Ardie; 1950: A Memoir & Back Story


May 5, 2025

To those, and I thank you, that have followed my writing… or maybe at times my rambling, know that I, at times… Okay! Very often my writing does tend to become rather sexual, or what I, most often like to refer to as ‘humiliatingly sexual’— in total truthfulness, or lack of sex— becomes an integral part of our lives, so, being a man and writing without any formal writing education… ‘What the hell’, I thought ‘ I might as well write as ‘this’ man (me) has to say, as he (I) want to say it’.

That stated, let me say that, at least in my mind, the difference between pornography and literature are the words used in reference to the time, place, sounds and conditions.

Example: Two teen-age boys watching as a teen-age girl walks by; in reference to the girl’s appearance, one boy might say, “Look at those tits!”

Whereas, two older men in the same time, place and condition, as a young woman walks by might say, “’Great ‘breasts!” … Or maybe not !But you get the idea.

B e warned! Though I promise to do my very best to remain literate, occasionally some pornographic stuff might squeeze it’s way in, and when it does, Ill give you a warning.

So be warned.

As this is a memoir, I will relate past occurrence's in total honesty— according to my memory, of course— as opposed to my, most often, actually always, ’semi-fictional’, or ‘factional way.

So far as my name goes, I’ll pass on my semi-fictional pseudonym ( redundant?) and remain as ‘Mark Lichterman’.

‘Lichterman’! In German means the lighter of street lights: the man that brings light into darkness; pretty neat name, I’d say, and in fact is my father’s true family name as opposed to my mother’s last name: ‘Brown’, which for two Jewish, Russian emigrants passing through the U.S. Immigration Officers check point on Ellis Island, more than likely being unpronounceable Russian, had been changed — for whatever reason by the Immigration Officer — to simply, ‘Brown’.

Me, now, being second generation American, have not the slightest idea what my my mother’s parents ‘old world’ name was… my father’s parents, apparently wealthy enough to enter America through New York Harbor ‘s Immigration remained ‘Lichterman’.

Dates: The only factual dates used in this memoir will be the date it began (5/8/25) the date it concludes (how would I know now) and my actual birthday(8/24/34) making me mid-way to ninety-one, making me a really old guy! All other dates have to be an educated guess.

Memories: Have you ever— Of course you have had the wisp of a thought of something or someone that could or should be a simple remembrance.

For Example: Due to badly failing eyesight, I gave up driving about three years ago— which along with giving up cigarettes fifty years earlier was about the hardest thing I’d ever had to do, because now, other than keeping my wife, and our two tethered ‘kids’, Ella and Gracie n the back seat, the only time I go anyplace is if my wife drives, and the other day she was telling me about a book she was reading about a legal trial… My wife ‘loves’ legal— lawyer, trial storied books.

Anyway, as she was telling me about her latest ‘legal, lawyer trial’ novel, the wisp of a memory came to mind about a movie, and interrupting her, “I think the best legal type movie I’d ever seen was…? ‘Gone!’ From brain to mouth, ‘gone’! The best legal type movie I’d ever seen, other than, of course, ‘’To Kill a mocking Bird.’ That title I did, at least momentarily, remember, but it was not the one that came to mind while driving with my wife as it had disappeared from memory and mind, and no matter how hard I attempted to bring the title of that movie to mind, it simply would not come… Would not come until, — until awakening from a deep sleep at 2:10 a.m... ‘Inherit the Wind’. And not only that, ‘With ‘Spencer Tracy and Fredrick March’. Imagine that! Apparently my slumbering memory had awoken and, thinking, ‘I’d better write that name down because, more than likely I’d forget it by morning; but now I didn’t think it was all that important, so went back to sleep.

This mental memory phenomena becomes more frequent with age, while sometimes, at least with me, occasionally the most ridiculous, far fetched, completely nonsenseable, irrational inkling of some inconsequential sound, person, time or place… or words from a song will find it’s way from my mind to the light of my mental or vocal awareness. For instance, for no reason, “Frosty the Snowman”, and recently: “Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.” will play within my mind, I’d guess whenever I’d think about it, except, I’m not really thinking about it.

So, now I ask, is this an old man thing, or am I going nuts? But the scariest thing: About a month ago we were driving someplace, or maybe just out for a drive — California, even with my bad eyesight, is ‘so’ beautiful— and I had been unusually quiet, which is unusual for me, when my wife, out of the blue, asked, “What are you thinking?”

Strange question, huh? But without a thought: “Manny, many years ago, when I was twenty-three…” I sang “...I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be. This widow had a grown-up daughter, who had hair of red; my father fell in love with her and soon the two were wed; and this changed my very life, ‘cause my father was now my son-in-law married to the daughter of my wife.”

