On a leafy street in a leafy village on leafy Long island there was a local volunteer firefighter’s firehouse, as orderly as the military. Us kids knew some of the volunteers from our neighborhood.
We’d hear the fire siren blow. We’d look up from what we were doing in alert like little critters perking up their ears. Frozen with no words ever spoken, then in motion we’d run off, the bay doors of the firehouse slide open, the red pumper truck and the red ambulance gone, somebody maybe in a back room or upstairs, but we’d all been before so our luck would hold, dashing in in a tight little group on sneaker feet…
And there she was in all on the wall, and we all knew all her glory, naked, completely, totally, spread out on red velvet, calendar Marilyn Monroe in all her yearning, almost straining, boobs and ass and thighs and legs and all. My, my, my goodness all around.
We heard somebody’s sound. Out we’d run, then still standing at a distance, the Marilyn Monroe calendar, a naked lady eyechart from there.
The fire siren sounded.
I miss the wonder and awe of no expectations just acceptance, memories of friends in the raw not naked but naked with a glass of wine as lubricant