My Lost Valentine

MY LOST VALENTINE: MY CATHOLIC ROMANCE

"It's Valentine's Day," said my buddy Doctor Joe. Did you buy your wife some flowers?"

"I don't do flowers," I said.

"Why is that?"

"Years ago, during one of our breakups, Jo-Jo had a boyfriend who would fill up his whole car with flowers when he was courting her. I can't compete with that. And besides, if I did, it would remind her of him."

"Pat, you really have to stop living in the past. So you let the holiday pass without doing anything?"

"No, I tell her to buy herself an expensive gift. I never know what fancy Louis Vuitton Bag or Prada outfit she has her eye on. When I used to buy her things, she always took them back to the store. My choices were not to her liking. I gave up on that."

"Okay," Joe had a dissatisfied look on his face. "Maybe you should take her out for dinner?"

"Yeah, I could get some Chinese Takeout or Sushi. She likes that."

"Sure, then she won't have to cook."

"Cook? She doesn't cook. I offered to send her to cooking school to learn how to boil water, but she refused. Just like the men in Italy, I do the shopping and cook the meals."

"Well," said Joe, "You must be doing something right. She's as thin as she was when we were students."

"And as curvy. I've got a list of all the guys waiting for me to kick the bucket so they can marry her.

"I hope you don't have me on that list," said Joe.

"Nah, you're not her type.

Doc Joe and I have been friends for over fifty years. We both went over to Italy to study medicine while the Vietnam War was going on. Joe finished school and returned to the US, passed the foreign student's doctor's exam, and then went on to specialize in psychiatry.

My student life was not so successful. While Joe remained single, I was married. I had a problem paying the bills for myself and my young wife. My parents, who were well off were to busy fighting to care. I met a neighbor in the building's elevator, Aldo Mazzini, who lived on the 3rd floor, and knowing I was a med student, he asked if I could translate from Italian into English for a medical manual. Mazzini's friend invented a new capsulized electronic heart stimulator or pacemaker coated with a substance that the body's immune system would accept.

I was happy to help and besides the manual, worked on an application to get FHA approval for the device. I named the device the 'Valentine Pacemaker,' and that went over well. We were deluged with interest. The consortium offered to hire me to help export the device to the USA and other countries. My success at lining up distributors led to a partnership in the venture. I even found a Chinese company to produce the pacemaker for the Asian market. They called it the 'Qixi' Pacemaker, which is Valentine in Chinese.

I gave up my studies and stayed in Italy working with the firm. Our daughter had started college and was living with my mother-in-law. Jo-Jo and I returned to the USA when I was in my mid-fifties. At that time the tax code was favorable, money earned outside the US was hardly taxable. I had earned a great income and once back in the USA I was able to increase our net worth through clever real estate investments.

Doctor Joe and I stayed in contact, and he ended up at UCLA. I was semi-retired. We both bought condos in the Wilshire Corridor. Besides being my closest friend and fellow pool player, Dr. Joe Shrimkin is a certified shrink. I value his opinion, but I am not open for treatment.

Our large condo is in a luxury building just below the penthouse. Joe and I play pool together at least once a week and sometimes more. I have an extra room for my regulation pool table covered in emerald green felt. We were in the middle of a game of 8-ball, when hoping to distract me, Joe interrupted me while I was lining up my shot. Doc Joe spoke up,

"I'm working on an article for the Psychiatric Journal on the effect of love on the human experience. Let me ask you a question. How many times have you said, "I love you to a man or woman and meant it?"

"What do you mean by "meant it?"

"That you'd die for them."

"Okay, let's see, I guess the first love was Jo-Jo. She was the girl I married after a cluttered romance, fighting off all her suitors and other complications I don't want to discuss. Ours was an odd, on-again, off-again relationship, but the sex was great; it was fantastic. She had double-D tits of gold, nipples that cried out to be sucked, and she could orgasm nine times in an hour, but it took years before I got my dick inside her pussy.

I admit, there was one girl in between, called Crista, during a short season when Jo-Jo and I had cooled it. Crista was the first girl with no regrets or stories who never used drama to put me off. Crista was the first girl who was happy to spread her legs wide enough for me to fit my cock inside. Crista was supposedly a virgin, but sometimes, the first time a girl has sex, if the hymen was already broken, they don't bleed, and then you can't be sure if some guy beat you to the spot--you never know.

