WHY KEVIN WELCH WAS A DOUCHE BAG

You may or may not recall a previous story entitled Why Howie Bloom Was A Mensche. A mensche being a man or a more accurately, a stand up guy. It’s a Yiddish word which is fitting because Howie was Jewish, and his nickname was Howie the Jew. We all had nicknames back in the Bronx. Billy Destefano was Billy Bag-O-Pretzels because he always bought 3 or 4 of the big, wet pretzels from Pekula’s Bakery on our way to school in the mornings. Patrick Fitzgibbons earned the title of "Pat the Cat" because when he was six his family’s cat attacked his crotch drawing blood and lots of screams from Pat (actually, we're not really positive how it happened and not sure we really wanted to know) There was Jimmy “Black n White" for obvious reasons, but also because he liked those black and white cookies you got in delis and bakeries. Liking them was an understatement; he was addicted to them to the tune of four or five a day.  In fact, Jimmy White could have been called “Jimmy Jumbo”, but Jimmy “Black n White" was kinder. I was dubbed Bobby Tremont Ave. because I lived on Tremont Ave. So why was Kevin Welch  a douche bag?

This is going to elicit gales of laughter from anyone reading this who even remotely knows me, but I am, and always have been, a fairly shy and introverted guy. Oh, I can hear the guffawing, groaning and gagging now. But it’s true. I am a very shy guy when I’m around strangers. I am especially shy when it comes to approaching members of the opposite sex. I’d rather be boiled in oil than ask out a girl who I was not 150% sure wanted to go out with me. Even then I’m a bit reticent. I always envisioned the scenario where your friends tell you that so in so wants to go out with you, so you screw up the courage and go ask her out with voice cracking and she looks at you like you have nine heads, laughs and says, “Uh, I don’t think so.” Meanwhile, your “friends” are off to the side laughing to beat the band and you’re left looking a prize winning jag off. I just didn’t have a whole lot of self-confidence when it came to the opposite sex, so being ten, and in love with Debbie Weeks, put me at a distinct disadvantage.

In an earlier story I mentioned that I was a member of the Sea Cadets. This was a naval version of the Boy Scouts complete with U.S. Naval approved uniforms and run by retired members of the U.S. Navy. Sea Cadets/Boy Scouts? Cool uniforms/khaki shorts and a soda fountain guy’s hat?  No question, Sea Cadets every time. We’d meet every Friday night in the basement of St. Dom’s Church. That’s short for St. Dominic’s…see even dead saints had nicknames in our neighborhood. At Cadets we’d learn all there was for us to learn about being in the military…specifically the Navy. We were bad asses because we wore military uniforms and on the way home from meetings on Friday we’d stop at Carl’s for pizza and act like we were on shore leave. Well as close to it as ten year olds could. You’re probably wondering where are parents were. Home. This was the late 1950’s in New York. Kids grew up at a two to one age ratio to kids in the south. In other words a New York ten year old was the equivalent to a twenty year-old Southern boy. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Maybe even more than just a bit of an exaggeration, but we were much more mature than ten year olds today, and we were allowed to go trick or treating alone till 10 p.m. and walk home from cadet meetings at 11 on Friday nights. It was a different world back then. Oddly enough, with the “mother network” back then, I think kids got in less trouble than today. If you did something wrong twenty blocks from home, by the time you got home your mother already knew about it and you were punished; the severity of which depended on the offense. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the “mother network,” I lived in a ginormous apartment complex called Parkchester in the Bronx…177^th St. and Hugh J. Grant Circle on the #6 Pelham Bay Line (subway). Parkchester was a city within a city, divided into quadrants or “quads” as we called them. There was the North, East, South and West quads and I lived in the North. It didn’t matter what quad you were in, if you did something wrong and a mother saw you, within minutes the network went to work and word was passed on and passed on until it finally reached your mother. The network even had agents outside the perimeters of Parkchester in places where their children frequented, ie. St. Dominic’s on Morris Park Rd. had agents assigned to the mothers of Billy, Pat, Howie, Tommy and myself. But occasionally we were able to find cracks in the network and believe me, we took full advantage of them. Regardless, our parents knew where we were and kept pretty close tabs on us, even at 11 p.m. on a Friday night after Sea Cadets.

