Angry White Male, Page 2
Steven Travers
Los Angeles is a town of new people with new money and new ideas. It was a sleepy pueblo at the beginning of the 20th Century, more an extension of Mexico than part of America. In 1906, William Mulholland, the city’s chief engineer, decided that it was time to bring the city into the new century.
Screenwriter Robert Towne told the story, kind of, in “Chinatown”. What happened was that Mulholland and a few of L.A.’s “City Fathers” made the trek on up to the Owens Valley, which is on the east side of the Sierra’s near the Nevada border, where Highway 395 runs now, and conned the local yokels into siphoning all their water down to Los Angeles in perpetuity.
By 1932, L.A. was hosting the Olympics and was world famous as the home of motion pictures. After World War II, the population grew and grew and grew, with black shipyard workers, Okies, Iowa farmers, discharged servicemen, con artists, drifters, dreamers, actors, and opportunists of all stripe drawn to its sun splashed beaches and palm tree-dotted boulevards.
Los Angeles developed a rural mentality despite its size. There was a streak of Southern racism mixed with plainspoken Midwestern values. Mexicans who once ran things were shunted out of power. The Chinese, who had built the railroads that made L.A. possible, were given a little piece of land north of downtown and told not to stray past Temple Avenue.
Of course, the Mob boys came to cash in and gave L.A. a touch of tanned Guidoism. Of course, there were the Jews, who approached their religion in a decidedly different way than their Brooklyn counterparts. A few of them were in the rackets, too.
Being black in L.A. was not paradise, but it was decidedly better than being black almost anywhere else. The University of Southern California’s first All-American football player in 1925 was a black guard named Brice Taylor.
Blacks attended public schools and colleges with whites. They ate in the same restaurants, rode the same buses, used the same bathrooms, and played ball side by side on the same football, basketball and baseball teams. That was the environment that produced a black athlete named Jackie Robinson, who would emerge from Muir High in Pasadena to team with another black man, Kenny Washington, to produce UCLA’s first great football teams.
In 1939, the film community awarded the Academy Award to a black actress, Hattie McDaniel, for her work as Mammy in “Gone With the Wind”, over Olivia deHavilland, who did even better work in the same picture. That award was a major statement about Los Angeles and the new sensibilities of liberal Hollywood.
Still, Los Angeles, try as they might, never quite convinced themselves or others that they were sophisticates. San Francisco was sophisticated, a place where people who lived amid the elements of the four seasons would dress up for dinner or a night at the opera. Los Angeles was a La Land of tits ’n’ ass.
Los Angeles voted Republican and gave the world first Richard Nixon, and later Ronald Reagan. San Francisco was liberal from the get-go, probably because it was the home of the Barbary Coast, where an anything-goes mentality made it a town of gamblers and hookers who would become respectable with age.
Where L.A.’s immigrants came from the Bible Belts of the South and the Midwest, San Francisco attracted people of secular means from the Eastern Establishment who were eager to break away from the bonds of decorum required in the salons of Boston and Philadelphia. L.A.’s Easterners were slick Italians or Jews. San Francisco’s Italian population was homegrown, a product of its natural harbors, which had made it a place where Columbus’ descendants were drawn to.
In the beginning, of course, was the Gold Rush of 1849, and this was when the first Taylor’s came to California, leaving the East Coast Taylor’s in Massachusetts, where it was said that they had been since colonial days. Nobody could verify that any Taylor’s had fought for America in the Revolutionary War, but over time it had become a matter of faith that they had, and that the family was of the English blueblood variety.
The `49er Taylor’s did not strike gold, but they quickly settled in San Francisco and became successful in business. Members of both the East and West Coast Taylor clans had fought for the Union in the Civil War. In 1880, Stan Taylor’s great-uncle heard about a new college in Los Angeles, founded by a Methodist, a Catholic and Jew. He became the first member of the family to attend USC. He settled in Los Angeles and became a prominent attorney and judge.
His brother was Charles Taylor, a very prominent American. Charles had been born in San Francisco, eight years younger than his brother, and he chose to follow in his footsteps by going to the University of Southern California, where he graduated in 1892. Charles then moved in with relatives in Boston, where he lived while attending Harvard Law School for three years. He graduated in 1895 and moved to New York City, where he took up the practice of law in a tony firm.
The blonde, suntanned, athletic Charles ran into some opposition from the Wall Street crowd, who felt a Californian was more likely to ride the range on a cowboy ranch than handle the intellectual workload of the New York legal scene.
Charles disarmed this attitude with intelligence and good humor, which today would be called charisma. What gave him panache and gravitas was his association with a high-profile client, a few years older than he was, named Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt was one of those New Yorkers, but he shared the love of adventure and the great outdoors of this young Westerner, who he took on as a protégé.
In 1898, Roosevelt showed up at Charles’ office and informed him that he was going to take a leave of absence and become a member of his officer cadre in Cuba.
“I am?” said Charles.
“Yes, sir,” replied Roosevelt.
Charles thought about it.
“Okay,” he said.
Charles served as a lieutenant in Roosevelt’s “Rough Rider” unit that charged up San Juan Hill in a victorious war with Spain, liberating the Cuban Island from the Spanish. The war put Cuba under U.S. control.
When the Spanish-American War ended, Roosevelt told him that he was going into politics. He asked Charles to go to California, where he would rely on him to rally support for him in the West.
In 1899, Charles’ son, Charles, Jr., was born in Los Angeles. Charles, Sr., who turned 30 in 1900, began to lay the groundwork for his own future in Republican politics as well.
The rest, of course, is history. Roosevelt was elected Vice President on the ticket with William McKinley, who was assassinated in Buffalo, elevating Roosevelt to the Presidency at a young age.
This put Charles, Sr. on the fast track. He had been the McKinley-Roosevelt ticket’s campaign coordinator in California, and had settled in with a Los Angeles law firm specializing in water rights.
The firm represented William Mulholland, the city’s chief engineer, and was instrumental in negotiating land rights for an aqueduct that brought water to the desert pueblo from the mountainous Owens Valley.
Charles, Sr. barely had time to establish himself with the firm when he got a telegram from Roosevelt, who asked him to move to Washington, D.C. and serve as an adviser.
From 1901-04, Charles, Sr. served in the White House, and from 1905-08 he was Ambassador to France. On a Christmas trip to California in 1907, the Los Angeles Times interviewed him. He had ominous news.
“Germany will attack France within five years,” he told him.
He was off by two years. The German Chief of Staff, von Moltke, had formulated a plan as early as 1905 to attack France through Belgium, with “the last German’s right sleeve brushing the Atlantic.”