You can't be sure of their virginity. I've heard lame excuses, "Lost it on my bicycle. The Gyn popped my cherry with his damn finger while giving me a routine exam, or as one Australian girl said, "I was so intent on masturbating, I tried it with a bloody banana."

"Did you ever ask, why they didn't bleed?"

"Of course not. You never ask them why they didn't bleed."

"Any others in that basket?"

"You mean other virgins?

"Yes, a few more with hard-to-believe excuses. Then there was Margo, who wanted to marry me. She was a certifiable virgin, she bled the whole bed red. Still, I abandoned her when Jo-Jo said she wanted me back.

"Listen, Doc, if the gal shows blood or not, when you're fucking a would-be virgin or a down-and-out slut, it's always been easy for me to fall in love with the girl I was having sex with. It's the way my heart works. After a few weeks or months, you realize this gal is not marriage material, and you cut the cord."

"I'm sad at the pain I caused a bunch of women who were in love with me. I plowed them over and then left them to get back to Jo-Jo. She was my lodestone. You know Doc, it was as if she was magnetic. I could never free myself from her magic tits. But regrets, as Sinatra sang, I have more than a few, but Doc, I do have old-fashioned ethics."

"Or the lack of them?" said Doctor Joe.

"I guess. Would you shut up for a minute and let me take this shot."

I wacked the eight ball too hard. The pool ball rolled into the side pocket and then hopped out.

"When will I learn that a soft shot is a better approach? I'd seen Mosconi years ago, and he never slammed the ball into a pocket. Joe, do you know who Willie was?"

Doc Joe responded, "Probably the greatest billiard player the game has ever seen."

"You got that right. But if you permit me to correct you, I'd say, 'pool player.' Billiards is a game with only three balls and no pockets. A pool table has six pockets and fifteen balls. Willie's game was a 'straight pool.' The winner was the first to dump 125 balls down the hatch."

"If I had 15 balls, I'd be a fucking miracle," said Joe.

"You'd be delighted, 'Doctore.'"

I gave Joe the Italian pronunciation as he got his first medical degree in Bologna during the Vietnam War when you could not get into a med school stateside unless your family had donated a campus building or you were a top-notch nuclear physicist.

I'm slightly hard of hearing, but I could hear Joe's pager go off.

"Let's stop right here," said Joe. "They're paging me. I gotta get over to the hospital."

"Are you still cutting up cadavers?"

"No, just a postgraduate course they asked me to teach to the residents."

We finished the game right there. The series was close to even. I play for fun, and I don't rack up the wins like they do in the pool halls on the sliding whirligigs that hang from a wire high over the pool tables.

"Yeah, we'll finish up later," I said.

"I want to hear more about this 'Crista,'" said the Doc. He nodded respectfully, put on his NY Yankee baseball cap, and was out the door leaning forward due to his back problem. He'd been offered surgery for his back, but he'd declined. Every year he seems to stoop over further.

A few days later, the sun came out. By chance, I encountered Joe at the condo pool. I had a copy of a New Yorker magazine with me, but I watched the youngsters playing in the water instead of reading it. I felt an arm around my shoulder. Did I mention that my good friend, Doc Joe, lived in the same highrise as I did? He was on the eighth floor.

As the kids exited with their 'milfie' blond Moms in skin-tight outfits that showed off their asses as well as their camel toes. Doc leaned over closer and said quietly,

"So, who was this Crista?" I guess you were fucking her."

I looked around. The pool was now vacant. I didn't want anyone listening in on my confessional.

"Alright, Doc, you've probably heard Billy Joel's song, "Only the Good Die Young," about a guy with a Catholic girlfriend. That was me, but I was also dealing with her buzz-saw mother. That Joel song hit the airwaves about ten years after I'd experienced much of the same situation. I recognized our common issue right away."

"What does Billy Joel have to do with you," said Doc Joe?"

Not wanting to be interrupted again, I didn't acknowledge his question and continued,

"Some reporters traced down Joel's affection early love interest. The girl's name was Virginia Callahan, Joel's girlfriend from his high school days in Levittown, Long Island."

Imitating Joel, I sang the opening lines,

"Come out, Virginia, don't let me wait

You Catholic girls start much too late

Aw, but sooner or later, it comes down to fate

I might as well be the one."

"I guess that means that you want to be the guy fucking her?" said Joe.

