A “Becoming” excerpt in sequence: “Poop & Oysters”

Having absolutely no way of knowing. Even so, speaking with positive knowledge, “I’m sure this happens to ‘lots’ of guys when they’re first married. So don’t worry about it, Mitch, I’m not!” Oh, yes, she was. “And I’m ‘positive’ you’ll be able to do it in the morning!”

“God, Marcie, I sure hope so.”

“Don’t worry, honey,” stroking the side of his face, “I love you no matter what, and we’ll have all our lives to make love.”

“Yeah,” trying to lighten the situation, “and we’d better do it before I go bald.”

“Huh?”

“These damned rubbers, they’re scalping me!”

___________________________________________________________

Seagate, New York

The Fifth Day Of Their Lives

December 22, 1955: 9:05 AM

The newlyweds awoke.

First reoccurring thought on both minds: ‘Will ‘it’ work this morning’?

Marsha and Mitchell Lipensky took showers— separately— brushed their teeth and tried again.

This morning, however, with added pressure due to the young wife’s assurance that, ‘I’m positive you’ll be able to do it in the morning’ repeating and repeating within his mind, The young man 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 and 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.”

Breathing deeply. “Yeah...” smiling back, “...I can see that, too.” Taking her hand, he kissed her palm, “I don’t know any doctors. 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 a 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.

Marsha had 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...” Stopping, he tried— unsuccessfully — to suppress giggling.

Annoyed. “Go on!”

“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 the old guy 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 work, ‘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 and 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 fondle a breast, but fearful of starting 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.”

“Oh, 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 bra 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. Well, maybe a little 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 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?”

Sheepshead Bay, New York

The Fifth Day Of their Lives

December 22, 1955: 11:50 AM

By ten-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 43 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 — in the eyes of God — 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 ‘52 Ford 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, five to seven-foot waves breaking on the slabs of rock throwing geysers of salt 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 somewhat away from the breaking spray but still, a fine mist coating their faces, the tang of saltwater 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’, after they had became reacquainted, Mitchell had spoken of Rockaway Lifeboat Station and ‘that damned tower’!”

“That’s it, huh?”

From the moment they became engaged, Marsha had dreamed of being here—in New York with Mitchell.

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 were 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...” laughing, “... uh… shit on a bird. Not that I believe it! But if it ‘did’ happen...” pointing across the bay, “...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… Their lips parting. “Fuck.” Whispering into his mouth. “I love you so much, baby, and I want us to fuck.”

“God, Marcie...” closing his eyes, hugging her while whispering silently, ‘please, God’ “...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.”

****

“Ummm, Marcie, this clam chowder’s great!” Taking another spoonful of the thick, chunky, creamy soup then, dipping the spoon in the bowl, holding it in front of her mouth, “Come on, try some!”

A ‘Lundy’ Hamburger Special on the table before her. “Clams, yaght!” She pursed her lips.

“What are you so worried about? They’re dead, see? They’re even cut into little pieces.” Moving the spoon to beneath her nose. “Come on, just try a ‘little’!”

It ‘did’ look good and it ‘did’ smell good. Conceding, “If I don’t like it, you’ll stop nudging me? ‘Promise’?”

“Hey, baby, this stuff’s too good and too expensive to waste. ‘Yeah’! If you don’t like it, I’ll stop nudging. I ‘promise’!”

“Okay. Just one spoonful!” Marsha opened her mouth and he carefully tilted the spoon forward.

A thin stream of chowder ran from the corner of her mouth down her chin. Taking a napkin, wiping it away, Mitchell waited…

“Excuse me!” Motioning to a waiter, pointing to Mitchell’s bowl. “I’d like o bowl of this stuff, please.”

**** 

She watched a thick puff of steam rise from the deep bowl as…

Lifting the napkin Mitchell reached under, picked one out, detached it from its open shell and holding a small, grey object by what appeared to be a tail, swished it through a bowl of clear broth then into another bowl of drawn butter then— closing his eyes in gastronomical ecstasy— put it in his mouth, bit through the attached end of the tail, chewed and, “Aw, ‘God’!” he said. “I can feel the lead pumping into the old pencil already.”

Reaching beneath the napkin and taking another ‘steamer’, repeating the process’ in the broth to remove all trace of sand then into the drawn butter then... “Here”… holding it by the tail. “Try one… Just one!”

“Are you ‘crazy’? ‘No’!” she said emphatically. “No! No! No!”

“Okay.” Biting through the tail then dropping it into a bowl. “Ummm,” Chewing the clam. “Boy, is this ‘ever’ good!” Lifting the stein he drink some of the foamy, dark beer. “Marcie, come on! I told you you’d like the chowder, and you did, didn’t you?”

“No, I hated it!”