When Roosevelt left office in 1909, Charles, Sr. had a young family to take care of, and he decided to move back to Los Angeles, where he re-joined the law firm he had been with before. By now, with the water deal complete, the firm was a powerful political force in a state that was gaining importance all the time.
In 1912, Roosevelt asked him to help him run for President again, on the Bull Moose ticket. Knowing that Roosevelt’s “speak softly and carry a big stick” philosophy might be needed to ward off war in Europ
e, Charles took to the task, despite objections from the Republican Party.
Charles warned anybody who would listen that war drums were banging in Berlin, but in the United States, this issue had little resonance.
“The creation of a massive German state is the creation of a military giant,” he told yawning crowds.
Roosevelt split the Republican vote, unseating William Howard Taft and giving the White House to Democrat Woodrow Wilson. In California, Charles, Sr. did not hear the full brunt of complaint against him and the Bull Moose “cabal” blamed with giving away the store.
He settled into his law practice and semi-anonymity. In 1914, “the sleeve of the last German brushed the Atlantic.” Still, Americans were unconcerned about the European War, until 1917, when Wilson, re-elected a few months earlier specifically on the campaign promise to keep the U.S. out, entered the war.
Charles’ son, Charles, Jr. was a senior at Hollywood High School, where he starred in football and baseball, in 1917. He was exceedingly handsome and popular with the ladies, and planned to attend USC, of course. The U.S. entered the war in April. In June, Charles, Jr. graduated from high school. He spent the summer at the beach, and in August, just a couple of weeks before starting college, he was taken with patriotic fervor. Charles, Jr. decided to join the Army with a friend.
His father was shocked, yet proud. Charles served under the legendary General “Black Jack” Pershing. In the Summer of 1918, he was approached by one of Pershing’s aides on a French country battlefield.
“Taylor,” the man called to him.
Charles, Jr. sprang to attention and saluted the officer.
“At ease,” said the man, who stood ramrod straight. He introduced himself. “George Patton.”
Patton offered his handshake.
Charles, Jr. took his hand.
“Charlie Taylor, sir,” he said. “It’s an honor.”
“I understand you’re from Los Angeles,” said Patton.
“Yes, sir,” said Charles, Jr.
“I’m from San Marino,” replied Patton. “That makes us neighbors.”
“Sure, I’ve ridden some horses out there,” said Charles, Jr.
“Beautiful horse country,” said Patton. “Are you a horse man?”
“Yes, but not like you, sir,” said Charles, Jr. “I understand you competed at Stockholm.”
“Damn gun froze on me the second day,” replied Patton, referring to his ill-fated efforts in the 1912 Olympics. “I would have won. How old are you, son?”
“19,” said Charles, Jr.
“Helluva an age,” said Patton. “Helluva place to be when you’re 19.”
Patton waved his hand as if to display the war-torn countryside.
“It’ll make a man out of you, though,” he continued.
Patton went on to tell Charles, Jr. that he was an admirer of Teddy Roosevelt, and of his father, and told the young man to relay to his father his desire that Charles, Sr. make a run for politics, based on his having warned the country to be prepared for the “Kaiser’s menace,” as Patton put it.
“Trouble with Americans,” said Patton, “is they’re too secure. They think just because there’s an ocean separating us, we’re not in danger of war. Especially Californians. Californians could care less about anything except sin and perdition.”
He laughed.
“Not that I have anything against sin and perdition, mind you,” he said.
Patton asked what Charles, Jr.’s plans were after the war, and Charles told him he planned to attend USC.
“I have nothing against Southern California, either,” said Patton, “but have you considered West Point? I’d be happy to put in a good word for you.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied Charles, Jr. “I’ll consider it.”
Patton then bid him good-bye, they saluted, and Charles went back to his duties. His mates, seeing the hard-boiled Patton’s obvious good impression of him, gave him a combination of ribbing and respect.
In October, 1918, shrapnel from a “potato masher” in the Argonne Forest felled Charles, Jr., by now the recipient of a battlefield commission promoting him to the rank of second lieutenant.
Luckily, he recovered from his wounds, and returned along with the rest of the victorious “dough boys,” when the war finally ended a month later. Charles spent the Winter and Spring of 1918-19 recovering in California, and in the fall of 1919 he entered USC, a “grizzled veteran” of the Great War.
When the war ended, Charles, Jr. had given strong consideration to Patton’s recommendation to attend West Point. In the end, he decided on USC, where he attained some notoriety as an athlete.
Patton saw what Charles, Jr. was doing on the athletic field, and the two maintained contact and a friendship. In the 1930s, Patton even hired Charles, Jr. as his publicist when he tried to increase his visibility as a warrior with no war to fight. Charles, Jr. tried to sell a film concept of the man already known as “Ol’ Blood and Guts,” but in the Pacifist ‘30s there were no takers.
In 1920, Charles, Sr. ran for Congress. His number one campaign supporter was his son, who would make speeches for his dad while dressed in his Army uniform, adorned by a Purple Heart. Charles, Jr. discovered a talent for writing, and became his father’s speechwriter.
At USC, he was regarded as special, a man among boys, because of his wartime experiences. Youth and toughness had helped Charles, Jr. to heal from his shrapnel wounds, enough to allow him to play football and baseball at USC. On the football field, he found his speed at the end position had diminished as a result of the injuries, but as a shortstop on the baseball team he possessed excellent skills. After his senior year of 1923, several professional teams in the Pacific Coast League expressed an interest in his services, but Charles, Jr. had been bitten by the writing bug and had other plans.
His father was elected to Congress in 1920, and served for eight years. From 1921-23, Charles, Jr. spent summers working for his father in Washington, D.C. Upon graduation in the spring of 1923, Charles, Sr. asked his son to come work for him full time, to make a name for himself in the political world. The young man was honored that his father had such faith in him, but he was stricken with a serious case of wanderlust. It occurred to him that all his life he had been the “good son.” He had made grades at Hollywood High, was student body president, a star athlete, and a Big Man on Campus.
Instead of ducking military service by attending USC, where he could have played baseball and chased girls, he had enlisted as a buck private. His father had the connections to keep him out of harm’s way, but he had taken on every responsibility, earning his stripes on the field of battle. Roosevelt himself had sent a telegram expressing his great admiration for the son of his loyal friend and advisor. When in Washington, Teddy had personally congratulated him. His feelings towards the youngster were in earnest.
No sooner had Charles, Jr. received his diploma from Southern California than he was on a ship bound for Europe. From May of 1923 until just before Christmas of that year, he traveled on the Continent. In Paris, he found himself drawn to Harry’s Bar, where he found a fascinating group of expatriate Americans. Among them were Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. Charles, Jr. enjoyed the Paris café scene. He had an enormous appetite for sex, and found the French girls liberating in their open, sensuous desires.
