Teen Angel (3 page)

“SHUT UP, SHITFACE! YOU’RE NOTHING BUT AN UNGREASED ASSHOLE WHO THINKS HE’S HOT SHIT!” Sonny dug through her inventory of sounds but could find nothing vile and miserable enough for a worm like Tommy. “Your mother’s idea of taking a bath is diving in spit. And she even leaves a ring around the Hudson River.”

“Don’t you talk about my mother, bird legs!” Tommy yelled, his face turning red. “The only way you’d get sucked is as a straw.”

Sonny paused. Timing was all. “Your mother spreads for bread,” she said.

“I’ll kill anyone who says anything about my mother!” he screamed. “With your ugliness, you can save on Raid.”

“Why don’t you go suck your mother’s tit, you faggot!” Sonny shouted. She ran as fast as she could into her building, quickly slamming the hallway door behind her. It locked, leaving Tommy’s mug like pressed ham against the window, cursing at her.

So she blew it. Her one contact who wasn’t much of a contact anyway. But how was she going to
get
it now? Sonny unlocked the door to her apartment and was relieved to find that it was dark. That meant her mother was out shopping and no one would be
home for a few minutes. Sonny paced through the apartment, trying to figure out what to do. She entered her parents’ bedroom and looked around. There was this dumb doll which her mother had sewn a lace dress for sitting on the bed.
What are you looking at, huh??
Sonny began to go through her father’s night table. The top drawer had bank books, citizenship papers, a book on Hitler, “Anti-Semitism and the Jew,” and a book of colored photographs of Jerusalem. Once Sonny had found a sex manual complete with illustrations of all the positions. And she had thought her parents wouldn’t. They seemed so old-fashioned. Besides they weren’t even American. She and Gerry, who lived on the second floor, had fallen over each other as they tried the positions.
Sixty-nine. How could anyone do that?
Her father must have hidden it somewhere else because she couldn’t find it now.

Her mother had a douche bag underneath her nightgowns and a set of satin falsies hidden with her brassieres. Sonny cracked up. They looked like fake noses. But wrapped in an innocent-looking embroidered handkerchief was a box of Trojans.
In her mother’s night table!
She opened it up and took the last rubber. One of these nights someone was going to get good and mad. But they shouldn’t do that sort of thing anyway.

Now all she needed was someone to jerk off into it.
Excuse me, sir. Could I trouble you to please ejaculate into this bag. It’s for the starving children in India. Thank you
. There were certainly enough perverts in the neighborhood. Why, one guy stood in the window of his ground-floor apartment with no pants on, jiggling it. Sometimes he hung all kinds of things like feathers and bells from it. Sonny had thought the least he could do on Christmas was decorate it with lights and hang an angel from the tip. Then there was the little colored man who was always asking her to touch it. “Come on. One little feel. It won’t kill you.” The Hudson was probably filled with perverts’ wormy spermatazoa whipping their tails as they impregnated housewives at the Jersey shore.

She could ask Gerry to ask her brother who was seventeen and he’d probably do it. Gerry got him to show it all the time but Sonny was tired of watching him pee. She had better things to do with her life. Besides, Gerry was sometimes creepy. Even though she was eighteen and worked nights at the White Tower, all she did was sit around cross-legged, her enormous thighs pouring on the carpet like butterscotch syrup, and talk about where she would go on her honeymoon. As far as Sonny knew, she had never had a date in her life. She read Millie the Model comic books and ate Mars bars and Baby Ruths which she never offered to Sonny.

She walked into the kitchen. This called for some screw-it-yourself enterprise. Semen was supposed to taste sour, kind of like grapefruit juice spiked with urine. Tying her mother’s apron around her skirt, she began her search. What did she need? A medium size bowl. In Home Economics they had taught her to set out her ingredients before she began. An eggbeater. Sonny opened the refrigerator and took out one
egg
, a quart of milk, and a bottle of condensed lemon juice.

Breaking the egg against the edge of the bowl, she separated the yolk and dropped it in a cup. She poured a quarter cup of milk to the
egg
white and began beating until the mixture became fluffy. Then she added two tablespoons of condensed lemon juice. The taste test. It was the most awful, vomitatious poison that had ever crossed the portal of her mouth. But it needed salt. Then she sprinkled a half cup of sifted flour to thicken the mixture. And a teaspoon of garlic powder. Gag! It was as slimy as a worm’s kiss and tasted worse than Milk of Magnesia. But would it pass with a pro? She ripped open the foil, unfolded the rubber, and stuck it on a funnel. Then she poured the mixture through and knotted the rubber like a balloon.

