Love Endures War: Part 1

Tender love in a turbulent Sixties America.

Based on a post by want some fun 1951. Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.

It was the summer of '69.

It was the summer of despair.

"The heat waves shimmered in the distance, rising off the sand in an unmerciful display of mother nature's authority. We lay where we had been for hours, in the only good cover around. Off to the left, we heard enemy snipers, the gunfire signaling the start of another day in Hell."

That was part of a letter Joey wrote after his unit fought its way back to base camp. He wrote as often as he could. Sometimes, I'd find a stack of his letters in the mailbox when I got home from work, and then, I wouldn't hear from him for a while. Whenever his family got any news, they would call me or visit to share the letter. I did the same for them. I always let my folks and Joey's read what we wrote, including the parts where Joey and I talked about getting married when he got home.

It was the summer of '59.

That's when I met him.

Joey and I always liked each other. We were too young to think of each other as boyfriend and girlfriend at first. His family moved into a new house down the block the summer after third grade. I was a tomboy. I loved to ride my bike to the schoolyard to play on the swings, seesaws, and sliding board with the neighborhood boys. Sometimes, we'd play cowboys and Indians on the vacant lots in our development. Nobody thought anything of it a; me, a girl, playing with a bunch of boys. We were kids. I didn't care about the differences between a boy's body and mine. I knew they could stand up to pee, and I knew why. Big deal. That's the way it was. The boys knew I was different from them between the legs. They knew that made me a girl, but otherwise, I was one of them.

Until Joey moved in.

He was different, maybe a little quieter than the others, more serious, more grown up. He was horrified the first time one of the boys took a leak where I could see him. "Don't look, Sue! Harold, what do you think you're doing? There's a GIRL here!"

"Yeah?" Fat Dennis sneered. "So what?"

"So what? So what? You can't let her see that! That's what!"

Fat Dennis stood up. He always bullied new kids at first. He towered over everyone, even Joey, and Joey was big, in a strong-looking way. "Joey, you moved in two days ago, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"That means you don't tell us what to do. If I need to pee when I'm out here with Sue, I'll walk to the nearest tree or wall or something and do it. We all do. So does she. She has to sit down or squat to pee, though."

"That's wrong."

"No, she does."

"Not that part! I meant doing it in front of a girl," Joey stated.

"Why?"

"Because it is."

"Says who? You?" Dennis taunted.

Joey stood up and looked at me. "It's also wrong to fight, and it would be real wrong to let Sue see if anything happens."

"You gonna fight me, new kid?"

"I don't want to," Joey said.

"You chicken to lose in front of a girl?" Fat Dennis strutted around, flapping his wings and clucking.

"No."

"You know I'd beat you up, don't you, new kid?"

"That's not how it would go," Joey chuckled.

"Big talk," Dennis threatened. "Come here and fight me."

"No."

Dennis was pretty worked up by that point, so everyone knew he was going to lunge at Joey. Poor Fat Dennis. Joey side-stepped, ducked Dennis' punch, and flipped him over so he landed on his back. It knocked the wind out of him for a couple seconds.

Joey knelt next to him. "I didn't want to do that. Are you okay?"

Dennis wiped his eyes with his t-shirt, refusing to cry. "What did you do?"

"Stopped the fight. I want to be your friend, Dennis. I know you're the leader here, so I'm telling you; no peeing in front of her, and if she needs to go, we walk away."

Fat Dennis struggled to his feet, shaking off Joey's offer to help. "Fine, but why?"

"Do you pee in front of your mother?"

"No! Boys don't do that!"

"Right, but why not?"

"You just don't. Nobody pees in front of their mother. Heck, that stops when you're old enough to aim it. I mean, it's your mother!"

"You have a big sister, don't you, Dennis?"

"Yeah."

"Do you pee in front of her?"

"No!" Dennis sputtered. He looked like he was working himself up to a second round.

"Why not?"

"Are you trying to start something, Joey? Boys don't pee in front of their sisters. That's wrong."

"Exactly. We don't do it in front of our mothers and sisters because it's wrong. You know why? They're girls."

"Yeah," Dennis said. Then, "Oh."

They shook hands, and with the new rule in place, Dennis suggested a game of tackle-tag. It was his favorite game. To tag someone, you had to knock them down. Tripping or shoving often were enough, but we usually went home scuffed and dirty. Dennis approached the game with brute force. The rest of us responded with agility and speed, so we were fairly matched.

Maybe Joey tried to treat me like a girl. It was easy to get away from him when he was "It." He'd tackle the guys if he had to, just the way they taught him, but not me.

When it was my turn to be "It," Joey was closest to me. He ran, dodging me, until I grabbed his arm and threw myself at him. He landed on his belly with me on his back.

"Holy cow, Sue! You hit hard!"

"Yup. You're "It." I scampered away from him. A few turns later, he was "It" again and came after me. He caught my one leg as I was climbing a tree and pulled me down. I landed on top of him, breaking my fall.

Lying on his back, he laughed and picked me up by my waist to hold over him like a trophy. "Tag. No tag-backs. You're 'It.'"

"I'm not on the ground. To tag someone, they have to land on the ground."

He pulled me against himself and rolled us over, pinning me under his body. "Now you're tagged." He rose up on his arms and looked into my eyes for a moment on top of me, smiling. Then he stood up, helped me to my feet, and ran away.

Joey fit in well enough, but sometimes he'd wander off. I was curious about those times, so I watched him, to see where he went. I followed him after a while and found him sitting on a big rock in the shade, staring down the hillside at the surveyors figuring out where new streets would go. "Penny for your thoughts, Joey."

"Oh!" He jumped like I had appeared by magic. "Hi, Sue."

"What are you doing?"

"Sitting on this rock."

"May I sit with you?"

That was how it started.

Joey and I became friends. We spent the whole afternoon sitting in the shade on that rock, swapping stories and getting to know each other. The entire gang of us "Daisy Drive Devils," as our parents called us, were friends. At least a few of us were always together. The day after Joey and I talked, the Devils played as a group like we always did.

One morning we woke up to a steady, soaking rain. No one ever called each other on rainy days, since none of us was allowed outside because we would catch our death. None of our mothers understood that we would get wet walking to the bus stop that fall, too.

We sat alone in our living rooms and watched Looney Tunes, The Three Stooges, and game shows on television. My parents had a big, top-of-the-line, blond oak cabinet best and an antenna on the chimney, but after Joey moved in, I didn't spend much time in the living room, except when "Lassie" was on, Sunday nights.

I was helping Mommy with the breakfast dishes, watching the rain through the kitchen window, when the big black telephone on the table next to the refrigerator rang. Since I was drying, Mommy told me to answer. "Hello, Brown residence."

"Is that you, Sue? This is Joey. Do you want to come play at my house? My mother says it's okay."

"It's raining."

"I can come over with a big umbrella to get you."

"Do you want to watch television?"

"We could, or we could play in the basement or my room. Maybe we could trade baseball cards or something."

"Let me ask Mommy."

In ten minutes, Joey knocked on our door. With my shoebox of baseball cards safe and dry under my yellow rain slicker, I splashed down the sidewalk, protected by him.

That first day at Joey's house was an eye-opener. I had never been in a boy's room, but I thought all they did was play with toy trucks and soldiers and Lincoln Logs. Joey did stuff the other boys didn't do. He played the piano. He read books. He dre...