Chapter Four Part One

Despite my words to the now previous boss, I was still feeling rather ill at ease as I pulled into the almost empty parking lot of the main office early that next morning. I thought of the things I had left unsaid, and came very close to correcting those omissions, when I found a box on my former desk already carefully packed with my collection of coffee cups, golf balls and matching tees, ashtrays, pens, paperweights, ball caps, finger nail clippers, and other miscellanea I had received over the years from both customers and suppliers. Missing were the business cards and thank you notes that came with those items as well as the cigarette lighters and my bottle of Visine. Apparently, in the eyes of the Company, I did not warrant business associates, gratitude, fire, nor even the ability "to get the red out".

Still thinking the things I had left unsaid, and, in fact, expanding upon them to a great degree, mostly in the direction of immoral, if not illegal, acts in most of the western hemisphere, and adding a few physical impossibilities as well, I put the box in the back of the Jeep and drove over to the next building to meet with the warehouse supervisor before the rest of the crew arrived.

I had worked for him a couple of times in years past, and after speaking with him for a short while that morning, found myself actually looking forward to doing so again. He was one of those rare few who lead by example rather than executive fiat. Always working harder himself than he asked anyone else to, he tacitly dared his people to try to keep up with him.

It was to be a physical job that, unlike than my last position which had mostly involved calming things down, would primarily deal with stacking things up. The variety of tasks I had been previously required to handle had been replaced with the uniformity of cardboard cartons. But, besides it being a job and source of income, it was also good honest work, the results of which were a little more apparent and tangible than just a clean desk and an absence of complaints.

I had worked side by side with a fair number of my new coworkers, as well as swilled a rather large amount of beer with them, both during and since my last stint in this department. Instead of me being "okay out there", I received more of a "Welcome Home". There wasn’t exactly a cake, but more the feeling that the prodigal son had returned. A lot of them held the office staff with disdain, considering them to be a lower form of life, in some cases with good reason; however, I always maintained that title should be reserved for high pressure sales staff and certain mid-managers.

The years I’d spent in the office, however, had taken their toll. I was a little more than a tad tuckered, and well past dishrag status when I got home after that first day. While I was feeling pretty good about what I had accomplished that day, I also cursed myself for my decision to have an upstairs apartment. These curses were to continue for only a few days and the term "candy-ass" returned to my vernacular.

As I was adjusting from wing tips back to red wings, Kathy and I started adjusting Billy to the idea of the three of us becoming a family unit. On the Fridays he was not staying with his father, we weaned him toward spending the night with us at the now not so bachelor pad. When that started going smoothly, we added that Saturday night as well. The other nights he spent with Kathy at her parents’ house with me spending a little more time there each week. It didn’t really take all that long for us to fall into a nice routine.

But Kathy and I both knew that it was one thing to spend a lot of time together and quite another to live together full time. We had to know if it was possible that we could actually share a residence for the days weeks and years that were to follow. We had to determine if our family dynamics would be such that would allow for an active and healthy social interchange between each and every member of our unit as well as a peaceful coexistence while allowing for individual personal space and expression. We had to know if we could all live together without driving each other absolutely fucking nuts.

The solution was to be a trial run of sorts. They would move in with me a couple of weeks before the wedding. We figured any particularly annoying personal quirks or habits would manifest themselves directly. If we looked still looked forward to spending time there together, or at the very least, could still stand each other’s presence, we would go through with the wedding as planned. If we didn’t, we would consider it "no harm, no foul", and move on to continue with our separate lives or, perhaps, try again later.

The not so bachelor pad had been going through some changes as well. The rooms without plumbing had been heretofore of no fixed purpose, often changing designation with a quick rearrangement of furniture. These tended to stabilize somewhat when we set aside a bedroom for young master Billy for the nights he would stay here. Although, the long hall did still double as a putting green.

The artwork changed a bit when I found homes for some of my hanging collection of black and white photographs, namely, the nudes. They weren’t cheesecake pinups or even erotic by any means, but museum mounted and framed figure studies I had obtained while I was in college, usually in trade. I saw nothing even risque in them, but Kathy thought they had no place in a home with a curious young child. I disagreed but, not being a parent yet, deferred to her judgement.

With the wedding to take place in July, it was of course, rather warm on moving day. Record setting as I remember. But we got her stuff moved in without too much trouble with the exception of an Ethan Allen couch she bought. That we had to hoist up onto the back porch with a rope. The bachelor pad was no more. It was now the apartment. With the affixing of Billy’s Superman toothbrush holder on the bathroom mirror, it officially became our apartment.

The Gas Station

It had been less than a week after my being served for divorce on the grounds of mental cruelty without provocation. I was having absolutely no problem with the idea of a divorce; I had, after all, been abandoned with a twelve year old child. I was having no problem with the process server, she and I had a lovely chat on the porch, probably sparked by my immediate laughter at the audacity of the ex-to-be and the total absurdity of my situation.

I was, however, having a bit of a problem with it being yours truly accused of the mental cruelty. I scoured my memory for a cause, but already knew the answer before I even started. I had, in a recent conversation, told the now sooner-to-be-ex not to take anymore of our son’s Social Security money, as he still did, as he always had, lived with me.

I had also expressed an extreme displeasure with the latest paramour’s presence at their last visitation as well as a proposed meeting of offspring during the next. The marriage was still valid and in effect, at least it was according to the bank and insurance company. Cold, callous, and heartless am I.

No longer numb, and well past irate, I was now fuming as I pulled into a gas station to pick up some smokes. This place had a three pack special which kept the per pack price down to within pennies of carton prices. Given my rather shaky finances at the time, I figured I would probably need to at least curtail, if not cease entirely, my favorite vice for monetary reasons alone.

I spotted what had been once "our" car at the back corner of the lot by the air pump. "Nope, not yet," I thought as I spun the steering wheel and whipped back onto the street at a better than fair clip, crossing three lanes of traffic to get into one of the left turn lanes.

A passing state trooper seemed to be not at all impressed by my display of high performance driving skills and use of proficient heel-toe action in a service van onto a busy thoroughfare. He followed me and pulled up alongside me to my left rolling down his passenger side window as we both slowed for the red light. Before he could speak, but well after I could feel his glare, the guy behind me started flashing his lights and honking.

