MY DEBUT
I had been a fan of the Atlanta Horror movie host Bestoink Dooley, aka George Ellis and he had opened a movie theater that showed films no theater in the south would show. CHELSEA GIRLS, MY HUSTLER, SCORPIO RISING and other films at the zenith of the underground film movement were just a few of the films that played the Festival Cinema. He would later open the Film Forum which helped launch the ROCKY HORROR phenomenon in the south, but at the Festival he played the underground films I had read about in magazines like EVERGREEN and I decided underage or not, I wanted to go and see the films. There was a girl in my neighborhood I wanted to ask to go with me, she was older than me so I hoped he would let us in to see Warhol's MY HUSTLER if I could convince them she was my guardian!
The two screen effect of Chelsea Girls
She was the only exotic woman in Morningside in Atlanta. Some whispered she was Italian, some she was Jewish. Every time I saw her she was dating older guys, so I had to figure out how to approach her. I was barely a teen, and here she was 17 and being driven around by guys in their 20's!
I decided to just go up and talk to her, and I did. I told her about underground movies and Bestoink Dooley and she laughed and said we should carry on the conversation that night.
That night I met her by the Baptist Church which had a sloping hill and trees in a mini forest. Before the developers hit Atlanta, I was just two blocks from a street that ended in miles of cliffs and woods. Kids found old civil war bullets and even Indian arrowheads- it was a magical area at the end of a residential street!
She wore big hoop earrings (to this day those earrings get me excited) and we walked and talked. No adult had asked me what I was reading from the magazines before, and I talked about New York and the movie scene, which I still hadn't seen. It must have been the first time I talked to anyone about Andy Warhol and his movies. As we walked we came upon the sloped hill and sat down. For the first time in my life, it happened.
"It" was a pull, a kind of electromagnetic pull. We both felt it. At first she played with this feeling, which seemed to be new to her as well. She would draw her face close to mine, and the pull would happen. It was as if we were drawn to each other. After going back and forth like this a few times, and it would be years later I would learn it was probably our serotonin levels rising, she kissed me.
The pull happened again as we kissed and I lay back and saw the stars. We laughed about the feeling and she kissed me again.
I began to touch her. We began to touch each other, and there literally in front of God and everybody I lost my virginity. All the while feeling the pull of feelings.
Afterwards we hatched our plan to go to the Festival Cinema and made a date to meet in a few days to see the movie.
The next day I told my mom I had a date and she laughed and then got all serious. I'd have to clean the front room so we could chat before we left. I could tell my mom thought the whole idea, a 12 year on a date, was very cute.
The night came and She came to my door. I watched for her through the window I had been looking through for hours before the date when she glided to the door. Some women walk, some glide. She was a glider. I was excited and called my mom.
My mom walked to the door and opened it and there was this beautiful girl who had just driven up our driveway. My mom looked shocked. She asked her where my date was!
When informed the woman she met was my date, mom hit the roof.
As she yelled at her I could make out the words "slut", "whore" and the date was over.
I wanted to die.
I was all dressed up with nowhere to go, and my mom informed me I wasn't going on anymore dates.
No cell phones, answering machines or email in those days, I would have to wait for mom to leave to call her. I still wasn't any closer to the Festival Cinema. Later I tried to call her, but there was no answer.
I realized I could not stay home. The horse wasn't going back into the barn.
The next day I noticed MIN AND BILL was going to play the theater and that was all ages. So I went to the theater and decided to meet George Ellis, tell him I enjoyed his horror host personae, and maybe he would let me in for the underground movies. I entered the lobby and there at a desk were two of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. Carol and Linda. George was out getting candy for the theater, and I started talking to these women. I have no idea what they thought as I talked about the factory in New York where Warhol made his movies, or comedians like Lenny Bruce and music and all this knowledge I acquired came out.
And they talked to me like an adult.
And they were wonderful and charming and stunning- Carol with her blonde hair and hourglass figure, Linda who looked like a model. We talked all the way through the film in the lobby when George Ellis showed up with bags of goodies to sell. Carol said, "This guy is cool" and my heart skipped a beat. When asked how old I was, I said 17.
George Ellis actually made a couple of movies to cash in on his Bestoink Dooley character that played drive-ins
They bought it. After all, how many 12 year old Georgians were knowledgeable about Andy Warhol? Or Kenneth Anger?
I went into the next showing of MIN AND BILL and as I left George told me to come back next week for SCORPIO RISING and CHAFED ELBOWS. I was in!
I couldn't wait to invite her, and without her trying to pretend to be my guardian it looked great. If she would still talk to me.
I finally reached her on the phone and she laughed off my moms comments and told me her parents were leaving town for a night and would I like to spend the night! Would I! She also said something that caused a great deal of anxiety. She said I kissed like a girl!
What did that mean?
I laid in bed watching the shadows cross and wondered what she meant.......
Her home was only a couple of blocks away, so I waited for my parents to go to sleep and snuck out. She greeted me at the door with her killer lips and dangling hoop earrings. She poured me a glass of wine and as we sat down on her bed I apologized for kissing like a girl! She laughed and said that was a good thing, that guys push their tongues (and themselves) on women and I kissed and waited for a response.
I didn't tell her that was because I had no idea what I was doing, but to this day, the woman has to make the first move!
And we kissed and fell into bed and the records on the spindle kept dropping and playing until I either passed out or was asleep.
The next morning it was 7 am when she woke me frantically. Her parents had come back early!
For the first time, I found myself throwing my clothes on fast, grabbing my shoes and climbing out the window to get out fast.
But what a night.
I entered my home quietly with my parents none the wiser.
Within one week I had made my first adult friends who knew the things I was dying to find out about, I had lost my virginity to a girl that would a few years later be in PLAYBOY, and jumped out a window ala Don Juan, not a bad start for a 12 year old!
