The summer of 1973 was to be my last year delivering the morning newspaper, a job that didn't pay much but was better than nothing for a high school student. Since I was going off to college in the fall The Schenectady Gazette would have to find another desperate for cash kid to pedal around the rural roads of Duanesburg, New York in rain, sleet, snow and cold.
I could have driven around the route for the last couple years after getting my license, but with the price of gas I might not have broken even financially if I did that, and besides the exercise was good for me and probably helped me stay as skinny as I was. If I had a virtue it was the fact that while I might not have been all that handsome or brilliant, I wasn't fat.
Since the houses out in the sticks where I lived were spaced far apart it took me quite a while to make all the 30 or so stops, and besides the 7 mornings a week delivering at the crack of dawn I also had to make another trip around the circuit to collect for the papers.
That was a pain far worse than delivering because no matter what day or time when I collected, I could never catch everybody at home, and sometimes when they were home they claimed they didn't have the 50 or 75 cents at the time.
Like it or not it was part of the job so that was how I spent this Saturday in July, counting the days until I went off to college, and one of my last stops was the Taylor Farm owned by an elderly couple who had been customers all the years I had the route.
The old geezer was kind of gruff but his wife was a sweet old lady who always offered me a home baked cookie when I collected, and after she would pay me for the week and I would give her the little tab that served as a receipt, she would look to make sure her husband wasn't around before pressing a shiny dime in my palm.
"Get yourself a Sarsparilla Timmy," Mrs. Taylor would tell me, and I would thank her even though I don't think you could find one of those back then, but I did put the money aside and it would all come in handy come fall.
As I pedaled up the gravel driveway towards the farm, which used to be a big production but had shrunk over the years as the Taylors aged, I saw that their old rusty truck was gone. I knew there was a Farmer's Market open now in town, so maybe that where they were, but I went to the screen door anyway and tapped hoping that Mrs. Taylor stayed home.
"Who are you?" came the voice from the other side of the screen, and when I peered through the screen I saw a very unfamiliar face.
"Paper boy," I said, hating the term because I was 18 now, but the title "paper man" sounded even worse. "Uh - fifty cents."
"Why do you want to give me fifty cents?" the girl said with a toothy and goofy grin.
"You want to give me the money - for the paper," I told her, knowing she was busting my balls but since she was a girl I didn't let on because girls were kinda rare in these parts.
"How come your dumb ass paper doesn't have Doonesbury in it?" she asked.
"How do I know? I don't print it, I just deliver it," I countered.
"Dick Tracy sucks eggs," the snotty girl informed me. "And if it wasn't for Peppermint Patty, Peanuts would bite the big one."
"Who are you?" I asked, not sure whether I loved or hated this opinionated girl who I could not really see in the darkness behind the screen.
"Your nose will get dirty," she said when my nose brushed against the netting.
"I can't see you."
"I can't let you in. Grandma would have kittens."
"Well at least I have an idea of who you are. I don't want to come in but why don't you come out?" I countered. "Aren't you going to tell me your name?"
"Rebecca," she said as she moved towards the door. "You said your name is Paper Boy?"
"No Becky, my name is Tim Hudson," I said as I eyeballed the lanky girl who was as redheaded as a girl could be, and the freckles that were around her nose also covered her bare arms and shoulders which the old fashioned dress she wore exposed.
"Rebecca!" she said very curtly. "Not Becky. You'll never even get to first base if you ever call me Becky again."
"First base?" I asked.
"Yeah, and if you ever write me a love note or anything spell my name R-E-B-E-K-K-A," I was instructed.
"I like your name but that's a strange spelling," I said.
"I know. It's not the way it is on my birth certificate. I invented it."
"Oh," I said while staring through the screen at the small bumps on her chest. "Well, I won't be sending you any love notes."
"Got a girlfriend?"
"Not right now, but I'm 18," I said proudly. "Not interested in going to jail though."
"What's that mean?" Rebekka asked.
"You're not - I mean..." I mumbled, not wanting to say that I figured her for 13 or 14 even if she was kinda tall.
"Not 18 you mean? Fuck you Timmy. I just turned 19 if you must know," she informed me, and then followed by eyes and added, "Just because I don't have big tits?"
"I - uh - er," I stuttered, used to being set back on my heels like this, but not by a girl.
"Nobody ever complained about them," Rebekka told me as she hefted the apple sized globes through her clothes and made me wish I could see better. "My boyfriend back home likes them fine."
"I wasn't complaining, just admiring them," I replied as my eyes went over to the blazing red hair that was exposed when the girl grabbed her boobs. "Your armpit hair? Is that his idea?"
"He likes everything about me," Rebekka informed me as she raised her arm to allow me a very good look at the swirl of hair that filled the deep hollow under her skinny arm. "If you don't like it don't look."
"I know, but I'm looking aren't I? We had a couple girls at school that thought they were hippies," I noted, not adding that they really excited me, and when I had confessed to my best friend John that it turned me on, he admitted he liked it too and I know he would be going nuts if he could see Rebekka.
"I'm not a hippie, I'm Rebekka," she said. "I'm a free spirit who goes where the wind takes me."
"Where are you from?" I asked, and when she said Poughkeepsie I nodded and said, "They have a nut house down there don't they? My mother always tells my father that he's driving her there sometimes."
"Yeah, there's a state mental hospital down there but I escaped," she cracked, making me smile despite myself.
"How come you're out here? Visiting Mr. and Mrs. Taylor?" I asked while trying not to look at her like .
"If you call two months a visit," Rebekka replied, obviously not happy about it. "My old lady stuck me out here for the summer as punishment. I'm not sure for who, me or my grandparents."
"Oh yeah? What did you do, steal lipstick from the drugstore?" A couple girls in my graduating class got arrested for that last month."
"No, my mother came home and caught me and my boyfriend fucking, so she's pissed," Rebekka said as she said as she seemed to be grabbing the ledge of the door above her, reaching high as if she was putting on a show for me.
