innocent sense of assurance.

I have since seen many and known some of Penelope Miller’s genera of beautiful woman: who stand in elevators, ignoring awestruck stares with distant, icy mien; who with fresh wholesome American airs exercise in mylar, oblivious to the gasps they evoke; who enter rooms amidst stunned murmurs and whimpers. Penny Miller, as I remember her at fourteen, was something apart from even these exceptional beings I have seen during my long life of awareness of such creatures.

Beneath the dazzling symmetry of Penny Miller’s face, there was something even more unfathomable than mere striking beauty, a shell of mystery that separated her from others, even those girls I had written off as beyond my scope.

I had long realized that, to girls, I was destined to be categorized as “nonthreatening,” a boy who girls trusted, because I was clearly without any dangerous or sexy aura. Even in the unforgiving Darwinian blackboard jungle, this was considered a pitiable label.

Because I could be trusted not to overstep prescribed boundaries, there was a small sub-class of sympathetic girls (the sort who would later become social workers with the disabled) who ventured to invite me to their finished basements after school to dance, and then to make out on narrow sticky naughahyde benches beneath wood paneled walls. But humping was as far as I’d ever gotten in eighth grade; now I was a high schooler and expected to graduate to more complex and challenging activities. I had resolved to change the way girls thought of me, take more risks, no matter the likelihood of rejection. This was my primary goal in freshman year, that and making the baseball team.

Unfortunately, I’d discovered early that I was the kind of kid whose reach exceeded his grasp in both endeavors. My desires outdistanced my abilities by planetary measures. I knew this was a curse which had to be accepted as much as the bump on my nose, being left handed, and all the other immutable infirmities of my looks and abilities. In school, I was learning to adapt to my intellectual limitations, to promote strengths and manage weaknesses. Any subject that required comfort with numbers would always be a boring puzzle; if words were allowed, I could manage to get along. Accepting these realities would narrow choices for me, eliminating entire careers but opening others that might provide some “succor” (I used to like that word - it sounded dirty but isn’t), even while dashing childish dreams of becoming the next Oppenheimer or Chuck Yeager.


In the same way, I was learning that I would always struggle to be satisfied with the type of girls who went for me; to resist the trap of yearning for the girls whose pursuit offered only inevitable misery. I was beginning to suspect that this necessity to compromise, to settle, to accept mediocrity, was a constant that would trickle into all facets of my life; in fact, it would become the theme of my life. With a heavy heart, I gathered the sense to narrow my range, to accept the challenge of wanting those who wanted me.

Considering these truths, it was immediately evident that Penny Miller was so far beyond my grasp that it was nonsensical to even dream that she might have anything to do with me, in a sexual way that is, which was the only way that counted to me at that age. It took me until December 1st to build the courage to even speak directly to her.

By that time, she knew my name because I was a talker in English class, my arm always upraised to answer a question about the subject matter. In those days, I knew how to write a sentence within the rules, and could even spell, before spell checkers when spelling counted. I was such a nerd that I didn’t know yet that it was uncool to participate in class discussions much less to volunteer an insight, showing that I was bright and that I’d actually read and understood the material.

I was slow to realize that there was extreme social risk in seeming to curry favor with the teacher, who was required by the prevailing social code to sweat through his curriculum without student assistance. Luckily, I was also a smart ass, and occasionally made clever funny asides that made the class laugh and the teacher scold me. As far back as fifth grade, I’d stumbled upon the discovery that class clowning could be a route to a certain limited popularity for me.

A few of my wise cracks evoked tepid smiles from Penny Miller, as revealed by my frequent stolen looks for her reaction. But these blips were not enough to encourage me to take the plunge into the bottomless chasm that separated us.

Penny’s general indifference to my charm was a minor setback, completely lacking in surprise, even somewhat comforting. Once you know you can never have the most expensive toy, settling for second best becomes acceptable, necessary for mental health. I was used to hand-me-downs from my brother. My closet was full of damaged model airplanes, one-legged tin soldiers, flashlights with chipped lenses. Even my Schwinn had lost a fender. I could make do.

There were a few girls who showed interest in me in that first year. In my Algebra class, plump Gina Maione giggled at my jokes and allowed me — over a painfully long period of time — to persuade her to permit me to put my hand on her breast and then, after the glacial passage of eons, to move my fingers under her sweater and, eventually — with the coming of a new Ice Age — to slip a tip of a finger under her bra while we humped. All the while, I listened intently for the arrival of her parents, who would surely discover us, kill me and toss my hacked up body into the swamp near the school — or worse, would force me to marry Gina and to spend the rest of my life hauling garbage for La Famiglia.

For the most part, I smothered my hormones in sports. At the time, I didn’t make the connection between sports and sexual urges, but it was clearly more than a coincidence that freshman sports was very big for almost all the boys. To a kid in Brooklyn in the 50's, baseball was like the military to a Prussian lad, the first love and the dream for a life’s work.

Artie sent me a lot more of this garbage, which I'll post later, if anybody cares.


Copyright © 2006 by Mort Borenstein