Big Debby's Lovey-dovey-ness

Debby was quite lovey-dove leading up to our winter break separation when she went home to spend time with her family at her homestead in Rockport. We had been spending a fair amount of time together, although I'm damned if I can recall what we did. She had invited me to spend a week as a house guest at her home in Rockport and I'd gratefully accepted.

To ease the pain of our separation she talked about lovey expressions like "I love you a bushel and peck and hug around the neck", various over-the-top expressions like "I love you roomfuls" or "I love love you housefuls" or "I love you ocean-fuls"; and saying that we should take comfort in knowing that the moon in the sky was looking down on us both and we were joined thereby, which I thought was especially sweet.

Meeting her family was obviously a vital thing to do for our relationship and it just a pity that her family turned out to be so cold and unfriendly.

Big Debby's Virginity

 Was Debby a virgin when I started dating her in the fall of 1970 when she had just turned 16? Doubtful, given the druggie hipster crowd she had been hanging out with in Rockport as well as the severity of the trouble she got mixed up in that caused her family to send her 140 miles away to finish high school

Big Debby's Fecal Phobia

I was driving Debby home one night early in our relationship. We still had a ways to go before reaching her aunt and uncle's house. I deliberately farted, as a sort of prank, to see what her reaction would be. It was a warm night and the car's windows were rolled down so the smell wasn't that oppressive. Nonetheless, it was obvious to Debby that this was a deliberate prank. She straightened up and turned to look at me, bright-eyed and intense but said nothing. I realized that I had made a fairly bad faux pas. I think she was very offended. I also think she never forgave me and always resented it.

A couple months later, while I was a house guest at Debby's home in Rockport, she told me a story that gave expression to her dislike of toilet humor. She had been tripping on acid at a party with some of her friends and the song "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On" by Jerry Lee Lewis had played. Some of her friends had joked about the song being about 'shittin' and not 'shakin' because there's a line in it about "whole lotta shakin' in the barn". So people at the party were laughing and singing about "whole lotta shittin' going on". Debby found this to be really oppressive and it gave her an intense case of 'acid-horrors'. 

So I guess she was neurotic and prudish about both sex and toilet functions.

Big Debby's Anti-sex Story

At one point during my stay at Debby's homestead in Rockport she told me a story about a boyfriend she used to have. I got the impression that she and he had had some kind of sex together at some point although not necessarily penetrative sex.

Then, one evening, her boyfriend sat at a table drawing in a notebook. I believe this event took place at a house different from her mother's home. Anyway, the boyfriend showed Debby what he was drawing. He slyly pointed out to her that the 'flow' of the drawing was pointing towards the bedroom. Debby regarded this as a sleazy, sneaking way of trying to get sex from her.

At the time I took this mean that Debby was sick of horny teenage boyfriends being pushy about sex. In retrospect I suspect there may have been something more heavy being alluded to such as a traumatic unwanted pregnancy. Debby wasn't as articulate and forthcoming as she might have been.

Big Debby's Funny Book

Soon after we started dating Debby made a point of recommending a book to me: "Boys and Girls Together" (B&GT) by William Goldman. The question is why? Why would a girl who reads swanky books like Rainer Maria Rilke and hip political books by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin read trash like B&GT? And why would she recommend it to a boy she had just started dating and supposedly really liked?

B&GT is a mammoth pile of pulp fiction trash. It invites the reader to sneer and snigger at the feeble attempts by luckless dweebs to attain a modicum of romantic and career ambition. It also contains a small amount of sex which was quite daring at the time. It also contains gay characters which was daring at the time.

The most likely explanation is that Debby really enjoyed this turkey. And although the cynical perversity of this book makes it one of a kind it is still basically a trashy novel and Debby's enjoyment of it shows a distinct taste for trash culture in general. And the reason Debby recommended the book to me was probably to flaunt how cool and sophisticated she was.

How did she come to read it herself? It came out in 1964 so it wasn't still a bestseller in 1970, which is when I presume she read it. She probably got it from her druggie hipster friends. It's not the kind of book you would give your 15-year-old family member to read.

And come to think of it, this book's anti-American-Dream apostasy makes it a kind of updated and toned-down version of De Sade, like "Justine or the Misfortunes of Virtue". He even indulged in torturing the reader with 100 tedious pages of scenes between the Jenny character and the married man she was having an affair with.

Big Debby & WBCN

WBCN was a real hip station back in the day. I was pretty steamed about not being able to tune it in on my radio up north. But Debby had been a regular listener when she lived in Rockport.

It was a strange coincidence that while I was staying at Debby's homestead in Rockport WBCN was playing on the radio in my bedroom and Andre William's famous novelty song, "Jail Bait", come on. Seemed like the whole world was conspiring in condemning me as a mad rapist.

Big Debby's Rude Mother

They gave me a nice, bright, sunny bedroom upstairs during my visit.

On at least two separate occasions I was in that bedroom, lying or sitting and Debby came to talk to me. When she did her mother would loudly and repeatedly call up the staircase from below, "KEEP THE DOOR OPEN!!!" Which is so rude, as if I would try to molest her daughter right in her own house. It was also ridiculous, if Debby and I wanted to fool around, 'heavy petting' or even screwing, we could have found ample opportunity outside the house. What Debby's mother was saying was so rude and nasty that if I had had my wits about me I would have left and gone home the first time this happened. I think this contributed a great deal to my bad feeling about the visit and eventually caused me to leave in a hasty huff.