My first girlfriend, my first love was Marylin Majkowski. I was fourteen or fifteen at the time and she was a year younger. We dated, were “going steady” all through high school. Even though she lived in Southampton and I lived in Queens, I would take the train out to see her once a month and would also see her during the summers. For me that meant all summer because my folks worked in Southampton, my mother at Saks Fifth Avenue, where she sold Emilio Pucci clothes and my father who played regularly at one nightclub or another.
I was living on Lewis Street on the second floor of the Waldron's house. My father had being playing at Dick Ridgely's Trade Winds, a restaurant/night club in Water Mill that was a favorite of high society and the local business people who were in service to the wealthy. My father and Dick were friends from the old days when they were in Paul Whiteman's Band. Ridgely's was a place where the social ball field was leveled, where the rich and not so rich could have a drink and listen to some music and maybe dance.
It was at the corner of Lewis Street and Hampton Road that I first met Marylin.
I watched her and her friend play tennis behind the grade school one summer afternoon. They noticed me but acted as if I wasn't there, the ploy that has been acted out thousands of times before and thousands of times since by girls coming of age when a boy looks at them. But I didn't know it at the time and just assumed they didn't see me.
I was struck by Marylin's looks, especially her eyes, which were blue green and could be seen a hundred feet away. She had blond hair, about like mine, which was light blond with patches of a darker blond. She didn't have tennis clothes on; she was wearing jeans with white sneakers and a button-downed short-sleeve light-blue shirt.
She didn't wear make-up.
She wasn't very good at tennis but she had a funny way of running and walking, which at first glance I thought was pigeon towed but realized it wasn't that, it was more like pigeon kneed, and it was only at times. She hit the ball awkwardly and but somehow many of the balls stayed in play. Her partner was just as awkward, just as bad, and she too somehow kept the ball in play. It was fun to watch for a while, but they got wilder with each volley and soon the balls were leaving the court causing one girl or the other to chase it down the road. All during this time not once did they look at me. They did walk together and talk, which could mean they were talking about me, but when I was that age I had very little self-esteem, and the thought came and went.
At some point I just left to walk the three blocks home.
I got a couple of hundred feet away when Marylin tapped me on the shoulder. It startled me. “Hi” I said.
“My name is Marylin, you spell that M, A, R, Y, instead of I, LIN,” she said.
“I'm Scratch.”
“That's a funny name.”
“It's a nickname.”
“What's you're real name?” she asked.
“Ronald,” I said, embarrassingly. I hated the name, didn't even like to say it, but I wanted to start off by being truthful. Sometimes people called me Ronnie, my family did, but I hated “Ronnie” almost as much as I hated “Ronald”.
We talked at the corner of Lewis and Elm streets. She lived at the end of Elm on Pelletreu, named after a silversmith who was one of the settlers in Southampton. Elias Pelletreau was born in Southampton in 1726, apprenticed with Goldsmith Simeon Soumain in New York City and became a freeman in 1750. He returned to his family home in Southampton where he made silver and gold. He was too old to serve in the Revolutionary War but he gave money to the revolutionary government and organized a home guard to protect Southampton. He worked in his shop until his death in 1810. Marylin told me all this when we first met.
It was probably in the first half hour of the almost two hour conversation we fell in love. I felt soft with Marylin, not like I usually felt. I was relaxed listening to her tell me about school and her mother and father and her brother who she loved and how she played the clarinet in the school band because it was the lightest instrument to carry and how she played hooky once with her friend Sharon. She didn't like me smoking and she assumed I was much older than I was.
All during the discussion we got closer and closer to each other but never touched. For the entire time we moved to the left and to the right in a circular motion, which was fluid and continuous, almost being as if we were dancing. There were no parked cars to sit on or lean on and while we did use the large Elm tree as a prop during our talk, we mostly moved closer and then further away from the intersection of the streets and to each other. It was a dance but we didn't realize it.
All during this time I was mesmerized by the distinct twinkle in her eye and I was wondered if she saw that in me also or whether I was just hoping. Whatever I was seeing it made me feel warm.
The action that cemented the next three years of my life was made at about an hour and a half into the dance/talk that we did. Marylin decided at one point that she felt comfortable enough to tell me that she had a boyfriend, Billy Robinson, who had a car, a convertible.
I was devastated. I had no right to be. But I was. I tried to be cool toward Marylin, but my hurt, my pain was obvious. I made some awkward closing words that tripped out of my mouth and then turned to go home.
No sooner had I gone about fifty feet and Marylin had against tapped me on the shoulder. I turned.
“'Here, I bought you some more flowers,” she said, but there were no flowers. In her hand was the end of a fallen branch from a tree with about fifteen leaves draping down. She stood at attention and presented her “bouquet”, which I promptly took and bowed deeply.
She laughed and said she was sorry for mentioning Billy Robinson. “We are breaking up anyway,” she told me, which instantly changed my disposition.
