Alf snorted. “Sure, I just walked up to Zelinsky and asked for a Playboy. And a six-pack. And a crack pipe, too, because why not? Are you crazy?”
We all knew that buying Playboy was out of the question. It was hard enough buying rock music, what with Jerry Falwell warning of satanic influences, and Tipper Gore alerting parents to explicit lyrics. No shopkeeper in America was going to sell Playboy to a fourteen-year-old boy.
“Howard Stern says the pictures are incredible,” Clark explained. “He said you see both boobs super close-up. Nipples, milk ducks, the works.”
“Milk ducks?” I asked.
“Ducts, with a T,” Clark corrected.
“The red rings around the nipples,” Alf explained.
Clark shook his head. “Those are areolas, dummy. The milk duct is the hollow part of the nipple. Where the milk squirts out.”
“Nipples aren’t hollow,” Alf said.
“Sure they are,” Clark said. “That’s why they’re sensitive.”
Alf yanked up his T-shirt, exposing his flabby chest and belly. “What about mine? Are my nipples hollow?”
Clark shielded his eyes. “Put them away. Please.”
“I don’t have hollow nipples,” Alf insisted.
They were always vying to prove which one knew more about girls. Alf claimed authority because he had three older sisters. Clark got all of his information from the ABZ of Love, the weird Danish sex manual he’d found buried in his father’s underwear drawer. I didn’t try to compete with either one of them. All I knew was that I didn’t know anything.
Eventually seven thirty rolled around and Wheel of Fortune came on. Alf and Clark were still arguing about milk ducts, so I turned the TV volume all the way up. Since we had the house to ourselves, we could be as loud and noisy as we wanted.
“Look at this studio, filled with glamorous prizes! Fabulous and exciting merchandise!” Every episode started the same way, with announcer Charlie O’Donnell previewing the night’s biggest treasures. “An around-the-world vacation, a magnificent Swiss watch, and a brand-new Jacuzzi hot tub! Over eighty-five thousand dollars in prizes just waiting to be won on Wheel of Fortune!”
The camera panned the showroom full of luggage and houseboats and food processors. Showing off the merchandise was the greatest prize of all, Vanna White herself, five foot six, 115 pounds, and draped in a $12,000 chinchilla fur coat. Alf and Clark stopped bickering, and we all leaned closer to the screen. Vanna was, without doubt, the most beautiful woman in America. Sure, you could argue that Michelle Pfeiffer had nicer eyes and Kathleen Turner had better legs and Heather Locklear had the best overall body. But we worshipped at the altar of the Girl Next Door. Vanna White had a purity and innocence that elevated her above the rest.
Clark shifted closer to me and tapped my knee with the Claw. “I’m going to Zelinsky’s tomorrow,” he said. “I want to see this cover for myself.”
I said, “I’ll come with you,” but I never took my eyes off the screen.
200 REM *** ESTABLISHING DIFFICULTY ***
210 PRINT "{CLR}{15 CSR DWN}"
220 PRINT "SELECT SKILL LEVEL"
230 PRINT "EASY-1 NORMAL-2 EXTREME-3"
240 INPUT "YOUR CHOICE? ";SL
250 IF SL<1 OR >3 THEN GOTO 200
260 IF SL=1 THEN PK=10
270 IF SL=2 THEN PK=15
280 IF SL=3 THEN PK=20
290 RETURN
WE LIVED IN WETBRIDGE, five miles west of Staten Island, in a geographic region known to stand-up comics as the Armpit of New Jersey. We had factories and fuel refineries, dirty rivers and traffic snarls, densely packed single-family homes, and plenty of Catholic churches. If you wanted to buy anything, you had to go “downtown,” a two-block stretch of mom-and-pop businesses adjacent to the train station. Downtown had a bike shop, a pet shop, a travel agency, and a half-dozen clothing stores. All of these places had thrived during the fifties and sixties, but by 1987 they were slowly and stubbornly going out of business, squeezed by competition from all the new shopping malls. Most days I was free to race my bike along the sidewalks, because there were never any shoppers blocking my way.
Zelinsky’s Typewriters and Office Supplies was the only store in town that sold Playboy. It sat opposite the train station on Market Street, a two-story brick building with antique typewriters in the windows. The awning over the door advertised “Manual Electric Ribbons * Repair,” but most of Zelinsky’s business came from the newsstand just inside the front door. He sold cigarettes and newspapers and hot coffee to commuters rushing for their morning trains.
We left our bikes in a heap on the sidewalk, and Clark went inside to confirm Alf’s story. He emerged moments later, face flushed, looking dazed.
“Did you see it?” I asked. “Are you okay?”
Clark nodded. “It’s on a rack behind the register. Just like he said.”
“And her butt’s on the cover,” Alf added.
“And her butt’s on the cover,” Clark admitted.
We squeezed onto a bench to discuss strategy. It was three thirty in the afternoon and it felt good to be outside; it was the warmest day of the year so far, and summer was just around the corner.
“I’ve got it all figured out,” Alf said. He glanced around to make sure the coast was clear. “We’ll hire someone to buy it.”
“Hire someone?” I asked.
“The magazine costs four dollars, and we need three copies. So that’s twelve bucks total. But we’ll pay someone twenty bucks to buy them. We get the Playboys, they keep eight dollars in profit. Just for buying magazines!”
Alf spoke like this was a magnificent revelation, like he’d hatched a plan to steal gold from Fort Knox. But when Clark and I looked around Main Street, all we saw were moms pushing baby strollers and some old people waiting for the bus.
“None of these people will help us,” I said.
“None of these people,” Alf corrected, putting the emphasis in its proper place. “We just need to be patient until the right person comes along. Operation Vanna is all about patience.”
Alf was the mastermind of all our greatest capers, like Operation Big Gulp (in which we shoplifted music cassettes using sixty-four-ounce soda cups from the 7-Eleven) and Operation Royal Dump (in which we destroyed a school toilet using M-80 fireworks). He got a thrill from breaking rules and challenging authority, and when he set his mind on a goal, he would pursue it for weeks with dogged determination. It was only a matter of time, my mother warned, before Alf was imprisoned or dead.
We sat huddled on the bench, watching the cars drift along Market Street, scrutinizing every pedestrian. We all agreed that we needed a man—but that was the problem, there were no men walking around Wetbridge at three thirty in the afternoon. All the men were busy at work. And every time a guy did come along, we’d invent a reason to disqualify him: “He looks too young.”
“He looks too old.”
“He looks too mean.”