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ALAN
FRIEDMAN
ever, he had already given his plans much thought. He replied
as if I had raised an anticipated objection. Resourcefully, he began
drying my eyes with my braids, "There, there. You're never too young
to learn. You're a clever girl, but you lack initiative."
He was almost fourteen years old, and the power of his rhetoric
was by now formidable. I made no attempt to engage in debate. I
adjusted my skirt which he had raised much too high to treat my
leg (I suddenly noticed), and started putting on the sock and shoe
which he had removed because they were wet with blood. "I want to
go out again and play," I said.
"That's the trouble with you girls. You want to grow up to
be
wives and mothers without the responsibilities of training for a
profession. No wonder so many of you fail. Until the day you
marry, you refuse to start practicing. It's all play with you, isn't
it? You've got to take your responsibilities more seriously."
The best I could manage was the childish, "You think you're so
smart, don't you!" But it was I who thought it, and a lot more:
radiant with his messy blond hair tufted over his ears, enviably
slender, and manly, and graceful, and above all earnest and sensitive
-with shadowy eyes and encyclopedic lips. "My leg still hurts," I said.
Singlemindedly, he continued, "Where do you expect to learn-"
this said scornfully- "from books, from hygiene classes, from pajama
party bull sessions? There's no substitute, I tell you, for the school of
hard knocks. Experience is the best teacher, and practice makes
perfect."
"Let go," I complained, because by now he had his hand under
my skirt, and I began to have the first clear idea of what we had
been talking about. I got up.
"All right, Millie," he said gravely, "let's be realistic. How
do you want to learn about this? From Mommy and Daddy?"
The thought was embarrassing. "I'm going out to play," I
repeated.
"And when?
Do
you want to have to wait till you're my age to
find out?" That really gave me pause: waiting five years seemed
an unimaginable strain.
"And then do you want to have to learn from strangers?"
He
had obviously saved his trump for last. I thought of all the
little
boys of my acquaintance. "What do I have to do?" I said cautiously.