The Taylor’s were Episcopalians, but Charles, Jr. had not been raised in a highly religious manner. He was struck by the open atheism of the expats, who would come to symbolize what is now called The Lost Generation. For the first time, he realized that he held Christian religious values.
Many of the drifters, wanderers and seekers of Paris café society lacked any real moral compass. One day a drunken Hemingway cornered young Taylor at Harry’s Bar.
“So you wanna be a writer?” asked the former Kansas City Star scribe. “Well, you’re sorely lacking in several important areas.”
“Tell me,” replied Charles, Jr.
Charles, Jr. had to admit that he was, perhaps, too happy and well adjusted to achieve success in the writing game, and now he was even beginning to subscribe to Christianity. In the world of the educated, the enlightened, the dilettantes, Christianity was, as Hemingway had put it, “bad form.”
He had seriously considered staying in Paris indefinitely, to write novels like the others. He had money stashed away and could have done it, but he simply had too much get-up-and-go to continue with these misbegotten drunks and “intellectuals.” He arrived in Los Angeles just in time to celebrate Christmas with his family. He kissed the ground when he arrived on American soil.
In Europe, he had decided to make a go of it in Hollywood, where the silent movies were all the rage. Charles, Sr. had tried to guide him into law school, but there was an artistic side to his son, yearning to breathe.
Charles saw himself as an alternative to the “Lost Generation.” He had served “over there,” been wounded, and attained full manhood. In Paris, Stein, Fitzgerald and Hemingway were painting a picture of disillusionment, but Charles was still patriotic, conservative in his beliefs, a true believer in the promise of America.
He saw the movies as a perfect avenue for his expression of faith in his country. He felt that in the succeeding years the screen would provide for him a greater forum to express this feeling than the law, politics or writing “the great American novel.” At first, Charles, Jr. took a job as a sportswriter for the Los Angeles Times. On the side, he began to write a newsletter called “Out and About In Hollywood”, which covered the comings and goings of the celluloid heroes of the day - Rudy Valentino, Clara Bow, Doug Fairbanks, and the like.
It was a perfect gig. His USC connections gave him an in with his old coach, “Gloomy Gus” Henderson, and in 1925, the new coach, Howard Jones. Because he was young and had been a notable player himself, he was given virtual carte blanche amongst the players. In particular, Charles, Jr. became friendly with a ruggedly handsome blocking guard named Marion Morrison.
Morrison had prepped at Glendale High School, and was on scholarship at Southern Cal. When Morrison and Charles, Jr. got to know each other, Charles found that Morrison shared his conservative political values, and particularly was interested in his Hollywood connections, vis a vis, his access to actresses.
Charles, Jr. knew some of the right people over at Fox Studios, who needed plenty of extras to portray the Roman Legion, Napoleon’s Army, and the U.S. Cavalry in the blockbusters of that period.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association had not yet been formed, and the under-the-table paying of college athletes was rampant, especially at USC. It got so bad that other schools bastardized their fight song, changing the lyrics from:
“Fight on, for old SC,
our men fight on
to victory.”
to:
“Fight on, for old SC
the fullback needs
his salary.”
Coach Jones loved it. At Iowa, where he had coached before, there were precious few inducements to get his players to play there. Now, in Hollywood’s backyard, he could offer his charges a chance to get paid for bit parts in movies. The real inducement, of course, was the glamour of film making, and the pretty girls that went along with it.
In the history of college recruiting, nothing has ever proved to be a better sell than the promise of access to beautiful girls. USC was in the beginning stages of establishing one of the greatest, and most long-lasting football traditions in history. Sex was the driving force behind the Tradition of Troy.
In the mid-1920s, it all came to a head, literally, and Charles Taylor, Jr. was the alum behind it. He arranged to interview the actress Clara Bow at her home. Clara was the “it girl” of that era, a woman of indescribable beauty and sex appeal. Charles, Jr. barely got his interview. He was too busy satiating the sexual needs of Clara Bow, who was a certifiable nymphomaniac if ever there was one.
Finally, after hours of licking, sucking, fornicating and fingering, Clara sat back, covered in sweat and other “fluids,” and let Charles, Jr. finish the interview. When it was over, she inquired of his association with the USC football team.
“I just love football,” she said. “That is, I just love football players. I want you to me a favor.”
What she told Charles, Jr. at that point aroused him so much that he immediately developed an erection more potent than the one he had arrived with, several hours before, and which he used to satisfy Clara’s appetites to the nth degree until he collapsed in exhaustion after midnight in her bed.
That week, Clara Bow’s request led Charles, Jr. to show up at Morrison’s fraternity house. He told his young friend that he had to help him with something. So it was that, a couple weeks later, on a Saturday night, the entire University of Southern California football team, along with a few friends, hangers-on and athletes from other teams like baseball and track, arrived by caravan at the home of Clara Bow.
An English butler seated them and served them drinks. For 45 minutes they sat in chairs and various states of nervous, excited repose in Clara’s living room. Finally, Clara arrived in a fashionably risqué dress. She made small talk with the fellows, then removed the dress, standing in the middle of the room adorned only in French lingerie.
Marion Morrison was the first to make a move. He walked up to her, and began to kiss her. For the rest of the evening, and on into the wee morning hours, the Trojans gave it to Clara Bow from every conceivable angle. She displayed amazing oral techniques, and demanded to be penetrated anally, which required some doing on the part of the football players who had the gumption to be sodomites in front of their friends. Only a few were able to accomplish this task.
Thus was born the modern gangbang.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, for Marion Morrison, his football career at USC was short-lived. In the summer of 1926, he went with a friend to Newport Beach, where huge waves are created by rock formations under the water, known as The Wedge.
Many have called themselves “Victims of the Wedge” over the years. Morrison may have been the first. While body surfing in an effort to impress some girls on the beach, he was caught by the waves and found his body bouncing off The Wedge. When he emerged, he had a separated shoulder.
Fall practice was only a few weeks away, but Morrison was too scared to tell Jones about his freak injury, incurred while engaging in a frivolous activity and an attempt to impress girls.
When football began, Morrison could not block. He quickly lost his starting position, and with it his scholarship. A kid from modest means, he could not afford life at USC, a “rich kid’s” school, without the financial aid. “Duke,” as he was already called, soon found himself borrowing money from his frat brothers. They asked him to move out, so he went to Charles, Jr. for help.
Charles arranged for him to meet some executives at Fox, and the rest is the story of John Wayne.
