Secondhand Blood - The Life & Times of Carney M. Dahleton

Chapter One - Vikki Shandlier October 1964

Champ watched his friend agonized over the critical decision he was about to make. "Listen, pal, sometimes life isn't fair, but you still have to make do with the cards you're dealt."

"Oh cut the crap, you're just waiting for me to make a mistake. I don't trust you one bit, you sneaky son-of-a-bitch," Carney said as he glared back at Champ with contempt. With that said Carney discarded the queen of spades.

Champ jumped to his feet, threw down his cards and proclaimed, "Gin! I got you this time you old fart. Yeehaw!" Champ began to do his victory jig. For the first time in their forty-seven year friendship, Champ Jorgensen skunked Carney Dahleton at a game of Gin Rummy. It was a moment he would revel in for some time to come.

Thoroughly disgusted, Carney scooped up the playing cards, stuffed them back in their box, and with a generous amount of attitude, "Ok, ok, if you're just gunna gloat, you can leave now, but the carton of booze stays here."

The only reason Champ was at Carney's house was to drop off the case of whiskey, he had promised, for Carney's retirement/birthday party the next day, but it was impossible for him to resist a game of Gin with his lifelong buddy. Champ picked up his coffee cup and drained the last sip. Changing the subject, Champ said, "Oh, you'll never guess who I ran into at the Valley Mall yesterday."

"You're right, I'll never guess, but I suppose you are going to tell me anyway." Carney returned sarcastically.

"Valerie Zack, the first girl I ever kissed. It was a real shocker. I found out she has been in a wheelchair since the ninth grade. She was in a terrible car accident and was paralyzed from the waist down. We had a chance to visit for a while, and she told me about how wonderful her life has been in spite of her paralysis." Champ paused a moment, then asked Carney, "Do you remember the first girl you ever kissed?"

Just then, Carney's grandson, Jericho poked his head in the room, "Sorry to interrupt gentleman. I'm done plowing the snow gramps; there should be enough space for everyone to park at your party tomorrow. Is there anything else you want me to do before I head out?"

Carney thanked his grandson for getting that done, and the young man left. Champ thanked Carney for the Gin game and dismissed himself as well. Carney got up from the dining room table and retired to the couch for a quick nap. As he lay quietly, he contemplated Champ's question. However, it wasn't if he remembered that first kiss; it was how often he remembered that day.

During the first twelve years of Carney Dahleton's life, he came to view girls merely as friends with long hair who liked to wear pink. As opposed to his male friends, who typically wore their hair shorter and seemed to prefer blue. However, somewhere between the ages of twelve and thirteen his female friends changed. They turned from reasonable black and white buddies into mysteriously luring unpredictable creatures, peacocking fifty shades of gray confusion. Strangely, the girl phenomenon occurred about the same time Carney met Miss Rosemarie Hillcrest, the centerfold playmate in his brother's latest issue of Playboy magazine. In private, she taught him that the male penis was good for more than just making yellow snow.

So far this year Carney Dahleton had struggled with making friends at a new school, where he had been teased about his small size, was stuffed in a garbage can, and learned that a teenager cannot totally escape conflict and gossip. To top it off, he discovered the complex and intense world of teen dating. There he found himself caught in that Twilight Zone which develops when young boys begin to view girls sexually instead of platonically, to fantasize about them at bedtime. Finding answers to the sexual confusion was not easy, and he certainly couldn't talk to his mom or dad about any of this, God forbid, he mused. Besides, he would think, they have no clue what I'm going through!