The Fifth day of Their Lives

December 22, 1955: 9:05 a.m.

They wake.

They wash.

They brush their teeth and try again.

Now, though, with the added pressure due to Marsha’s assurance that, “I’m positive you’ll be able to do it in the morning!” Mitchell was even more apprehensive then the night before, and, fortunately for him he wasn’t given the opportunity to scalp himself because, unfortunately for him, he could not raise an erection.

“Maybe,” absently dipping a teaspoon in and out of a cup of coffee, “you can talk to someone about it.”

“Yeah?” Snapping back, “Who in the hell am I supposed to talk to?”

Frustrated, both were becoming irritable.

“And who in the hell do you think I’d even tell about this?”

“Mitchie, let’s try again in a little while, but without a rubber.”

“No rubber? What if…”

“What if what?” she said angrily. “From what I’ve been told, you’ve got to get it in to make a baby!” Knowing she’d hurt him, sorry she’d said it, coming from the table, sitting alongside him on the bed, “Mitchie, you’ve got to talk to someone about this! Maybe there’s something they can give you.”

“Yeah, like some kind of a little blue pill, huh?” Subconsciously hiding, he’d been laying with his arm across his face. Sitting up, looking at Marsha, “Great idea! Yeah, that’s what I’ll do! I’ll just call my skipper and say, Hi, Cap! This is your pal, Mitch Lipensky. And the reason I’m calling, you see, is because I’ve just gotten married to this really beautiful girl and I can’t seem to keep it up. Or now, I can’t even get it up!” Verging on hysteria, wanting to calm down, but, “Is that what I’m supposed to do, Marsha? Huh? Or maybe I should call Aunt Ida and ask her for advice?”

Forcing a smile, “Yeah, that’s a pretty picture.” Putting her arm across his shoulder, “Look, honey, I know how badly you must feel about this, but I meant a doctor, or someone like that.”

“Yeah,” smiling back, “I can see that, too.” Taking her hand, kissing her palm, “I don’t know any doctors, and if I want to go to Public Health, unless it’s an emergency—and I don’t think they’ll think of this,” nodding his chin downward, “as an emergency, I’ll have to wait till I get back to the ship to make a request.” Thinking a moment, “But you know what?” Getting an idea. “What if I hop in the car and go to the drug store. There’s one on Serf, a couple’a blocks from the gate. I’ll talk to the druggist. They’re almost like doctors, and maybe he can tell me what to take.”

“That’s a great idea, Mitchie! Like I said, maybe it’s not so uncommon, and maybe they do have something for it—a pill or something. And if they don’t, maybe he can tell you what to do. You know, an ice-pack or a heating pad.”

“Yeah, that’s kind’a like what I thought.”

“Want me to go with you?”

“Good God, no!”

                                                       **** 

Returning thirty-five minutes later.

She’d made, but not closed the bed, “So?” and cleaned the kitchen.

Smiling, “Shit!” Mitchell said, then laughed.

“Poop? What do you mean, poop?”

“No, ‘shit.’ That’s what he told me to do: shit!”

“I don’t understand. What’s… what you said have to do with, uh, our problem?”

“Marcie, the owner of the place is the pharmacist. He’s an old Jewish guy, and when I came in he was talking in Yiddish to another old Jewish guy, and when I told him I have something important to ask him, he said, ‘So ask!’ And I told him that I wanted to talk to him in private, so we went to the back of the store and I told him that I’m a newly-wed and that I can’t… and believe me, it wasn’t easy to tell a perfect stranger that I couldn’t keep an erection. And… Marcie, this old guy looked at me like I was nuts, and asked if you’re ugly, and I told him¸ ‘No, she’s beautiful!’ And he said to me, like this: ‘Oy, mein, Goot. Me! I should have such problems!’ Then he told me that if I want to stay healthy and have everything in my body work the way it’s supposed to, ‘You should move your bowels every day!’ He asked if I had one today, and I told him no. And he told me, like this, ‘Go home, shit, be healthy.’ When I left the store, him and the other old guy were laughing. And you know what?”

Relieved to see his sense of humor had returned, “What?”

Coming into the kitchen, sitting, “To tell the truth, I can’t remember when I’ve, uh, made. Maybe not since the wedding. Remember?”

