Click on the headline to link to aYouTube film clip of The Chiffons performing the classic do lang do lang song He’s So Fine.
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
Lest anyone be confused by the headline of what X and PG-rated refer to it is the commentary by Susie Murphy. I originally told her boy meets girl story in a straight forward misty love angle way. The way we original agreed to present it. After reading my version Susie balked. She wanted to give her own version of the Johnny Cain saga no holds barred. Her reason? Simply enough she wanted every young girl or guy, and everyone else, to know that back in the day girls and women had strong sexual feelings, acted on them, and what about it. Fair enough. Some of her Johnnie Cain dream fantasy though might not be appropriate for tender ears. Oh no, not the kids, not the kids today anyway, they know most of this stuff, or can figure it out, by the time they are ten or eleven, but sensitive 1950s growing up absurd adult ears who were a little late in coming to realize that girls (women) can have naughty dreams too. They might get a blush or two and, given their ages, best be forewarned just in case they have high blood pressure or the doctor recommends no excitement.
Certainly this is not a tale, as some might have mistakenly thought looking at the headline, of some formerly undiscovered, hidden in a New York City record vault in some ready to be torn down tenement or some old time run down office building housing repo men, failed dentists, shady private eyes specializing in peeping through adulterous keyholes facing the wrecker’s ball, X-rated version that couldn’t be published or aired at the time of the Chiffons’ He’s So Fine. That censor was real enough though, real enough in a place like Olde Saco which had an official paid, I think, censor. I first learned of that office when he (name forgotten) would not allow WMEX to play the Rolling Stones’ cover of Willie Dixon’s song, made famous by Howlin’ Wolf, Little Red Rooster. WMEX was the local rock station that we kids were glued to on our transistor radios, those were like iPOds except you couldn’t up or download anything, and had to listen to the endless commercials for this and that disposable income (allowance) kid- related thing. More importantly you could put it close to your ear up in your room or some such place and not have to deal with your parents’ disapproving sneers (or their corny, then corny, music for World War II) downstairs.
Now that all that had been resolved here is what Susie has to say.
Susie Murphy comment:
Gee, can it be over a year, over a whole year since I spotted Johnnie, Johnnie Cain at the Adventure Car-Hop over in Centerville where I was working as a car hop at the time trying to put nickels and dimes together so that I could go to secretarial school up in Boston , Fisher College, you might have heard of it, to study in order to become an executive secretary to some big businessman and not be stuck, stuck like my sister, Sandra, in some lowly steno pool over at the John Hancock Insurance Company being bored to death just pounding the keys all day and dreaming of, dreaming of I don’t know what. I don’t know what lately moreover as Sandy and I don’t cross paths so much since I started working as a nighttime car-hop to take advantage of my curvaceous body in those halters and short shorts Sal insisted that we wear and which I wore in a certain way to get better tips, maybe get laid once in a while if an interesting guy with an interesting line struck my fancy (or I had the itch that night, for a one night stand), or best of all landed some sugar daddy willing to pay the freight for school after getting a little sugar from me. Hey, a girl has to take care of herself and that is reality and has been for me since I first let Jimmy LaCroix, beautiful Jimmy LaCroix, have his way with me, all the way, and you know what that means, “doing it,” okay, getting a little sugar in my bowl like the old song said, when I was fourteen and first got my “itch.”
Can it really be almost two years since I graduated from Northfield High (Class of 1961) and broke up with my senior year high school flame Frankie Larkin after that graduation night when he tried taking certain liberties with me when I didn’t want such liberties taken (although, I am not prude, and on previous occasions it was just fine for him to fondle my breasts through my blouse , a real turn-on to get me going ever since Jimmy LaCroix, beautiful Jimmy LaCroix, found my button, and then cured my itch anyway he wanted, except when I was having “my friend” and then I would just give him some skull to, uh, lower his temperature after he got all heated up). Let’s just leave it at that although our break-up was almost a sure thing since Frankie was going off to college in New Haven (which is why he thought that he could do what he tried to do to me as a lasting symbol of our love before he left, left to screw around with every girl from New Haven to New York City that would give him the time of day. Yah, right Frankie no girl has ever heard that line before). I was, moreover, determined to make some money that summer to go to school and not burden my poor widowed mother who was barely able to make ends meet without Sandy’s help. So sex, and the possibilities of getting pregnant were, low on my calendar that night and for a while thereafter.
Come to think of it can it really be over two years since I started working at the car-hop, first the afternoon family and after school shift (and no serious tips, although plenty of guff, plenty of get me this and get me that, from harried mothers with a carful of kids and snooty high schoolers, dopey boys trying to impress their still virgin girl friends who though that I was an indentured servant) and then nights and plenty of tips, big tips from guys hanging out expecting a little something extra for their generosity along with their hamburgers and Cokes. Like a buck or two got them some privilege to get more than a grateful thank you. Of course they were guys, single guys, in their souped-up cars, or a bunch of guys “cruising” the strip (really Main Street but everybody calls it the strip since that movie, that James Dean movie, Rebel Without A Causehad come out a few years before . Guys with their honeys, guy with their girlfriends might give me an eye but mainly they were eyes straight forward, or else, and coin tips.
