Anchor Struck

Most people lose their virginity, but I had so many droughts back in the day that it regen-

erated from time to time.  A sexually timid lad in high school, I set off to college at full sail

with bolstered expectations, only to discover to my dismay that I was timid there, too.

 

By age 19, I was still fainthearted and without fair lady.  I was unwilling to lie to get laid to

keep up with my peers, who were successful at either scoring or lying.

 

In January of 1965, I was in Butler, Missouri, with my parents to visit my sister. We had lived

there before moving to Shreveport, Louisiana.  I sought out a young lady I had dated on a

visit the year before.  She respectfully declined.

 

Then I ran into an old schoolmate who told me about a whorehouse in Sedalia, about 100

miles northeast of Butler.  I reasoned that I might do well there.

 

But I was even chickenshit about that.  I felt I needed a cover story to borrow my parents’

car, so I told them I wanted to go to Kansas City to see a movie that had been recommended

by one of my college instructors.  No one actually had, but I wanted to commit the perfect

crime.

 

To conceal my true destination, I actually drove to Kansas City.  To conceal my true inten-

tions, I actually went to a movie.  It was Mondo Cane or one of its ilk, a shockumentary

showing people being cruel to animals and each other.  It had a segment about how reindeer

are castrated in Lapland.  As best I remember, young women would go down on the bucks

and bite their nuts off.  I may have looked away.

 

Granted, this is not the most erotic image ever to flash across the silver screen, but I took it

as an omen to get on with my quest.  I headed to Sedalia.

 

The whorehouse was in a rough section of town.  It was called Nate’s.  My friend’s directions

weren’t entirely accurate. I ended up in a signless barbecue joint wondering just how this

was going to work. Would the old guy running it bring me a coded menu?  There weren’t any

waitresses there, just him and me.  I didn’t think that boded well.

 

Nonetheless, when he walked over to my table with a conventional-looking menu, I boldly

asked him if this was Nate’s.  He frowned and said “next door”.  Being a stranger in a strange

place and still wanting to keep up my cover, I ordered a sandwich.

 

Fortified by its tangy sauce, I left.  Rather than just walk to Nate’s, I got in the car and drove

around the blocks several times, screwing my courage to the sticking point.  When I was as

ready as I was ever going to be, I parked and started for the front door.

 

I stopped at the front steps.  This was it.  I felt my heels wanting to turn briskly, but before

they could, an employee got out of a car behind me.  She grabbed my arm and said “My name

is Jeannie.  Do you want to talk to me?”

 

I’ll never forget my response: “s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-sure.”  I’m certain it had

that many “s’s” in it.  She pulled me into the house.  We sat on a couch waiting for a room.

There were two old farmers with two of Jeannie’s colleagues also waiting.  They chuckled

at me.

 

When Jeannie and I finally got our room, she said “I”ll go around the world with you for $7.”

I didn’t really want to travel extensively with her.  She realized my ignorance of the world’s

oldest professional slang and quickly clarifed herself.  I quickly agreed.

 

And it was quickly transacted.  A jukebox in the waiting room was blaring the tunes of the

day.  I suppose lots of folks at that time surrendered their virginity during ballads like the

Four Tops’ “Baby, I Need Your Lovin”’, Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman”, Sam Cooke’s “A

Change is Gonna Come” or even Manfred Mann’s “Do Wah Diddy Diddy”. I popped my cherry

to “The Jolly Green Giant” by the Kingsmen.

 

And I have to live with that for the rest of my life.

 

I left Nate’s and headed back to Butler in the frigid night.  I didn’t feel at all like a man.

Maybe my college mates were getting laid AND lying to me.  Even so, I honoured their

insistence that a change was gonna come and tried thinking like a big boy.

 

My first manly thought was that I might have VD, so — showing the overarching grasp of

human anatomy that Republican lawmakers have — I opened the car vents and let the

winter air blast my loins.  I closed them when everything below my belt went numb.

 

Then I got lost and made a cascade of increasingly poor motoring decisions.  I ended up

stuck in a muddy field.  I walked a mile or so to the nearest farmhouse, being tailed by a

pack of howling coyotes.  The farmer very graciously pulled the car free with his tractor.

I really wasn’t liking adulthood at that point.

 

I got back to my sister’s house about 3 a.m.  I thought I’d successfully snuck in and settled

quickly on the living room couch.  My dad came out and I briefly explained my tardiness,

emphasizing the coyote pack.  I left out the portion about Nate’s, Jeannie and “The Jolly

Green Giant”.

 

To this day, I still get a tingle down there when I hear the words “Brussel sprouts“.