We talked for another twenty minutes and then she said she had to leave. I asked her if she wanted me to walk her home and she said no, not to come by her house until it was official that she and Billy were no longer an item and he was out of her life.
It took about two weeks for the break-up and during that time we saw each other at the tennis court and once I saw her driving with Billy in his Ford convertible. I became jealous and then depressed. Marylin sensed my depression and jealousy. She came over to my house and again offered another bouquet of leaves, which I again took with a deep bow and a warm heart.
Billy was soon out of the scene and I was at center stage. I remained there for almost four years.
The highlight of the first summer, after her freshman year, was the job she got working at the Coopers Beach food concession serving hot dogs, hamburgers and ice cream to all the families who spent their summers at Coopers Brach, about a mile West of the Bathing Corporation, the rich beach club, where the Fords, Havermeyers and Wannamakers summered. Because I had almost white blond hair I easily walked in passed the attendants; they wouldn't dare to stop and ask me if I belonged for fear of insulting the son of one of the world's wealthiest. I learned that game early in Southampton and played the game whenever I could.
Mr. Napiorski ran the concession; he was a school teacher at the Southampton Public Schools so he had first dibs at getting the concession, which he had for many summers. It was a perfect summer gig for a teacher who wanted to make a little extra cash and hang out at the beach.
He liked me, saw that I liked Marylin and got me a job in the mornings from 8AM until 11AM raking the beach and picking up any refuse that was left on the beach from the day before. Occasionally there was a party that I would have to clean up after. That meant beer cans and more beer cans. The job itself was lonely; even Marylin didn't come to work until 9:30AM. I made the mistake of wearing a watch, which made the three hours go even slower. The worst days were the hot days. Since I wore a bathing suit to do the job I often dropped the rake and go in for a swim. Then Napiorski would see me, and start screaming at me to get back to work; and I would. At 11AM I would then swim for an hour and wait for friends to arrive. During the afternoon I would go into see Marylin, two or three times to buy candy or a soda and then I would camp right before the deck of the concession so that if Marylin came out I could do something to show off.
Marylin worked to 4:30PM or thereabouts and then we would hang out for a few hours. At night I would sometimes see her if her mother let her or I would go and hang out with my friends, Johnny Wobst, Sam Herrick, Pete Nicolich or many others. That usually meant getting six packs and going to the beach or going to Brownies, where we knew we could get in without proof.
The next summer was the same as the first. I didn't last as long at the job of raking the beach as I had the year before. I wound up getting odd jobs from Mr. Wobst, Johnny's father.
It was an interesting fall and winter because at that time Pete Hetzel and Marylin's mother, Mary, worked on me, not having a formal religion. I had gone to church when I was younger, to the Baptist Church on Gleane Street but I did alone and after awhile it wore off. The only sense of religion I had was more about the little woman in Saratoga who saved my life and also a square dish my father bought for my mother and was hanging next to the kitchen table. It had a drawing of a rooster on a fence looking ready to crow. But the wording seemed odd and to this day I realized the impact it had upon me. It said “My Love will stop when this Rooster crows.” I looked at that hanging dish every day of my childhood. When I was angry with my mother I would scream out “cocka doodle doo.” Later the meaning got deeper as it conjured the possibility of eternity. I would sit in bed thinking about it and fall asleep as the thoughts carried me away.
Peter worked on me in the city and Mrs. Majkowski worked on me when I went to see Marylin. Marylin didn't join them. She was just there when I asked questions. I went to the Mass on Christmas Eve and by then I had decided that I would convert to Catholicism.
I went to meet Father Greene at Saint Bartholomew's. He gave me readings and then lessons every few weeks. I was baptized on April 15th, 1962. Mrs. Majkowski, who I had asked to be my God Mother, gave me a Daily Missile. Pete Hetzel became my God Father. For a number of weeks I went to Mass but by the time we moved to Southampton, like the Baptist Church, the Catholic Church became a part of my history. I lost faith approximately ninety days after I had gained it.
The third summer was devastating for me. I learned in June just before I got to Southampton that Marylin had applied to and was accepted for a program of foreign exchange students, sponsored by the American Field Service. She was to spend her summer away from Southampton and would live with a Columbian family in Bogota. It was her junior year. Deep down I knew it meant that the relationship was over. I was too jealous and insecure to properly deal with my feelings. I cried and cringed a lot. It was a terribly lonesome summer and the only bright spots were when I would get a letter, which she managed once a week. I dated once, Betty Lazarich from Towd Point. We were both awkward. The only interesting thing about is that thirty-five years later, when my daughter, who was in the Ross School, came home one day and told me that her math teacher knew me; her name was Betty Lazarich.
When Marylin came home I learned quickly that she had dated, but not once, a number of times and was writing letters to him. By this time she was back to school for her senior year and I in my first year at C.W. Post College in Brookville, on the island. It was there that I met Ira Sonn and Mickey Podell, Jules Podell's daughter. Podell was the boss of the Copacabana nightclub and was known as the front man for the mob, which owned the club. Both Ira and Mickey were kind at a time when my self-esteem was very low.