"Hey," he yelled, leaning his head out the window.

Apparently, I was the center of attention; not exactly a place I preferred to be at that particular moment.

"Yeah?" I answered, sticking my head out the window and looking back.

"Did you forget something back there?"

"Not that I know of."

"There was some lady back at that gas station chasing after you and waving her arms."

"That’s my soon to be ex-wife. I’m just really, really, really not in the mood to deal with her silly ass right now. But thanks."

"I see," he said as he started laughing. "Been there."

I thought I heard a faint chuckle from the trooper as he started looking down, shaking his head and rolled his window back up. He must have figured I already had enough on my plate as it was and didn’t need any more, at least from him. He was right.

The boss’s boss, apparently not having enough to do up in the main office, was spending a lot of time in back micro-mismanaging. Today, as usual, he was looking at the world through vodka tinted glasses and right on top of the situation, thrusting with feverish abandon. I knew I wouldn’t get a chuckle from him when I got back to the shop, but more likely some completely inconsequential or futile errand to some remote part of the state.

The arrow mercifully turned green and I was on my way, thinking I had just dodged two bullets in as many minutes. I was wrong, and realized my mistake as the cell phone rang seconds later, displaying the same number I had been ignoring for the last ten minutes. Sighing deeply, I answered it this time.

"Hello."

"Thank God. I’ve been trying to get you for a while now. Hey, the car has a flat and I have a busy one today. Was that you back here at the gas station? Are you still in town?"

I was dumbfounded. The woman who abandoned me and is suing me for mental cruelty now not only wants, but expects, me to change a tire for her. Why didn’t she call her boyfriend? I was so shocked and in awe, I couldn’t even refuse, much less say a quick "go to hell", and made my way back to the station.

The car was still by the air pump when I pulled back into the lot. Kathy had already jacked it up and was trying to take off the lug nuts. The tire was not only flat, it was shredded beyond repair as it spun in her efforts.

"It won’t keep any air in it. Is this how you do it?"

"Lower the car before you loosen the nuts, then raise it to take off the wheel."

"Oh."

I lowered the car and started loosening the nuts, wondering why I was doing it for her but also knowing it was just out of pure habit.

"You need to buy me new tires."

I stopped what I was doing and stood up to face her.

"You’re suing me and you want me to buy you tires?"

"Oh, you know about that.... I’m not suing you, it’s just for the divorce."

"Yeah, I know about it. What would you call it?"

"Does Luke know?"

"Well, he was standing next to me on the porch."

"They served you at home?"

"Where else would they find me?"

"I thought they would serve you at work or something."

"I’m never there, where would they catch me?"

Kathy looked at me for a second and started working on changing the tire.

"Watch your wrist. I’ll get it."

"I got it."

"Fine," I said and went inside to get my smokes.

Quadna One

Cathedral Three

Chapter Seven or so

The caller ID had been showing ‘Privacy Manager’ for a couple of days on this grey Saturday morning in March, both at home and on my company issue cell. I ignored them all. I reasoned that if they took the trouble to block the call, there must be a reason they didn’t want me to know who they were. I was waiting for a call from Phil, my attorney, not a phone solicitor or bill collector. It had been two months since Kathy had taken off and I had plans already in motion for a divorce by publication, in effect, in absentia. The notice would be in the paper in a week or two.

Phil was an old family friend; he and my father had helped each other out with this or that personal or professional debacle for years. As a judge, he performed the marriage ceremony for my brother and his now ex-wife. Later, as an attorney, he had represented my brother in his divorce. He had greatly helped Kathy and myself in dealings with her ex. I thought it only fitting to retain his services.

Phil thought I was just being shrewd by this tack, as it was more expensive and time consuming, but the real reason was a genuine concern for my wife. While I was still, by far, the most pissed off I had ever been in my life, I didn’t think it would do much good for her to be served by jack booted deputies with squawking radios just when she thought she was safe. Even after being abandoned by the bitch, I still cared for her well being, and this was the closest thing I could do to comply with her request of an uncontested divorce.

It was nearing noon as Luke and I came home after a trip to the grocery. We needed provisions and I had finally convinced him that if he wanted to choose what we would have for dinner that week, he must accompany me to help pick it out, I wasn’t a mind reader, after all, a trip to the video rental store providing further impetus. The cell phone started singing the "Mexican Hat Dance", my ring tone of choice at the time, just as we left the latter.

"Dad, who is it?"

"It doesn’t say. It just says ‘call’."

"Answer it, it might be important"

"Doubtful. Besides, we’re almost home."

I pulled into the driveway. The land line was ringing as we brought in the groceries. I ignored it. The cell phone rang again as we were finishing putting things away. It said ‘call’. I sighed deeply, ignored it, turned off the bell and then tossed it onto the kitchen counter, showing absolutely no respect for company property. The land line rang again. Not at all to my surprise, the ID read ‘Privacy Manager’, and I had seen that same number several times a few months before, but not for quite some time since, at least not until this last couple of days. It couldn’t be good.

I had tried running a reverse phone number search for it on the internet when it had first starting appearing, right around when Billy took off, hoping it might shed some light on his decision to do so. But that was to no avail, the search revealed the city, Evanston, Illinois, but not the name or address of the party making the call. Kathy and I both, on separate occasions, tried to return the call only to have them not go through, which I considered rather unusual for twenty-first century North America.

"Dad, answer the phone."

"No, we’re busy."

"No, we’re not. Why won’t you answer it?"

"It can’t be good and I don’t want to talk to anybody. I want to watch a movie. Do you want some popcorn?"

The ringing from the dining room stopped. I went in and turned off the bell. I had left the bell on continuously for a while following Kathy’s departure in case she might happen to call. Both Luke and I would rush to the ID upon entering the house. Now we would just check it, from time to time; when we came in, between movies, and pee breaks, checking on to whom money was owed, having given up on hearing from her weeks before.

I walked back into the kitchen. The cell phone was flashing.

"Yeah, and a Mountain Dew. I’m going to answer it next time. I have to know who it is."

"It’s probably just a scam, or a computer looking for another computer. I’ll answer it the next time it rolls around. Cue up the movie, I’ll be right there."

