Fleming concoction—the resumption of nuclear weapons testing by the U.S. and USSR, the Soviet missiles in Cuba, the new hotline between the Kremlin and the White House, the defection to Moscow of the British intelligence agent Kim Philby, the British war minister caught having an affair with a nineteen-year-old who was also a Soviet spy’s mistress.
Our Bond devotion had become even more elaborate. We performed half a dozen more missions. For one, Chuck mounted a little camera on his radio-controlled airplane—I hadn’t realized how gigantic the thing was—and we flew it near the navy base by Highland Park, taking spy pictures.
And then came the movie Dr. No. Starting that summer, 1963, all the other kids suddenly knew about James Bond. Wendy Reichman owned the 45 of the Dr. No theme song before I did. At the Crawford twins’ pool party, everyone said Susie’s white two-piece suit made her look just like Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder, and Jimmy Graham pretended his glass of 7-Up was a cocktail and introduced himself repeatedly as “Graham … James Graham.”
Chuck and Alex and I didn’t say so, but our private world of fictional violence and glamour paled pathetically in comparison to Hollywood’s official version. The movie explosions in particular made Chuck yearn to blow up stuff. We had been a secret cell of cognoscenti performing a secret homage, taking actual risks out in the real world, inventing everything on the fly, scaring and surprising ourselves. All at once Bond was like a Barbie doll or a Disney-branded Davy Crockett coonskin hat, everywhere and available to everyone for a dollar. We no longer felt so knowing and subversive. We had been demoted to … fans.
Also, we knew we were getting too old to be doing this. When we’d discovered Bond, we were barely twelve, but in the summer of 1963 we were fourteen, headed for New Trier in the fall. Twelve-year-olds pretending to be spies and make-out artists was clearly a fictional conceit, but now that we were going to be in high school, racy behavior was supposed to be on the menu for real.
One night that summer, the three of us went bowling at the alley near my house. Alex and I were drinking Fresca—new, like everything that year. Including my romantic interest in Chuck, unleashed when he played the Dr. No theme song on his Stratocaster.
When I sat next to him on the bowling alley bench and our thighs touched, I wanted to believe he was excited, too.
I pretended not to know how to fill in the scorecard so that he would lean over me from behind, his chest against my shoulder, his warm right arm rubbing against my left as he wrote. Did he feel my goose bumps rising?
For no reason in particular, I suggested that on the next mission, I might be a man.
“No, no, no,” Chuck said. “I mean, without a girl character, we might as well just play army. ” No self-respecting boy older than eleven, twelve max, would ever play army.
“We could invite another girl,” I suggested.
“It’s too late.”
By which he meant that our club and its rules were too well established to assimilate an outsider, and that anyone our age was either too old to buy in to it or too uncool if they would.
Chuck’s ball guttered. As he walked back toward me, I watched him rub his hands together, then rub them on his hips and his rear.
“Also?” he said to me. “ You’ve got blue eyes. Almost all the female characters do.”
Chuck Levy knew my eyes were blue!
“One of you guys could play a woman,” I said. Maybe I was serious. Mostly, I was messing with them. “That’s what actors did in Shakespeare’s time.”
This prospect amused Chuck. “Yeah, Mr. Fresca,” Chuck said to Alex, “you could be Rosa Klebb.” Uh-oh. “ Some Like It Bond. ” Alex had made the mistake of telling Chuck that Some Like It Hot was one of his favorite movies.
Chuck rolled again and got a spare. Even before he punched a fist in the air, the sight and violent sound of him
Our Bond devotion had become even more elaborate. We performed half a dozen more missions. For one, Chuck mounted a little camera on his radio-controlled airplane—I hadn’t realized how gigantic the thing was—and we flew it near the navy base by Highland Park, taking spy pictures.
And then came the movie Dr. No. Starting that summer, 1963, all the other kids suddenly knew about James Bond. Wendy Reichman owned the 45 of the Dr. No theme song before I did. At the Crawford twins’ pool party, everyone said Susie’s white two-piece suit made her look just like Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder, and Jimmy Graham pretended his glass of 7-Up was a cocktail and introduced himself repeatedly as “Graham … James Graham.”
Chuck and Alex and I didn’t say so, but our private world of fictional violence and glamour paled pathetically in comparison to Hollywood’s official version. The movie explosions in particular made Chuck yearn to blow up stuff. We had been a secret cell of cognoscenti performing a secret homage, taking actual risks out in the real world, inventing everything on the fly, scaring and surprising ourselves. All at once Bond was like a Barbie doll or a Disney-branded Davy Crockett coonskin hat, everywhere and available to everyone for a dollar. We no longer felt so knowing and subversive. We had been demoted to … fans.
Also, we knew we were getting too old to be doing this. When we’d discovered Bond, we were barely twelve, but in the summer of 1963 we were fourteen, headed for New Trier in the fall. Twelve-year-olds pretending to be spies and make-out artists was clearly a fictional conceit, but now that we were going to be in high school, racy behavior was supposed to be on the menu for real.
One night that summer, the three of us went bowling at the alley near my house. Alex and I were drinking Fresca—new, like everything that year. Including my romantic interest in Chuck, unleashed when he played the Dr. No theme song on his Stratocaster.
When I sat next to him on the bowling alley bench and our thighs touched, I wanted to believe he was excited, too.
I pretended not to know how to fill in the scorecard so that he would lean over me from behind, his chest against my shoulder, his warm right arm rubbing against my left as he wrote. Did he feel my goose bumps rising?
For no reason in particular, I suggested that on the next mission, I might be a man.
“No, no, no,” Chuck said. “I mean, without a girl character, we might as well just play army. ” No self-respecting boy older than eleven, twelve max, would ever play army.
“We could invite another girl,” I suggested.
“It’s too late.”
By which he meant that our club and its rules were too well established to assimilate an outsider, and that anyone our age was either too old to buy in to it or too uncool if they would.
Chuck’s ball guttered. As he walked back toward me, I watched him rub his hands together, then rub them on his hips and his rear.
“Also?” he said to me. “ You’ve got blue eyes. Almost all the female characters do.”
Chuck Levy knew my eyes were blue!
“One of you guys could play a woman,” I said. Maybe I was serious. Mostly, I was messing with them. “That’s what actors did in Shakespeare’s time.”
This prospect amused Chuck. “Yeah, Mr. Fresca,” Chuck said to Alex, “you could be Rosa Klebb.” Uh-oh. “ Some Like It Bond. ” Alex had made the mistake of telling Chuck that Some Like It Hot was one of his favorite movies.
Chuck rolled again and got a spare. Even before he punched a fist in the air, the sight and violent sound of him
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