Cowboy Heaven copyright dku

Locals called the area the Gold Coast. This strip of land along the Long Island Sound, 30 miles east of New York City got it's name from the robber barons who built their homes along it's shores. Self made millionaires like Woolworth, Vanderbilt, Morgan, and Whitney built sprawling mansions along four thumbs of land that jutted out into the sound. Safe harbors for their yachts, easy access to Lower Manhattan, and rolling countryside almost free for the asking brought them to Long Island at the turn of the century. Money attracting money, newly rich social climbers like Jay Gould and Daniel Guggenheim followed. Then theater and movie moguls, their favorite stars, and all the hangers on that follow glamour.

            Several of the towns dated back to the revolutionary war. Even after Teddy Roosevelt made the area famous as the location for his second white house, change came slowly to the northern coast of the island. The booming 1920's brought  cars and train lines. The communities grew from sleepy harbor towns to the guest bedrooms for high powered New Yorkers. They came out from the city before the millionaires came, and they stayed long after the millionaires left.

            At the end of World War II hundreds of thousands of young families poured out of city apartments to conquer America's new frontier. But this time, rather than hauling their families and meager belongings in covered wagons across the great plains, they bundled them into shiny station wagons and headed north south east and west into the new territories called suburbia.

            By mid-century many of the mansions built with industrial money had been abandoned. Some of the estates became museums, foreign embassies, convents, or naval academies. Polo fields reverted to pastures, formal gardens went native and  large expanses of land were sold off parcel by parcel to the newcomers who wanted  lawns with hedges and air-conditioned abodes for their automobiles.

            The land on which Ellen's grandfather built his house in 1926 bordered these grand estates. Narrow roads winded towards the private beaches and bore names describing the local topography. Crescent Beach Road. Landing Road. New Woods Road. Bridge Street crossed the brook that ran into the bay. Even Mill Hill was truthful to it's steep climb down to the mill that had ground wheat for over a century.  When the house was first built the house, the street lead no where. No where but to a field of lupines, clover and queen anne's lace that bordered the woods of wild dogwood, elms and sugar maples.

Now, in 1954, the field and woods were still less than a half mile from Ellen's front door, but for the five year old, it might as well be crossing the continent.  When she ventured out into this wildness she had to leave the few Tudor houses behind. She then passed the grape arbor under which the Famiglietti's grandmother sat all day , dressed in black and mumbling foreign words as she fingered a strand of pearls. The further from her house she went  the spattering of houses set back further from the road.  And then, suddenly,  like Dorothy approaching the miles of field separating her  from the city  of Oz, Ellen saw what she has come to find. Cowboy Heaven.

How the place had gotten it's name was anybody's guess. Maybe it was the sign that abruptly appeared one Monday in spring.  Dead End Street.  Maybe Ellen named it when she decided  this was where the dead ended up. But surely not any dead, this was where cowboys went to die. And for more than two summers, Ellen roamed the high grasses looking for the spirits of dead cowboys. All she ever saw were garter snakes and beetles and occasionally a jack in the pulpit hidden under a fallen tree.

            Most of America's imagination was captured by cowboys. The advent of television had insured that. After watching Hopalong Cassidy  or The Lone Ranger, Ellen longed to be transported into the west. She wanted horses with studded bridles, guns with silver bullets, friends who stayed loyal forever and always showed up in a nick of time if you were in trouble. She wanted to live in a world where the good guys rode white horses and the bad guys could be identified by their dirty stubbled faces. And so she set off every morning, with her red bandana and her Dale Evan's hat in search of the cowboy spirits who would lead her into their world. 

            As Ellen grew, her hope of finding cowboy spirits faded but the field and woods retained their special power. It was there that she learned to identify wild flowers. Pressing and drying them allowed her to savor their delicate beauty.  When she finally grew taller than the wild grasses, she took to bringing a red plaid blanket and her Nancy Drew books. This was where she learned to tell the difference between cumulus and stratus clouds. This was where she first saw the big dipper. As the sound of the nearby shore echoed in the wind, Ellen discovered that the cowboy spirits had indeed found her, sustained her, and, had taught her how to feel contentment.