I took a bag of popcorn out of the pantry and put it in the microwave. Neglecting to start the oven, I glanced down at the cell. No longer flashing, it read 6 missed calls. I walked into the dining room just as the land line started flashing. I was hoping it was someone selling windows, subscriptions, lawn care, anything. As I finally picked it up, I already knew who it was.

"Hello?"

We didn’t quite get around to seeing a movie that afternoon.

Cathedral Two

My Place in the Universe

I have always enjoyed the night sky, and was looking forward to seeing it on this fine, crisp, December morning, just an hour or so before dawn. My nose was starting to feel cold even before I opened the side door of the house. Even though it was a moonless night, I knew I wouldn’t be able to see the Milky Way from here as I remembered I could as a small child, but it was worth another shot, and had purposely left the floodlights turned off just in case.

The snow crunched beneath my boots as I walked down the driveway toward the back yard, the sound almost deafening in that utter silence that always seems to follow a new fallen snow. I glanced up and could see those brilliant white specks glaring down from a jet black sky that have always made me feel just a little bit better. The air was so cold and devoid of moisture, my breath was luminescent. "About three or four below," I thought, "perfect."

Once out in back, I could barely make out the milky way; it was lacking the splendor that it had shown me before. The last time I had seen it in all its glory had been many years before, during an all night drive through Wyoming, when I had to pull over just to look. What I thought had been a few minutes before I got back into the car, had actually been a couple hours.

I pondered, once again, my place in the universe. I had done well. I lived in the familial home with my loving wife and our two strong sons, both of whom I could now see through the back picture window, eating their cereal while watching cartoons before getting ready for school that day. Yes, I had done well, I was a college educated citizen of the most powerful and affluent nation on earth. I was a land owner, king of my castle, in a good neighborhood of the capitol city of a major state. I was at the very apex of the food chain on the planet, at least in my neck of the woods. I had it all.

I thought of this as I awaited the culmination of this most vital of morning chores, the dog to find just the perfect place to leave a steaming heap of shit. Yes, I did indeed, know my place in the universe.

Chapter Three

Things started to change in both my bachelor pad and my bachelor life. While I still, to this very day, consider the existence of a phone in my home only for the convenience of me and mine alone, it was no longer simply disconnected and put away after use. It was now left out in the open for all to see, next to my favorite chair, sitting on a pedestal like some sort of shrine to communication, an answering machine with an angry red blinking eye adding to its evil presence. It was even plugged in and on the hook, in case she would happen to call. The dishes now dried on only one rack. The refrigerator shelves which had been removed to accommodate pony kegs for parties were returned and stocked with food. Clothes were worn only once before washing. The trash was no longer carried down the stairs for me to toss in the company dumpster when the bag was overflowing. It was now dutifully tossed off the back porch into the pharmacy dumpster right before the weekly pickup.

I gave up my long battle with the gas company. My apartment had been empty for so long that they had pulled the meter. In their haste, they had also removed a section of pipe connecting it to the building. When they reinstalled a meter they omitted that four inch pipe, declaring it to be my problem. I took exception to the bills I started to receive for gas usage. They were, in fact, meter rental fees, the distinction being lost upon the utility, but not my bullheadedness. Having been on several extended camping trips, and my sex life as it was, cold water bothered me very little. I couldn’t say the same for Kathy, and looking forward to a hot shower with my girlfriend, I paid them the few bucks they were demanding and called a pipe fitter.

The biggest change in the apartment, however, was the purchase of a television set. In my youth, I was usually parked in front of one for hours at a time, flipping between the up to four available pre-cable channels looking for anything to avoid any thought processes. The only television I had been watching lately was at my parents house between loads of my laundry and the odd jobs they had saved up during the week for me, more to provide topics for discussion than anything else. With a woman coming into my life as well as her son, I thought it wise to make the 149.95 investment, although I did decline the 159.95 limited three year warranty.

I decided not to join the Monday night dart league that year, and haven’t joined one since. While I did, much to my surprise, win a few hundred dollars the year before, I had grown tired of going to every other tavern in the city, each one a little seedier. The home bar was bad enough, I didn’t like to even walk in there alone. It wasn’t a bar I went into often, and I still wonder how I got hooked into playing. Some of the others were worse. But they all grew somewhat more tolerable after a few drinks had dulled my sensibilities as well as my senses.

I did, however, keep the Wednesday night backgammon. I was just starting to get kind of good at it, and wanted to win back at least some of my investment of the seemingly gallons of single malt scotch I had lost, two ounces at a time, learning to play the game. It was held at a somewhat nice, yet fernless, downtown bar where the drinks were slightly more expensive, but the carrying of concealed sidearms was actually actively discouraged. The players came from various backgrounds, so the game banter was a little more intriguing than "Damn, look at the tits on that waitress." or "My boss is a total asshole.", although similar phrases had been heard from time to time from each and every player.

I have always taken great exception to the latter phrase, preferring, in my belief anyway, that a more correct variation of that sentiment is, "My boss is the cork in the asshole of progress". After all, even an asshole has a purpose.

Thursday night was still reserved for happy hour and bachelor supper, but only one. It was no longer all that much fun to stumble from bar to bar. I was getting a life. I would hang out for a while at my favorite tavern to have a few and catch up on gossip, but as many of my cohorts had been busy acquiring lives as well, the evenings were getting shorter every week, much to the delight and relief of my liver.

Friday evenings were now, of course, spent with Kathy. We would be at her parent’s house on nights she had Billy, playing cards or board games until he went to bed. On weekends when Billy was with his father, we would usually be at my apartment doing what it is that young couples do when they are alone.

It wasn’t long before I felt as if I had known her forever, and told her so. She echoed the sentiment and we agreed to wed. We set the date to be on the following fourth of July for several reasons. First, and most important, we would always have the day off to spend together. Second, it would be impossible for me to forget. Third, it was after I had turned thirty, which I considered, and still do, the minimum age for such a commitment for males such as myself, due to the vast quantity and the extreme long half life of cranial fecal content.

