3 Book of Girls (1929) For two years in a row Rit collected women. Pictures of women he'd cut out of magazines. Way before Penthouse and Playboy made their explicit pages available to young boys via Daddy's sock drawer. Pornography was not mainstream in those days. Fantasizing was not as sexual as it was idyllic. Which is not to say it was not erotic. Boys played with themselves. The film clip did it's work. But there was a romance to it. A worship of the beauty of women, of how one would talk to them at a table at the Stork Club or 21. Undressing them was never a fait accompli. Not for Rit. Not in his mind's eye. The conversation was the fun part. Repartee. Rit combed through Life and Look and The Saturday Evening Post and clipped out pictures of movies stars and fashion girls in lugubrious poses, hand behind the head, looking like goddesses, like sultry Pandoras who behind fluttering false eyelashes knew the secret of life and love. They looked pleased with themselves and terribly rich. Ungodly rich. He'd scissor them out and paste them into his swollen book. Underneath he'd pen in a line or two, as if they were speaking to him from the page, giving him encouragement or offering advice. Telling him how things were out there in glam land. Oh yes, Richard, it's lovely here, one would say. He was sure they used words like lovely a lot. You should see the shrimp boats in the harbor. Divine! Divine was big then. It was The Number One Secret of his thirteen year old existence. Two years had made the book thick; took him hours to leaf through it. Never showed it to a soul. Ever. Or brought it up. Pulled his supply out of the trash and stashed it behind a panel of wood loosened at the foot of his desk. After he'd used it up he'd burn the remains out back in the wire mesh incinerator. Dick couldn't get over at how his recalcitrant son had taken this sudden volunteer interest in the cvtrash. Boy has a fire fixation, he'd complain. He'll grow out of it. A year ago he'd have gone to China to avoid the damn thing. Like I said. If he grew out of that, he'll grow of of this. Her usual argument when Dick worried. You're patronizing me. It was not so much that their bodies attracted him, it was their fabulous clothes with the exaggerated, perky shoulderpads. Their clear, untroubled expressions. Most of all it was what he imagined their personalities to be. Quick witted, clipped speaking patterns, brisk ways of snapping purses shut, telling off the impertinent. The efficiency with which they powdered their faces, applied lipstick in rearview mirrors. They seemed smarter to him than male stars. Millions times more glamorous and millions times more in charge. In this peculiar way he nourished his evolving respect for the opposite sex. A respect that went beyond emotional, sexual need. He appreciated woman as better people. Better at laughter, better at understanding sorrow. Even at this early age he rarely talked to boys the way he talked to girls. Certainly he never talked to his father the way he talk with Teddy. It wasn't as easy to open up to guys. And the whole business began with the imaginary conversations he'd have with his pin-up girls. Book Of Girls he called it. One afternoon he found Book Of Girls wide open, violated on his bed. A popsicle stick was stuck onto a page, smeared Lana Turner's chest and ruined what he'd written. Yes, darling, I like my sweater very much. But I like myself too. Karl! That bastard! He ran into his brother's bedroom, down into the kitchen, back up to the bathroom. There he was on the toilet, hunched over a sports magazine. What were you doing in my room?! You tell me, Karly boy. You tell me the truth! You were in there. You been in there before. How many times? Look at me! He ripped the magazine out of his brother's hands and started pounding on him right there on the pot, Karl's small, hard thighs tightening, tiny fists ineffectually belaying the attack. Maaa! Rit's gone crazy! Get him offa me! By the time Teddy got upstairs, Rit had him in a head lock, Karl's head under the sink, the wastebasket overturned. One turd bobbed in the bowl like a brown apple. The roll of toilet paper had unraveled into the toilet and was tangled up in shit. Why did you go in there?!' All's I did was look at it. I've seen it before. I'd seen it a million times. Ma! Teddy took a rolled up magazine and took three sharp whacks at Rit's ass. He let go. All's I did was look at it. Honest, Ma. I just took a peek at his stupid book. Just a peek. That's all I did. 