All of that was shattered when the vroom of the bulldozer bit its teeth into the hallowed soil of Cowboy Heaven. Ellen tried making peace with the changes. After the workmen left, she and her brother would explore the day's devastation. They'd climb through the half constructed houses until daylight dimmed their view. Sometimes they'd dare each other to walk the gauntlet of rafter beams. Framed structures without stairways became adventure pits for jumping. And  as long as the houses didn't assume full form, Ellen could tolerate the invasion of Cowboy Heaven.

But within a year, houses popped up like fairy rings after  a rain. Ellen took to throwing rocks through the plate glass windows of vacant houses.  Her brother stole hardware from the fenced in lots, but nothing the children did could hold back the takeover of drywall and asphalt that was burying their beloved playground.

By the time Ellen entered sixth grade, the transformation was complete. Cowboy Heaven was renamed Hardwood Drive. But the Hardwood trees were gone. What had grown in their place was a grotesque winding vine of a neighborhood with driveways for limbs and  garages for seed heads.

The families that took over Cowboy Heaven had left Manhattan and Queens and Brooklyn to have yards for their barbecues, swing sets for their children, patios for their cocktail parties and monstrously wide concrete strips for their Edsels and Cadillacs.

These families invaded the day with the noise of lawnmowers and automobiles. They invaded the night with street lights and high fidelity recordings. And their yearlings invaded Ellen's school as odd looking children who spoke funny, dressed funny and might as well have worn neon lights that blazed, "Newcomer. Weirdo. Egghead." Ellen and the girls she had known since kindergarten usually viewed these interlopers with mild amusement. As long as you did not have to sit near them or study with them, they could be ignored. When an occasional newcomer got uppity, they were promptly put in their place. Eileen Rose was taunted to tears in the girls bathroom when she tried to tell Susan Grimes that the ring she was wearing was a diamond set in onyx.

"Glass on plastic ala mode, " became the mantra following Eileen's every move. Most of the popular girls never even bothered to learn the names of the newcomers. They resented the space they took up, the questions they asked in class and the way they seemed to actually want more homework. Their outfits did not match their shoes, they had no idea how to tease their hair, and the thought of playing softball had never occurred to this new breed of homely displaced girls with book bags and frizzy hair. 

That these girls had taken root in cowboy heaven seemed a great injustice to Ellen. She put all her energies into staying cool and distant and utterly unaware of the flowers of girl hood that had crowded out the wild poppies and geraniums of her beloved fields and woods.  So unaware was Ellen, that when her sixth grade teacher announced that the class would no longer sit in rows but would form study groups for the remainder of the year, Ellen was oblivious to the threat.

It was only after returning to school after a week long flu, that Ellen discovered she was not to be seated with her best friends for the last  seven years. Simply due to numbers, she was exiled to endure these oddball girls who had the gall to name their group The Chatterboxes. Ellen appealed to her parents to defend her from this change, she begged her teacher to let the group named the Lionesses add one more girl.

But once again she was powerless to stop a powerful bulldozer. This time it was Ellen who felt she was being plowed under.

            The first two months felt unendurable.  She stopped  getting invitations to practice dancing at their houses. Sleepovers ended. She was becoming as invisible to her old girlfriends as these new girls has been to her. Walking home from school became a solitary event. Ellen feared looking in the mirror lest she failed to see her own reflection. And daily, these odd girls with their strange accents and their stranger vocabularies pushed her and pulled her to be their friend.

Then came the first invitation to Florrie's house. Florrie Silverstein lived in a split level house at the end of Hardwood Drive. Physically, she resembled the Wicked Witch in the movie Wizard of Oz.

            "Wanna come over an watch TV? It's color." Florrie said. Ellen did not know anyone with a color television. She had never been in this new kind of house called split level. The world of sprinkler systems and built in stereos and family rooms was alien to her.