So again , “Why?” I ask, “How would the words to this, out of the low forties, Phil Harris, ‘I’m my own grandpa.’ song come to mind, and why would I remember the words?”

Guess by now you might be wondering, ‘What’s all this got to do with ‘Ardie:1950’?

Well, I suppose we could call it a ‘Preface’

Can a memoir even have a preface? I don’t know, but there’s even more to say… to write before we meet Ardie, but like I said...wrote; not to worry because this all, I think, will come together eventually — after the pornographic stuff that I’ll warn you about — giggle, if I remember.

From my earliest recollection, until late spring of 1950, actually — until the day I blew up the kitchen, I had been a ghetto child.

I know the word ‘ghetto’ brings a different picture to mind, but in America a ghetto is a part of a city in which members of minority live... and as the Lower East Side of New York City is a ghetto for a number of mixed minorities, so then was the west side of Chicago where thousands of those passing from the strict emigration —and name changing process — onto the jam packed streets of New York City where, learning of a place where Polish and Italian and Jewish peoples from any and all points of the world could find work and public transpiration and less crowded, yet cheap living quarters, thousands upon thousands of working class people locked to the City of Chicago creating Chicago’s West Side Ghetto.

I had no problem living in a ghetto.

It was never a thought, but most of us lived a within a few steps of comparable semi-poverty.

Had many kids to play with… No girls allowed.

As the guys and me were dressed pretty much the same; some better, some worse and as there was no television…

‘Television’? Who could even imagine such a thing as television? There was no ‘Father Knows Best’! So, so far as us kids knew the entire world lived in apartments stacked one above the other, close enough to have passageways between and basements to hide in with our cap pistols playing ‘Cops and Robbers. ‘ Cowboys and Indians. ‘G-men and bad guys’. Alleyways to play softball and touch football in. Douglas Park with but four small streets to cross to get to, to fly our kites in so long as we come home when the street lights came on.

Girls, of course, not allowed.

Italian, Polish, Jewish ! The only arguments we had when deciding who was to be a ‘bad guy’ or choosing sides for touch football. And to top it all off: three movie theaters all within walking distance. Our favorite, of course, was the ‘Douglas’ that on Saturday afternoons would show three cartoons, two funny shorts, an ongoing serial, and the news, that we all booed at and couldn’t wait for it to be over to be able see ‘Red Ryder’, or… So long as Roy or Gene don’t sing in any cowboy movie as we always loved cowboy movies.

Again, what does all this have to do with, uh, what’s her name… Oh, yeah, ‘Ardie’?

Okay, so I suppose my blowing up the kitchen (a different story) could be the start of this memoir … or maybe the preface to the beginning of this memoir. Or possibly even a ‘back story’ leading up to my memoir.

You see my father — whose business was that of a commercial photographer, loved sailing, and as at that time the studio was doing pretty good, without telling my mother that he had purchased a sixteen foot, centerboard sailboat that was moored in Chicago’s Belmont Harbor and, when he finally worked up the nerve to tell her they were owners of a small sailboat… My mother’s answer to this news had the stucco sound and volatility of a rapid-fire machine gun always topped off by, “I want to buy a house!”

Amazing my father hadn't thought of this simple solution as he had to have someplace to dock their; or, according to my mother, ‘his’ boat when it was pulled from it’s buoy in Belmont Harbor. So...

As at the time our all white ghetto was undergoing the process of becoming a ‘not so white’ ghetto, envisioning a back yard where— propped between four saw-horses, safely, and freely ensconced throughout the entire non-sailing season.

Also envisioning himself happily scrapping and sanding and re-calking and painting and varnishing to his hearts content. “Okay, honey.” Dad said, “How’s about we take a ride out to Skokie tomorrow!”

Mom’s machine gun suddenly out of ammunition.“To look for a house to buy?” she excitedly asked.

The mental picture of his boat sitting in their own back yard in the burgeoning Village of Skokie moreso the picture entering my father’s mind. “Of course, honey…” he said “...whatever you want is fine with me.”

And they did! They did buy a house — luckily for me— on the same late June day I blew up the kitchen otherwise, ‘pretty good bet’ I’d’a been killed.

Think it might be a good idea to explain why my father did not kill me when he and my mother returned home and walked into the kitchen.

You know that sometimes, just by the look in a man’s eyes that he might mean you physical harm — so you know, my father had never hit me; when I was smaller and still into the spanking age, he’d left all spankings up to my mother — so when my father backed me onto the wall, his stiffened forefinger hurtfully jabbing into my chest, asking... well a little more than simply ‘asking’, more like yelling, “Why??? How???” when my mother began to laugh. ‘Laugh’ ? She was doubled over howling so hard tears came to her eyes. “Got to pee!” Laughing so hard she had to rush to the toilet… Back then we called them ‘toilets’.

