Coachlight Suites

by m.s.wardrip

The Coachlight Suites were located on the seedy West-end of town. When you parked and got out of your car, you could smell perfume coming from the building. There were roses growing on a trellis that arched over the dim lit entrance. A knee-high concrete ashtray held butted out lipstick stained cigarettes under the No Smoking sign by the glass door. Inside was a long hallway, decorated with faux antique oil paintings, a red shag carpet, plastic gleaming chandeliers and fire extinguishers at both ends. Apartment 8 was down the hall, up one flight of stairs and on the right. I nervously knocked on the door. I was hesitant about losing my virginity.

All through high school, I never had more than half a dozen friends at a time. Seasons changed, people came and went, moved away, took up with girlfriends and disappeared. Being a guy in High School with two steady guy friends all the way through, was really saying something. I had two such friends.

One night we were at out local hang out “Sloppy Joe’s Restaurant”, a favorite drive-in that everyone who was anyone cruised through, in the best cars they could get. Also, there was indoor seating for about a hundred and that’s where we were joking around, we three guys, in a booth near the cashier. We were getting pretty insulting to the waitress who didn’t really seem to mind. We’d ask her to bring us some more mop water coffee and if she would pick the peanuts out this time. She thought we were disgusting, and we were. We aimed to be. We then talked and laughed loudly as we discussed interesting subjects like how to dissect a four foot long iguana, how to pollute the entire world and elaborate schemes of how to steal all the gold from Fort Knox. I remember distinctly having the same meal every single time we went there which was most weekends. Sloppy Joe’s had an ambiance about it that was 1960’s modernism, Naugahyde covered seats in the booths and on the bar stools, flying saucer shaped lights hung from braided electric cords that hung from gold fixtures on the vaulted ceiling. Large glass windows surrounded us and reflected a lively crowd that always frequented the place. The food was great. I always had the Reuben. Corn-beef, sauerkraut and Coca Cola go great together on a Saturday night on the main drag in town. We guys did not yet date girls. We were buds chumming around. We were having a blast and then the girls came in and sat in the booth next to us.

There was the one girl with long brown hair, big glasses, hefty and giggly bubbly. This was Susanna VanGleek. The other girl was serious-like, short blonde hair, big chrome hoop earrings, leather and pointy boots. This was Teri Shaut. Teri and Susanna slithered and plopped into the booth and the loud giggly Susanna started saying there were freaks in the next booth. Then after eye contact with her, I told her, “You are freaky ladies. I could spot a freaky lady a mile away and you two are definitely freaky ladies, right?”

She came right back with a matter of fact statement, “It takes a freak to know a freak.”

I agreed and asked, “So, what brings you girls to a nice place like this?”, and there we went, talking and joking all evening long. About one am in the morning, we said out goodbyes, exchanged phone numbers and went our separate ways to our respective homes.

The next day the phone rang. It was her. She wanted me to come over to her apartment and she gave me directions to the Coachlight Suites. I remembered there was always a red light on at that place. Me and the guys used to snicker when we drove by, about it possibly being a brothel. The red light district, we’d call it.

Susanna answered the door wearing tight blue jeans and a halter top, revealing her shapely and full buxom. We sat and listened to “The Turtles” on the record player. The sound was turned down on the TV which was showing a rerun of I Love Lucy. On the walls were Spanish oil paintings, the lamps had red shades and the carpet was red, the tones were dark brown and red. The bathroom had red and white tile, the kitchen had red roosters on the yellow walls. There were chrome appliances on the black and red tiled kitchen floor.

Susanna broke out a cold bottle of wine in the middle of “Happy Together” and handed it to me with a corkscrew. We drank it. We talked about her first year of college and that somehow, she was still a virgin. She requested that I un-virginify her this evening and I did. At first it was awkward and afterward, it was awkward. Two virgins. Yup, two awkward virgins. We struggled and we succeeded in opening a new saga in our lives.