It’s embarrassing to go to the toilet to have a bowel movement when you live in a one-room apartment with your new wife in the very next room where she was able to hear every little—or not so little—peep.

“Do I remember?” She laughed. “How could I forget?”

“Hey, look. That’s really embarrassing for me. I don’t go ’round making fun of you because you fart in your sleep!”

“Me?” Sitting on his lap, “I do not!”

“Yeah, you do!”

“Do not!”

Nuzzling her neck, “Do not, what?”

“You know; what you just said I do.”

“Fart?” Tempted to hold her breast, but not wanting to start anything he was afraid he couldn’t finish. “Oh, yeah, you do!”

“I do not! … Really?” She blushed. “I make poopers?”

“Poopers? You call them blasters, poopers? Yeah, really!”

Her blush changing from pink to crimson, “No, I don’t believe it!”

“Okay, then, don’t believe it… Anyway, I’ve a great idea.”

“Yeah?” Winding her fingers in his hair. “What idea? … Do I? Really? No! No, I don’t.”

“Yeah, you do! You really do! Sheepshead Bay.”

“I don’t believe you! What’s Sheepshead Bay?”

“A place for oysters and stuff… And it’s beautiful there!”

“Oysters? Yaght! For you maybe. What do you want oysters for?”

“I like ’em, and they say they put ‘lead in your pencil’.”

“Lead in your pencil?” She laughed. “What do they mean, lead in your pencil?”

Kissing her lightly on the mouth, “They’re supposed to make guys, you know, virile. Like if you’re not horny, oysters are supposed to make you horny.” Kissing her again, this time feeling her tongue on his lips. “You know, put lead in your pencil. Give you… uh, me, a boner, a hard-on… Make me screw like a bunny.”

“I like that idea.” Taking his hand, holding it to her breast, “Why don’t you try what the old guy said first?”

“What?” Sensing the start of an erection, “Oh, take a… poop?”

“Yeah! Go poop!”

Squirming a bit, “I don’t gotta. And you know what they say.”

Knowing what was happening beneath her buttocks, wiggling her butt, “No, what do they say?”

Putting his hand beneath her blouse, “If you don’t gotta, you don’t gotta.”

Lifting her left brassiere cup. “Seems like poopin’s easier than…” Marsha said as he popped her breast out, “eating a bunch’a slimy oysters.”

His hand filled with soft, warm flesh, “Sorry, I just don’t gotta.” His erection no longer in the growing state, “And oysters ain’t slimy.”

Taking his head in her hands, kissing him, hard… “You really think they’ll help?”

“Umm!” The tip of his index finger making circular motions on her hardened nipple, “First of all, they sure couldn’t hurt.” Kissing again… “And secondly, Sheepshead Bay is on my list of places I want to show you anyway. And if you don’t want to eat oysters…”

“Yeah! I don’t want to eat oysters?”

“Then there’s…” Lifting her blouse, looking at the breast held within his hand, Oh, God! Knowing what he wanted to do, but so afraid to start. “…lots’a other stuff for you to eat.”

Knowing what she wanted to do, but so afraid to start. “And you really think oysters’ll put lead in your pencil?”

“Like I said, they sure couldn’t hurt.”

“Yeah, that’s for sure!” Pulling from his hand, standing, going to the closet, “So, come on!” Taking her coat, “Let’s go!” Throwing him his. “What are you waiting for?”

                                                   **** 

By eleven-thirty, most of the major streets of New York City and its boroughs had been cleared of the moderately heavy snowfall of the night before.

The mercury line on outdoor thermometers stood at 39. And as can only happen on a winter’s day after a night of snow, this day was invigoratingly crisp and the sky brilliant blue and sparkling clear.

On the fifth day of their marriage, after three failed attempts to break their virginity barrier, Mitchell and Marsha Lipensky, having bundled up in coats, hats and scarves, turned the heater to H, lowered the top of their convertible, and drove out of Seagate, through Coney Island, onto the Shore Parkway going east, to Sheepshead Bay.

Parking in Lundy’s parking lot, “’old on, Mum!” In a terrible mock-Cockney accent, “Don’t ’open the door, Mum.” With an exaggerated show of chivalry, running behind the Ford, he opened Marsha’s door and, bowing, doffing his blue, knit watch cap, “Mum!”