            "Sure, what will we watch?" Ellen's television habits included  Father Knows Best and the Ed Sullivision show,  as she liked to call it.

            "How about the Leonard Bernstein? It's St Saens. " said Florrie.

Ellen did not know if Leonard Bernstein was a new comedian nor did she want to watch something that sounded like the Catholic Hour. The Birnbaum family occasionally watched Bishop Sheen but that was mostly for laughs and a chance for her Dad to rant about Catholics.

            "Okay, I'm game. What time?" Ellen said.

            "Sunday afternoon. One- ish? " Florrie said. Ellen thought oneish and groaned silently. She would never get used to the way these girls talked. Although most of them, like Ellen, were Jewish, they carried themselves in a way Ellen had never seen in the girls in her religion class. Florrie sounded more like her Aunt Sylvia who showed 40 year old cleavage and still wiggled her tush when she walked.

When Ellen arrived at Florrie's house Sunday at 1 PM, she was astonished. The house had up and down parts unknown to her. Steps lead everywhere, three to the living room, two more to the kitchen, down one and she found the living room. Five up to the left led to the bedrooms and six down to the right led to the most curious of all rooms, the family room. In Ellen's house there was a living room, a kitchen, a dining room and a study for her Dad. One central set of  long steep stairs led up to the bedrooms. Symmetry and order ruled, but in the Silverstein house, everything seemed mixed up. People ate in the family room;  no one seemed to live in the living room. Clear plastic covers made it impossible to  sit on the chairs without sticking. And there was more than one television. It was enticing and frightening at the same time.

            And then there were Florrie's parents. These people were even more alien than Florrie. Mrs. Silverstein was a massively round woman who wheezed and huffed when she attempted to rise from her chair. Florrie had warned Ellen about  her mother being glandular, but Ellen's had no idea what that meant. Mr. Silverstein was an Ichabod Crane creature who seldom spoke  and stared at everyone as if he had x-ray vision. And the little brother, David, was the oddest of all. Instead of talking , he made electronic mechanical noises and laughing wildly everytime  someone  looked surprised.

            Ellen and Florrie never got around to the television show. In touring the house, they got lost in a back room Florrie called the Den. It was a long thin room, lined with knotted wood panels. The walls were covered with shelves. The shelves were jammed with books of all sizes. Dark leather books that look well used. A generously sized desk held a typewriter and masses of loose paper covered almost every surface.

            "Dad's a writer." Florrie explained. "He writes mysteries and last year he won the

Edgar. We gotta be quiet, cuz if he finds us here, he'll have a conniption." Another word went over Ellen's head. How was she expected to have a friendship with this girl unless she started to carry a dictionary?

            "So, do you masturbate?" Florrie asked as she took down a thick maroon book from the top shelf. "

            "I don't know." Ellen said.

            "Do you play with your self, silly. Do you? " Florrie said. Ellen still had no idea what Florrie was talking about but she at least knew it wouldn't be cool to admit it.

            "Oh sure. All the time." Ellen hoped if she played along the meaning of the question  might be revealed without having to display her ignorance.

            "Well Kinsey says most women never do. But I disagree." Florrie said. Kinsey. Masturbation. Conniptions. Ellen was about to call it a day and announce she had to get back home when Florrie opened the maroon book and started reading out loud. Despite all the big words, Ellen finally caught on that Florrie was talking about  s-e-x. And now there was no way Ellen was heading home.

            Ellen's rite of passage continued through the remainder of the year. Her new friend lent her books she knew were  forbidden: Forever Amber, Peyton Place, From the Terrace.  Not all the books were about sex. The Diary of Anne Frank  was a breathtaking discovery for Ellen. By winter's arrival she was spending every spare moment with Florrie and her family. Talking about atom bombs or  whether girls should shave their legs. With the Silverstein's,  she watched a presidential convention on TV and listened to Mr. Silverstein  theorize whether that Kennedy fellow had actually written his own book.