Speaking of feces, and a rather large crock thereof, I might add, there was another great change in my life. It was one of those days, Martin Luther King Junior Day as a matter of fact. I woke up a couple minutes late and found the little bastards had turned and left my headlights on again. At 7:45, the traffic was barely heavy enough to prevent me from push starting it alone, a skill I had been forced to perfect over a few months before. I called my father for a ride. I could just get a ride home from Kathy, and, with a little luck, another ride from her when we got there. No problem.

I arrived at the office about ten minutes late. Noticing my desk had been totally cleaned off, I could only think, "Big problem." The boss was nowhere to be seen so I waited for the inevitable outcome, just standing in the doorway to his office, pondering my next move, and wanting a cigarette. Their next move was to escort me into officer territory, where I was immediately fired.

The reasons for my dismissal that you might hear will differ from source to source, as does any gossip. There are a minimum of two sides to any story, and the truth of any matter always lies somewhere in the middle. I could tell that they would accept no defense to their accusations, so I offered none. As a result, I was rehired on the spot, my old warehouse supervisor waiting behind a closed door to greet me. Apparently my career path was leading away from prime rib and double digit merit raises back to pushing brooms and loading trucks, hardly the ideal situation in which to start a family. We agreed I would gather my personal affects the following morning, well before business hours, and start at eight in the back.

"Are you going to be okay out there?" My now previous boss asked.

"I’ll be fine," I responded. "You officious, pompous, prima donna, jive-ass, mother-fucking, cock-sucking, father-raping, sack of shit, who just happens to have a right last name. Have another matinee with your autistic sister, and her little dog too. Then screw your boss’s secretary again in order to gain a little more favor, you worthless son of a bitch. I am not the complete asshole you tried to train me to be," I dared not utter.

Under escort, I was returned to the department to retrieve my coat. As I walked past Kathy, I told her I would call her later. To the senior customer service representative, seated at his desk, I leaned over and said, "See ya. You’re on your own." Ten seconds later, I was hitting the bricks on the four mile walk home, only glancing back but once. I had a lot of thinking to do.

Wishing I had a hat on this dreary January morning, I was thankful it wasn’t raining very hard. The first mile allowed the shock and anger to dissipate. The second mile covered all of the ‘What if I had’s with the sudden realization that they didn’t really matter anyway. What’s done is done. There is no going back in time. I refused to waste anymore energy on them, opting instead to learn from the experience and my mistakes contained therein and just move on with my life without regret.

I decided to make a side trip on my way home. I changed direction and headed to the unemployment office. The job offers I had received over the years, and there were many, all required me to relocate out of state, something I did not think would sit too well with Kathy. A local job was the only answer. I had mentally listed all of my qualifications and written my resume by the time I approached the office a mile later.

"Well, there’s my three for today," I thought as I found the door locked. "My jeep won’t start, I’ve lost my job, and now I can’t even remember that state offices are closed on federal holidays." The sky seemed a bit lower the rest of the way home.

The seventeen steps up to my apartment were harder than the walk home from work. I hung my coat on the hall tree to dry, hit the can, and changed out of my work clothes. I went into the living room to sit and have a smoke. Had I been epileptic, that first glance I took at the answering machine’s angry red eye would have dropped me in mid-stride. I couldn’t even begin to count the flashes as I finally got to sit down.

Before the tape had finished rewinding, the phone rang. It was Kathy.

"What happened? Are you okay? I was so worried."

"I got fired."

"How did you get home?"

"I walked."

"You could have taken the car. Why didn’t you?"

"I needed time to think and I really didn’t want to go back there today."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don’t know yet."

"You’re coming over tonight."

I wasn’t sure whether or not I really wanted to but agreed to anyway. What I wanted right then was to get off the phone. I didn’t want her to get into trouble for making personal calls and was having doubts as to the advisability of starting a family without knowing how much money I would be making. That wasn’t something that should be revealed over the phone and I didn’t want to let it slip. I would see how my mood was later and whether I was fit company or not before actually deciding to go.

I stuck around for a while and a few of the other reps called to check on me. They all agreed it was a total crock, but there wasn’t anything they could do. After the calls abated, I went down to check on the jeep.

Fortunately, I had left it parked at an angle, so I could take advantage of the slight incline of the street. As it was a holiday, everyone who had to be at work already was and the streets were almost empty. I got in and tried to start it. "Deader than Kelsey’s nuts," I thought as I left the ignition on, took it out of gear, got out and gave it a little shove. It rolled back perfectly. I jumped in, slammed it into reverse as I popped the clutch. It fired right up. I had perfected that technique out of necessity over the previous months. It wasn’t too hard to pull off in boots or sneakers, but dangerous as hell when wearing wing tips on wet pavement, and impossible if there was any traffic at all.

I drove around for a while in order to recharge the battery. After looping through the park a few times, I went to my favorite tavern. I figured I could always get a jump there if the battery had actually died this time, and then just go to buy a new one. It was closed. I drove to my second favorite tavern. By the time I walked up to the bar, there was a menu and a long neck Budweiser waiting for me. This was much better. That first sip of beer convinced me that it was the just the last thing I needed right then. I traded it for a watered-down Coke and went home, not bothering to order any food.

By late afternoon, I was feeling almost civil. Music combined with a lack of fluorescent light does wonders for the soul. It had been a very bad day, but I had experienced much worse. For example, the day after I was arrested for vagrancy, after I was kicked out of two hotels, after my car got creamed while diving through a snow storm, after leaving the state of Nevada with only fifteen cents, the clothes on my back, a maxed out credit card, a Snickers Bar, a cigar, and a Mister Pibb, only to return home and check my mail to find out that my girlfriend had moved on, my job had evaporated, as well as my acceptance in college the next semester. Oh yeah, my fish was dead too.

Compared to that, today had been peachy keen, with the exception of being in the position of having to tell Kathy there was no way I could marry her without knowing if I could provide for a family. By this time I had realized I had known her forever. She was the girl on the playground in grade school, the girl I passed in the hall in middle school that got my attention, the girl that was my best friend’s little sister’s best friend, the girl I saw leaving parties just when I was getting there in high school, the girl sitting behind the one man band at a late night bar that I had earlier bribed to learn ‘Aqualung’.

When I met her that night, it didn’t take her long to talk me out of calling it off.