It was early October of 1960. My dad was in the hospital dying of cancer unbeknownst to me, and my mom was spending entire days and into the evenings at the hospital. My brother had his nose up his girlfriend’s butt and I was fending for myself with the help of neighbors and the mother network. At a Sea Cadet meeting the first Friday of the month it was announced that there would be cadet dance the first Friday of October: Dress Blues Required/Escorts Optional. Optional? I had been forced into dance lesson when I was seven, something I’m grateful for now but highly resented then. I remember the dances where the boys were on one side and the girls on the other. It was painful. Besides, I was already interested in girls, knew how to dance, was anxious to wear my dress blues and to me, the only girl that existed in my world was pretty, blonde, blue eyed Debbie Weeks.

My first kiss was at eight years old, with none other than Allie O'Brien about 2 months after my brother almost killed her brother in the "Showdown at Starling Pizza". It was a real kiss, not one where the girl give a boy a kiss on his cheek and he frantically wipes his face in fear of catching “cooties.” I liked her, she liked me, we kissed and never spoke about it again…..until about 12 years later; but that's another story. One thing I do know about that kiss….I liked it….a lot. So by the time the Sea Cadet dance rolled around I was more than ready. One problem: I had no clue how to ask her, and if I did, what if she said, “No?” I had no back up plan, no Plan B. If she said no it was stag or stay home.

Debbie didn’t live in Parkchester; she lived right on the outskirts in what we apartment dwellers called a “private house.” These private houses had a small chain-link fenced in yard, a four step walk-up including the stoop and a screen door with the initial of the family’s last name. And if you were Catholic, there was always a statue of the Blessed Virgin in the front yard. The Weeks’ were that family: a “W” on the screen and the BVM in the yard. Debbie was sort of an adjunct member of our group. Not living in the Parkchester and being a girl precluded her from full-membership. We would, on occasion, venture into her neighborhood and hang out and give each other the business. I never let on that I was carrying an Olympic size torch for her. On the rare occasions that my brother was around and not spending time with his head up his girlfriend’s butt, I would ask him advice about dating in general and more specifically how I could ask Debbie Weeks to the dance. I had all these elaborate speeches planned out on how I would ask her to the dance. “Hey Debbie, I’m a member of this group called the Sea Cadets, we’re sort of like sailors but…..”   “Debbie, have you ever heard of the Sea Cadets? We meet every Friday nite……”  “You know Deb, I really like you and I thought……” My brother said to be direct: “Hey Debbie, the Sea Cadets are having a dance, you wanna come with me?” Wow, that was so simple. Okay, I’ll do it.  Had this event taken place eight years later, the question would have been preceded by a few shots of whiskey and a beer chaser, but I was still only an “ic,” I hadn’t added the “alcohol” yet. I had to face this one with only a few chugs of Kool-Aide. I knew I was going to see Debbie the next day at school, so I planned to wait for her after we were dismissed, and just blurt it out. What was the worst that could happen? We won’t go there. I went to bed that night repeating “Hey Debbie, the Sea Cadets are having a dance, you wanna come with me,” like a mantra.

I was rehearsed. I knew every place for every nuance for every one of the fourteen words in this interrogative. All day long I avoided making eye contact with Debbie for fear I would tip my hand…alert her to what awaited her. Outside. Four o’clock came and Sister Michael Marie, or Sister Mike as we secretly, because we feared for our lives called her as we secretly called her, led us out and dismissed us as usual. It was time. As Debbie was preparing to cross the street I called her name. She turned and stopped. I, as suavely as possible, strode over to her. As I was in route, she took her handkerchief out of her purse and it fell to the ground. Still out of reach to retrieve  the small cloth square, Kevin Welch, one of our fellow classmates, came up behind her, picked up the handkerchief, sniffed it and said, “you smell wonderful.” Debbie swooned, I groaned and THAT is why Kevin Welch was a douche bag.