I nodded and coughed to clear my throat. I continued singing in a low voice,

"They say there's a heaven for those who will wait

Some say it's better, but I say it ain't

I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints

The sinners are much more fun." *

*(Released 1978, Columbia, Billy Joel, Produced by Phil Ramone, CBS 1977 c.34987)

I paused my singing. The song was over.

"Yeah," said the Doc; "I was on duty the night Joel crashed his motorcycle and did a number on his fingers, fingers he needed for playing piano. We saved what was left of his fingers, but the son of a bitch can still perform, although he does hammer the keyboard a little more than necessary. Joel just finished a ten-year stand at Madison Square Garden."

"Did he ever thank you?"

"Yeah, he dropped off a case of 'Dom' for the Interns at the hospital. So tell me about this, Crista."

"Why? Are you writing a book?"

"Maybe, so don't leave out any of the details. You told this girl you loved her."

"Well, Doc, that was my answer to your question, and of course I did, and I was telling her the truth. I doubt my love was the greatest love of all time, eclipsing Romeo and Juliet. Nope, not quite at that level of do or die, but it was all mine, and I was deep into her."

"I gotcha," said the Doc, "You mean you were deep into her pussy."

"Pease, Doc, no snarky remarks. Please understand that I'm standing in the doorway of my tomb. Shit, I'll be eighty in a few weeks."

"And from what you say, you can still get it up."

Yes, on the right day with the right woman."

"Are you still seeing that massage girl? The one who jerks you off."

"She does more than that. I was doing okay till my wife chased away all the groupies."

I continued, attempting to answer Joe's insistent question about a love event that took place almost sixty years ago.

"Crista, Crista, let me see if I can roll my mind's clock back. I am stymied by the distance in time from that romance. It was such a very long time ago. Like the burnt tips of a Baked Alaska desert, offering the sweet treat that survived the flames. By now, I only remember the burnt points."

"You must have a story to tell; I know you too well, Pat."

"Doc, realize how little I knew back then when my stiff cock could still pierce cement walls."

"Sure it could. Can you please get back to your story?"

"Okay, let me try. Here goes."

The year was the summer of 1961. The change of seasons brought a warm tingle to my hairy balls. The winter cold had frozen them. Guys weren't into shaving their genitals back then. The hair kept us warm. My friends and I had arrived at sexual maturity. At eighteen years of age, we were jerking off every night. Our ball sacks were half-empty in the mornings after the brutal midnight jerk-off sessions that were 'di rigor.'

Still, none of us needed Viagra to drop an extra load the next day if the opportunity presented itself. We were young and virile. That was fortunate. The magic pill had not yet been invented. We were producing a bottle full of 'Elmer's Glue,' and we didn't know where to hide our nightly deposit--maybe in a sock or in weakly absorbent tissues. We learned rather quickly that nothing absorbs the night flow of sperm like a tight vagina!

I should preface this discussion by saying that old guys talking about sex is disgusting, except that it gives the old guys a chance to relive 'Tempo Perduto.' That's the title of the famous French book I read in Italian. I bought a copy on a trip to Perugia. (A quick nod to Marcel Proust's 'À la recherche du temps perdu.'

"Yes, of course, I know the book, but I was too busy studying for the oral exams to have time to read."

"I'm guessing, Joe, you are wondering how I met the first sex partner of my life. It wasn't that I'd had no previous experience with the fair sex. I spent most of my earlier years trying to convince a virgin named Jo-Jo, the same one seated in the living room with that midget Yorkie. I had to travel to Texas to buy that dog. Cost me a fortune, the breeder would not ship it here.

I spent a lot of time trying to convince Jo-Jo to give up her virginity, although there was not much left to give up. Only her pussy escaped penetration. I proudly lotioned up her big tits many a Saturday night with my cock juice.

"You are a few years older than me," said Doc Joe, "You were around for the birth of rock and roll?"

"Yes, a few years earlier, it started. I was in grade school when rumors of this clandestine music swept the country. Alan Freed was on the radio, and if a girl liked you, she'd say,

"Listen to the Alan Freed show tonight. I sent you a message."

"And you'd spend that night with your ear glued to the radio, listening to Jerry Lee Louis, to see if Freed would read it. Maybe you'd get the message before you fell asleep, or maybe you wouldn't." Jezze, the music was great. I still get to hear the 1950's Rock on the Mercede's Sirius radio.