'S all I ever do. What book? You say one word about this, he hissed. His girly... Rit punched him in the stomach. Karl cried out. Holy Jesus! What's going on around here? What book are you talking about? What book is he talking about, Rit? She'd never seen his face so dark red. Her boys fought, but never viciously. Today Rit's face and neck were thick with muscle, his lower lip pushed out like a sore thumb. Karl was a tough kid for being smaller, younger, but this afternoon he was scared, really scared. Either you explain this thing to me right now, or you both go to your rooms and stay there until you're ready to talk. And you, Rit, you apologize to your brother. That's not fair, Ma, Karl broke in. I started it. I was the one. I know I'm not supposed to go into his room 'less he asks me. Since when? Since forever. Rit and Karl stood on precarious ground. Their pact of unwritten rules, secrets, games played was sacred. Kept from parents. Like playing doctor. Rolling Dumb Dumb Moran's car down hill. Or their personal best - digging a hole on the beach in Atlantic City, loading it up with jelly fish, building a sand castles above. Castle for the local thugs to kick down. He and Karl'd hid under the boardwalk and waited for them to land in the slimy goo. Get stung. Last Saturday Rit persuaded Irving Waterman to let himself get tied up. They took off his shorts and left him like that in the basement for ten minutes. Then they made him piss in the coal box. Their big hocus pocus initiation rite. Off limits to parents. Off limits to closer friends. Irving was gullible and lamebrained. They knew he'd be up for it, the fraternity of erotic secrecy. Thrill of being bad. It's okay, Ma, said Karl, pulling off tears with the back of his hand. I started it. I'm sorry. I'm am sincerely sorry. Teddy wasn't going to pry. Honest. Rit glowered. He was hurt and embarrassed and shaking. His private world had been invaded. Rit, she asked. What do you have to say about all this? He shook his head. I can't hear you. Nothing, Mum. It's over. I don't understand any of this. I don't have the slightest idea what's going here, but I won't go poking my nose into something you both seem so intent on brushing off. Karl? He was starting to clean up the bathroom. Yup. Everything's fine, Mum. Fine and dandy. She shook her head and went downstairs. Wanna go out? Throw the ball around? You stay outa my stuff, brother. You hear me? It's my stuff. Personal to me. Private and personal. You got no truck with it. I stay outa your stuff, you stay outa mine. I know. I forgot. I won't forget again. It's a deal, then? Deal. Swear on your nuts? I swear. Grab 'em and swear. He grabbed his testicles. Swear on these, he whispered. Karl finished cleaning up the litter from the wastebasket. He sopped up the spray from the toilet bowl. Rit picked up Book Of Girls, crammed it into a shoe box, climbed out his window, shinnied down the elm tree, dug a hole and buried everything behind the toolshed. Buried it two feet under, wrapped in newspaper. Left it there to rot. He would never look at it again. It was a rite of passage. He was on his own now. He'd find real girls to think about, talk to. He knew now that he couldn't trust his own brother. He had to watch out. To be on guard. Or at least not have secrets he couldn't afford to have uncovered. Years afterwards he'd think twice about his brother or anybody else when it came to relying on them or confiding in them over some delicate issue. And Karl made up his mind that Rit was devious by nature. That he'd harbor weird secrets. That he'd probably have a concealed life running parallel and unknown to those around him. You could trace any tension between the two back to Book Of Girls. A demarcation, a fault line, a splitting off. They liked each other okay. Continued to play, share friends; but neither of them ever allowed the other deeply into his life. It seemed ridiculous to Rit when he looked back and thought about how they became estranged. How ridiculous that it all fell apart over Book Of Girls. Maybe it was in the cards. After all he was the one who'd hidden the thing in the first place. He must have already been suspicious on some level. On the other hand it was odd that he was suspicious in the first place. Most of the time he just blurted out any old thing that came into his head. Blurted it out. Involuntary indiscretion. Let the cards fall. Sploof. Played the bohemian extrovert, rarely embarrassed, but only because he had so few things, so few big time feelings tucked away. Those feelings darkened over time. Those withheld, unswept corners of the heart. He'd act out, laugh off the quirks and rough edges of his loud personality, include friends by making them laugh alongside. Down under he remained uncertain and wary. Very few ever got in there. Even those who loved him most. Especially those. God, he thought, years later. What a naive resource - Book Of Girls. 4 - Klepto