Why my mother’s hysterical laughter? She hadn’t told my father, because — possibly she wanted the effort to find and purchase our new home to be his idea because just a day earlier a registered letter came… I assume to all the tenants,‘that the building had been sold and the tenants had but one week to vacate.

With the help of my mothers two brothers and the rental of an open bed truck, we had vacated and were on our way to our new home in Skokie by the very next evening.

‘Lester Colbey’. As he does eventually fit into this, uh, memoir, a bit about Lester (Les) Colbey: ‘Colbey Construction Company’, and the house on Lee Street.

Becoming an island, so to speak, the fifteen by fifty pie shaped lot facing on Lee Street was surrounded by two long and one short connecting common driveways servicing eight neighboring garages.

Having two very old, very large Oak trees approximately ten feet within the wide, far end of the pie shaped lot that the Township of Skokie would not allow to be removed, that ‘Colbey Construction Company’, thinking he’d somehow be able to fit one of their three styles of cookie cutter houses onto, had purchased the lot at the Townships near ‘give away’ price, that — after chiseling another hundred dollars off, Lester Colbey found too good a deal to refuse.

Going forward a year or so: the newly formed ‘Skokie Village’, becoming the popular place to live for the white flight, Jewish ghetto population of Chicago’s west side, most new housing construction was snapped up even as within the framing stage. However…

With the two huge, non removable trees but ten feet from the wide, rear lot line, there was not room enough for ‘Colbey Construction Company’ to construct a garage, or even allow a fence of any type to make ample room enough for the rear facing eight neighboring garages to safely back their cars from. So…

As Les Colbey’ s houses sold quickly, the house on the pie shaped lot on Lee Street remained unsold. Until…

That Saturday morning in early June of 1950, with Les Colbey’s ‘1950, powder blue Cadillac convertible’, parked nose in, on the east side driveway, our maroon, ‘48 Buick Road Master’ parked along the curb between the east and west side driveways, after a bit of high pitched vocal haggling whereupon my father was able to get Colbey to reduce the price from eleven thousand to ten thousand, five-hundred with four thousand dollars down, with Colbey Construction carting the paper at three percent interest so long as my dad promised that we would take occupancy — get it off his hands— within this next week; which, my mother listening with one ear, assured my father that with Burton and Norman, her two brothers help with the move, that we would be in sooner than ‘next week’.

Mother’s heart pounding with the unbelievable thought that after living her entire life with families above, below and from side to side, this two story house (with the unfinished second floor) was going to be ‘her’ house! ‘Her’ families new home.

My father, though— possibly the one in a thousand, or thousands that would purchase a house without a garage; a house surrounded on three sides by community driveways; a house without a fence that he could drive his Buick Road Master through, detaching the boat trailer on the grass, in the middle of the yard and drive straight through to the far side community driveway and out to Lee Street.

A convenience beyond his imagination. After all, who really needs a garage?

So, in retrospect: this being the reason my father did not kill me on that day, and my mother peed in her pants laughing.

So now, you see, we’re getting closer to 1950; or I suppose we might say way back to 1950 and the meeting between Ardie and myself.

By the way, I never did ask what ‘Ardie’ meant because given the juvenile heat of our three, uh, get-tether’s, it sure as hell didn’t matter.

As it turned out… Go figure that Les Colbey loved to sail also and every now and then would rent a small, easily handled by one person sailboat and spend a couple of relaxing hours away from Skokie, all by himself on Lake Michigan, so— within days of our move from the west side of Chicago to Skokie, when Colbey learned that Dad was also a small boat sailor, and even had his own boat, an immediate friendship developed between the two, and it was because of Colbey’s and my fathers friendship that Colbey offered me a part-time job — at ‘union scale’, that at the time would be seventy-five cents an hour— cleaning out junk and scrub brush from two recently purchased empty lots that would be awaiting construction of two more of his cookie cutter houses.

So after all my rambling (you think) the foundation for the writing of this memoir began in late April of year 2025 leading to (at last) Ardie in late June of 1950.

However — not a ramble— let me say that I dislike books, stories or movies that base the writing on the premise of a dream, as I believe relating a dream to be an easy way to go where the writer wishes to bring the reader, or watcher to a specific place, time or circumstance without doing the work to get the reader, or watcher where the writer wishes them to go… Because, really, a dream might, or can be anything.

I do not know, nor do I speak of the passionate dreams of women. But guys? Rightfully, I’m sure, I know that guys occasionally do have intensely passionate dreams that would cause you to awaken at priestly, exactly the wrong time, possibly at the moment of penile insertion, but in your dream you never get into ‘it’, as — God’s joke— you now had awoken wanting noting more than to return to that dream, with that woman, at that ‘exact’ time.. but you never do, and what to do with that protruding erection?

