Further Confessions of a Boss Chick
by guest columnist Debra Bouchegnies
(LAST FRIDAY, our guest columnist began her reminiscence of being a lonely teenager in Philadephia during the Bicentennial summer of 1976. She’d befriended Kathy, a party-in’ girl who had few girlfreinds but many guy friends. They’d gotten summer jobs together at Philly’s legendary top-40 station WFIL. After one day in the back offices, Kathy had been promoted to a Boss Chick–a public promo person for the station, not unlike the KNDD jobs held by the Real World: Seattle cast.)
ONE NIGHT, at about 7 o’clock or so, that guy who hired me and Kathy, who I really pretty much hardly ever saw again, found me in the Addressograph room. “What time do you have to be home?” he asked.
I wasn’t even sure he was speaking to me until he threw me a “uniform” and offered me double my salary to fill in for a Boss Chick who was out sick. “Be in front of the station in a half hour”, he said.
I was about to spend the evening asking grown men to dance at WFIL Night at the Windjammer Room in the Marriott on City Line Avenue.
For a shy 16-year-old girl with braces, a night from hell.
There’s nothing like putting on hot pants in a bathroom stall while thinking up a lie to tell your mom to make you feel like an authentic red-blooded American teenage girl.
I fit my pack of Marlboros perfectly in the pocket of my handbag, slid my lighter into my boot, and boarded the bus filled with veteran Boss Chicks. They were all blonde and beautiful. Mostly between 18 and 20. None with braces. They were having so much fun being them. No sign of Kathy; I figured she must be the one I was filling in for.
I thought she was ill; but I later found out that she was keeping a low profile while healing from a shiner, which she occasionally got from Mommy’s boyfriend.
The gals tumbled off the bus together like a spinning pinwheel. I watched them bounce through the lobby of the Marriott in front of me while I strolled behind them. As we passed the restaurant I caught a glimpse of where, not long ago, me and my mom sat eating sundaes at our favorite window table, looking out onto the pool in the summer and the ice rink in the winter.
I entered the Windjammer Room to the classic “sounds of Philadelphia”. Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes featuring Teddy Pendergrass “Bad Luck”–an ominous sign.
The other “chicks” began dancing as soon as they entered the room. One by one, they grabbed one of the guys at the bar, which was filled with traveling salesmen and lecherous locals who came out that night to dance with hot-panted-bell-heel-booted girls.
The guy that hired me came up to me and said, “Debra, you have to go ask one of those guys to dance with you–that’s why you’re here.”
I was horrified. I looked up and down the bar trying to find the loser who least disgusted me. They were all equally creepy.
The first guy I asked was slobbering drunk and kept falling into me during “Soul City Walkin’.” The next guy groped me all the way through “Me and Mrs. Jones” and proceeded to call me “Mrs. Jones” the rest of the night.
Finally, I found one guy who seemed just to be interested in dancing and having fun. He had lots of energy. And lots of coke, which he proudly snorted in front of everyone from a vile and spoon around his neck (which kept getting tangled up in his Italian Stallion medallion).
Suddenly he went nuts during “I Love Music” and shook his Pabst Blue Ribbon and sprayed it all over my T-shirt, screaming like a pig. I went to the bathroom and didn’t come back out ’til it was time to board the bus back to the station.
Needless to say, they never asked me to do the “Boss Chick” thing again. I resumed my survey and Addressograph work, which I liked a lot better, even if it was only half the pay.
Soon they asked me to assist a university student named Mark Goodman with telephone research. He and I became great friends. In my senior year of high school, he helped me obtain an internship at the leading FM rock station in Philly. Mark went on to become one of MTV’s very first VJs. WFIL went on to become a Christian talk station.
The summer ended and I returned to school with a new feeling of confidence. I quickly made a new set of friends.
One early fall night I was out with Flufffy, my evening ciggarette and my WFIL handbag. Kathy was on her steps in her Catholic school uniform, and a plaid waisted coat with a fur collar.
She was kissing Raymond, the boy I had a crush on.
TOMORROW: The magazine glut.
ELSEWHERE:
