Backseat Smooching

The joyride home from elementary school

By David Claude Bailey

This is a story about pre-adolescent smooching, but the pre-teen boy in me wants to start with the car, a huge 1947 Pontiac Streamliner with those sweeping, flared fenders favored in gangster movies. (My father had a 1954 V-8 Pontiac Star Chief, a sleek and powerful car with an illuminated face of an Indian as a hood ornament. But Dad’s car didn’t hold a candle to the Streamliner, with its sleek, Jaguar-inspired lines and capacious interior.) This automobile was obviously the choice for those who dreamed of a luxurious and fabled life on the big screen.

Our chauffeur, Marian Orren, always perfectly coiffed, would pick up her son, Frank, plus me and our classmate, Evelyn, from elementary school every afternoon.

The Art Deco radio with golden illuminated buttons and dials would be aglow in the middle of the dashboard. From its mouth-like speaker, which looked like a howling mask from a Greek tragedy, the latest Hit Parade tunes would pour, setting the scene. “Volare.” “All I Have To Do Is Dream.” And, oh my God, the “Witch Doctor.” The back seat was big enough to host a party, but Evelyn and I would settle into the plush, cushy, tufted seats, and slide into the corner. Before we’d reached the stop sign, we were locking lips.

Who knows why and how we got started with this passionate car-noodling. I, with one eye, was bullied all day long, and the idea of someone caring about me, much less showering me with kisses, was the high point of each day. I’ll never forget Evelyn, my first sweetheart.

We were in fourth or fifth grade and our dalliance was limited, neither of us even close to the fervor of adolescence. And maybe that was a good thing.

Frank would sit in the front seat, begging his mother to make us stop. She, in fact, encouraged us, and we’d carry on until the Streamliner pulled up to the curb of 602 Boyd Street, where I reluctantly hauled the coat I’d shed and my army pack out the side door.

Evelyn came to a recent high school reunion all the way from New York City and we had an absorbing and long chat, catching up on our various trajectories.

And then I said, “What was all that smooching about?”

If Evelyn had a good answer, I didn’t hear it. Maybe I’d had one too many gin and tonics.

But magic comes to mind.  OH

David Claude Bailey still enjoys kissing in cars and can sometimes be found fogging up the windows of his 1981 Jeep CJ-7 with his wife of 56 years, Anne.