Charles, Jr. established himself as a first-rate writer and publicist in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1928, he married a gorgeous actress named Denise Stoneham, and they had two boys. Charles III was born in 1931, and Daniel in 1932, both in Los Angeles. He wrote a sports column for the Los Angeles Times until 1933, and developed his newsletter, “Out and About In Hollywood”, into a leading publication of the silent era.
From 1933-34, Charles, Jr. lived in New York City, where he was financed by an “angel” who paid him handsomely to write three stage
plays, all of which were produced to success and acclaim.
He returned to Los Angeles, and sold his trade publication for a good price. Now a successful man of means, he bought a home in Beverly Hills, where the “new elite” was now living. He had grown up in the Hollywood Hills, but by the 1930s, the “west side” was all the rage.
By now he was a successful screenwriter. Despite a happy home life, two rambunctious boys and a perfect wife, Charles, Jr. was unable to be faithful for many years. There were too many temptations. He and Wayne were friends and would tomcat about town, or on boat trips to Catalina Island. He took many leading actresses and starlets of the 1930s to bed, but managed to keep it secret from Denise. Nobody ever knew whether she suspected. If she did, she maintained silence on the subject.
He loved his kids, and raised them to have the best of everything. They were athletic and smart, just like him; the apple of his eye. Eventually, in his late 40s, he had “gotten it out of my system,” and managed to stay faithful to his wife in all the remaining years of the marriage.
In the late 1930s, a writer friend, knowing that he had political connections, asked him to help form the Writer’s Guild.
“I went to one meeting,” he recalled in an interview some years later, “and was appalled to discover the most horrendous group of un-talented hacks you’ve ever seen, all agitating for something without earning it. I don’t s’pose I knew it at the time, but I was surrounded by Communists.”
Needless to say, Charles, Jr. did not help with getting the writers organized into a union.
In the 1940s, Charles, Jr. became a leading producer, and even directed several films. He came to realize what he had not realized at that meeting, that there was a Communist element to Hollywood. With the end of World War II, the alliance with the Soviet Union, and the beginning of the Cold War, it was apparent to him that sides were being taken.
He saw a growing liberal bias in the entertainment industry, but that was not what concerned him. Liberal bias was one thing. An American had a right to think what he wanted to. What he saw were propagandists for Stalin’s Russia, using their influence as writers and filmmakers to create a product that shed a favorable light on a regime that was now, obviously, an enemy of the United States.
He did not see espionage, but he suspected it. It was definitely a part of political Washington and London. In 1950, Charles, Jr. followed his father’s footsteps, being elected to Congress as a Republican. He was an ally of Richard Nixon, who was elected to the Senate that same year over Helen Gahagan Douglas, the wife of actor Melvyn Douglas.
Mrs. Douglas was so far to the left that Nixon painted her as “the pink lady,” as in “almost Red.” Charles, Jr. also found Ronald Reagan to be useful to him. Even though Reagan was still a Democrat, he was influential as president of the Screen Actors Guild in rooting out Communists within the industry, and he was ideologically aligned with Taylor. Charles, Jr. served California in the House of Representatives until 1961.
Charles, Jr.’s first-born son, Charles Taylor III, grew up in Beverly Hills, and played football and baseball at Beverly Hills High School from 1946-50. He was everything a first-born son was supposed to be. Tall, blonde, handsome, regal in bearing, he was a great athlete, a scholar, and popular. He met his wife, Lillith, his freshman year at Beverly Hills. They were married after they both graduated from USC. Everything he would ever touch would turn to gold. He had the Midas touch.
In 1949, Charles III matriculated at SC, where he played freshman football and baseball. In June of 1950, shortly after completion of his first year in college, the North Koreans crossed the 38th Parallel, launching war on the peninsula. Charles III’s father had lobbied for preparedness and diligence against Communist spies, provocateurs and saboteurs. Now, history was playing itself out. Years earlier, his father had made his political name warning against German war plans, and when they came to fruition he looked like a genius. This now happened to his son. Also, his sons faced a dilemma. Charles, Jr. had opted to go to war in 1917, even though he could have been protected.
In 1950, Charles III, a college freshman, could easily have stayed out of the war, but instead he dropped out of school, and joined the Marines. In World War II, a college dropout would have been welcomed into the Marine Aviators’ Corps, but now jets were the thing. The aviators were made up of hotshot Naval Academy graduates with the engineering skills to handle and understand jets.
Instead of using his old man to protect him, Charles III used his dad to help him cut past the red tape, and to get accepted into flight school without a degree. From 1950-53, he flew for the Marines. His buddies included Ted Williams and John Glenn. Twice he barely landed his flak-scarred aircraft. He was decorated and celebrated.
When the war ended, Charles III returned home to Lillith and a normal life. He played football at SC in 1953, ’54 and ’55, and graduated in 1956. He immediately married Lillith, then moved with her to the East, where he had been accepted at Yale Law School. He maintained his military career in the Reserves, where he eventually retired in 1964 with the rank of colonel, and would go by the title of Colonel Charles T. Taylor III for all the rest of his days.
For one year, Charles III showed promise at Yale Law School. Towards the end of his first year a Marine friend who had gone to work in the Eisenhower Administration offered him a chance to work for the State Department. That friend was Kip Wentworth, a Harvard lawyer who would be Charles III’s best lifelong confidante. Eventually, Wentworth would rise to the rank of Secretary of State.
Charles III always said leaving law school was the best decision he ever made. From 1957-59 he was a State Department attaché assigned to the staff of the Ambassador to the Court of Saint James in London. He could have made a big name for himself in politics. But he desired a career in the private sector, a chance to “stake my claim” monetarily.
For two years, 1960-61, he worked in a New York public relations firm owned by the father of another of his Marine flyboy pals. At the age of 30, Charles III was already a “man in full.”
He was the son and grandson of a Congressmen and a decorated war hero. He was a college football player of some note, a product of USC and Yale Law School, married with a son, with three years of experience as a diplomat in England. For two years he had worked in the “fast track” of the New York public relations and advertising world. He counted among his friends some of the best and brightest minds in politics, law, the military, and the media.
In 1961, he approached his father, recently retired from the House of Representatives, and asked for a loan to start his own business. His father gave him $1 million, which he used to form Taylor Communications, Inc., on the Miracle Mile of Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. He settled his family in Palos Verdes Estates.
For 10 years, he built Taylor Communications into the leading PR firm on the West Coast. They handled accounts of political campaigns in the U.S. and abroad, as well as top corporations.