“Don’t bullshit me. You ‘did’! I know you ‘did’!… Say ‘bullshit’.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Okay, then, it’s your loss.”

Selecting another clam. Swishing, dipping and holding it forward. “Go on, take it!”

Shaking her head, “I’ll gag.”

“No you won’t.” Eating it. “See?” As if speaking to a child, “ ‘Yum’, ‘yum’! It’s ‘sooo’ goood! Just one, Marcie! Try ‘just’ one.”

“Okay. But if I puke, you’re the one that’ll have to clean it!”

“Yeah. Okay, if you puke, ‘I’ll’ clean it.”

“You lie!”

“No!” Crossing his heart. “If you puke, I’ll clean it!”

“ ‘Bullshit’!” Marsha said. “Crossing hearts don’t work on Jews.”

“ ‘Bullshit’? He smiled. “You said ‘bullshit’ … So?”

“You are ‘such’ a nudnik… Okay.”

“Okay!” Reaching beneath the napkin. Selecting a plump clam, swishing very well and dunking it in the melted butter. Holding it by the tail…

Looking at it a moment. Closing her eyes and opening her mouth, Mitchell laid it upon her tongue.

Biting through the tail, chewing…

“Mmmm! Hey, these oysters ain’t too bad! Matter’a’fact...” reaching beneath the napkin, taking another, “...they’re pretty good! Guess we’ll both have lead in our pencils, huh? Or does it just work on men?”

“First off, these aren’t oysters...” taking one also, “...they’re clams and they’re called ‘steamers’. And secondly, yeah, it works on women, too. But instead of giving them lead in their pencils, ‘cause women don’t have pencils, they take away pimples and gives ’em clear complexions.”

“That’s what you said sex was supposed to do.”

“Yeah, that does it, too.” Smiling, “So does eating ‘pissers’.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, these are called that, too.” Holding one up. “See this thing I’m holding?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding her head feebly.

“Well, this is its ‘pisser’.”

“No! That’s not what it is! … Really?”

“Yeah, ‘really’! When one of these things is buried in sand and you step on it or a bird tries to dig it out, it squirts… pisses water. And that’s why they’re called pissers. Marcie...” speaking as if to a child again, “...can you say ‘pisser’?”

“Kockie, doodie.”

Laughing, “Come on, little girl. You can say ‘pisser’.”

“Nope!” Taking a clam, swishing, dunking and eating. “ ‘Bullshit’ is enough for one day.

“Waiter...” Mitchell called, “...a dozen ‘blue points’, please.”

“ ‘Blue points’?”

“Oysters… I’m not sure if clams are supposed to do the same thing as oysters, but to be on the safe side, I think I better have some of them, too. And seeing as you like ’em so much...” sliding the bowl to Marsha, “...you can finish these… And don’t worry! I promise I’m not going to offer you any oysters.”

“Thank you ‘so’ much!” she said sarcastically.

“Although maybe we’ll come back next week and then I’ll show you how to ‘slurp’ a raw oyster.”

“Yaght!.”

Far Rockaway, New York

The Fifth Day of Their Lives

December 22, 1955: 2:35 PM

Raising the convertible top before returning to the Shore Parkway, they drove the two miles to Flatbush Avenue then over the Floyd Bennett Bridge into Rockaway

Stopping outside the ‘U.S.C.G. Rockaway Lifeboat Station’, Mitchell pointed to his old bedroom window, then drove the bone-jarring, four-mile road past ‘The Rockaway Bar & Grill’. Past ‘Pete’s Tavern’. Past ‘The Rockaway Eatery and Bait Store’. Past the last of the winter isolated cottages to the end of the road, to the tip of the peninsula… and the tower.

Due to the lonely memories held here, to Mitchell Lipensky — Here the air was colder. Here the wind was sharper and here the sky was darker.

Although, in fact — Corralled by the Atlantic Ocean and Sheepshead Bay, at Rockaway Point the wind is ‘always’ stronger. The wind-chill factor is ‘always’ lower and in winter sand, grit and snow blew with equal stinting velocity.

Surveying this barren point of land, Marsha Lipensky had the same illusory sensation she had earlier as she’d stood on the far opposite side of Sheepshead Bay gazing here.

“Good, God, Mitchell…” Now, though, the surrealistic landscape caused an involuntary shudder. “…this has to be the loneliest place I’ve ever seen.”

“Yeah, but sometimes…”

His words trailed off as, staring at the tower...

‘Mentally transported’ across the one-hundred-and-seventy yards of sandy soil that he’d ‘so’ often trod and up the fifty-seven steel steps he’d ‘so’ often climbed where...

