Deaths Excellent Vacation

Penthouse Forum letter, this Donna was the Pet of the Month without the staples.
    “So,” said Jerry, “I take it you two are bored with the Board walk?”
    Incredibly, the girls laughed at that lousy line, too!
    “Yeah,” said Donna, who had Farrah Fawcett’s winged hairstyle from the pinup poster. “We want to have some real fun, you know? We are ready to feel the funk and party hearty!”
    “Then, ladies, you came to the right beach,” said Kevin, who had been pumping iron on a bench in his garage all winter and spring so his chest and stomach would be ready for just this moment. I hung in the background. When you’re a timid teen, it pays to have brazen friends like Kevin and Jerry.
    “So, Sunshine,” said Jerry, crouching down so the girls could gaze dreamily at his droopy eyes. “You ever heard about the dunes down south? In the state park?”
    “Sure,” said the other girl, Kimberly, as she rolled over to tan her back. She was wearing a very small bikini spotted with Wonder- Bread-wrapper-colored polka dots. The bottom was actually two tiny triangles held together by white plastic rings at her hips. She reached around to unsnap the hook holding her skimpy top in place so she wouldn’t have an unsightly tan line racing across her back to add to the white doughnuts the sun-blocking circles would definitely be leaving on her flanks.
    “Meet us down there,” said Kevin. “Ten P.M. We’ll bring the liquid refreshments.”
    “We’ll find some driftwood, too,” added Jerry. “Rub a couple stiff sticks together and see if we can start a fire.” Every cheesy thing the guy said made these girls giggle.
    I said nothing.
    When I was sixteen, girls terrified me.
    “Can we bring Brenda?” asked Donna, whose bikini was full of burnt-orange and harvest-gold flowers. Reminded me of the coffee percolator back in our motel kitchenette. “Brenda’s different. Likes to read books and junk.”
    “No problemo. She can hang with Dave. He reads books, too. Finished the summer reading list like back in June.”
    It was true. In books, I could be cool like Jerry and Kevin.
    “You sure?” giggled Kimberly. “What if Brenda is like a total dog?”
    “Doesn’t matter,” said Kevin. “Dave will bring his leash and walk her while the rest of us get down and get funky!”
     
     
    SO at nine thirty that night, Kevin Corman and I stood underneath a hazy street lamp waiting for Jerry McMillan, more booze, the two horny college chicks, and my blind date with the bookish Brenda.
    Like I said, Jerry was seventeen but looked even older, so he was always the one in charge of procuring the adult beverages for any party, be it a kegger or a spontaneous bonfire on the beach in Island State Park. He had headed over to Barnegat Bay Bottles, the scuzziest package store in all of Seaside Heights, maybe New Jersey, to procure a couple cases of beer and several bottles of Boone’s Farm wine: Apple and Strawberry. Both flavors tasted like Kool-Aid laced with malt liquor. Maybe gasoline.
    It’s amazing how much I’m remembering now about that summer night in 1975. How vivid it all seems—especially when I realize I haven’t thought about any of this for decades. I grew up. Went to college. Became rich and famous. Locked my summers down the Jersey Shore inside a mental shoebox with the rest of my long-forgotten memories.
    But tonight, as I lie in bed, fitfully drifting in and out of sleep, crisp details fill my head.
    The swimming pool at the Royal Flamingo Motel with a curving slide lubricated with a trickle of water so you slid down even faster.
    The Funtown Pier, home to all sorts of rickety thrill rides—including Dr. Shallowgrave’s Haunted Manor.
    The swarm of suntanned bodies bopping up the beach with their radios on. All of them, in my memory, swaying to the blare of a Tijuana Brass soundtrack, the theme from The Dating Game .
    But, most of all, I remember Brenda Narramore.
    Please don’t tell my wife, who is snuggled up beside me now, cradled against my back, but I am dreaming about a girl I met one summer nearly three and a half decades ago.
    Brenda Narramore.
    My first summer love.
    My muse and inspiration.
    How many times have I redrawn her body, first as a leather- clad warrior in my comic books, then as an indestructible street fighter in a ripped and slashed flight suit as the heroine in my graphic novels? How many hours have I spent retracing her curves and lines? In fact, I made my fortune