In 1970, Charles III did what was expected of him. He ran for Congress, representing the Palos Verdes Peninsula and the South Bay section of L.A. County for 10 years. He became Secretary of Defense in 1981, a job he held during fours years of the Cold War (1981-85). Finally, at the age of 55, he stepped down as Secretary of Defense, and went on to a lucrative, high profile career as an author, television personality, investor and fellow at the Hoover Institute.
Charles III’s younger brother, Dan, attended Beverly Hills High School, where he was an All-CIF-Southern Section baseball, basketball and football star. Dan had it all. He was 6-4, 220 pounds, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Adonis from a wealthy, prominent family. Girls were crazy about him, and he loved them right back.
At USC, Dan starred in baseball for legendary coach Rod Dedeaux. On the field, he was an all-conference pitcher who possessed a flaming 90-mile an hour fastball. He was the starting quarterback on the football team, president of his fraternity, wrote for the student newspaper, and even appeared in school plays when
he found the time.
There was, however, a certain amount of tension during this period. Charles III had dropped out of SC to join the Marines in Korea. Dan opted to stay in school, and out of harm’s way. Nobody ever came right out and said it, but there was an unspoken understanding that Charles III had done something heroic, while Dan had not.
For the life of him, Dan never felt guilt. He was proud of his brother, but enjoyed the frat parties, the girls and the easy life of an athlete at a jock school, without giving it a thought that his brother was slogging through much harder times.
In those days, USC did not challenge one with a particularly rigorous academic curriculum, but Dan took to school with the same enthusiasm that he brought to everything else. He was interested in knowing about things, always wanting to learn more.
At a time when USC was a “rich white boys” school, whose fraternities were closed to minorities, Dan sought out and befriended the foreign students who were already populating the campus in large numbers.
Because of its geographical location, in the middle of an important, cosmopolitan city on the Pacific Rim, USC has always attracted wealthy foreign students. Many of these students are the sons and daughters of prominent businessmen, political figures and royalty from countries in the South Pacific, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Wealthy, attractive white boys and girls dominated the social scene at USC, while the foreign students would move about relatively unnoticed, sometimes in their turbans or other traditional dress. Because they were less tempted by the vagaries of frat or sorority life, these students often are among the most serious at USC.
Dan would find himself trying to study at Doheny Library, which was more often than not a pick-up spot and a place where an athlete such as himself would attract campus idolatry from other students. He found himself at the alternative library at USC, where most of the foreign-born students studied in solitude. Here, Dan found quiet time, and his curious side. He sought these kids out, and after initial confusion over the language barrier and his motives, many of them would open up to the smiling, friendly jock.
Dan was a solid B+ student, and he found stories of these kids’ backgrounds fascinating. For instance, he wanted to know about the tribal customs of the United Arab Emirates, where one student, it turned out, was in line for the crown.
Many Saudi students came to USC to study in the acclaimed engineering and natural resources schools, taking their knowledge back to their oil-rich states. Many sons and daughters of politicians and diplomats sent their children to USC to learn about democracy, and to soak up the atmosphere of this thriving American megalopolis.
Dan learned from them, and was a good ambassador for his country. More than just a few foreign students returned to their homelands, and informed their fellow countrymen that not all the white kids in the U.S. were vain and self-satisfied.
Dan graduated from USC, and signed a professional baseball contract with the Chicago White Sox. In his first year in the low minors, he led the league in earned run average and strikeouts, moving up to Double-A ball the next year, where he posted a 10-5 mark with a 3.17 ERA. It looked like he was on the fast track to Chicago and big league fame, but the years in between Korea and Vietnam, the military draft was still in place, and Dan was subject to it.
In order to avoid active duty, he joined the Army Reserves. The Reserves required attendance at a once-a-month “drill.” The soldiers are known as “weekend warriors.” For two weeks every Summer, every unit goes to an active base for two weeks of annual training. Because his Summers were taken up with baseball, Dan arranged with a sympathetic commander, who was a big baseball fan, to do his two weeks in the winter at Fort Ord, near Monterey.
On a cold, wet day, Dan was riding in the back of an Army truck with some other soldiers. The truck skidded on a patch of wet road, and Dan was thrown from the truck, landing on his left arm, his pitching arm. The Army doctor told him he had sustained calcium chip damage to his elbow and shoulder, but he could not determine what the effect would be on his baseball career. He would have to let it heal properly, which would take time.
The injury occurred in January. In February, Dan reported to the White Sox Spring Training camp in Sarasota, Florida, but he never told anybody about the injury. When he began to throw, he was in pain and was ineffective.
Instead of being promoted to Triple-A, or even getting elevated to the White Sox for the trip north, Dan found himself demoted to Class A. That year, he pitched in agony, and was hit hard. Eventually, the White Sox discovered his injury, and he was released.
Dan had enrolled at Loyola Marymount University Law School in the fall of 1956. At first, he had planned to attend in the fall, and to play baseball in the Spring and Summer. Now, released by the White Sox, he became a full-time law student. A few months into law school, the Los Angeles Rams called and asked if he would like to try football again. Perhaps the pain was something that would not affect his ability to throw a football.
Dan came to camp in top shape. while the baseball injury was not a major impediment to his football ability, he had been away from the game for several years, and was not up to the pro game. The Rams cut him after he had performed poorly during their exhibition schedule.
Dan was a guy who found new challenges, and law school now received his full attention. He made it through with flying colors, graduating near the top of his class, a member of the law review, after three years. He passed the California bar exam in his first try.
It was during this time that Dan met Shirley Larson. Shirley was a typical Newport Beach debutante, a senior at USC who drove an expensive sports car with the vanity plates, “ILUVDAD.” She was blonde and built, a sorority girl whose father had been a Trojan, and was a big fan of Dan Taylor.
Shirley met Dan when she interned at Adams, Duque & Hazeltine, a white shoe downtown L.A. law firm run by influential Southern California Republicans. Dan Taylor was sure not a Democrat, and neither was Shirley Larson. Shirley immediately recognized Dan; his name, because her father had so often uttered praise for his athletic accomplishments, and his face, because he had been a regular on television during his football career. She called Daddy that first night, excitedly telling her father about working in a law firm with Dan Taylor.
“If he asks you out,” Walt Larson told her, “I’ll have no objections.”
It was during this period that Dan was studying for the bar, and establishing himself at Adams, Duque & Hazeltine. Young lawyers go through an initiation process not unlike internists at major hospitals. They are worked almost to death, both in terms of studying for the bar and handling caseloads for the firm.
Every day, Shirley came to work wearing an attractive, form-fitting dress, her hair done just right, hoping to attract Dan’s attention. They were introduced early in her employment, and she made a point of mentioning that she had gone to USC and knew all about his football career. He had smiled, but not shown much interest.