"Did you know Alan Freed's ashes were buried near where I grew up in Hartsdale, New York? " Said Joe. "Someone dug his ashes up to rebury them in Cleveland twenty years ago?"

"That's ri-dick-a-lus"

"No, probably someone from the Rock and Roll Museum or Hall of Fame I think they call it. They reburied him under a black tombstone that looks like a Jukebox. That poor sucker died of cirrhosis, he became an alkie."

"No wonder, they hounded him to death with that payola bullshit."

"Yep."

"Joe, you wanted to know about the birth of Rock and Roll. Freed invented the moniker. The scenario continued through high school when thin 45 black plastic records were replaced by larger, album-sized 33rpm's encased in attractive graphics with pictures of the artists. The rich kids had reel-to-reel tape recorders to pull the tunes off the air for free.

But Crista, "You'll remember Joe, you asked about Crista before interjecting with this musicology question?" She and I weren't into high-tech shenanigans. We just played the AM car radio on the way home from class, and fell asleep exhausted in each other's arms, wet with love juices."

"Okay, okay," said Joe, "Sorry to slow you down. So how did you find this angel?"

"Crista," her name was Crista. Now listen, Joe, I won't repeat this long saga, so please pay attention. Here goes."

"At the end of my senior year, when I turned eighteen, I learned that there is an advantage to being stupid. My Spanish skills were so impressive that I failed Spanish not once, but two times. Maybe it was the brunette teacher with the low-cut blouse and three-inch heels. She didn't like me, and it's just as well. When she walked up the aisle past me, her stockings chafing, she didn't smell good."

When that bitch failed me by a few points, my counselor informed me that I had to attend summer school and take a third pass through Spanish One. Even if I passed, I could not graduate with my classmates. He said I could return a year later to walk the aisle with six hundred of the next graduating class, many younger and probably laughing at me.

So there I was, eighteen years old, awaiting the start of another charade, sitting on that old, worn metal-based wooden laminate desks on the first day of summer school class for first-year Spanish. Was there any chance of redemption?

Redemption proved possible when a pretty blond 18-year-old with an Irish face and a good sense of humor sat down beside me. Bingo, all of a sudden, being a failure wasn't so bad. Crista was equally inept and had come to public Summer School after failing Spanish I in Catholic School. Is that even possible? It was.

Either she was not too bright, or the Catholic School was serious and on its high horse, but I could whinny and mew if needed for this cute Spanish flunky (not that I was any less of a flunky), and I was willing to go all out for this cutie pie. I immediately noticed Crista had medium-sized grabbable breasts and shamrock dark green eyes. I was a few inches taller.

When Crista looked up at me with those big eyes, I thought I could see into the 4th dimension. I was hooked. I couldn't take my eyes off her. Behavioral scientists say dogs, like people, bond with someone who stares into their eyes. Call me 'bonded.'

When class ended, I asked Crista, "Can I drive you home."

"Sure," she answered with no hesitation.

We exited the school and walked to my parked car, actually my Dad's car, a sexy long hooded 1960 Ford Galaxie convertible, white with red seats. To have control of a vehicle, particularly a sexy car, was an advantage.

I asked Crista, "Tell me where you live."

"Sure." Crista was a girl of few words and bold actions.

I knew the area where Crista lived, not the street names, so I let Crista guide me. We arrived quickly. A boss tune, 'Traveling Man' by Ricky Nelson, was playing on the radio, followed by 'Runaway,' by Del Shannon. When the radio music was cool, it made you feel cool as well.

It was an old neighborhood about two miles away. Crista's home was a rustic, stone-encrusted two-story dwelling near the city's small reservoir. A staircase was built into the front of the home to climb to the first level. A contractor probably built the house after World War I, before the use of earth-moving machinery might have leveled the rocky site. The home was next to the last street that fronted on the lake.

I knew the lake well. It doubled as a skating rink in the winter and a fishing hole after the thaw. Tiny fish were stocked yearly by the city or county, and the fish had little chance to grow before the anglers caught them. Green, slippery frogs played in the mud between small boulders. Young children would stand on those rocks and cast their red bubble floats and hooks into the dark water, waiting patiently for the float to be pulled below the water's surface by a tiny fish.

I told Crista, "There was supposedly a giant fish somewhere hiding in the lake, and on occasion, he would jump out of the murky water and flash his silver scales in the sun, refreshing the hopes of the waiting fishermen."