Chapter Two

It was the late 1980's. I was the proverbial rising young executive at a world known, but locally based manufacturer, having worked my way up from sweeping floors and loading trailers to two hour lunches of prime rib and scotch, courtesy of the trucking companies. Had I been empowered to actually make a decision of any import, I have no doubt there would have also been hookers between the soup and salad. Meetings were often after work and weather allowing, on the back nine, more duffing than golfing. I was driving a Jeep at the time, so I would later have to take my ratty bag of clubs into the bar with me for my usual bachelor supper of free egg rolls and pizza, washed down with liberal amounts of Budweiser. It was a good life, at least not bad for a History/Poly-Sci major six hours and comps shy of his sheepskin.

As this was before the computer age, everything was on paper. The company had to have a rather large clerical staff. Immense banks of filing cabinets dominated all available wall space, covering the nicotine stained knotty pine paneling. Stacks of forms to be processed covered most horizontal areas. There were ashtrays on almost every desk. Smells of coffee, paper, smoke, ink, doughnuts, and cheap-ass perfumes pervaded the room. The drones of ringing telephones, typewriters, voices, and ten key adding machines were augmented by the staccato slam of the address-o-graph and the grinding of teeth. Customer Service sucks. But when the day was finally over, all in all, I had had a lot of fun. It was here that I was to meet Kathy.

She was hired as data entry clerk, the position for which she had been trained, and was, of course, promptly assigned a ten key and typewriter. Mid management saw the inevitable need for computerization, and trained staff, this was the eighties, after all. They kept her from moving on through promises of new positions opening soon in almost every department and all requiring her skills and, of course, summary pay raises. The old guard, however, knew best, having seen the movies "War Games" and "Colossus" and therefore fought any technological advance that might possibly result in a machine even talking, including voice mail. They kept her right where she was, a recently divorced single mom, under-employed and under-paid, with a limited horizon. When her day was over, she had not had a lot of fun.

I, of course, was ignorant of her plight, or even her existence for the first few months of her employment there, being wrapped up with work and while enjoying partying with my female coworkers on numerous occasions, not really wanting to spend all that much time with them. They were entertaining, but as W.C. Fields put it, "a lot like elephants, fun to look at, but not something you want to own". While I did enjoy the comradery, I had already made that mistake once and had a few other things to do, some of them even almost productive. She, as well, was busy after work, caring for her four year old son, cleaning her parents’ home, where she was forced to return to live, arguing with her drunken ex, and putting up with her brothers.

She started a couple departments over, working for an old timer who believed in total office decorum. Voices were to be kept low. Laughter could be only a scant chuckle. His people were to dress nice even if they had no title. With the pay scale as it was, this was a bit of a hardship for those just getting started in the workplace. He was a personable guy with a good sense of humor with whom I enjoyed swapping stories and lies, but there was no way in hell that I would work for him as rigid as he was with his staff and the pure, grim monotony of this, staplers on the left, pens on the right, and that’s why they call it work department.

The pure pandemonium and relative tolerance of the other room was totally opposite. Emotions ran high, but as long as the customers didn’t find out how pissed off we were, and their requests handled on a somewhat timely basis, a fair amount of latitude was given. This latitude narrowed a little when my supervisor retired and was replaced by a former and therefore rabid anti-smoker with from Purchasing having little experience with this side of the equation but also having one of the preferred last names, as this was a family business. Ties were to be worn, even though most of us already did anyway just in case a customer did happen to stop by the lobby, giving us an excuse to leave our desks. The axe handle I had hung above my desk disappeared. But he was a quick learner and somewhat reasonable, so we all soon got through the growing pains without too much problem.

Breaks were still when you could take them, usually signaled by the lack of ringing phones. A new non-smoking policy was instituted. Oddly, under the new policy, I ended up actually smoking more. Instead of me leaving a cigarette burning and forgotten in the ashtray after a couple puffs, it was now smoked down to the butt quickly and greedily, never leaving my hand as I stood right in the doorway of the break room in order to make it back to my desk to answer the next ring. Somehow, even though she worked in a totally different area, her smoking schedule slowly began to coincide with mine, sporadic as it was. Our paths were to cross more frequently when she was transferred into my department and issued a desk within clear view of my cubicle.

As any newbie would, she was promptly assessed by the staff. But since she came from another department and not off the street, some were particularly harsh in their judgment. Many people just don’t like others to have strong personalities. I am not one of them. I, unlike a few others in the department, preferred to deal with people of beliefs, taste, and humor. I also, unlike a few, rather enjoyed her skin tight dresses and long legs, views of which were enhanced by her decision to remove the lower panel of her desk.

There was bottle of aspirin the size of a mayonnaise jar on my desk right where my ashtray had once sat. It was for anyone’s use but mostly there as a silent protest. They didn’t work that well for stress headaches but did come in handy for the hangovers that seemed to plague the staff most heavily on Mondays and Fridays. They would stop by and help themselves, some as well occasionally asking for the Visine that I kept in my top drawer. She wasn’t in the morning brown bottle flu club, but would still come by during the day to get a couple of them on a regular basis, usually while I was just sitting for a second or two after a long phone call, trying to remember what the hell I was doing before I was interrupted, giving me the opportunity and obligation to watch her walk back to her desk.

Yes, I noticed her, but made no effort to expand our relationship to being any more than that of just coworkers. I did enjoy her flirting, recognizing and appreciating it for what it is, simple flirting, a fine, gentile, and all but lost art in this latter part of the twentieth century. It was a talent for the observant and sharper of wit, and not for most of the rest of the secretarial staff who had the initiative and intelligence of half a glass of water. We got to know each other over the next couple months, seven minutes at a time, in the break room. It turned out that we had many mutual friends and had lived only a few blocks apart for much of our lives. We had attended the same schools only one year apart in grade and had even attended the same parties on different shifts, but had never met. It was odd, but not all that disconcerting.