Why waste a good thing, even if it’s only a dream?

Nevertheless the dream I write of now actually did occurred sometime between the p.m. of 4/21/25 and the a.m. of 4/22/25.

Thank you, God for awakening me at such a precise, fractional moment whereupon my two immediately pressing thoughts were, ‘Who is that woman I was with’? And: ‘Ardie’?

‘Ardie Deverman’? Why!? I hadn’t had the inkling of a thought of Ardie in seventy-five years. Where did Ardie come from? The same deep crease in my brain that brought forth that dumb song, “I’m my own Grandpa” from the 1940’s?

The woman within my impassioned sleep and myself but a nanosecond away from — be warned — fucking had been a mature woman… I know because my wife is a mature woman, and if this woman… the woman of my dream was my wife, I would happily and proudly proclaim that he woman of my dreams is my eighty year old wife.

When we met, Ardie… Ardie Deverman was a fifteen, nearing sixteen year old girl, and me, a sixteen, nearing seventeen year old boy.

Alright! So now this writer can say that all… or possibly much more of a back story relating to this Memoir was needed , so now it is time to actually do the Memoir.

First, though — Wouldn’t you know it— we are now about to go into the pornographic phase where coarse language and, to the best of my capability, there will be verbally crude sexually oriented mental pictures so, once again ‘be warned’.

Regarding coarse language there are two words that I detest and do my best never to use: ‘Cock and Cunt’ — Ha! ‘Cock and Cunt’! Make a pretty good name for a bar, or whore house — Instead when there is reference to that place or that thing, I will use the more refined: and literate: Dick and Pussy.

One more thing — of course there is — What I am about to say is in no way to be taken as ego or conceit, rather than as fact, but shy and of a gentle nature , I was an extremely good-looking boy and young man; so much so that when I entered a room I knew that people would look at me. I say this because my looks do factor into this memoir.

Also, there will be rare, occasional references to people and circumstances that are not a part of the period of this memoir that I will note with an (*) asterisk .

Ardie 1950: A Memoir

So, I’d guess it was on — an educated guess — let’s say June 30, 1950 at, let’s say 1:28 p.m., on a 95 degree, humid afternoon where I was forcing a spade into hard earth attempting to remove a stubborn bush root from one of Colbey’s two recently purchased empty lots.

Hearing them from over my shoulder, I heard the murmuring conversation of the two young girls that were sitting in the shade of the covered patio of the two story neighboring house. Working bare chested, and due to leg scratching thorny weeds, rather than shorts, I wore old Levies that— because of my sweaty hips, though I continuously tried elbowing them upward, continued to slip downward embarrassingly, I was sure, showing the upper crease of my ass. “

“Hey, you, boy!” one of the girls shouted in a rather demanding tone, that I chose to ignore.

“Hey!” the other girl called in a gentler tone. “You gott;’a be hot out there, so if you’d like a glass of lemonaid, come on over and sit with us a while to cool off.”

Straightening my back as I turned, I looked towards the girls, but now one was standing, elbows cocked onto it, leaning over the top banister of the wooden fence. From this distance, about fifteen yards, she did look kind’a cute, and the lemonaid and ‘cooling off’ did sound good. Sticking the shovel into the ground and planting it into an upright position with the sole of my shoe; drawing my stomach inward, hitchhiking my jeans upward I walked to the porch.

Never one for heavy, muscular building exercise, I had always considered my body to be a bit on the flabby side. However, the better than the two strenuous weeks I had put in working shirtless for Les Colbey had not only erased most of the flab, but had also put a bit of muscle on both arms. So with my extremely tanned, streamlined upper body, somewhat muscular arms, my good looking face and hazel-green eyes, walking to these two young girls, I felt somewhat like * Cool Hand Luke.

Approaching—making no pretense of hiding it— by the widening of her eyes and a quick dart of the tip of her tongue through her lips along with the look on the girl’s face I could tell she liked what she saw. Leaning further over the banister, stretching her hand forward, her scoop necked summer blouse gaping low enough for me to easily see the bikini top she wore. “Hi!” she said, “I’m Ardie.”

Aware that my hand was dirty, however not passing the opportunity to hold this beautiful girl’s hand, taking hold , “Yeah, hi!” My breath catching because, if she liked what she saw? “I’m Mark.” This girl was— roundish face, a blush of freckles beneath her light brown eyes and over the bridge of her slightly up-turned nose, her hair, roughly the color of her eyes, tied into a scraggly pony-tail, this girl was absolutely teen-age, movie star beautiful.