Most night though it was fun, although my feet were tired by the end of the shift (one in the morning weeknights, two, weekends, Wednesday through Sunday). I enjoyed, enjoyed from a safe distance, a distance enforced by Morey the short order cook and part-owner if one of his car-hops was in need of such protection, guys hitting on me with their silly lines. I think they must have learned their lines from some junior high school boys’ lav wall where they are etched for eternity, and eternal use, because after a while I could almost recite the lines back to them. A couple of times I went out, quietly went out, with a guy but that just didn’t work out since he was married, very married (with two kids) which he told me about on our third or fourth date after we had spent a torrent night over in Mechanicsville at the hotel, motel, no tell The Dew Drop Inn. Torrent since that was first time I let a guy have me in the Italian manner, back door, look it up, after he really got me going. Funny he said he learned it from his wife, who before they were married said she would only let guys do it that way because she wanted to be a virgin on her wedding night. Strange. But I still get wet thinking about that night and, usually on a first date I will insist that a guy only go that far, if I let him get that far, that is.
Then one night, one slow Thursday night ( a slow night even in summer since everybody was saving their burger and shakes money, with tips, I hoped, for the weekend and the prospect of , well, I am no prude, the prospect of getting lucky, sex lucky, okay), Johnny, dreamboat Johnny, came in, came in alone, came in his sedate-looking Pontiac. Probably his father’s on loan I thought since it showed no souped-up signs. I waited on him, took his order (cheeseburger, medium well, no ketchup, no onions, fries, and a cherry Coke, large), left to put in the order, returned with it from the cook station and placed the tray on his front door window. I gave him the bill for two dollars and some change; he paid me and added a generous dollar tip. Like always, like always except he didn’t give me any snappy come on line like every other single guy that evening, didn’t say anything except a manly mannerly thank you, I appreciate the service, a thank you like it meant something to him to say thank you in just that way.
Like always, as well, my usual friendly service except I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. He was beautiful; or rather he had beautiful, meaningfully beautiful, blue eyes which made the rest of him beautiful too. (A fellow car-hop, who had waited on him on previous occasions, said it better perhaps, he had “bedroom eyes.”) I watched him as I waited on other customers wondering what he was all about, wondering why he didn’t make a pass at me when I thought I distinctly gave the impression that I was Johnny make-a- pass-able. Okay I practically unhooked my halter to show my stuff as I passed him his trap. Nothing. He finished his order and left. He came back several times over the next couple of months after that, sometimes I waited on him (usually the same order, always the same generous tip, and always with me having a big sign on me saying “make a pass, brother, brother, make a pass, you’ll be glad you did” –nothing), sometimes one of the other girls would beat me to him.
I had pretty much given up on my Johnnie boy, figuring that he was either married like that other guy I dated on the job (although I am no prude and would have still given him a tumble and no back door stuff either, first date rule or not), on the run, a homosexual, or something because, frankly, no guys had ever said that I was hard to look at. And I wasn’t. Especially in my car-hop uniform (in summer a halter and short shorts which showed off my long legs to advantage) that made more than one guy think bedroom thoughts. Still many nights, and not just nights when he came in, I would toss and turn over him, and maybe do some other things too, some private things with my hands , okay, before going to sleep.
Then one night, late afternoon really, Carla, my closest car-hop friend told me that she had heard that Johnnie (who she was interested in too and put out a bigger “make a pass, buddy” sign out than I did when she waited on him) worked for his father over at the John Cain& Son law office near Smith Street downtown. She said that she was going to go over there the next afternoon before work and take her chances to see if he would bite when she was not in uniform. I panicked.
The next morning about nine o’clock, still tired from the last late night shift I was sitting in the law offices of John Cain &Son when Johnny came walking in the office door. I turned red, beet red, when he looked at me, looked at me not recognizing me at first and then something clicked and he said something like he didn’t know Adventure Car-Hop had a take-out service. We laughed and then I turned red, beet red again. I froze, froze for a moment, realizing this was all wrong, that he was not all that interested and was just being polite to a dumb cluck and then just ran out of the office. What a foolish thing, what silly high school kind of thing to do, although later that afternoon as I was getting ready for work I was glad I at least tried, tried for the brass ring. And that…
Oh, sorry, I hear a honk outside and I have to leave now. I have to leave because Johnny said he would pick me up at eight so we can celebrate our first anniversary together. I can’t stay out late because I have an early class tomorrow but he insisted we celebrate tonight. See, my foolish girlish stunt at the office touched something in Johnnie, something that his lawyer’s mind (first year law school student actually which explained a lot) said “needed further investigation” (I am quoting him now). That night, really morning, just before closing, he showed up at the restaurant , waved off the charging Carla, and just sat there, not saying a word until I came over to his car, took his order (same old, same old) except this time he said and I quote- “I’ll wait for you until you finish work, alright?” And that night he and I both got our ashes hauled. And my itch for Johnny calmed down for a day or two, well, a day.