One day my Jeep had a dead battery. I lived on the strip and had the motor heads parking in my lot almost every night. They had at one time literally whooped and hollered all night until I cocked and pointed a shotgun at their ring leader, loaded, unknown to them with rock salt. The response to the sound of the bolt clicking into place, as I chambered the first round was priceless. A voice from the corner of the lot, "Oh fuck, he has a gun! We’re leaving, sir!" Now, occasionally, they would mess with my Jeep, usually just leaving beer cans and roaches, never anything really too serious, but this time they had turned and left on my headlights. I arranged a ride to work but had no way to get home besides shoe leather, a great start to the week. She offered a ride. I was at first surprised to find that she already knew where I lived, but quickly realized that it was probably not too hard to spot a yellow Jeep parked right off the main drag.

I lived above an old style neighborhood pharmacy. It was huge, as big as the store front beneath, and had a back porch over their storeroom. Heat was provided by a huge boiler in the cellar feeding the radiators both upstairs and down. I had three bedrooms I could mess up and then just move on to the next one, closing the sliding doors behind me. The living room and the bathroom were the only ones I kept somewhat reasonable, as even a slob has some standards.

She wanted a tour and I obliged, having straightened up the place a few days earlier purely on a whim. It had begun to bother even me, I had even washed the two weeks worth of dishes I had picked up at the Salvation Army thrift store filling the three drying racks that I had purchased for just such a rare event as cleaning day.

She had to pick up her son from daycare and was short on time. But, we sat and talked about nothing of any consequence for a few minutes each enjoying a non-hurried cigarette and clean ashtray in a quiet room, without a ringing phone. I had a phone, and service for it as well, at the insistence of my parents, and the need for one sparked by the incident of the shotgun, and a few others, but the phone itself was usually in a drawer, the cord strangling the headset, showing my contempt for that foul instrument. When it was time for her to go, she stood and said, her head down and absently kicking at the old, faded, at one time orange carpet, looking like a schoolgirl asking her grandfather for a pony, " Uh, well, uh, do you want to, uh, like, uh, go out and grab, like a drink or something. A few of us are going out Friday after work." I said, "Sure."

I usually didn’t go out on Fridays, considering it an amateur’s night. I would stop by a happy hour or three but wanted to be well clear by seven, when the huddled masses were set free from their workweek. At one time, I was one of them, I also used to play with toy cars in the sand. Now Friday nights were generally for errands, laundry, parents, groceries, and whatnot.

I wasn’t to meet her until nine, so I went to check on an old friend’s ex-girlfriend. When they broke up I refused to listen to either side. I told them that what happened between them was just that, between them, and I didn’t want to know anything about it. I therefore had remained friends with them both. You can’t have too many friends. There was nothing romantic about it. She was attractive and enchanting, but also a perennial loser who seemed to thrive on having way too much on her plate and took great relish in every crisis, often seeking them out. I had helped her and her ten year old son out a little when she moved back into the area and she wanted to repay me with a home cooked meal. After a delicious dinner and some hasty regrets, I drove the twenty minutes back into town.

Driving a Jeep is a lot of fun in the summer and handy to have in the snow. But on a clear, cold night, it can definitely suck. I was shivering when I pulled into the lot at the appointed hour, ice had already started to form on my moustache. Chilled to the bone, I entered the bar. It was an old pizza joint which had been converted into a discotheque over a decade ago, but now featured the music of the past thirty-some years and off duty cops as the security staff, hardly a drinking establishment I would frequent. My glasses immediately fogged at the front door and had to be removed. One of her friends, another coworker, met me at the door and took my coat. As if on cue, and it was, as I learned later, the music started. Kathy took my arm and escorted me, still shivering and rather disoriented, to the nearest of the three bottom lit dance floors.

It was, thank God, a slow one. While I have been blessed with a fairly good ear, I am also cursed with extremely bad feet. "I’m arrhythmic, I can’t dance a lick." has been my theme song all of my adult life. So we talked, laughed, drank, and smoked during the fast songs, getting to know each other better and deepening our friendship, and then we would dance during the slow ones, me trying desperately not to step on her feet, this task becoming increasingly easier as the backs of our knees were deepening their friendship, as well.

During this evening, I also realized how much I really enjoyed her company. It wasn’t just the prospect of sex with an attractive woman, while that was a major factor as well, it was more her sense of humor, intelligence, and basic demeanor. I could always just try to pick up some mindless piece of meat or even decide to do without, as I had at that time. But there was something else, something I found in her that was so elusive and ineffable that I had given up the search for it, hoping that it would someday find me. It had.

I was having a very, very good time, better than I could have possibly imagined when I agreed to meet her. The night could have ended right there and then and I would have marked it with a red letter, gone home to sleep and remembered it fondly for years to come. I still do. But I would have promptly forgotten the coworkers at the same table we occupied every other song. It wasn’t all that late and I was already growing tired of them. My heart then soared when Kathy, during what to be our last dance there that night, stopped, met my eyes and said, "You know, there is no place I’d rather be tonight, than with you." I felt the same.

She had given a ride to one of the girls that night and had to drop her well liquored ass off before meeting me back at my place. This gave me the time to start an album I hoped she would appreciate and do a quick straightening. I emptied the ashtrays, made sure the toilet was flushed, and installed a new roll of paper while I was at it. I wasn’t sure what the evening had yet in store. I was up for almost anything at that point. Conversation, cards, music, backgammon, or even being stood up were all equal contenders in the realm of possibilities. The latter seemed most likely after the first side of the record ended as well as the next. "Oh well," I thought. Disappointed, but not devastated, I started another album, and pondered whether I should call it a night and just read or go out and try to find some entertainment from the Friday night crowd.

I jumped at the first noise that came from the stairs. I had left the front door unlocked for her, something I never did, given where I lived, and rushed to meet what I was hoping to be her and not some yo-yo off the strip. Neither of us knew quite what to do next, so we talked for quite a while, listened to some jazz, and fenced around the subject at hand. Then nature stepped in and quickly settled that matter once and for all. Compatibility on all fronts was now confirmed.

The next morning, I feared it had been just a one night stand, or worse yet, that I would be used a few times, and then simply crumpled and thrown away like a dixie cup. There is nothing wrong with casual sex between consenting adults. Besides being a lot of fun, it can be one of the best things to do on the planet, ranking right up there with eating and breathing. But, deep down, and I didn’t realize it at the time, I was searching for a mate, not just someone to become friends with and/or diddle. I had no desire to be distracted in this, subconscious endeavor by yet another wild goose chase. When I talked with Kathy later in the day, I found those fears to be groundless.

