Parting Glances: Book pages (Pt. 14)

A popular magazine's cartoon series once featured an outspoken shadow belonging to a mousey guy.
MOUSEY GUY to COWORKER: "You're looking fit as a fiddle." Shadow: "Just missing your G-string." The French call these thoughts, "pensees d'escalier." Staircase thoughts. Things you wish you'd said but, once out the door (usually slammed) on to the staircase, it's too late.
We all have "shadows". My friends' shadows are a lavender off-shade, Martha Stewart Omnistudio on-organdy. The older they get, the fuzzier they become. Mine's ultraviolet, bottom chart line blurred. So . . .
With Me & My Then Young Shadow ["Bruce"] I ride the Woodward Avenue streetcar playing footsie with Jack Jacobs. Hunky. Artist. Glib at chatting up a teenage novice like me. [Bruce: Yeah, sure, Mary!] For reasons to come, Bruce will name-tag Jack, Miss Liberties.
"Give me a call, Chaz," winks Jack, getting off at Six Mile. "If you'd like to go to a really tiptop Ann Arbor party: exotic hors d'oeuvres, stimulating conversation, classical music, sexy grad students. No flamers." "Sure. Why not," I promise. [One out of five ain't bad.]
I agree to meet Jack at a drugstore nine blocks from my house. Five minutes into his borrowed T-Bird, he hands me a bow tie. "Here, Chaz, you'll need this." [Rats! G. Mennen Williams polka dots.] Jack talks nonstop. Winks. Hums. Smiles. Winks some more. Pats my knee. Drives like gangbusters.
"There's mostly profs and grads at this party – two poets, a Rhodes scholar, some bright Phi Betas – but there's no need to panic. If anybody asks, Chaz, just say you're into Kafka K-A-F-K-A. You prefer Haydn H-A-Y-D-N. Your MENSA score is upper ten percentile." [If you mean tricks it's more like 12!]
Once arrived, Jack dit-dit-dits the apartment buzzer with what seems to be some sort of teutonic musical code. The door cracks open. An eye carefully peeks through, and for a brief moment I feel I'm about to enter a U of M speakeasy. "Doc, this is Chaz," says Jack, with yet another knowing wink. "He's got his sights on psych at Wayne U." [Wayne who?]
There are a dozen Go Blues present – thirty-something, looking it – all of whom turn in chorus, staring in the direction of my clip-on appendage. At 6' 2" I suddenly feel myself shrink to 5' 9". After a nanosecond of stunned silence everyone resumes their animated literary gab, ignoring my untutored, prosaic presence.
I sit down in a corner wicker chair. Jack hands me a ginger ale. [What, no Zing 3.2?] Then he impulsively grabs my hand and leads me to an erotic black-and-white drawing hanging bare naked on the wall. "I did this last summer. Does it give you ideas?" he asks, in a stage whisper."There's nothing there I haven't tried," I answer, giving myself a few acrobatic accolades I hadn't earned (or thought of).
Among the guests is a concert pianist appearing in recital at Hill Auditorium. He plays an etude by Listz at the baby grand. L-I-S-T-Z Jack spells in my ear. Bored I look over a copy of ONE magazine and thumb through "The Homosexual in America" by Donald Webster Cory. Wow! Gay propaganda. [Careful, girl! This after-hours joint could be raided.]
At midnight our host hands me an embossed 9-to-5 business card and daintily pecks me goodbye. Jack pats my butt. Once in the T-Bird, he pounces. "May I take liberties?" [Hell's bells, man. If you've got to ask, forget it!] "Thanks loads, Jack. I've got the c-r-i-t-t-e-r-s." [As in Larkspur Lotion.]