Halsey Street

I’m not sure if it was the summer of 1949 or the summer of 1950 but in either case it was my first summer in Southampton. We moved into a small country cottage on a bucolic street. Halsey Street ran from Hill Street all the way over to the large water tower. It was not a through street, ending at the tower; it was a private street lined with trees. The houses were about forty or fifty feet from each other. Each parcel was about a quarter of an acre. Everybody had a backyard and the backyard that they had was private. Every house had a car. In every house was a child. It was a young block. Everybody knew everybody else. And everybody watched out for everybody else.

My next door neighbor and my first friend was Blair Poirier. He had a younger brother, Bruce Poirier. Bruce sadly had polio and could only walk with braces. He was also three years younger than us and therefore we were not inclined to include him in a play though when we could we would. Blair’s father Dick Poirier worked at Hildreths in Southampton. Mrs. Poirier was a housewife; women didn’t work in those days. Actually it turned out that Blair was a bit of a mother’s boy and because I wasn’t I didn’t play with him that often. I know his father wanted me to play with him but I wasn’t really desirous of spending my time with him because in I wanted to play hard and climb trees and play ball and he was more interested in playing checkers or board games.

Diagonally across the street was Clark Smith. He became my second and best summer friend. I didn’t realize why then but I knew that his family and my family were about the same when it came to drinking and partying. His mother and father, even though they tended their construction company during the day, loved to go out at night to eat and then to have some cocktails and drink. My mother had taken a job at Saks Fifth Avenue on Main Street in Southampton and worked part-time from 10 AM so she was very willing to join them each night and by some strange coincidence they most always went to Herb McCarthy’s Bowden Square, where my father played and would also guarantee that they would get a good table near the band and the waiters and bartender would slip them drinks.

Clark and I were the benefactors. We could play together not just during the daytime but also at night as well. Even though we were six years olds we took off whenever we had a good idea to do something and that occurred at least once a week. Otherwise we would sit at his house and play in the den.

In mid-summer, Clark’s father surprised the family by bringing home the first television on Halsey Street. It was a Dumont TV, which became the gold standard of the industry in the 1950s. Because I was Clark’s best friend I got a great seat right in front of the television when all the kids were invited over. We watch Six Gun Playhouse, Buck Rogers and Little Rascals.

Both Clark and I preferred playing with the Miller girls and Emmy Pierson. They lived across the street from each other about three long blocks up Hill Street, about a ten-minute walk or a three-minute ride on our bikes. We took the bikes mostly.

My first crush was Emmy Pierson. She was blond, very pretty, and I was under the impression that she kind of liked me also. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like the Miller girls; I did.

Indeed, one time Clark and I decided that we should talk the Miller girls to go into the woods to see if we could talk them into taking off their clothes. That was awkward to say the least and while I most certainly wanted to see what a girl looked like, for I had heard stories, I wasn’t very inclined to push the issue, and I didn’t. But Clark had a way with words and if anybody was going to get them to take off their clothes, Clark would be the one. But as good as his words were they weren’t good enough to convince the Miller sisters.

In fact they were much better than both of us at gabbing because after about fifteen minutes they had convinced both Clark and me to take our clothes off and when I say take them off I mean take then all off.

The deal had been that we would talk our clothes off first and then they would take their clothes off. But the Miller girls reneged. More than reneging, they quickly grabbed up all our clothes and sprinted off with them laughing as they went.

We chased the Millers as far and as fast as we could but without our sneakers there wasn’t a chance we could catch them.

So here we were, Clark and me, naked as naked could be and stymied as well about what we were going to do next. What was worse, neither of us had seen another boy naked either and while I can’t speak for Clark, I can tell you this, that it is not fun either. I couldn’t look at him and I didn’t want him looking at me.

The only good thing about the predicament we were in was that the woods we were a part of the woods linked all the way back to the back of Clarks house. We would just have to cross two streets from one section of woods to another section of woods. Clark knew the way so off we went like tribal Shinnecocks had done a hundreds of years earlier. I followed him as best I could but became distracted because I tried not to look at his ass as I was running. A few times I lost him and had to listen for him running past bushes, which made the sound I followed.