I saw Marylin on weekends but at most twice a month and occasionally on special days when there was no school. Although it sort of seemed like it had been before, there was something missing. I am not sure if what was missing was in me, or Marylin. Being Irish and stubborn I was going to try to make it work. She was accepted to Cortland State Teacher's College and I got a map out to see where it was. I had become used to the two hour Long Island Rail Road trip but Cortland was six hours away from Southampton, meaning it was at least four hours away from me in Queens. I went up to Cortland one weekend but learned that she had already dated.
We broke up. The pain overwhelmed the pleasure.
We didn't talk or see each other but of course we asked about each other.
At some point a few years later I learned Marylin was engaged to marry Gene Kelley, who had been a casual friend of mine. Before the wedding Marylin came to see me at my apartment in Queens. The reason she wanted to see me, she said, was to see if there were any feelings for me. It was odd for me; I felt I was being tested. I don't remember how many years it had been but I certainly still had feelings for her.
But two things got in the way of me telling her. The first was that I had been dating somebody and aside from the fact that I was not the most loyal boyfriend, it was early in the relationship, during the time when lovers tell each other they will be true. I wanted to be true. I didn't deny my feelings for Marylin; I just hid them from her.
The second reason was that when she wanted to hear my deepest truth I knew that if I said it, it would change her life and mine, and for some reason I didn't feel it was honest. I felt that we each had a duty to allow our much earlier relationship to end.
In 1980 Marylin and Gene and some friends came to my nightclub one evening. Gene got drunk. I was outside when Marylin found me. She confided that Gene was abusive, very abusive. I felt terrible. All I could do was advise her to see a marriage counselor or get divorced. Their marriage produced three boys and like many other women suffering abuse, Marylin saw no options. Eventually she did get the strength to show Gene the door but not without many trepidations and the understanding that she would need to now be singularly responsible for raising three boys.
More time passed and she married a politician but that marriage ended after he demonstrated his propensity toward abuse.
So for a substantial part of her life Marylin has lived as a single working mother and has done so very successfully. The boys all grew to be gentlemen and two of the three are married with families of their own. She retired having spent her working life as an accountant and at the end of her career being as a state auditor for the State of Ohio.
I didn’t learn all this until after I had contacted her from finding her as a result of a search on the Internet. Periodically, I would try to locate old friends, to connect again, to see how their lives were going. It was coincidental that when I reconnected with Marylin, her mother was coming to the end of her life.
During the late stages of Mrs. Majkowski’s illness Marylin and I talked on the phone and also exchanged a number of emails. What we learned about each other was very interesting. Even though we spent almost four years of our lives being as close as any two teenagers could be, we each had kept a secret from the other. I didn’t know how hard her mother had been on her and she didn’t know anything about my street life. But the discussions and emails unveiled to each of us another part of us that the other hadn’t known.
Mrs. Majkowski, who I thought was simply strict, was in fact abusive toward Marylin. Whereas I thought that the strictness was because I was undisciplined and disruptive to Marylin’s life, the truth was that even when I wasn’t around for weeks at a time, her mother disciplined her terribly, kept her from enjoying her high school years and beyond. She wasn’t physically abused; she was emotionally attacked and abused by her mother on a regular basis.
She told me many things in the first few days that we reconnected. Even though over the years I made it a habit to stop in to her parents house and visit once a year, so knew much about the facts of her life, what she told me surprised me and moved me to a better understanding of who Marylin Majkowski was. She had lived a hard life.
Because of my annual visits and the fact that Mrs. Majkowski was my God Mother from a Church I haven’t been in for fifty years, I saw her as a person of unconditional acceptance. I was always received with a smile and a cup of tea and story after story about Marylin and her brother Jon. In retrospect I did recall that she would often use the term “you know Marylin,” as if to say that Marylin was would do things in a different way, intimating, the wrong way.
Indeed, Marylin spent a lifetime trying to achieve a speck of acceptance from a very demanding and abusive mother. Later in her life Mrs. Majkowski was living with Marylin after the three sons had left to do their own lives. Marylin said her mother “came very close to emotionally and financially destroying me with her ugly tongue, manipulation, disrespect and ever so many needs.” But that period when they shared the same house was an emotional awakening of Marylin’s past, and with her mother being there again and it wasn’t pretty. Mrs. Majkowski’s passing wasn’t the release Marylin had wanted from the emotional torture, it was the day Mrs. Majkowski left to go and spend her last days with Jon, in Connecticut.
Finally Marylin became free. She wrote, “I don't know why her acceptance was so important to me. Finally it is not. I shipped her off to my brother and by God, I feel no guilt. Big step in my life.”
Just prior to Mrs. Majkowski’s death, Marylin had gone to visit her at her brother’s house. She wrote “it was good to visit my mother in May. She didn't know who I was and we had such a pleasant time together. Maybe we both needed that.”
Marylin and I remain friends.
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