My Mom Doesn’t Like Jen

by Kevin Dublin

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My mom doesn’t like Jen. She caught the two of us smoking reefer once in the basement. I would’ve gotten in trouble for it, but she didn’t want to tell my dad because she thought it would be embarrassing. She did ban Jen from the house though. Mom said that Jen was a bad influence and that she’d be knocked up before we got out of high school and probably wouldn’t have a man around to show for it.

 “Ain’t you scared of Marsha?” Jen asked as we walked toward her house from school.

We’d have a good three hours before it got dark and it was clear out, so I figured Jen and I could see if her older brother had anything to smoke, listen to an album, and snack on some chips or something before I had to go home.

“Why would I be afraid of my mom? I mean, what could Marsha do? Besides, I’ll just tell her I went to Susan’s to do homework.”

“Okay, then.” Jen said, kicking a broken tree limb as we walked along the pavement. “But what are you gonna do about the smell if we smoke?’

“I don’t know. Can we cook something to replace the smell?” I asked.

“Nah, my mama ain’t been to the store since the last time we did that.”

“We don’t have to smoke.”

“No, you don’t have to smoke.” Jen declared. “You can have fun watching me do it unless you have another idea.”

“I don’t know, I can’t think of anything.”

Jen laughs.

“Well,” Jen stopped walking as she spoke. “We could take off our dresses and smoke, and cover our hair.”

“Whatever,” I laughed.

“Okay then, you don’t have to smoke,” she walks again. “But I bet Jimmy has some good stuff.”

The moment it took me to agree to Jen’s idea was committed to memory as an eon. It was about 3 p.m. on a Thursday, and two weeks after my thirteenth birthday in April of 1978. It was a week before we stopped being friends and a month before I would move from California, forever. Two months would see me with braces and some weight gain, and in a year, after the counseling my parents forced me to go to ended, I would die my hair black and keep it that way for almost fifteen years.

“Time” from Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon ends as Jen and I sit in our underwear beside each other in her brother’s room, staring at the locked door.

“I know he won’t be home till late, but I keep imagining him kicking in the door, being mad at us, and having his way with me.” I laughed as I slid my back down the wall to lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling fan. “Your brother is a fox.”

“Whatever, he has streaks in his underwear.”

I grimace in disgust.

“You know who’s really foxy?” Jen asked “Michael Sellers.”

“Mike the Bike that goes to high school?”

“Yeah, now that’s a real man.”

“Hey, you like him right”

“Yeah.”

“So you know a lot about him?”

“Yes.”

“Well, my sister has a class with him and I asked her, but she wouldn’t tell me, and…” I trailed off out of embarrassment.

“Wouldn’t tell you what?”

“Well,” I paused and rolled over to face Jen. “Why do they call him ‘Mike the Bike’ at his school?”

Jen laughed and I turned the other way.

“Ah, to be young and nave.” She cackles, mispronouncing naïve.

“What? You’re only a couple months older than I am!” I shrieked and stood up.

“You’re going to kill your high if you don’t sit down.”

“You better take it back!”

“Calm down, all I’m saying is, I’m more mature than you.”

“And why’s that?” I inquired.

“I can’t tell you about it, I’ll corrupt you.”

“You can’t corrupt me Jennifer Stancil!”

“Fine, I’ll tell you.” She lay down on her back and looked away from me to the ceiling. “You know Billy Cobb?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, he did something to me.

“Oh my god, you had sex!”

“No, no, we didn’t do that, that’s stupid. I hear it hurts and you can have babies.”

“Well, what did he do then?”

There was a short pause. Jen bit her lip. I could see her silently debating. The only thing I was sure of was that there was a glint of guilt in her eyes for a second when she smiled and looked over to me.

“Sit down, be quiet, swear not to say anything to anyone, and I’ll tell you.” She smiled.

“I swear.”

“Swear on Martha’s life.”

“I swear on my mom’s life.”

“We didn’t have sex, but it was like it. He used his hands, and oh my God, he used his mouth.”

“Where, down… there?”

“Yeah!” She exclaimed. “See, he told me about it, said he snuck into one of those movies with his cousin and saw it and that he wanted to try it with me. He asked me for weeks before I finally let him do it.”

“Oh my,” I gasped. “That’s—”

“Amazing, that’s what it is. You know what the funny thing is? He said that he saw two girls doing it in the movie. It felt so good! I’ve gotten the itch down there before and went to the shower to scratch it, but it was nothing like what he did.”

“Was it that good? I’d be scared, how did it feel exactly?”

“I couldn’t explain it, everything down there just lights up and screams.”

“Wow.”

“Wow isn’t the half of it.”

“I wish…”

I wish I had known how powerful those two words could be and how much one event could affect a person. Most of my innocence had melted away long before that afternoon. It had passed in the puffs of smoke blown, the swears said, the lies told, the hate for my mother, and the God I had forgotten, but at least then, there was something left to hang onto.

Jen slid her hand along the inside of my thigh before she pulled down my underwear. She caressed what no one but me had ever touched and tasted what no one would ever taste again. Then, when she was done she asked me to do the same for her, and with my eyes closed, I did. The only thing I could hear over the thoughts of “what am I doing?” was her low moans and heavy breath. We finished with just enough time to rush dressing as Jen’s brother banged on the door yelling, “you better not have got into my stash!”

I walked out of his room and out of their house without a word, and headed home, my head down, tracing the curb of the street until I got to my room and cried. I woke up every morning for a week and cried, went to school, came home alone, and cried until dinner. After a week of trying to avoid her, I saw Jen again and she asked if I wanted to come over later and smoke. I said I couldn’t be her friend anymore and when she asked why, I cried again. I spilled the biggest sobs any thirteen-year-old girl could, so much that the teacher sent me home. I told my mother the whole story, and we both wept.