Other fears, however, arose when she informed me that she was infected with herpes. I understood the malady, having friends who suffer from that particular affliction. She told me she had caught the virus from her ex-husband during an attempted reconciliation, he forcing himself upon her in the process. She was adamant that she was not contagious at the time of our first tryst, and had been nervous about scaring me off. I accepted her explanation and dismissed my misgivings. We became a couple.

Chapter One

As of the eighth of January, 2003, the third millennium had not been too kind to me and mine. It had seen my widowed mother, at one time about the sharpest mind I have ever encountered reduced to a mere husk, all insight and savvy stripped away, leaving behind only the anger, bitterness, and pain of a long life. My wife’s father passed away, her mother hearing the code blue to his ICU room from the confines of her own hospital bed two days after Christmas. My eldest son, albeit step, Billy, slipped out into the night, and dropped out of high school in March of his senior year. My wife had been mentally ill for quite some time, and had been diagnosed with a profound depression and delayed stress syndrome with dissociative phenomena. But my name was not, and never will be Job, and things had slowly started to fall together once again.

A few years before, we had it made. We both had good jobs. We managed to take the kids to Disney World twice, both times staying on-grounds in the monorail resorts. Kathy and I went to Maui for over a week and then put in a pool for the kids right when we got back. Kathy could go to her favorite auction house every Friday night. No longer living paycheck to paycheck, we had finally reached a good place in our lives. I wanted to get back there.

As long as I had known her, Kathy had always bounced back from any setback. Upon losing a good job wrongfully, she accepted their severance package gracefully, opting to receive it over time, thereby accruing more compensation. She stayed home for a while and then found an even better position. While being grief stricken by her father’s death and a bout with severe carpal tunnel prevented her from working and also presented her with the strong possibility of loss of the use of her right hand caused a depression, she resigned, went into therapy, and ended up as the office manager at her psychologist’s firm. I had no reason to believe this trend would not continue if not escalate.

I try to be a patient man, often succeeding. The one thing I learned on a two month bicycle trip that actually stuck with me after twenty years was that if you stay your course, and keep moving, no matter how slowly, you will eventually reach your destination. There will be the inevitable need to backtrack occasionally, but the real danger is in stopping. You have to stop from time to time, just to take a break, however, the longer you stay in one place, the harder it is to get started again. Inertia is a hard force to counter.

For over a year, Kathy had been unable to do much around the house besides exist. I told her that her number one job was to get herself better and I would handle everything else. Then I waited for the woman that I, standing before the hearth in the living room of my parents’, and now, our home, promised to love, honor, and cherish, in sickness and in health, till death do us part, to return to me.

Recovery from depression takes a lot of time and a lot of work for all involved. Kathy’s progress had been erratic at best. Usually, it was two steps forward and one step back; although all too often, the other way around. But progress had been made, nonetheless. Due to her extreme paranoia, the house was still under a virtual quarantine but she had started to drive again. At first it was just solo Sunday drives through the park, and then, little errands about town during the day. Later it was to get some of the antiques appraised. And at finally, to her weekly therapy sessions. I no longer had to play hooky from my job every Wednesday morning to get her there as I had to for months on end. Life was good.

I managed to attend my Wednesday night backgammon tournament, something I haven’t been able to do for over a year. It was good to see my old friends again. She did call and fuss a bit when I wasn’t back by ten, but that was no big deal. I was already happily out the door and on the way home. I was looking forward to the next day, something I had started to miss.

A breakthrough had been made. Kathy had contacted Bonnie, now living in Bloomington, who had been an old highschool friend and was going to meet her for lunch. She wanted me to make Luke’s sandwich for him when he got home from school. I had made arrangements with my boss to be close to town that day. I ran to the pharmacy to get one her prescriptions. When I pulled into the driveway, I could see the school bus pulling to a stop down the street. “Just in time,” I thought, as I hurried into the kitchen to start his snack, pondering what I would make for dinner that night and whether or not I had the time to start a load of laundry before returning to work. It was then, that I spotted the envelope leaning against the microwave.

My first thought was not one of neither panic nor despair, but was one of total, grim resignation. It all clicked; her saying “Goodbye,” to Luke and myself that morning instead of her usual “See you tonight,” the gradual disappearance of her favorite antiques, her aloof and pensive attitude of late, not to mention her mysterious errands during the day. She had run off to kill herself surrounded by her precious collectibles. All that we had been through together flashed across my mind in less than a second. It was an instant and an eternity at the same time.

I shakily opened and read the note, hand written on paper torn from a spiral notebook she had been using as a journal. Pages long, it contained no erasures and only one cross out. There was a rather snotty post script about a painting I had found distasteful added to a page for Luke as well. It told of her intent to move to Texas and stay with her friend Tammy. We were not at fault and were not to try to contact her. I was to divorce her on the grounds of irreconcilable differences and she would contact Luke after a “long time”. The third item in the envelope was a notarized affidavit giving me total rights to all marital property and well as Luke.

I composed myself as best I could and went to the front porch to wait for Luke. He was still a couple of houses down. He was walking slowly, head down, with a concerned look on his face as he kept glancing up at my truck. He knew something must have happened to have me there during the day. When he saw me standing there, he broke into a run.

“We gotta talk,” I said.

I was still reeling with shock as we entered the kitchen. Telling him what had happened, I handed him the one page that was for him. It said simply, “Mommy loves you. You’re the best thing I ever did.” Every muscle in his face contracted in anguish as he managed to cry out a single, pained syllable; “Why?” I had no answer. I could only stand there and hold him and pretend to be strong myself, waiting for at least one of us to absorb the blow.

My mind flashed back a few years. I was putting the kids in the car in front of my parent’s house. Something was terribly wrong. I don’t remember that particular crisis du jour, there are so many in young families, but I remember being very upset and in one hell of a hurry. My mother called out from the porch, “Hang in there.” I said, “Yeah, sure, I will.” and then, under my breath, “But I don’t know why.” I was fifty feet away, but she always could hear a rat pissing on cotton at two hundred yards. She said simply, “Because, that is what we do.” and turned and disappeared into the house.