The fact is that Dan did notice Shirley from the first moment he saw her, but he was too busy to do anything about it. He had graduated from Loyola Law School in May, which was right around the time that Shirley came on board as a Summer intern. She was heading into her senior year at USC. Every Summer up to now she had moved back home, to Newport, for a summer of beach going and parties. However, a tradition at USC is to live ones’ senior year not in campus housing, but in the South Bay.
USC, for all of its wealth and prestige, is located in a bad part of town, on the edge of Watts, in an area known as South Central L.A. Campus housing is none too extravagant. Many of the students prefer to move to the South Bay in their last year. The South Bay, which is a stretch of seaside towns ranging from Manhattan Beach to the north to Hermosa, Redondo, and then Palos Verdes Estates, on a hilly peninsula to the south, is a relatively easy commute to school, offering a free, easy lifestyle of bar hopping and fun outdoor activities to the attractive singles who make up its eclectic enclav
es.
To live there is to live in almost surreal surroundings, like waking up every day in the middle of a Beach Boys song, or the set of “Baywatch”. More appropriate to that era, it was like being in a Frankie Avalon-Annette Funicello flick. Once a young man has lived there, and seen all the beautiful girls who decorate the bars, or roller skate along the boardwalk, he may be “spoiled” for life.
Shirley had moved into an expensive beach house in Hermosa, sharing rent with three other girlfriends. All of them were sexy USC coeds. That Summer, she worked at Adams, Duque & Hazeltine, reporting more often than not with a hangover and little sleep.
Incredibly, she maintained her sexual decorum. She was not a virgin, but she was not promiscuous, either, although opportunities presented themselves on a daily basis. Guys hit on her in her car, on the beach, at the supermarket, and of course in bars. She and her girlfriends populated every bar from Manhattan Beach to Redondo Beach, and the other three were anything but discreet. Her girlfriends often did not come hope at night, or came home with guys. It was a wild Summer.
Shirley had been raised well by her mother and father. They attended an Episcopalian Church every Sunday, and while she was by no means a Puritan, she possessed common sense when it came to matters of chastity, birth control, social disease, and general reckless behavior.
When she saw Dan Taylor, she knew he was the kind of serious man she could go for. All his life, Dan had always been the type of fellow who would have been one of those guys in the bedroom of her girlfriends. Opportunities always presented themselves to him, starting at Beverly Hills High, at USC and in the minor leagues, where women were plentiful.
Dan’s family was not particularly religious, but he had a sense of honor, nevertheless. Despite his experiences, he preferred “good girls” when it came to serious relationships. At first glance, Shirley did not look like she fit that mold. She was quite beautiful, and dressed in a relatively provocative manner. He had “broken down” many girls like this at school, enjoying the conquest of bedding some rich deb.
Still, he kept his eye on her, when he had a few seconds of free time. The bar exam was held in mid-Summer. Dan took it and knew he had passed immediately. However, the results do not come out until just before Thanksgiving. The passage of time had allowed his mind to play tricks on him, to the point where he was convinced up to the last minute that he had failed. Of course, he passed.
Normally, after taking the three-day exam, a prospective attorney would relax and take some time off, perhaps to ingest alcohol intravenously. Dan would have gone for that, but the firm just increased his workload once the exam was out of the way. There was no time for partying or women. He was in the office six to seven days a week, often until nine or 10 at night. As a professional ballplayer, Dan had often relaxed in bars after games, chasing girls until all hours, then sleeping in until noon before rising to grab a leisurely meal, read the paper, and head back out to the park.
Now he was busting his butt in to the office, often on less-than-needed sleep, by nine in the morning. He was living in Hermosa Beach at the time, only a few blocks from Shirley, but he never went out any more, and never saw her. His parents owned his beach cottage. They had purchased it as a semi-vacation getaway.
Dan had lived at home in Beverly Hills during his first year at Loyola. His dad, still in Congress, was often out of town, and his mother spent a fair amount of time in Washington. Dan then moved in to the beach cottage. He liked the South Bay, and thought he would like to live in this part of Los Angeles. He had seen many changes in Beverly Hills over the years. It was increasingly Jewish, and Dan was not Jewish. He had even noticed that sometimes in high school his Jewish classmates referred him to as goyum, or Gentile.
He also noticed that the Beverly Hills scene was increasingly populated by Middle Easterners; Persians from Iran and Arabs from Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. Dan, the guy who enjoyed seeking out and talking to foreigners, still felt increasingly out of place in his hometown. He could not put his finger on it. He was certainly not prejudiced. He was a big fan of black baseball stars like Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. He had befriended many black and Latino players in his minor league days. Still, there was a sense of falseness in Beverly Hills that had not been there when he was growing up. It had always been a Hollywood town, and his dad, the screenwriter/director, was a part of that, but the “black list” of the McCarthy 1950s had created a division in the industry.
A sense of “us vs. them” permeated the business. Charles, Jr. spoke about it. He was old school, a friend of Reagan who had supported him when he was president of the Screen Actors Guild, and he had cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee, when they came to root out the Communists.
Charles, Jr., the Hollywood insider who was newly elected to Congress, testified before HUAC as a witness in 1950.
“Hell, yeah, there’s Communists in Hollywood,” he told the committee, “And they’re using our industry to promote a Soviet version of the world. How can you watch `Song of Russia’ and not see this, plain as day? There’s Communists in the union, for sure. A lot of folks flirted with Communism in the 1930s. We were in a Depression, so folks were desperate. I can even see it, even though I never thought about it personally. I guess I just had faith in my country. But when what Stalin had done to the farmers - collectivization, I think they called it - and millions died, hell…anybody who could read and wasn’t retarded and had access to news could see it wasn’t a system worth livin’ in.
“I know we joined up with the Reds because of the war, so even then I can sympathize with people supporting them. They were our allies against the Nazis. A lot of writers and people working in Hollywood are Jewish, so they can be forgiven for supporting the Reds against Hitler. But Lord Almighty, enough’s enough. Stalin broke every agreement he made with Truman. He enslaved all of Eastern Europe. Now China’s gone Red, we’re at war in Korea. Hiss was a spy. There’s spies all over this country, and `fellow travelers.’ Yeah, we’ve got Communists on our front door, I know who the hell a lot of ‘em are, and I’m not gonna let ’em ruin my country if I can help it.”