            As spring swept  over the north shore of Long Island, Ellen began to see the shadows to everyday events she has never noticed before. Words like hypocrite and conflict entered her vocabulary. New sensations stirred within her mind and her body and there was no other word to use to describe the feelings but love. Ellen loved Florrie. Loved her with a force that made her want to be with her all the time. Loved her with a force that made her look up the words Florrie spoke, read the books Florrie read.  No one could make Ellen laugh as hard as Florrie, no one could make her think as hard. Her days and nights were filled with Florrie. Being with Florrie every day throughout that summer was Ellen's first taste of intoxication and she never wanted it to end.

            "How come during the day you are as flat as a board, and at  night you have boobs?" Florrie was confronting Ellen.  Alice and a slouching girl named Jean watched.

            "It's the bra. My mom said I need it." Ellen said.

            "How come you only need it at night. We don't see any boobs in the day time. Are this night blooming boobs?" Florrie said

            Ellen blushed.  She remembered the dreaded  bra conversation with her mother. Her mother explained that while her latex bathing suit flattened her out during the day, she really was beginning to blossom and needed to start wearing a brassiere. The trip to the Eden Shoppe was hell. It was run  by elderly women who would measure and poke and make humiliating comments about becoming a woman. And then when it was time for Ellen to try on this strange white cotton contraption with straps and hooks and circular stitched  things called cups, the old woman would not even leave the booth. Ellen turned her back and removed her sleeveless shirt.

            "Turn around honey.  Let's take a look," said the woman people called the fitter.

Turning around was the last thing Ellen wanted to do. She wanted to will an end to these alien growths. But she turned around. She closed her eyes. The fitter prodded flesh and shifted straps. Ellen wanted a giant hole to open in the dressing room floor and suck the old woman into the depths of the earth so that Ellen could leave the small curtained room free of the prospect of impending womanhood.

            "You sure are developing. Most girls your age take a double A, but you're going to need a B by fall." A's and B's had been grades to her and Ellen was proud to get A's. She was determined to keep these A grade boobs forever.

            "We don't think you need a bra at all, Miss High and Mightly." Florrie said.

            "Well I do need one, Mom said I did. "

            "We think you stuff it, don't we?"  Florrie turned to Alice and Jean for support. They looked down at the soft bumbs barely evolving under their summer blouses and then glanced at Florrie's flat as a board body. They said nothing.

            "You're going to have to prove it" Florrie said.

            "Prove it? How? Ask my mother." Ellen said. She was close to tears.

            "Nope, I think you'd better show those boobs to us, Miss Jayne Mansfield. I think you got socks in there. Show us and we'll shut up." Ellen looked up and down the street. No one else was near. No one to discover her. No one to rescue her.  She unbuttoned the blouse and quickly flashed open the seersucker blouse to reveal the white cotton bra.

            "Not good enough. We need to see the boobs." Florrie  was like a shark who smelled blood.

            "Aw, leave her alone, this is getting mean."  Jean said.  Florrie ignored her.

            "Boobs or socks? You gonna show us?" Florrie would not let up. Ellen reached behind her. Trembling fingers unhooked the newfangled garment that had caused all this trouble. She stood before the three girls, small mounds of girlish flesh exposed for all three to verify. Everyone stared in silence as Ellen quickly pushed them back into their harness, buttoned up her blouse and headed home.

            Come September,  junior high grade began in a new school. Homeroom assignments were made in alphabetical order.  A's and B's were at one end of the hall. R's through S's were yards away. She  shared a literature class with Florrie, occasionally laughed at her jokes, but  she kept a respectful distance from this former friend. They'd crossed paths at  parties or work together on a school play. Once they even dated the same boy, but Ellen made sure that Florrie never learned about it.

Over the years Ellen made new friends, forged new loyalties. People moved in and out of her life like the shadows under street lights. Neighborhoods continued to grow. More fields were consumed by the bulldozer's appetite. But Ellen always remembered how long after something passes, it's mark on you never disappears.