Coney Island, New York
June 20, 1956
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“What a beautiful night, Mitch.” Squeezing his hand, looking at the velvetyblack, starpierced, moonlit sky, “I don’t know why, but no matter how often I see them, fireworks always excite me.”
Living less than a mile from the amusement park, walking home, eating ice cream cones, “Yeah.” Looking at her, draping his right arm across her shoulders, using the palm of his hand on the side of her face, moving her head closer to his, “So you say you’re excited, huh?” flicking his cold, wet tongue over the tip of her nose.
“I was! That’s disgusting, Mitchell!” Poking him in the side with her elbow, swiping her hand over her nose. “And no, I’m not excited ‘that way’! Is sex all you ever think about?”
“Me? Think about sex? Nah, I never…” Shifting the cone from his left to his right hand, reaching across his chest, “think of sex,” he cuddled her left breast.
Looking about to see if anyone was watching, “Mitchie,” but the people walking in front were not looking back and the people behind couldn’t see beyond their backs. “someone’ll see!” Taking his hand from her breast, “Come on, stop!”
Her tone of voice, though, was not serious, so he reached to her breast again.
But pulling away, skipping out of reach, “You’ll never change, Lapishky! I said it before and I’ll say it again: you’re nothing but fat, old centipede!”
“Yeah!” Shoving the last three inches of the cone in his mouth, letting about an inch of the sugarwafer point protrude through his puckered lips, making “bugeyes” and mumbling around the cone in a deep voice, “But I’m your fat, old centipede!” Reaching forward with both hands, wiggling his fingers, he chased Marsha―who waved at the guard in the shack―around the lowered wooden barrier into…
****
Seagate is a gated community located on the very tip of Coney Island. On a small peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean, Seagate consisted of woodframe and brick structures that in earlier years had been the homes of the wealthy. But by 1956 many of the larger buildings had been converted into apartments and boarding houses that intermixed with newer, single family homes and modern, one and two story apartment buildings.
Mitchell’s father, Walter, had an elderly aunt, Ida, that lived in Seagate, and as both Marsha and Mitchell were from Chicago, rather than move his bride to a place where they knew no one, Mitchell had looked for an apartment near his great aunt.
Through Ida, Mitchell had met Mrs. Tennenbaum, who owned the recently remodeled, two story apartment building kitty-corner from Ida’s boarding house.
The Tennenbaums not only owned the building, but a furniture factory as well, and as Mrs. Tennenbaum liked Mitchell, thinking of him as a “nice Jewish boychik,” she had the 16x30, one room, kitchenette apartment decorated to his taste. He, knowing his atthat time future wife’s favorite colors―well, they were actually married at that time, but not, as Marsha’s mother had stated, “in the eyes of God”―had the apartment decorated to Marsha’s taste. Mrs. Tennenbaum then furnished the small apartment with “hardly noticeable seconds” from her husband’s furniture factory.
Marsha’s mother, Rhea, had offered her daughter a large wedding, which, of course, Marsha had accepted, and the shower gifts, along with much of Marsha’s clothing, from the Goldman apartment on the far north side of Chicago, and much of Mitchell’s clothing, from the Lipensky home in Skokie, Illinois had been sent ahead via Rail Express.
Since the wedding last December, Marsha and Mitchell had lived at 2915 Neptune Avenue, Seagate, New York.
Marsha, by determination, and Mitchell, because he had truly felt that “God don’t want me to ever get fucked!” were both virgins at the time of their wedding. Really, though, due to timing and a state of Illinois regulation, their two marriages, because they had been married twice, two months apart, and then, because of a totally out of character demand by Rhea, that, after years of “trying” further fortified his, “God don’t want me to ever get fucked” theory―they did not consummate their marriage till one week after the second marriage―the “in the eyes of God” marriage.
And now, approaching their sixth full month of marriage, their consummated, “in the eyes of God” marriage, Marsha and Mitchell had begun to learn each others habits, to know each other physically, and―as much as a man can ever “know” a woman―somewhat mentally and…
One of the first things Mitchell had learned about Marsha was the time she spent in the bathroom getting ready for bed, and― though he’d never said so, although she had never given him any reason other than, in his opinion: often giving the appearance of being rather unemotional during sex; occasional headaches that eliminated sex altogether; the days before “that” time of month when she was in a terrible mood; that “time of month” itself, with the exception of twice now, his idea of a different way to “skin a cat,” and―spending a lot of time in the bathroom at bedtime, Mitchell had begun to think the reason she remained in there for as long as did was to give him time to fall asleep, thus eliminating sex.
On this night, lying nude on the open, sleep ready sofa bed, he’d been waiting for her to come out and now, coming off the bed, going to the closed door, he listened to the sound of running water…
Opening the door, assailed by a cloud of steam, standing a moment looking at the defused hair and flesh tones of Marsha’s body behind the translucent shower curtain, “Marcie?”
In deep thought, the sound of his voice startling her, “Mitchie?” Then seeing the skin toned shadow on the other side of the frostcolored curtain, she poked her head around.
“Hi, baby. Thought maybe you’d like some company. Like maybe you’d like your back scrubbed.”
His unexpected entry into the bathroom, coinciding with what she had been thinking; thinking that, Maybe I can make “it” happen now. Surprising him by drawing the curtain open, “Sure,” she said, becoming some-what aroused herself, “come on in.”
Mitchell’s chest was hard and covered with fine, dark brown hair. Though not noticeably muscled, his arms were solid, his stomach flat, his buttocks firm, his calves and thighs nicely taut. And, jutting from within the tangle of pubic hair, his penis stood rigidly forward.