So Charles, Jr. named names. In the succeeding years, he was supported by some, some, excoriated by others. Increasingly, and now Dan was seeing it, many of those “excoriating” his father and other conservatives in and out of Hollywood, were Jewish. Dan knew that many Jews had been denied membership in frats at USC. He knew many could not join exclusive country clubs, and he had heard the denigrating remarks. “Hymie,” “Jew boy,” Hebe.” But Dan also saw how successful many of them were. After all, to be able to afford to live in Beverly Hills, one had to be wealthy.
Dan could not square these two realities, that on the one hand America was an anti-Semitic place, yet on the other, Jews were highly successful at almost every turn. He was as patriotic as one can get, yet so many Jews were ultra-liberal, and seemed to place blame on America for everything that went wrong in the world.
It was America that had saved Europe, and it was America that had used its political influence to forge the creation of Israel. It was America where a nice Jewish kid could get an Ivy League education, or work in a glamour industry like show business. What could justify leaning so far to the left as to be what Joseph Stalin used to call “a useful idiot”? Why was it so many spies and out-and-out Communist sympathizers were Jewish? The Rosenberg’s, for instance. If ever a group of people should have been conservative and patriotic, it was the Jews.
So, Dan felt increasingly alienated by Beverly Hills, and more at home in Hermosa, where the neighborhoods were upscale and clean. Not that Beverly Hills was not upscale and clean. For God’s sake, it was so clean you could eat off the ground. It was more than upscale. It was pretentious. Hermosa, however, just seemed, more and more, to be a nice place to raise a family. In the fresh surf air, a kid could live the California Dream.
Dan had slept with a lot of girls, most of whom he would not bring home t
o show off to his mother. He had partied with the best of ‘em. Now, for the first time, he felt like it might be time to settle down.
Shirley knew Dan had taken the bar, and had hoped that the passage of this event would free him up to do something with his time, like take her out. Alas, July turned into August, her internship had precious few days left, and still she had not made any leeway in her efforts at getting Dan Taylor to notice her.
Or so she thought.
Finally, on her last day at Adams, Duque & Hazeltine, a cake party was thrown for all the interns. Shirley was there, of course, and for half an hour she looked for Dan, who was a no-show. Finally, most of the lawyers, secretaries and interns had left, and the “party” was on its last leg, when Dan walked in. He had been in court. He looked harried. Shirley saw him, and sensed something. She just thought he looked like he had taken that extra step to make sure he was at this little soiree. Many Adams, Duque employees were not there. A lot of the attorneys were in court or were just busy with clients. Now Dan was here. He looked around, and saw Shirley. He settled on her for just a second, then looked at the cake.
“Any cake left?” he asked to nobody in particular.
“Yeah,” said Shirley, instinctively. “Let me get you some.”
“Hey thanks,” said Dan.
Shirley went and scooped up some cake, and handed it to Dan.
“Looks good,” he said. “I haven’t eaten lunch.”
“You work too hard,” remarked Shirley.
“Tell that to the boss,” he said, laughing.
A couple of seconds passed.
“So you go to SC,” said Dan. It was a statement, not a question.
“Yeah,” said Shirley, brightening. “This is my senior year coming up.”
“You gonna go to law school?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied. “What do think of women lawyers?”
“Women lawyers?” he said, smiling. Then he looked at her, and gave her the once-over. “That all depends who the woman is?”
Was this flirting?
“How do you like those apartments over there?” asked Dan. “Or do you live in a sorority?”
“Oh, I lived in the sorority for three years,” she said, “But I’m staying down at the beach until I graduate.”
Dan’s eyes perked up.
“The South Bay?” he inquired.
“Hermosa,” she said.
“Hermosa?” exclaimed Dan. “Where in Hermosa?”
“Just south of the pier.”
“How far south of the pier?”
“Three blocks,” she said.
“Son of a gun,” he said. “We’re neighbors.”
Dan told her where he lived. Then arrived the moment of truth.
“What are you doing tonight?” he asked.
“Tonight?” she asked.
“Yes, this evening,” smiled Dan. “After work. After dark. When the sun goes down.”
Shirley Larsonthen went for repartee. Momentum was on her side.
“Why, I’m going to dinner with you,” she said.
Dan’s eyebrows arched like Dr. Spock on those old “Star Trek” episodes. He laughed.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
Oh my God, have I made an ass of myself? thought Shirley to herself. Then she started to get mad. She knew she was beautiful. What could be the matter with this guy, was the Trojan football jock gay or something?
“I mean, I haven’t been out with a woman in so long,” said Dan Taylor, “that I can’t guarantee your, uh, safety.”
Shirley could not help but laugh.
“Why haven’t you been out with a woman?” she asked. “Don’t you have a girlfriend?”
“No time,” he said. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been doing for the past six months? This isn’t a law firm, it’s a slave labor camp. It’s a gulag.”
He glanced around, smiling yet furtive.
“I mean, I’m not complaining,” he said. “For a first job in practice, it’s awesome. I had good grades and everything, but I played ball at USC -”
“I know,” she interrupted him. “I thought you had your own TV channel. My father likes you more than me.”
Dan thought that was a good one.
“I like that,” he said, smiling, “but somehow doubt it. Anyway, the hours put in by a first-year guy, I’m not even a lawyer yet. Then there’s the bar. It wouldn’t be fair to any girl.”
“So now you have time?” she asked.
“Well, not really,” he said, “but I took the bar a couple weeks ago. All the others who took the exam said they were going to Hawaii or Mexico or some place to get drunk. Me, I was in the office at nine the next day. I felt like the partners were gonna dock my pay for time missed when I took the exam. I haven’t been out, I haven’t had time for bars or restaurants…or women…until now.”
“Why now?” she said, a little smile working the side of her mouth and a twinkle in her eye.
“Because,” said Dan Taylor, “life is too short.”
That night, a Friday, Dan walked two blocks to Shirley’s rented beach house and knocked on the door. Monica Ringwald, an exceptionally curvy girl, answered it. The fact that she had a bikini top on when Dan arrived was by no means an accident.
“Dan Taylor,” said Monica, who had never met him, “it’s about time you called on us.”
Monica was the roommate most likely to not come home at night, or if she did, to not come alone. She was not above stealing boyfriends and dates.
“Stop molesting my boss,” called Shirley, who arrived at that moment, wearing a Summer dress that was sexy, yet did not say, “screw me” the way Monica’s “clothes” usually did.
“You’re boss?” asked Dan.
“Well, not anymore, I guess,” said Shirley.
“Let me get my bar results before I can start calling myself boss,” laughed Dan.
“So, where are we going?” asked Shirley.
“Okay, I’ve thought about this,” said Dan, “and I’ve been waiting for just the right moment, which is now. We’re not driving anywhere, we’re walking to the pier, to that little music joint. They always have live tunes on Fridays. We’re gonna get drunk, and I’m not working tomorrow.”
