I saw this 1967 Chevelle on 81st Street last night and was taken back to a moment at the John Jay pool, late summer, right before 8th grade. It was an after-dinner swim and there was a sweet evening breeze. Freddy Muller and I were playing that stupid game popular with 13-year-old boys: taking as much water in your mouth as possible then spitting it directly into your friend’s face. After a defensive maneuver, I turned and noticed that Joanne from our St. Stephen’s class was walking into the pool with two girls I also knew from school. It was amazing to see these girls in bathing suits, girls I had only seen before in blue uniforms, white shirts, white socks, and black-and-white buck shoes. The other two girls wore one-pieces; Joanne wore a bikini.
Joanne was attractive, mature, and had magnificent posture. My dad was always telling me to stand up straight, and when I met Joanne I knew she would have been his ideal daughter. From the water, I watched Joanne walk: five-foot-five (perfect kissing height), thick curly brown hair down to her shoulders, tanned olive skin, birth mark right over her lip that always moved up when she smiled. She had a great stride—didn’t play sports but moved like she should have. A girl who greatly interested me was coming into the pool. This was good. Football was good; bacon was good; Joanne in a bikini was good.
When the girls came in, the first thing I did was spit water at them. This set the mood for the rest of the day. We tortured them and they tortured us. We sat on their sandwiches and they threw our locker keys to the bottom of the deep end. Near closing time, it got chilly. I was toweling off and trying to warm up when I felt a cascade of water over my head that almost stopped my heart. I turned. Joanne had a kid’s play bucket, and she was laughing. I took a slug of water from a bottle, then reached over and pulled out her swimming bottoms and spit the water down her belly. I froze. A line of downy hair started at her outie belly button, ran down her tanned lower stomach, and ended in a thick mat of brown curly hair. I was lost. Stuck and lost. I started at her belly button and moved my eyes down and then back up a hundred times in a few seconds. After a lifetime, Joanne said sternly, “You can stop looking now.” One more time: “You can stop looking now.” The second command brought me back. I released the elastic. I was mortified by my momentary case of bells palsy, but also filled with glee.
In “Sweet Evening Breeze” John Mellencamp sings, “Her body was tan from the afternoons by the public swimming pool.” I think of Joanne every time I hear it.
