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Donnie & Lennie 5

Chicago’s West Side

          1944

At that moment­ Donnie had two clear-cut revelations:

Maybe it ain’t pee,

but that squirty,

gooey stuff that guys make into girls.

Also,

until that very moment he had never considered that,

If it feels so wonderful when you do it to yourself,

maybe it’s gotta feel even more wonderful

when you do it with a girl,

’cause if it didn’t,

why’d a guy ever wanna go to the bother of doin’ it with a girl?

“…Uh,”

pulling his thoughts together,

finishing his sentence,

“you, uh, kind’a, like,

uh, pee in her.”

Not having time enough to fully assimilate

what his friend had told him,

Lennie then had his own unbelievable thought:

Mom’n’dad always sleep with their door open,

’cept sometimes,

 then they close it,

an’ lock it,

an’ maybe that’s what they’re doin’ there then!

Walking on,

contemplative,

both boys pondering their thoughts,

and the silence,

though lasting only seconds,

became pronounced

“So,”

Donnie asked,breaking the prolonged silence,

“you understand now?”

“Well, yeah, I guess.”

Wanting to change the subject until he’d had time to think about it,

Lennie then asked the unanswerable question:

“But what’s it look like?

You know,

a girls…

thing?”

“This older guy didn’t tell us,

but you know what I think, Lennie?

I think it looks kind’a like our’s looks,

only on girls it’s littler an’ fatter

and kind’a like it has a big hole in it.”

Envisioning somewhat the same picture,

agreeing knowingly,

“Yeah, an’ it’s gotta be kind’a like all crinkly’n’ugly.”

Laughing, “Yeah,”

Donnie  said,

“s’no wonder girls are always catchin’ colds all the time.”

“Yeah,” Lennie added,

“with the wind blowin’ through it all the time.”

©December 14, 2011 / Mark M Lichterman