Her hand still in mine, “Come on in, why don’t you.” she said while making no attempt to disengage our two hands.

“Yeah, sure,” I sad ,reluctantly releasing Ardie’s hand.

Realizing why the patio was fenced, the other girl… “This is Peggy Ann.” … Ardie said, introducing me to the girl holding a small white dog in her lap.

Both girls wearing knee length shorts and sandals along with loose fitting summer blouses. “Hi!” Peggy Ann said, handing the little dog to Ardie., I’ll get your lemonade.”

“Sit, why don’t you.” Ardie said, gesturing to the empty deck chair.

Which I did, asking, “You live here?”

“No, Chicago, on Sheridan.”

“Sheridan Road?” Knowing old mansions were on Sheridan road, where very rich older people lived.

“Yeah, my folks…”

“Here you go.” Returning, Peggy Ann handed me a large, ice sweating glass of lemonaid then sat cross legged on the deck before Ardie and me.

Strange what comes to mind after seventy-five — without a thought — years, but when Peggy Ann sat onto the deck with her legs crossed, I remember that both girls had polished their toenails with the same dark red polish and Peggy Ann had a light smattering of black hair growing on her legs,. Strange, is-ni-it?

“Haven’t seen you around,…” Peggy Ann said “...you new here?”

“”Yeah. Moved in about a month ago.”

“Bought one’a Colbey’s houses, did you?”

“My folks, yeah. That’s why he gave me this job till school starts.”

“You be going to ‘Niles in the fall?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Nah. Our parents...” nodding towards Ardie … “got us into North-Western-Christian in Evanston.”

They have regular grades in Christian schools?””

“In ours, yes, of course. Ardie and me’ll be juniors when it starts.”

Telling me that she, and evidently Ardie were fifteen or sixteen.

Sitting quietly listening to Peggy Ann and my back and forth conversation, “You drive?” Ardie suddenly asked, then abruptly, “How old are you?”

My immediate attention still on Peggy Ann as, apparently knowing what was coming, she pretended a harsh gagging sound along with an exaggerated, comical rolling of her eyes. Having not the slightest idea what this display meant, my attention returning to Ardie. “Seventeen in August.” I said. “And Sure, I drive!” Actually receiving my drivers license a few days earlier, with the promise of never leaving Skokie, I had been given permission to drive.

“Think Mom’ll like ‘this one’, Peggy?”

I remember thinking, ‘This One’. What’s she mean by: ‘This one’?

“Never did before, but this one…” nodding her head in my direction, emphatically stated, “Oh, yeah!” Peggy Ann answered.

Strange sensation in my stomach, getting the impression that Ardie was completely unlike any girl I’d ever know— How much ‘unlike’ I’d find out…

“Tomorrow; you like to have dinner at my home with me tomorrow?”

This the most beautiful girl I’d ever met, asking ‘me’ for a date? Of course I wanted to see her again, and though I knew that she was ‘asking me’, yet it sounded more a command. “Sure!” I said, knowing I’d have to lie to my father regarding his ‘Village of Skokie’ boundaries. “What time, and…” knowing I’d never driven in any kind of real traffic, “on Sheridan?”

“Yes. There won’t be anyplace to park on Sheridan, so take the driveway ‘round back where there’s a small parking lot..”

“A ‘parking lot?”

“Yes. Park and come on back to the front door, ‘cause you can’t get in through the back.”

“There’s a parking lot in the back of your house on Sheridan Road?”

Ardie’s hand on my knee, “Yes…” squeezing it “...that’s where my home is. Here…” reaching into the tote bag beneath her chair, removing a small, spiral pad and pencil, she wrote, ‘Ardie Deverman’, her telephone number and address, then ripping the small sheet from the pad, handed it to me, saying, “Six-thirty will be fine.” Nodding her head to my, by that time empty lemonaid glass, “Think you’d better get back to work?” Another question, once again sounding more a command, along with the sense that I had just been dismissed, handing the glass to Peggy Ann, I did as commanded: get back to work.

Getting home that evening, concocting the story that I’d met a girl, name of Peggy Ann that lives in the house next o the empty lot I’d been working at , and that I’d made a date for tomorrow evening to take Peggy Ann to dinner and a movie and that I’d need the car because what near seventeen year old boy takes his date to dinner and a movie using public transportation; which made my mother happy because this would be the first friend her son had made since moving here, and my father… Well, before handing me the keys to the Maroon ‘48 Buick Road Master— jabbing his four-finger into my chest, harshly warning me to stay within the boundaries of the Village of Skokie…. Or ‘else’!

