Bikini Bathing Suits
One day, on a family trip to Gulf Shores, my cousin Ann Ball came out in what would be considered today pretty tame, but for the seventies, pretty racy tan and orange bikini and a big floppy hat.
Her father, Robert Wingate, was my father’s mentor and best friend, and he was my mentor. Daddy died dictating a letter to Robert Wingate, Rowan Taylor, and Charlie Deaton.
“Goddamn! I come all the way to flippin’ Alabama to see some skimpy bathing suits, and it’s MY OWN DAMN DAUGHTER!”
Being just fourteen, I wasn’t about to comment, but I knew what he was saying. In a couple of years, Ann Ball would leave Ole Miss to pursue a career in modeling in New York. Never give up college to become a model. Just don’t.
There are two things I want you to notice here. First, Robert made his feelings known loudly, in front of his daughter and her friends, and in front of the entire family. He didn’t want to shame his daughter, but he did want to embarrass her.
The other thing to notice, and this is key, is that he never hinted that she should change to a less revealing bathing suit. At eighteen, his darling daughter was a woman, and as a woman, she was expressing her sexual self as any human being has a right to do. Fathers want daughters to be the squirming thing in their arms forever, but that denies a fact of life. They can either become fully adult or they can die. Those are your choices.
A few years later, I was drinking beers at River Hills on my friend’s dad’s account. A woman I greatly admired came out in not an unusually small white bikini, but a small enough one to upset Boyd.
“Hey, Boyd.”
“Hey. Um, I hear we’re gonna be in school together again.”
When she walked away, I told my friends they had to take me home. I was about to faint.
For me, the problem was two-fold. This was one of my early friends, but more than that, I greatly admired her parents, especially her father. I was not ready for her to be a fully adult woman with a very normal sexuality, but she was. I was also not at all ready to face her parents, knowing that I thought what I thought when I thought it.
Thursday was a crazy day for me. It ended pretty well, though. After stuffing myself on Mississippi Farm Raised Oysters and visiting all the shops in Fondren on First Thursdays in Fondren, I went by Louise’s Piano Bar for a drink and a song. I’m only allowed one drink a week, and my birthday is coming, so I got coffee and a cheesecake.
The waitress I’d known for a while. I showed her the picture of Little Bird and me from the night before.
“You’re such a girl-dad, Boyd.”
“Maybe, but she’s not my daughter. She’s my protegee.”
“Daughter is a matter of the heart,” She said. “I’ve known you a while. You have a thousand daughters, Boyd.”
I’m aware of what Little Bird looks like. I’m aware that sometimes she gets lonely. I’m not a fit companion for her, but I am her mentor. I’m aware she dates online. I have too, and it’s just too weird for Boyd.
I don’t make many comments about who Little Bird dates, although one time I did say, “he’s pretty good looking. If you don’t want to date him anymore, can I?”
It’s a joke, but it’s not a joke. I’ve never dated a man, but I would, depending on who they were, I suppose. There are levels of attraction beyond the face. I dunno how two dudes handle razor stubble though. Besides, there’s only room in my heart for one. Believing I wasn’t worthy, I’ve taken on a lot of other girls, but I feel kind of bad about that. If you’re gonna kiss a girl, you owe her a level of honesty that I wasn’t coming forth with.
Little Bird knows I respect her, and I respect her choices. She also knows that if any of these boys hurt her, they might vanish mysteriously into the night. The great beast is not beyond such things.
Not long ago, there was a boy who loved her.
“No, he’s just a friend.”
“Honey, I know the look. I also know you have no interest in him. Just say so to save him from believing.”
Being a fully grown, fully actualized, fully sexual creature means breaking a few hearts along the way. Especially when you look like Little Bird. I am sad when she breaks hearts, genuinely. I know what rejection is like as a dude. That being said, if you break her heart, I have a sword. Just sayin’.
Getting involved in Millsaps again, I’m meeting all these 19 and 20-year-old girls, and my introduction to them is much like it was when I was in college. “Hi, I’m Boyd. I am your knight.”
I’m working on a story where I discuss what the role of chivalry might be in the twenty-first century, if any. If there are any archaic ideas in this world, chivalry is certainly one of them. It’s how I live my life, but do I have the right to recommend it to young men? Do I have the right, considering the very true fact that it nearly killed me?
I’m friends with a lot of Milsaps girls on Instagram (they don’t use Facebook much). Some of them I added, some of them added me. I did it because, if I’m gonna be involved again, I need some way to gauge how they’re doing. In some cases, I know their parents. There’s such a thing as a second-generation Boyd’s girl. More every day.
Friends on Instagram, I get exposed to a literal ton of bathing suit pictures. I scroll past those as fast as I can. I know they are adults now. They are fully functioning human beings with a fully functional sexual identity, but I don’t need to know about it. In my mind, they’re little girls forever.
I’ve already painted Little Bird once as a baby. Hopefully, tomorrow, I’ll finish the second painting of her as a baby. She looks to me like a wiggle-worm. She still is kinda.
Faithless, I swore to protect Little Bird, but I didn’t. For thirty-four years, my last memory of her was a slightly confused-looking baby on her momma’s hip. I don’t really know what to say. What I did was unforgivable, but she forgave me. In my defense, I could feel myself falling as her mother was rising. My very first friend, I didn’t want her to see what was becoming of me.
I loved her child because she was her child. It’s as simple as that. I thought I’d die without ever meeting her. Coming back to life, something drew me to a picture on the internet. “Ya know, she looks like somebody.”
Little Bird, her momma, the girls at Milsaps, my sister, her daughter, Ann Ball Wingate, and a hundred others, Boyd would be ever so much more comfortable if they were babies in Pampers in my arms.
When I think of “Boyd’s Girls” as a concept, that’s how I see them, tiny squirming things, the beloved child of a beloved friend, only they’re not. They’re women. Fully actualized, fully functional women. I have to respect them for what they are, even if it makes me uncomfortable, and it does. I don’t like being a sexual creature, I’m not even a little comfortable with it--probably because of what happened to Katie when I was 14, but I think I blame too much on that. What I need from these women and what they need for themselves are different. I have to respect who they are.
I am bound to them by my oaths. I will do a better job this time. I know where I went wrong. I would like all your photos on Instagram, except the bathing suit ones (Erin). It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. It means you’re a lady, not a little girl, despite my objections.
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