The day Randy’s mother asked a key question

My friend Randy was a really nice kid and a natural leader–smart, focused, creative, bold, able, and he really knew how to present himself in a pleasing manner, whether to child or adult.  I was lucky to have known him, to be his neighbor, to be his friend.

As it turned out, he was a testament to the fact that sometimes the apple drops really, really far from the tree, and often it’s a good thing it does.  His parents were clueless, self-involved, mean-spirited, and, luckily for me, distant.  He was no more like them than he was like any random pair of adults you might pick out of a line-up.

Being his friend, I had occasion to go to his house from time to time.  I mean, he came to mine a couple of times a week.  When he’d come over, he’d be so ingratiating, so grateful for any little kindness shown to him.  My Mom thought he was the greatest kid ever.  And he was.

But sometimes he and I would have to go to his house.  He’d get an idea for something he wanted to do, remember something he needed at home to make it happen, and that was that; no matter what he had to deal with once he got there, he’d go.  It was real simple for him on that level.

I usually waited outside.  My rare ventures inside his home were, shall we say, somewhat different from what I was used to.  I never knew what I’d be getting in to, but I knew it would be eerily strange.  Orders and demands would come our way, and most of these we would manage to accommodate if we could do it quickly.  If we couldn’t, well, Randy was pretty confident that his parents–his mother, mainly–would forget about it eventually or go on to ask for something else and forget about what she had begun with in the first place.  Randy was skillful at claiming that he had already accomplished whatever feat his mother was requiring of him, weaving the magic, filling in the details that convinced his Mom that he really had done whatever it was she was asking of him.  He knew she’d never check.  That would involve getting up and walking around the house, perhaps–gasp–even venturing outside.

Yes, going to Randy’s was kind of unpleasant, usually.  One day, though, I failed to follow my usual dictum:  “Let Randy go in his house alone.”  I think it was the extreme heat that day.  Tulsa could have such a variable climate, changing from day to day, even moment to moment, but when it got really hot, hovering over 100 degrees for days on end, you knew it wouldn’t change, not until you were good and tired of it.  I think it was the heat that drove me inside that day.

So, in we went, through the kitchen, past the cream-themed living room, on the way to Randy’s room at the far end of the hall.  We paused in the entry to the living room, just to check in with his mother, and there she was, reclining on the couch in her underwear, watching TV.  She made no effort to cover up, showed no shame at all.  I just couldn’t help staring.  These were the days of the Madonna-style “rocket bras,” and hers was something pretty extravagant.  She might have had her flaws inwardly, but outwardly, she was quite striking.

Well, obviously, in retrospect, I must have been staring, slack-jawed.  The whole situation was so unexpected, so unnatural to me, I felt that I was not in the real world, but in a movie, and the only appropriate response was to take in the scene as fully as possible.

Randy’s mom brought me back to reality in her straightforward manner.  She stared right back at me and asked, sluringy, “What’re you looking at?

Well, I have to say, I was looking at a woman.  Gaping mouth aside, I was looking at a woman the way a man looks at a woman.  And I was, what?  In the fourth or fifth grade?  Yep, believe it or not, even in the chaste and hypocritical 50s, guys had hormones–even little guys.  Little guys got little erections, too.

Did I mention Randy’s last name?  It explains my response to Randy’s mom.  I said, “Nothing, Mrs. Robinson.”

All these years later, I might add, “And here’s to you.”[1]

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