Real True Love

I first heard of Charles Brown in my eighth-grade class at St. Theresa Elementary. His reputation, however exaggerated, preceded him.

It was 1952. My dad, following the untimely death of my mother a few years earlier, had married a woman with two kids and purchased a mansion outside a small Kentucky town. The essence of Southern charm, the house, with an expansive yard, was surrounded by ten acres of land. That summer, I roamed the lavish fields, enchanted by the magic of nature, my favorite spot a fallen tree fronting a narrow creek. I perched there and stared at the trickling water, listening to croaking frogs and chirping birds.

My favorite spot indoors was curled up beside my new mother on the couch, grateful to at last have someone with whom I could speak of unmentionable topics such as boys, breasts, and periods, and someone to help me strap on my sanitary belt with its big, bulky pad as the first red spots appeared and I roared into adolescence.

In the fall I entered eighth grade, taught by Sister Mary Raymunda, whose imposing size and firm tone were an intimidating combination. She liked to point her finger at us when emphasizing one of her edicts—religious or otherwise.

She had that index finger in the air when she issued a grim reprimand to the boys’ side of the room. “It has come to my attention,” she announced sternly, “that some of you have been associating with…Charles Brown.” She hesitated slightly before spitting out the name, as though it was the Communist Party or Jack the Ripper.

Who was this awful person? I wondered, picturing a bent, toothless ogre with mussed hair and an evil grin.

I found out who he was a few months later during one of my after-school excursions, during which I routinely killed the forty-five minutes between dismissal and departure of my school bus. The town’s main drag was invaded, at that hour, by throngs of prepubescent boys and girls who hung out at various food and drink establishments—ostensibly for food and drink.

I was leaving the soda parlor with my new best friend, Mary Jo, when I noticed him. A cross between James Dean and Elvis (the latter yet to be discovered), he was leaning dramatically against a lamppost, the collar of his P-coat standing upright, slightly ruffling the swirl of his blond ducktail.

The horizontal tree trunk and rippling water couldn’t match this new magic.

“Who’s that?” I blurted. Mary Jo had lived in the small town all her life and knew everyone. “That’s Charles Brown,” she said, leading me forward by my sleeve, while my head remained turned in his direction. “C’mon,” she ordered. “Pull in your eyeballs and get going; you’ll miss your bus.”

“He’s rough,” was the unanimous assessment when I brought up his name among friends. “Rough” was a rural Kentucky colloquialism indicating a deficit in character expressed by drinking, cussing, alleged casual or frequent sexual activity, or looking tacky. Charles qualified by drinking and having allegedly been seen in a car with the town whore, Rebecca Ann Shoemaker. Whether, or how, this had come to the attention of Sister Mary Raymunda I don’t know, but I didn’t want to believe her assessment of someone so dreamy-looking or that of the small-town scuttlebutt.

It wasn’t long before I saw him again. We were making our way down the street in opposite directions, me sipping a newly purchased milkshake. No greeting was exchanged; our eyes locked in Hollywood fashion, as he sauntered toward me and took a drag on my straw and kept going.

Rendered paralyzed I implored: “Is he ever uptown on Saturday night?”

“Yes,” Mary Jo assured me. “You’ll see him.”

Saturday nights in town began with several strolls up and down the main drag and culminated in a forgettable western at the town’s only theater. The movie was incidental; we were there to find boys. Those already coupled necked furiously in the seats around us; those old enough to drive could be found parked on one of the outlying roads, where I believe half the future county population may have been conceived.

Charles, while engaging in troubling behavior at times, was always at his best when with me, and by my freshman year of high school, I was in love, abandoning such irrelevancies as Algebra, History, and other brain food. Our hugs and kisses in his brother’s car were my nourishment.

Tommy Brown was old enough to drive—just barely—and had a souped-up Chevy, lowered in the back and sporting loud mufflers, the ultimate in cool. Tommy’s girlfriend and I became fast friends, and the four of us spent our Saturday nights parked on a deserted road, them in the front and us in the back.

It was in the back seat of that car that I received my first kiss.

Despite the passion, I was determined to remain a chaste Catholic girl until that coveted day when I would become his bride. Our teachings indicated that sex was a mortal sin, which had to be revealed in Saturday evening confession and truly regretted; to die without this process would ensure eternal punishment. But no one ever said that kissing was sinful, unless it was French, tongue in mouth, which I managed to avoid. I therefore felt that I could spend hours engaged in impassioned necking sessions under the Kentucky moon without risking hellfire were we to crash on the way home.

Not only did I remain chaste, I kept Charles in a reluctant state of grace as well.

Of course, we didn’t marry. Charles moved away and seemed to forget all about me. Eventually, my heartache diminished, morphing into a sweet memory laced with humor at how grownup we thought we were. And, while I cringe at the ridiculousness of it all, I treasure the puerile experience that propelled me into adulthood, a practice run of sorts, strengthening me against future heartbreaks…until that real true love came along.