‘Transposing’ himself with the seaman on watch…

Sad memories of this forlorn place tumbling through his mind…

Quiet for a number of long seconds…

“...Sometimes…” Shaking his head as though reviving from unconsciousness. Picking up the thread of conversation as though he hadn’t had a loss of thought, “...it’s not as lonely as at other times.”

And Mitchell hadn’t the ‘slightest’ doubt that the Ford convertible was being watched through the same high-powered binoculars that he’d used watching a cherry-red convertible.

Possibly picking up on his thought… “Like during that ‘cat-one’ hurricane and the ‘old people that were… You know,”

“Yeah, like then.”

“Come on, Marcie. Take a walk with me.”

“It looks ‘really’ cold out there.”

“I know, honey, and I’m sorry. But there’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time now. Come on with me… please!”

Zipping and buttoning their coats. Pulling their hats low on their heads. Opening their doors...

Mitchell held an arm about Marsha’s waist as they made their way across sand, stone and snow to the rock barricade that held the ocean from the land.

Holding her hand as he helped her up, they climbed onto a flat chunk of high and somewhat dry granite…

Actually the same chunk of flat granite where the ‘old nude lady’ had sunned herself.

Looking seaward a moment, then turning Marsha in his direction, with one arm about her shoulders, with his other hand beneath her coat where he held a soft warm breast, Mitchell kissed Marsha’s cold, ocean sprayed salty lips...

“Look, Marcie...” pointing, “...see there?” Northeast, across the white-capped, churning water, there was a misty horseshoe of land. “That’s where we came from. That’s Sheepshead Bay.”

Having no ghosts to bury here. Shivering. Not in any mood for a geography lesson. “Mitchell, the wind’s ‘terrible’! I’m ‘freezing’! Can we go back now?”

“Sure, honey.” Not sure why. “This was just something I had to do.”

Helping her off the granite slab. His arm about her waist, starting back to the car…

As Mitchell walked he felt a tightening in his chest and an almost… What? Nostalgic attraction…

Turning his head. Looking back. Looking at the shack he tried to see through the impenetrable windows, but all he saw was the reflection of sky and clouds, and…

‘Transposed’…

Becoming that seaman in the shack once again, a deep, ‘so’ deep wave of loneliness assailed Mitchell as…

He stands inside the overheated shack with the binoculars pressed against his eyes watching…

Oh, ‘so’ enviously watching himself and Marsha just as he’d watched ‘so’ many people on ‘so’ many watches. Watching, if for no other reason than to break the sheer and utter monotony of the four-hour watch, and…

The loneliness overtaking him. “ ‘Oh, God’!” The words breaking from his heart. Stopping. Turning, “Marcie!” Hugging his wife to his chest. “My, God, how I love you!”

Looking in his eyes. “I love you, too, Mitchie.” Seeing tears. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

Having no understanding of this emotion and having ‘no’ words to describe it. “Nothing, baby.” Wiping his eyes with the back of his hand “It’s the wind. Guess I got some sand in my eyes.”

Opening the door for Marsha, he walked around the front of the car but before reaching the driver’s side door, stopping, Mitchell stared at the sharply defined, silhouetted tower and for some unfathomable reason felt as though something had been lost here…

As though some part of himself had been lost here never to be found again…

Actually a part of Mitchell Lipensky ‘had’ been lost here….

For it was here he overcame his love of Susan.

For it was here he learned to, if not cope with loneliness, then to adjust to loneliness.

For it was here, also, that he fell captive to undisguised prejudicial hatred and the resulting treatment and because of it… It was here he learned— in some small way —to protect and defend himself…. Almost to the point of commuting murder,

For it was here that Mitchell Lipensky grew from a boy to the semblance of a man.

The ghost of his boyhood was here.

Sighing, Mitchell waved— both to the man watching from the tower and unknowingly to himself—to the boy; to the part of him that was gone forever.

Shaking his head. Attempting to rid himself of the depression he felt. Forcing a smile as he opened the door and looked into the car. “I’ve always wanted to do that.” Mitchell explained once again.

Watching him through the windshield. “What? ‘Wave’?” Marsha said, “We’ll teach you how to use the potty next.”

“No!” Having the knack of making him laugh, his depression dissipating. “I’ve always wanted to neck with a girl on the rocks, there.”

“ ‘Necking’? Oh, is that what we were doing? ‘Freezing’ is more like it.”

About to step into the car. Hesitating, taking one last look at the tower.

“ ‘Mitchell’!”

Pulling his eyes from the steel structure. Looking into the car. “Yeah?”

“Will you get in the ‘fucking’ car already! I’m freezing my ‘ass’ off!”

“Jeeze, Marsha! Where'd you learn to swear like that? I’m gonna tell your mother!”

Next “Becoming” excerpt in sequence: “Beyond Comprehension”