“Oh boy,” said Shirley, “you’re an older man and you’re gonna corrupt me.”
“Yeah, I’m a veritable Methuselah,” said Dan, “and I’m sure you’ve been corrupted before.”
“Is not working on Saturdays a big deal?” she asked.
“It’ll be a first for me since I started at Adams, Duque,” he answered.
So it went from there. Dan Taylor walked Shirley Larson two blocks to a little rock music hangout. It was still Summer, and their seat next to the window overlooked the perfect Pacific Ocean, where an awesome sunset was settling like a fiery ball beyond the watery depths. People were still milling about on the boardwalk, and in the place, dressed from their day at the beach. It was a casual a place, and the drinks flowed free and easy.
Dan looked at Shirley, who was practiced at drinking from her time as a little sorority sister at USC. She was completely relaxed and comfortable. Later in his life he would try to pinpoint what his feelings were and when he felt them. He knew that he wanted to make love to this girl, that he thought she was the coolest chick he had ever met. He knew he wanted to marry her.
He probably felt all those feelings before the door had closed behind them at her house, and by his third drink (screwdrivers for him, Budweiser for her), he had re-enforced his opinion on each of these matters. He had a way with girls. Since his sophomore year in high school, he had never had a problem trying to get girls to go to bed with him. He felt that if he put on a full court press, this girl would be waking up next to him the next morning.
However, the third thing he felt, that he wanted her to someday be his wife, had been the deciding factor in a decision he made then and there. The decision was that he was not going to t
ake this girl to bed. Not tonight, and not any time soon.
He knew this would not be easy. He was hornier than a bucket of bullfrogs, not having had any sex for months. He had been so busy and focused on his job and the bar that he had almost never “taken matters into his own hands,” to pardon the pun.
In those days, a young, virile man did not have as many outlets for his sexual needs as today’s kids, who have pornography on cable TV, on video and on the Internet to, uh, keep them occupied. Heck, a lot of modern men think it is better than the real thing.
But Dan was disciplined, and he also liked to “hold the edge,” as he called it. He would not have sex, and he would not achieve release. He would let himself yearn for this woman, her body, her sex. It would all be worth it.
Shirley, of course, knew none of this. She knew all about the dark secrets that occupy the souls of young, handsome men, and there was no reason for Dan to be different. She had not made a decision on how she would handle the inevitable approach that would happen, sooner or later. With drinks, probably sooner.
The two were relaxed, laughing at the eclectic mix of partygoers who filled up this joint. They were having a grand old time, drinking and enjoying each other’s company.
Dan was a smart fellow, and while the conversation was light-hearted, he also enjoyed querying her on serious topics, like the split between China and the Soviet Union, and its effect on what people were now calling the Cold War.
Shirley had never been with a man who solicited her opinions on such matters, and discovered to her great satisfaction that, while she was not ready to be a State Department desk chief, she had formed a solid base of knowledge on history, politics and current affairs.
As a young girl, her father had insisted that she read the front page of the Los Angeles Times. She had at first been bored with the process, but Dad stayed on her by quizzing her, and Shirley had a “daddy’s little girl” way of pleasing the old man.
By her junior year at Newport Harbor High School, she was very well read and knowledgeable. Her friends and boys rarely saw it, but in class the teachers would sometimes shift to Aristotle-like give-and-take discussions on matters of importance. Shirley would dive right in, at first to the amusement of her classmates, who would say they never realized she was such a “brain.”
At USC, she carried a subscription to the Times, and she held her own with some of the whiz kids who occupied seats next to her. At SC, the foreign students and the out-of-staters were the most serious. She fell within that category of “Newport Beach sorority girls” or “San Marino debutantes” that were supposed to be there just to look for a husband. She carried a B average. It would have been higher, but she did spend a lot of time socializing, which cut into her study time. Still, majoring in communications, she had gotten a lot out of her college years.
Now, at age 21, sitting with young, hot shot lawyer-to-be Dan Taylor, it was paying off. Dan was totally turned on by her intellect. Furthermore, he discovered that she was a Republican. This was not a surprise, considering the conservative nature of Newport Beach and the fact that USC was a “Republican school,” a holdout in an ivory tower world of liberalism that was taking over campuses from Cambridge to Berkeley.
So, aside from her angelic voice, silky smooth blonde hair, and stunning figure, Dan was impressed with Shirley’s brainpower, which he considered to be a major bonus in the “boy meets girl” scenario. He would not try to sleep with her. If she made advances towards him, he would resist. He quietly shook himself, wondering for a second if there could be something wrong with him for thinking such radical thoughts.
That night, he and Shirley got roaring drunk, laughing every step of the way. They engaged in conversation with other bar patrons, made requests of the band, and had a great time. For Dan, it was a tonic after his long, arduous struggles with the bar exam and his new job.
For Shirley, it was a different kind of party. This was her first date with an “older” man, albeit only a few years her senior, but he was different from the boys she had known in college. She, too, felt she had made a connection with a man she could see in her future.
She also decided that she would sleep with him, and felt that it was inevitable that it would come down to that. She was excited about the prospect, and in fact wanted to please him in every way, to leave him feeling that he had been with a real woman, not a girl.
Eventually, they made the rounds of all the bars that made up the pier area of Hermosa Beach. Her suspicions seemed to be confirmed when, at closing time, the two ambled out of the last bar, arm in arm. Walking home, Dan stopped, gazed in her eyes, and they started kissing. It was a passionate, sexual embrace, full of roving hands and tongues. Dan was hard and Shirley felt it. Excitement pulsed through her body at the thought of being with him.
They kissed, walked, stopped, kissed some more. The two-block walk took 20 minutes. Finally, they passed Dan’s house, which was first on the way home. Shirley stopped him and said, “You live here, right? Want to go in?”
“I don’t think so,” he replied.
“It’s quieter than where I live with roommates,” she responded.
Dan looked at her.
“I know,” he said. “Shirley, you’re the most exciting girl I’ve ever spent any time with, and I’d love to take you to bed and worship you from head to toe. Some day I will. Not tonight. I’ve never turned down sex in my life, but something tells me you are so special that I’m going to wait. When we do make love, it’s going to be unbelievable.”
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“Are you mad?” he asked her.
Shirley thought about it.
“I think you’re incredible,” she said, and then she kissed him.
Quietly, they made their way back to her little house, where they kissed again at the front door. She invited him in, but he declined. When the door closed behind her, Shirley slumped on the couch in the darkness, and stared at the moonlit ocean out her window.
“Mrs. Dan Taylor,” she said to herself.
