Robin Fields had climbed back up in his tree and was gazing over a field of young corn. He was still thinking about Primrose Parsons, who had been his third-grade teacher, and her menage a trois in Los Angeles. He wondered what it meant, not just for Ms. Parsons or for her daughter Jenny, but also for him and his friends at East Norton High. Robin was a virgin but no prude. In fact, most graduating seniors in 1967, men and women, were virgins but no prudes. Even quarterbacks and homecoming queens. America was indeed crossing the threshold into a New Age of Sexual Freedom, but the country kids trailed their city cousins by at least a year, maybe two. Sex was in the airwaves and on the newsstand, and the boys were enthusiastic, but most girls were still resolute in holding out for a ring. The girls had been warned by their mothers about the cow who gives away her milk for free, and the girls' fathers kept a shotgun close to the door. The boys had to be careful. Persuading girls that promiscuity was in their best interest, given the unintended consequences of disease, pregnancy, and eating disorders, was difficult, but boys had a powerful and unexpected ally in the form of women's magazines, and together they succeeded. In time, the covers of women's magazines were indistinguishable from the covers of men's magazines.
Meanwhile, other proponents of promiscuity were leading their own charge by commercializing everything. The generals in this war were, by and large, men with crew cuts, narrow neckties, and gray suits. They were bottlers of Coke and Jax and Yoo-hoos; bakers of cupcakes and Twinkies and Devil Dogs; builders of autos in Detroit and rollers of cigarettes in Virginia and producers of movies in Hollywood. Every product, program, and promotion glimmered with the glamour of sex.
At the same time, singers with guitars were summoning yokels and yokelettes to California where life was very different from the uptight existence of the Ozarks. Girls who came to California wore flowers in their hair and halter tops; such girls might just end up in Playboy magazine. Or in a menage a trois. Or, like Primrose Parsons, a third-grade teacher, in a sex movie. The boys could forgo all responsibilities and grow their hair long, and the girls would still have sex with them. And all of this revelry and debauchery took place beneath the benevolent face of the California sun.
So Robin took out a pen and paper and wrote another parable:
Once upon a time there was a pretty lady, not middle-aged but not young either, who was so lonely and depressed that she decided to end her life by drinking carbolic acid. She looked in the mirror and said, "Drinking acid is a terrible way to die, but it seems fitting, given my insignificance in this new world of bright images and sexual freedom. The acid will burn my throat and esophagus and then cause my stomach and chest cavity to swell until they burst. At the same time, the acid will dissolve my internal organs. But at least, I'll feel something." The lady—let's call her Rosie—had a neighbor who killed himself by drinking carbolic acid. Rosie heard that this fellow swelled so much that all the buttons on his pin-striped vest popped off. So, Rosie went to the drug store and bought a bottle. The druggist warned her about the dangers of handling the acid, much less ingesting it, but Rosie reassured him that she understood the dangers quite well.
When she returned to her home, she went straight to the kitchen and poured a tumbler full of carbolic acid. She was just about to lift the glass to her lips when she heard noises in her bedroom. Curiosity overcame her depression, so she set down the tumbler and walked to her room. The door was closed, but she could hear all manner of grunts and squeaks and even occasional guffaws. She turned the knob as silently as she could and opened the door, and when she peeked into the room, she was astonished. Little naked men and women about two feet tall were jumping up and down on her bed. When the little people saw her watching them, they laughed and bounced even higher.
"This is wonderfully strange," Rosie thought. "They are very small, but they're not like gnomes or leprechauns you see in a children's book. They look like very normal, even very handsome people—the kind you might see in the movies—just shrunk to a very small but nevertheless proportional size." She wondered if they came out of her TV set after the National Anthem finished and the white dot disappeared. The longer she watched them, the more aroused the little people became. They stopped laughing and ceased their jumping. Their movements became more sensuous and sinewy and serious, as if they were dancing to unheard music. Soon they began embracing and stroking and kissing one another, and then they rolled about on her bed in a miniature orgy. "My, my," thought Rosie. "I've never seen anything like that before." She closed the bedroom door and returned to the kitchen. On the counter sat a small, perfectly proportioned, perfectly beautiful, naked young man and woman stirring the acid in the tumbler with a long spoon. Rosie said, "What are you doing?" Without a word, they lifted the glass and held it out to her. She said, "Thank you," took the acid, drank it, and awaited a hellish conclusion.
But that's not what happened. Instead of the acid burning her mouth and throat, the liquid was sweet and its effect refreshing; rather than her torso swelling and bursting, her whole body began to shrink; rather than dying in hellish pain, she felt lively and ready to dance. She became smaller and smaller until she was no taller than the couple, but she, of course, was on the floor and looking up at them, and they were on the counter looking down on her. She stepped out of her clothes, which lay in a heap around her. The couple on the counter smiled and blew kisses to her before copulating vigorously on a tea towel.
Rosie said, "That looks like fun." The little people in her bedroom were still moaning and writhing on her bed, so she decided to join them. To her dismay, she was too small to reach the doorknob. With a mighty effort, she dragged the wastebasket from the bathroom and turned it bottoms up in front of the door. Then she grabbed the doorknob with both hands and opened the door. Suddenly, the room grew very quiet, and when she peeked in, the little people had disappeared. The room was as dark and still as a vacated tomb and the bed as bare as an altar on Tuesday. Rosie felt very lonely indeed. So, she thought, "I must find where the little people went because they seemed to be having a good time, a lot better time than most of the people I've been hanging around with."
So, Rosie went downtown to The Naughty Nighty Nightclub at the corner of Third and Main, and to her delight, she found many other small people, some even smaller than herself, sitting at the bar and drinking while others danced to the music of a very small band. A tiny young man asked her to dance, and when she said, "Yes," he took her hand and led her to the dance floor. As they danced he smiled at her, and she smiled back. She learned how to make her eyes shine with desire. She imitated the way he danced and the looks he gave her. Then they danced a slow dance, and she felt the certainty of his desire. She decided she wanted what he wanted, so they went to his apartment and had a good time.
Night after night, Rosie and her small friends made love and watched TV and ate fast food and talked about work. She became so small and happy that she never, ever wanted to drink carbolic acid again. Eventually, she disappeared altogether.
THE END
Robin Fields added this postscript: "I wrote this story, but what does it mean?" He didn't know. He still doesn't.