So, of course, the next evening at precisely five-thirty, dressed in well pressed khaki slacks and also, thanks to my mother, a precisely ironed sport shirt…

Out of the Village of Skokie, into Chicago, and slowly , oh so cautiously onto the far right hand lane of Sheridan Road, watching the numbers of those old, stately mansions… Till, my heart pounding— both due to my overly cautious drive here, and knowing I was but minutes away from seeing Ardie again— making a sharp right onto the driveway , I drove the longest residential driveway I’d ever seen, into a parking lot with marked, spaced parking for at least twelve cars. Then pulled into the space directly across from what appeared to be the back door, that looked to be… that ‘was’ steel barred.

Getting out of the Buick— wondering what in the hell this place was, I stood for a long minute studying this black painted, possibly eighty year old, three story structure with it’s own parking lot and a prison -like, steel barred back door. Could I have the wrong address? Seemed unlikely because Ardie said there was a long driveway and parking lot. Leaving the car, taking the slip of paper that Ardie had given me, I walked back to the front and checked the number on the house, but it was the same as on the paper. Going up the five steps onto a wide veranda containing a number of deck chairs and two or three outdoor sofas. I rang the doorbell hearing loud, seemingly out of place musical chimes coming from inside. Without asking ‘Who’s there’? The heavy door opening, there stood a large, possibly five foot-nine inches tall, attractive, dark haired woman in a pure white nurses uniform. Taken back by this place and this woman, “Uh, is, uh…”

Smiling, “You’re Ardie’s friend!” The woman’s hand moved forward, taking mine, “I’m Felicia...” urging me inward “… Ardie’s mother. Come on in.” Friendly enough, but for some reason feeling like a fly being led by a spider, I followed the woman through a dusky foyer into a large, surprising cherry living-room containing scad about card tables, easy-chairs, sofas, walkers and wheel chairs. “Make yourself comfortable because, as usual, Ardie’s running late.”

“No. ma’am it’s me. I wasn’t sure how long it would take me getting here, so it’s me running early. And if you don’t mind me asking, is this a, uh, hospital or something?”

“My daughter didn’t tell you?”

“No. We actually didn’t say all that much to each other when she asked if I’d like to have dinner with her here tonight, and…”

“And a young man such as yourself couldn’t find it in himself to say no to as lovely a girl as my Ardie. And, by the way, I can see why she wanted to see more of you also.”

Feeling flattered by this, before I could react to the complement, “Hi, there!” Approaching from a staircase at the far side of the room, wearing a calf length, dark blue dress with scattered yellow flowers throughout and black sandals looking more a lovely, flat chested fourteen to fifteen year old girl and less a fifteen to sixteen year old teen, causing me to feel much too old for this young girl. “So, mom?” She asked. “You approve this one?”

“Ardie has a habit of bringing the creepiest boys around for a free dinner, but you!” Looking to her daughter, “Yes, I do.” Back to me, “You hungry?” Not waiting for my reply. “How you like your steak: rare, medium or well done?”

Never given a choice at home, the strip steaks my mother served were always too thin to be anything but well done. ‘Medium’ seemed to be the best answer. “Medium.” I said.

Gesturing for me to follow, turning, taking a few steps, Ardie pushed her way through a swinging door into a dining room containing sex or seven small tables—set for dinner, with three or four chairs each and, again, a number of wheel chairs. Poking her head through another swinging door, “Larry...” she called “...he’ll have his medium, too.” To me, “Milk, lemonaid or ice tea?”— “Lemonaid,” I answered. “Bring a pitcher of lemonaid with you!” She called to whomever was in the kitchen. “Here!” To me, moving two chairs from a table and turning them so they faced each other a foot or so apart. Needing no instruction, sitting, I asked Ardie the same question I’d asked her mother. “What is this place?”

Holding one finger up, waiting until Larry, the man in the kitchen brought a tray with a pitcher of lemonaid, two ice cube filled glasses, a loaf of what looked and smelled like home made bread and a small tub of soft butter. “Staks’ill be ready In a couple’a minutes.”

“Okay, thanks,” Ardie said as, turning in my direction, hoisting her skirt above her knees, very far above her knees where I was able to see her very white, smooth thighs, and her knees were now in direct contact with my knees. Placing both hands upon my thighs, very high up upon my inner thighs, with a kind of massaging motion that seemingly moved fractionally closer— sensing a tightening within my crotch, I covered it with my hands.

“Don’t have to be shy with me, baby.” My eyes lifting, I looked at Ardie’s face where there was a ..? sly smile, her lips minimally parted, once again there was the outward and inward dart of the tip of her tongue.

“I’m not,” I answered; but I was because, is this the ‘maybe’ still fourteen year old girl or the ‘maybe’ near sixteen year old teenager— which, considering where we were: getting a boner here in the open I did feel maybe more embarrassed than shy. “You were going to tell me…” to break my sexual tension “...about your place here.” I coaxed.

