It’s been a long time since I got groped. Long enough that I almost forgot about it. Suddenly, happily, the memory is with me again.
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Let’s get back to getting groped. That’s what I want to remember, those days when I was a sower of wild oats, mostly the fermented kind. From bar to bar, my companions and I would wander. This was in south-suburban Blue Island, which had 55 bars in a town of 16,000, and out of these 55 bars there were only two into which women would go–unless you count women like my mother who was not about to wait for Gloria Steinem to tell her what she could or could not do. But even she would not go into the Downhill Club–which was where I got groped. Possibly this was because my father was known to inhabit the place, although he preferred Andy Myer’s, where he regularly got fleeced by cardplayers better than he. In other words, almost anyone who knew the rules to five-card draw.
The Downhill Club got its name because it was midway down the famous Western Avenue hill, which now has been covered over by some kind of a huge viaduct. Imagine stepping out of a bar after a night of heavy drinking and finding the sidewalk at a 30-degree angle. But it was only a half block from my house. All I had to do was crawl up the hill and I’d be home.
Notice how I’m padding out this story. Otherwise it would have been over in the first paragraph. Because that’s how long it took. I opened the door, stepped into the Downhill Club, heard a tremendous roar of male laughter, and then it happened.
Of course Doug wasn’t the only man present. There were 14 other men in the workshop, presumably they got groped too. And there were other workshops, who knows how many, who knows how many men eventually got groped. The newspaper story says “several” made complaints. Speaking as a writer, and as a retired police officer–these professions are oddly linked–I know that when you say “several” or “a number of” what you mean is more than one. But not enough to say “many.”
Trixie? Trixie? Where are you now that I need you?