As we reached the edge of the woods on the first street we had to cross, there were two old ladies who were stopped in the road jabber jawing. We watched for a while. Then we sat down.

“What should we do,” Clark asked me.

“We should wait until they are finished talking,” I rejoined.

“But what if they talk for an hour?” he asked.

“Then we will wait for an hour,” I said.

Our little sit down reconnaissance took less than five minutes. Without notice Clark demonstrated his inability at patience. “Come on Scratch,” he said while walking around antsy, “let’s just run across; they’ll never catch us.”

“Don’t you have any fortitude at all?” I asked.

“I’m going!” Without finishing the words he darted out of the woods, balls naked, and ran right through the two women who were talking, almost knocking one of the women over.

The older woman grabbed her chest, while the other woman turned and lifted her cane toward Clarke. Within a second Clarke had made it across the street into the other woods and safety.

It was now up to me to get home on my own. But even though the section of woods that I was in was approximately the same as the set that I had to get to, I recognized the fact that without Clark I may not find my way home for hours. I was starting to get cold. What is more I was embarrassed and not a soul could see me.

With the interpretation of the facts the conclusion was to run. And run I did, in the exact same path as Clark did and through the women who were still trying to compose themselves. The women, though they were still not in order, they were aware of themselves enough to trip the second scoundrel that would cross their path.

Head over heels I fell over the outstretched canes and scraped my knee on the road. One of the women started to whack me with the stick while the other lady screamed holy hell at me. I managed to upright myself and ran after Clark who was laughing his ass off at my tight spot.

Clark and I made it home all right and hoped we had heard the last of that. We never learned what happened to our clothes as we never dared to go see the Miller girls again.

But about three days later when my mother was home, the two women knocked on our front door.

My father had gone down town to buy some reeds for his saxophone so my mother answered the door. I should point out that my mother had already had two drinks, for it was a Sunday and she had the day off.

When I saw the two women standing in the doorway I went to my room and listened.

The women proceeded to tell my mother that her six-year old son was living in the woods with other six-year old boys and spending all their time frightening old people. There was silence from my mother. I took that as a good sign.

The women told my mother that the boys tried to rob them and that if it were not for their quick thinking and willingness to thump on the boys they might be in the hospital right this minute. My mother remained silent.

The women continued to embellish upon the story suggesting that it was all part of a conspiracy of some sort and that they would get to the bottom of it all; they would be vigilant. All during this time one woman was speaking and the other woman was almost chanting, “they were naked, they were naked, they were balls ass naked.”

It seems that the women built the story so high that my mother couldn’t take it any longer. She broke her silence with the loudest guffaw that was ever voiced by humankind. It was a special sound, a combination of cackle and hoot with a touch of snorting.  My mother continued to then giggle to the point whereby, and this is no bullshit, she began to roll on the floor laughing.

I knew the cause was the rye she had been drinking, but her silence didn’t giver her away so the women simply thought that the woman on the floor laughing was just as evil and sinister as her little boy.

They backed away toward the door but didn’t take their eyes off my mother. They reached the door and went outside still looking inside.

As they walked away from the door that they left open I heard one woman say something, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we see that little trollop running in and out of the woods naked tomorrow.”

Moments after my mother composed herself and came to my room. She looked at me.

“Did you go running through the woods naked?” she asked.

I looked up from the comic book I was pretending to read and said, “no mom.”

Clark and I stayed friends more or less all our lives but we only saw each other every now and then. When I owned New Orleans, he owned a place called the Blue Collar Tavern and he would come to my place for a few drinks. He was a terrible drunk. None the less, I remained friendly and concerned for him and always made sure I treated him respectfully. I learned he left the area and bought a horse farm in upstate New York. He was riding a horse one day and had a heart attack and died.

Clark is running naked through the woods of heaven.