“My mom and dad own this…” removing but one hand, gesturing in a circular motion “… old place. And it’s a, uh, ‘booby hatch’.” —’m sure, seeing a confused look on my face, explaining further, “It’s a * cuckoo’s nest.” Ardie said. “Upstairs,…” waving her free hand over her head “...on the second and third floors we’ve twelve bedrooms full of crazy old women who’s rich husbands don’t want to sent to the Chicago insane asylum.” Hearing sounds from the kitchen, removing her other hand and swiveling the chair closer to the table, she waited as— the kitchen door hip bumped open, a dinner platter held in each hand, Larry, the cook, kitchen guy placed steaming dishes with the most beautiful rib steaks I’d ever seen, accompanied by mashed potatoes with a hollowed spoonful of dark brown gravy, and shiny, buttered asparagus before Ardie and myself.

Slicing a piece of steak, putting the meat into my mouth and doing my best not to moan. “All those, uh, nutty women up there…” digging into the potatoes “...who takes care of them?”

Lifting an asparagus spear by it’s tail and biting the eatable end off, “We’ve …” chewing and swallowing “...night and day live-in aids and my mother... that the Sate of Illinois helps pay for, and Larry…” nodding towards the kitchen “...when any of them gets, uh, out of hand.”

Chewing, “They get violent?” I asked.

Chewing, “Not very often, more like physically and mentally agitated because one minute they’ll know who you and they themselves are, and be friendly enough…” taking a fork full of mashed potatoes “...then, for no reason start screaming, ‘who are you and why are you here?’ And the thing is they can change from normal to crazy within seconds.”

Potatoes… asparagus, both good, still though, the steak my main concern. “Your mother, in that white uniform, she some kind of a doctor?”

The asparagus apparently Ardie’s main concern. “A ‘doctor’? No. Mom’s an ‘RN’.”

“ ‘RN’?”

“ ‘Registered Nurse.’. Mom worked in the Chicago asylum where she met daddy who is a doctor and after a while got married and, because he had the training, and license, were able to open this…” nodding her head upward “…place.”

Having the urge to pick the bone up and gnaw the remaining meat off, but thinking better of it, asked, “How come it’s so quiet around here?”

Mom keeps them all pretty well sedated between six in the morning when they have breakfast and four-thirty in the afternoon when they’re given dinner, along whatever medications they’re supposed to have throughout the day.” Thinking, sounds kind of like * Nurse Ratched.

“Don’t these women ever get out of here?” Finishing the last of my dinner. “Their husbands, they come to visit?”

Having all she cared to eat. “Once in a while a husband will come to visit his wife, but she usually don’t know him anyway…” Rising from the table, taking hold of my hand and pulling me upward. “...so why even come; and pretty soon they don’t, and so long as we keep their wives alive, we get three hundred a month from the husbands, plus from the state. So Mom and daddy do pretty good here…” Leading me from the dining room, “ You like Milton Berle ?”

The out of the blue, ‘Milton Berle’ ’ question throwing me a moment because hoping, of course, that Ardie and me might be able to go somewhere to be alone for a while. But really not wanting to put a bunch of extra miles on the Buick because, after all, the Village of Skokie isn’t all that big. “Sure,” I said. “Who don’t like Milton Berle?”

No one around. Seemingly Ardie and I are all alone. Still holding my hand, still leading me along, we walked to the front, and to the right of the front door was a room that, “Here’s my own private place.” Ardie said, closing the door to the small, possibly eight by eight room having one front facing window, furnished with a sofa, two end-tables with small lamps—one lit only— a coffee table and a television.

“Go sit!” she said as turning the TV on, waiting a few seconds until it warmed up, then setting the sound to low. Coming to the sofa, lifting her skirt near hip high, her left leg cocked beneath the right thigh, Ardie sat closely alongside of me.

I suppose to a near seventeen year old boy it doesn’t really matter: breasts, ass, thighs , all lead to where his imagine and desires wish him to be. Once again staring at the white flesh of her inner thigh —or more so where my imagination took it, as snuggling even closer, taking hold of my left arm and placing it about her shoulder, my right hand, no longer having a will of it’s own, moved palm down onto Ardie’s so soft, so smooth, so warm inner thigh, but only for the moments it took for Ardie to move my hand those few inches upward and inward into the warmly moist crevice where I no longer had to imagine, because, widening her thighs reaching forward, revealing that she wore no panties, “Two fingers, baby.” Moving my hand, not inward, but upward and downward caressing that which I had no idea was the unseen, unknown female equivalent to…

“Dick!” Ardie said. “I love dick!” A weird thing to say under the circumstances, causing a slight pause of the throbbing in my… “Who’s Dick?” I asked. “Silly!” Ardie said, poking me in the side with her free elbow. “I love dicks… I want to hold it. Show me!”