Lundys was on the north side of the street, facing the bay. Across the street from the popular restaurant was a barrier of sea-tossed, granite slabs, Sheepshead Bay, and beyond, the Atlantic Ocean.

Now noon, a brilliant winter sun directly overhead, the bay churning with whiteheads, six- to ten-foot waves breaking on the slabs of rock, throwing geysers of spray into the air, “Mitchell,” said reverently, “it’s beautiful here.”

“Yes,” said just as reverently, “now that you’re here.”

“Come on, I want to show you something.” Taking Marsha’s hand, he led her across the street to an observation platform above and away from the breaking spray, but still, a fine mist coating their faces, the tang of saltwater could be tasted upon their lips. “See there?” pointing southwest, to a minute finger of land jutting into the ocean.

Shading her eyes, squinting against the glare of the sun, “I’m not sure.”

“On the very tip.” Still pointing, “There.”

Indecisively, “I… think so.”

“At about two o’clock… See it?”

Following the line of his pointing finger… “That, that looks like a skinny pencil standing up?”

“Yeah! You got it! That’s the tower.”

Since that first evening at the J, when they had became reacquainted, Mitchell had spoken of Rockaway Lifeboat Station, Captain Ewing, and “that damned tower!”

“That’s it, huh?” From the moment they became engaged, Marsha had dreamt of being here—in New York—with Mitchell. And now that she was here with Mitchell, looking at the tower, seeing it across the misty expanse of the tossing ocean, it seemed…? Surreal—almost as though she were dreaming.

Having no idea Marsha felt as he, “Yeah.” Feeling melancholy also, “That’s where I spent a million hours looking here, wishing I was here with someone like you.”

Remembering something he’d said, “You told me that someday, when we knew each other better, you’d tell me about you being the only person in the world that’s ever, uh… shit on a bird. Not that I believe it, but if it did happen,” pointing towards the tower, “it had to be there. Right?”

“Shit! Did I hear you say shit?”

“No! I’d never say that!”

“Yeah, you did! Hey,” cupping his hands, yelling to the ocean, “Marsha Lipensky said a dirty word!” Laughing, “She shed shit!” his baby tongue-twister causing him to laugh even harder.

“Okay! Okay, already!” Poking him in the side with her elbow, “So I said shit. It only goes to show you’re teaching me lots’a really great stuff.”

“Yeah! I knew you could learn, if you really tried.”

“Oh, yeah, don’t forget my ‘damn it’ from the other day.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I did forget.”

“Big deal, you taught me to say another dirty word! So, did you really do it… poop on a bird?”

“Yup,” he said with pretended pride. “I sure did!”

“Oh, yeah, sure you did! I still don’t believe it.”

The wind ruffling the wisps of hair that fell across Mitchell’s forehead, “You’re so cute,” kissing his cold cheek, “I can’t stand you!”

“Yeah,” The wind also ruffling the fuzzy white ball atop her hat, “You, too.” Kissing her back, “I can’t stand you, too… Say something else, Marcie. Say fuck.”

Putting her arms about his neck, kissing him warmly on the mouth… Her lips now an inch from his lips, “Fuck.” Whispering into his mouth, “I love you so much, baby, and I want us to fuck.”

“God, Marcie,” closing his eyes, hugging her, Please, God, thinking a silent prayer, “I will, baby. I promise you, I’ll do anything I have to. I will, baby. We will!”

Holding each other, happy to be in the arms of each other, Marsha and Mitchell stood amidst the symphony of breaking waves, blowing mist and the bright, sparkling day. 

“Come on, baby. This air’s making me hungry.”

“Mitchell. you’re always hungry! I can’t wait to see what you look like when you’re fifty.”

“Yeah, well,” hand in hand, crossing the street, “we can’t all be skinny wenches like you. But I’ll bet when I’m a fat old guy of fifty, you’ll still be as pretty as you are now.”

“Nah, at the rate of bad stuff you’re teaching me, I’ll probably be a fat old broad and between us we won’t even be able to sit on a sofa together.”

“Or lay in the same bed.”

“Yeah. I can see the two of us trying to make love.”

“Yeah. We won’t be able to get close enough ’cause our tummies’ll be in the way… Always a problem screwing, huh?”