The Viciousness of Girls
As I mentioned , Steve was 3 years older than I. He told me this story several years after we started our get-togethers, after I vented to him the way Dan had treated some girl.
There was a junior high dance in the gym. As was the norm in the 60’s, boys wore a suit and fake ties (as you will see later this year, some things didn’t change in the 70’s either). Girls wore semi formal dresses, with some brave souls (with brave mothers) wore mini skirts.
Steve was fixated on a girl named Linda. Linda had money, lived in the only upscale part of town. Long silky light red hair and legs that stretched to Bolivia. Perfect teeth from a year of braces. Finally, he got enough nerve to ask a friend to see if she liked him.
Then things went to hell.
His friend came back and told him she hated his guts.
Then, to make sure the message came across, she tracked him down in the center of the dance floor and humiliated him in front of his friends, while her girlfriends stood and watched, smiling.
What happened? Well, karma to the ninth power.
Around a year later, her family was traveling for Easter and they fell victim of one of the more dangerous intersections in the county, near a large furniture store. I didn’t remember this, I’m sure daddy did. The mother and sister died instantly. The father was left a vegetable and passed the next year. Thrown from the car, Linda became a quadriplegic, her long hair shaved off for brain surgery. Steve said there was a picture of the wreck in the paper; you could see a cop in the background doubled over, vomiting. While Linda became the sole heir to all the money, no one really knew where she went. Rumors said she was in a nursing home in south Jersey.
They passed around a flier at school, inviting kids to sign a large get well card. “Seemed kind of an understatement, “Steve said, sipping his soda.
“You didn’t sign, I take it.”
“Oh, shit, no.” Pause. Scenes danced behind his eyes. “I could feel those nasty bitches, watching me to see what I would put on the card. No way was I giving them the pleasure. That was over. I didn’t cry or cheer.” He pauses, glancing out the window, “People come and go. Maybe she got what she deserved, but that was pretty harsh.”
He drew the story to a close, playing this song.