In this little room directly off the foyer of this old , insane asylum mansion where, “Ardie…” my two fingers reclining lengthwise upon the upper fusion where I’d been instructed to place then “...anyone can see us here.” Her hand covering my fingers, keeping them captive where they’d apparently found Ardie’s ‘happy place’.

“No one will bother us here, baby. My mom’s kind of a progressive lady and doesn’t care what I do here… what ‘we’ do here so long as we don’t fuck… Wanna see my titties?”

Do I want to see her titties? My dick — escaping confinement from within the flap-over fly of the white cotton ‘Jockey Shorts’ I wore; twitching along the fly of my well pressed khaki slacks looking for an avenue of escape as, working one handed at unzipping the zipper…

“No!” Standing, slipping from my fingers, the hem of her dress dropping to her calves. “Take ‘em off! Let’s get naked.”

‘Let’s get naked’! Looking towards the door to this little room… “You sure it’s okay? No one’ll see us?” I asked, silently, I’m sure, praying that it would be and no one would.

“Baby…” she said emphatically “… ‘no one will’!” As, pulling the dress upward, exposing her sixteen— I’ll give her that— year old girls knees; those erotically smooth white thighs, her dark, peach fuzz covered vulva, stomach with it’s cute outtie navel, breasts barely large enough to be recognized as young, teen-age girl’s breasts and smooth, near flesh toned, quarter sized aureole with but the slightest indication of the protuberance of not yet fully formed, adult female nipples… All along with the face of an angel.

Fully nude. “Well…” impatiently, hands on hips “...your turn.”

Standing mere feet from Ardie. A completely naked, beautiful teenage girl; her lightly freckled, somewhat red face, her bare, small breasted chest and entire body near enough to see each visible birthmark. ‘Beautiful’! I though, ‘So beautiful’! As unbuttoning the top two buttons, as Ardie, in her impatience grabbing the bottom of my shirt, yanked it over my head and off. Standing back a bit, “That’s how you looked yesterday, baby.” Both hands caressing my chest. “So beautiful!” Her mouth on mine, the mere tip of her daunting, darting tongue no longer the mere tip as it easily, welcomely possessed my mouth…

One arm about my waist, urging me, if possible, closer. Breathing the words.,“Oh, baby, show me!” Ardie’s free hand attempting to force it’s way downward, between the waist band of my slacks, underpants and bare stomach. The words coming on my breath also. “I will! Hold on, Ardie,” I breathed while toeing my loafers off as forcing my straining waist from the magnetic like hold of her straining waist as, arching my hips backward, pulling the belt open, top button unbuttoned; loose enough now for Ardie to grab hold and shove pants and underpants past my now naked ass to become caught up on my bare knees.

The glare from the one lit lamp more than enough for her to see it — though, momentarily, I suppose I did feel rather foolish standing all but nude but for my stockings, slacks and Jockey Shorts hung up on my knees. But if so, the moment was at * ‘warp speed’, because given freedom from all confinement, containing as much blood as it could possibly hold pumped into the million cells of my dick— as Ardie was at least two inches shorter than me, well aware of what had jammed onto, or into her lower stomach as,looking downward, taking hold while gasping “Your dick, baby...” and other words I could not comprehend, as, stretching upward, onto her tip-toes, delightfully taking hold, pumping! The pumping motion of Ardie’s hand bringing the head of my dick into the fold to do what my two fingers had been doing just minutes earlier.

Two things a near seventeen year old boy knows how to do, big time! One is instantaneously getting a boner.. The other… Uh-oh!

The eroticism of those few seconds enough for this near seventeen boy to forcefully ejaculate onto her belly, vulva and beautiful, now sticky thighs, as, at the same instance, hearing Ardie gasp, my socks became sodden, as Ardie — I didn’t know what Ardie did… peed? I didn’t know what she’d done, but whatever had happened —my passion streaming down Ardie’s thighs, whatever she’d done I found to be disgusting and couldn’t wait to get away from her and out of there, and with the promise that I would call her…

I never did, and lost all thought of Ardie Deverman until she somehow found her way into my subconscious mind seventy-five years later.

So now, dear reader, you might wonder how, after seventy-five years without a thought, all of these exacting details of Ardie and that night came to mind.

I don’t know! But that’s my memoir and I’m sticking to it!

Authors Notation: In thinking about it, possibly, without a thought of her, possibly Ardie Deverman became the inspiration for five, then fifteen year old, promiscuous, Margery, Margy, Binkowski in my ‘New Road to ‘Woodstock’ series.