I never saw The Shack. I’d never even heard of it until my fortieth high school reunion, when Mimi described it. She was one of the eighth-grade elites who made out there, a guest room over the garage at our classmate Finsterwald’s house on Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills, not far from a trove of Hollywood celebrities.
Finsterwald furnished his retreat with two couches, one against the north wall, the other against the south, separated by a table that held a hi-fi. In the dark, the couches must have felt like beds, which, thinks Mimi now, they probably were. There, in a space lit only by what Mimi called “teeny weenie lights,” the popular kids necked while forty-fives spun on the turntable.
Finsterwald was a good-looking boy, with features more chiseled than mine. I can imagine his current girlfriend saying “mmmmm” as he kissed her—until she said, “mmmmmmmdon’t!” each time Finsterwald tried for second base. Then there was Alice and her boyfriend, the tight end. I’m certain she moved his hand to her breast. Alice was what they called “easy,” so I heard. I’ll bet she said, “You like?” and knowing the tight end, he said nothing, just kept going until Alice dropped the question mark and said, “You like.”
I can envision Finsterwald propping himself up on his elbow, running a hand through the tight curls of his hair and saying, “Want something to drink?”
She’d nod, cheeks flushed.
“Just a minute,” Finsterwald might say.
He’d cross the room to a small refrigerator and pull out a coke. Then maybe he’d switch the record-player’s speed from 45 to 33-1/3 and put on an LP, something slow, perhaps the year’s hit, Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
What else did that girl and Finsterwald say to each other? I mean really say. Probably nothing, but if they spoke, did they sprinkle their dialogue with clues to what made these kids so popular? As Thomas Hardy wrote in The Mayor of Casterbridge, “Darkness makes people truthful.”[1] If so, The Shack was a cornucopia of adolescent insights.
I wonder if Finsterwald’s parents knew what was going on in their guest room. I wonder what time everybody arrived, what time they went home. Did their mothers drop them off, pick them up? Did any of the goody-goody straight-A girls I liked frequent The Shack? Mimi didn’t say, but she did name several boys who were regulars.
If I’d taken one of the goody-goody straight-A girls I liked to The Shack, led her up the steps on the side of the garage and let her peek into that black room with its pinpoint lights, I bet she would have screamed and run down the stairs, down the driveway, down Roxbury Drive, past the twenty or so houses between The Shack and the goody-goody straight-A girl’s bedroom, with its pink wallpaper, walk-in closet, pink record player, color television, and an air conditioner that hung in one of the windows. And if it wasn’t too late, she’d pick up her matching Princess Phone, dial her best friend’s private CRestview number, and say, “You won’t belieeeve where Tony Mohr took me.”
“Him?”
“Yes, him,” she’d scream.
“Him?” her best friend would yell back, and within seconds they’d volley the word “him” from Princess Phone to Princess Phone, gaining speed until they hollered the pronoun in unison and topped it off with an “Oh, barf.”
For half an hour, while one straight-A girl lay supine on her bedspread and the other on the floor with calves hooked over her bed, they’d chirp, and as they did, they’d either pull on the long curly cords of their phones or wrap them around their elbows and forearms.
I assume The Shack is still there—at least the home in which it existed. Mimi doesn’t remember the address. Had she, I’d have driven by, if only to coax the past into focus and gaze at where the populars gathered during nights while, in search of an “A,” I slogged through Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition. Maybe I’d summon enough grit to ask the current owners for a look inside. They’d say yes, I’m sure, then lead me up that outside staircase to show me their screening room with a gym in the corner. That would light up what I missed — weekends with girls on a couch and an “A” in English. Neither happened. Old Mrs. Gross gave me a “B.”
[1] Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Chapter 17.
About the Author
Anthony J. Mohr served for twenty-seven years as a judge on the Los Angeles Superior Court and still sits on a part-time basis. His work has appeared in, among other places, Cumberland River Review, DIAGRAM, Hippocampus Magazine, The Los Angeles Review, North Dakota Quarterly, War, Literature & the Arts, and ZYZZYVA. His debut memoir, Every Other Weekend—Coming of Age With Two Different Dads, won several awards, including first in nonfiction in the Firebird Awards and first in the autobiography/memoir category of the American Writing Awards. Australia’s Chrysalis BREW Project named it the 2025 memoir of the year. A six-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he is the co-managing editor of the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Social Impact Review. Once upon a time, he performed with The L.A. Connection, an improv comedy theater.