The sound of a key in the lock startled her. Her mother! Sonny raced through the kitchen, throwing everything into the sink. She
untied her mother’s apron, stuck the milk and condensed lemon juice back into the refrigerator, and slipped the rubber behind her back.

“Hi, mom,” she said, attempting to walk past her.

“Just a minute, young lady. Where do you think you’re going?” she asked, holding Sonny with one arm and a bag of groceries with the other.

“I’ll be right back.”

“I’m starting supper,” she said, putting her bag of groceries down on the table. “And she wants to go out.”

“I just have to tell Gerry something,” Sonny pleaded.

“That
pupa!”
she said, which meant ass in Polish. “I don’t think she’s a friend for you.” Her mother’s eye caught the bowl and eggbeater in the sink. “What did you do in here?”

“I was just hungry so I had something.”

“You know I don’t like you in my kitchen. What did you eat?” she asked, throwing her coat over a chair and beginning to unpack the groceries. “Potato chips? Dipsy Doodles? A Devil Dog, so you won’t be able to eat supper, skinny
marinka?
”

“I just had something to drink.”

“What?” she demanded.

“Lemonade,” Sonny said, running out.

“With an
egg?
” She heard her mother scream as she slammed the door behind her.

Sonny raced down the two flights of stairs. Gerry answered the door with her hair rolled in hollow orange juice cans. “Am I glad to see you,” she said. “I’ve got a real problem. Don’t mind these.
Sixteen
says they really help straighten your hair.”

Gerry’s room was covered with pictures of Elvis, Bobby Rydell, Dion, Bobby Darin, Frankie Avalon, Johnny Mathis, Neil Sedaka, Paul Anka. They all had these fake autographs except for the glossy of Bobby Rydell because Gerry was in his fan club and had
once stood on line for three hours to get his autograph. It said: “To Gerry, Love, Bobby Rydell.” The photographs, taped to the wall, were always peeling.

“Ger,” Sonny began, “could you–”

“Listen, Sonny,” she interrupted. “I have to ask you something. A lot could depend on it. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“If you could have’ a date with Dion or Paul or Frankie or Bobby, who would you choose?”

“Did they all call you for the same night?”

“Stupid. I’m entering this contest in
Rave
for a Dream Date of my choice. And I just can’t decide. Who would you choose?”

“Why don’t you wait till you win. Then you can worry about it.”

“But that’s just the point,” Gerry insisted: “You have to fill in the box with the one you want now. And I just can’t make up my mind. Dion’s kind of sexy but Paul Anka’s so sweet. I love the way he sings ‘put Your Head On My Shoulder’ and ‘Diana.’ Frankie’s a dream. ‘When a girl changes from bobby sox to stockings …’” she began to sing.

“Ger–”

“And Bobby Rydell is incredible. But I’ve met him already.”

“Listen, I got to go upstairs for dinner so would you do me a favor?”

“Sure,” Gerry said, shifting her attention to Sonny, who showed her the rubber. “WHERE’D YOU GET THAT THING!”

“Never mind.” Sonny untied the knot and passed it to Gerry. “Would you taste it?”

“Who does it belong to?”

“Never mind. Just do me a favor and taste it.”

“I’m not gonna taste somebody’s come and not know who it belongs to.” She crossed her arms like she was the Pope.

“Okay. It’s Tommy Ligorry’s.”

“Tommy’s?” Gerry squealed. “Why didn’t you say so? I’ll suck his sweet stuff any day.” She started guzzling from the rubber.

“Hold on!” Sonny yelled, grabbing it from her. “What do you think this is? Ovaltine?”

“You said for me to taste it.”

“Okay,” Sonny said, knotting the rubber again. “What do you think?”

“Heavenly,” Gerry said, rolling her eyes. “Just tell me one thing. How’d you get him to do it to you?”

“Ger, I don’t know how to tell you this but that was a mixture of
egg
, lemon juice, milk, flour, salt, and garlic powder.”

She began choking as if she had just swallowed Lestoil. “GAG! UGH! YUCK! How could you do it to me?”

“Look, I’m sorry …”

“You have some nerve. And I thought you were a nice kid.”

“What if I told you I made chocolate fudge and you ate it and it turned out to be elephant shit.”

“You are totally gross.” Gerry shook her head.

Sonny rose to leave. “Well, I better be going–”

“Not so fast,” Gerry said, grabbing Sonny’s arm. “You’re not leaving until you tell me why you cooked that thing up.”

Sonny hesitated.

“Cough it up, kid.”

“Okay. But don’t tell anyone. You promise?”

Gerry nodded.

“It’s top secret, but there’s this science fair at school and I’m making primal ooze.”

“Some project,” Gerry said, picking up her magazine again. “I think I’m gonna choose Frankie Avalon.”

“See ya.”

“He’s so adorable,” Gerry called after Sonny.

At four o’clock the following afternoon, Sonny stood in the alleyway of 725 Riverside Drive, holding a small paper bag.
Well, if
they never come, I can always feed it to the rats
. But the Teen Angels arrived several minutes later, blindfolded Sonny, and repeated an abbreviated version of walking her around the basement. In the boiler room, the seating arrangement was identical to the day’s before.

“Did you get it?” Mary asked.

“Did ya?” Dot added.

Sonny opened the paper bag slowly, with much ceremony. “Sure. I just asked one of my friends to T.C.O.B.–and he
took care of business
, real good.” She dangled the knotted rubber like a used tea bag.

“Let me check it out,” D.B. said authoritatively.

“Just a minute.” The Gooch intercepted her.

“I got it first,” D.B. insisted.

“We’ll all get a chance to look at it,” Marilyn said.

The Gooch turned away sullenly as D.B. unknotted the rubber. She stuck her finger into it and, closing her eyes, licked her finger like she was a chef tasting her hollandaise. Sonny had a lump in her stomach the size of a honeydew.

D.B. nodded and passed it to Mary, who sniffed but did not taste it. She passed it to the Gooch.

They locked eyeballs.

The Gooch stuck her finger into the rubber and licked it.
She knew!
But she didn’t say anything. She passed it to Dot, who passed it to Crystal without tasting it. “Yucko,” Dot said softly.

“Whoever’s it is better not have any disease,” Marilyn said as she dipped her finger into the rubber. She licked it like cake batter and passed it to Hansy.

After everyone had examined it, D.B. said, “Nothing like real gizzum.”

“Yup, that’s the genuine article all right,” Marilyn added.

Mary wrinkled her nose in disgust, so did Dot. But she said, “That’s as real as they come.”

“BULLSHIT!” the Gooch shouted. “Nobody came in that thing. She’s bullshitting all of us.”

“What do you mean?” D.B demanded.

“I know what semen tastes like and it ain’t this.”

“In my book, that’s semen,” D.B. insisted.

“Just because you have tits like a bag of potatoes, you think you know everything about sex. I bet you never did half the things you’re always talking about.”

“Oh yeah?” D.B. said, getting up. “Who says so?”

“Me.”

“GIRLTH!” Mary screamed. “Let’s take a vote. Teen Angel conference.”

D.B. walked past the Gooch with her nose glued to the ceiling. The Gooch cursed. Everyone else followed. Sonny could hear arguing outside.
Why did Tommy have to be so cheap?
She knew it was all over.
Her one chance in a lifetime flushed down the toilet
.

After what seemed like half an hour, they returned.

“Will you please rise, Sonny Palovsky,” Hansy said.

“Place your right hand on your heart and repeat the words after me,” D.B. said, looking triumphantly at the Gooch. “I, Sonny Palovsky …”

Was she in?
“I, Sonny Palovsky …”
Am I a Teen Angel?

“Do solemnly swear to love, honor, and obey …”

“Do solemnly swear to love, honor, and obey …”

“My fellow Teen Angels …”

Me?
“My fellow Teen Angels …”

“If one of uth ith in trouble,” Mary said.

“If one of us is in trouble …”

“All of us is in trouble,” Marilyn said.

“All of us is in trouble …”
Someone tell me. Am I in?

“All for one,” Crystal added.

“All for one …”

“And one for all.”

“And one for all.”

“Amen,” they said together except for the Gooch who sat with her arms crossed.

“Amen,” Sonny repeated.
I’m in. I think. Holy shit!

“Sonny Palovsky,” D.B. said. “You are now a Teen Angel. We must teach you the secret handshake. You will be able to recognize a Teen Angel anywhere in the world, as far as China and Russia, as they will be able to recognize you. By this handshake.” D.B. faced Sonny. “Put your right arm out like this …” She placed her own arm parallel to Sonny’s and slid it down the length of her arm until the pinkies linked. Then she pivoted the palm of her hand to face Sonny’s and slapped her palm three times. D.B. repeated the handshake until she could do it.