Luke stopped shaking after a few minutes. We stood silently in the kitchen for a while.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“She’s going to be one of those in the back isn’t she?”

“What do you mean?”

“One of those in the back. When I graduate or accomplish something, she’ll be the old lady sitting in the back with the hat and sunglasses, right?”

“Yeah, and maybe a scarf. It’s just you and me now.”

“Dad, it’s been you and me for a long time”

Neither of us wanted to accept the real possibility that she had taken off to kill herself. Both of us had seen the depths of her depression and her with a bloody knife in her hand. We skirted about the issue, but did not dismiss it out of hand. While I do believe that suicide is everyone’s inherent right, it is also about the most selfish act possible. On the other hand, sometimes a little selfishness is required in order to simply survive. If one truly wants to die, one will; a dramatic suicide would not be necessary. The most selfish act would have to be a staged suicide attempt, which we had already seen. With what she already put us through, I would put nothing past her.

I tore the house apart looking for some kind of clue to give me a handle on the situation. The side door to the house had been ajar, telling me she had slipped out the same door as her eldest son. The partial pack of cigarettes meant wherever she went didn’t allow smoking. The phone bill had calls to Florida, not Texas as was indicated in her note. Her wedding band, left above the kitchen sink, was even more expressive than the “Dear John and Johnny” letter of her intent to literally abandon us.

The bank statement revealed some of her activities her few days in town. She had been going to a different pharmacy, doubling up her prescriptions, as well as buying phone cards. She had bought herself a box of chocolates at Fanny Mae, probably creams. The computer showed a deleted file, updated the morning of the day of her departure. It was her resume. Her journals, on which she had labored for hours each night were empty, except for a scratched out things “to do” list.

I saw three long distance calls to the same number in Florida on the phone bill. They were on consecutive days at the beginning of the billing cycle. I had earlier wondered why Kathy had taken the initiative to pay that particular bill and none of the others but figured at the time she was just starting to help with the chores. Apparently, I was in error in that assumption as well as the one in which she was talking to her therapist every night from nine to ten each night as she had claimed.

I wondered how long she had been planning this and how she could so easily walk out on her husband of fourteen years, not to mention her twelve year old son. Her side of the family, while being very supportive, had few answers for me as she had managed to alienate all of them with the exception of her bedridden mother. Her eldest son still wasn’t ready to open up to me and had refused to talk to her at all since his departure. She had only a few, if any, friends that I knew of who had been in any contact with her over the previous couple years. The only comments I could elicit from the neighbors were, “I’m so sorry.” and/or “Fuck her!”

Her therapist’s office called to confirm her next appointment. They were shocked by this new development, but were pleased when I offered to keep it. It was tense and silent when Luke and I went into Mary’s office, but warmed up rapidly. She was concerned as to our welfare and relieved by our attitudes. She cut Luke loose but wanted to see me one more time.

At that next meeting she indicated that she had reviewed her notes and still did not see it coming, neither had the psychiatrist. She wondered how I had survived the last two years so well and emphasized the need for a divorce if not only for my sake but for Luke’s. Otherwise, her comments were basically extremely polite versions of those made by the neighbors.

Her possible suicide was still pressed on the back of my mind. This changed about a week later. I was talking to Luke in the kitchen while making a Chef Boyardee pizza. I would have just had a pizza delivered, but was still unsure of our financial situation. We were just discussing our days, nothing of real import, when I discovered one more missing item. I had previously noticed the disappearance of the family silver, which although a relatively inexpensive set, I had always firmly believed should stay with the house, no matter which child should inherit it, and was totally disappointed in Kathy for her taking of it, and the shallowness that her action implied. I had thought I was a better judge of character. This newly discovered missing item turned out to be much deeper to Luke and myself.

“What are you looking for, Dad?”

“They’re in here somewhere.”

“What?”

“The measuring spoons.”

“What are those?”

“I need to put a tablespoon of cooking oil into the crust. You use them to measure out stuff. They’re in here somewhere.”

“Are they expensive?”

“No, not even a couple bucks. But I need them.”

“Mom must’ve taken them.”

I started to chuckle as all of my fears of Kathy’s suicide melted away. I erased the obituary I had mentally written for her two years ago.

“What’s so funny?”

“I guess she wanted to cook herself a nice dinner before she offed herself.”

Luke started to laugh too and said, “Two dollar spoons, cheap ass measuring spoons.” his concerns evaporating as well.

“She’s setting up housekeeping somewhere.”

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re better off without her, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

Our recoveries began that exact moment. Within a week, the neighbors were commenting on the change in Luke. The old Luke was back. No longer consumed by his mother’s condition, as he had been for so long, often coming in from playing with his neighborhood friends to check on her, he started to flourish once more. His spark was back. Teachers at his middle school went out of their way to express their pleasure of his progress academically as well as their relief in his improvement of attitude and basic demeanor. He was becoming happy again.

I would not consider myself exactly happy at that time, but I was happier. The fact that I was now a single dad with a stressful job that required me to be out of town on a daily basis weighed upon me heavily. My immediate supervisor was very understanding when I had to take off for a few minutes to care of something. His boss, however, was not, and was even angry that I didn’t finish the day Kathy left. That would have been great, “Hey Luke, Mommy took off for parts unknown, never to return. I’m going over to the next county to take care of a few things. Lock the door behind me, I’ll be right back.” I don’t think the boss’s boss has high blood pressure, but he is most certainly a carrier.

On the other hand, I no longer had to come home to a sequestered house to face whatever crisis, whether real, imagined, or fabricated, that awaited me each day. The major source of stress in my life had taken a major powder. As the house was no longer closed to the public, people started coming by again. Billy as well as my brother, Sam, became regular visitors. Neighbors knocked on the door to chat. Her family called to check on us from time to time. It was good to rejoin society after two years of seclusion.

With the realization that Kathy was still among the living, I could do more during the evening than just walk around the house filling ashtrays and pounding Budweiser. Repairs were made. Painting was done. Furniture was rearranged. I had finally woken up and smelled the feces. It had come to me; if I wasn’t appreciated, I wasn’t deserved, and had other things to do.

The work served to replace the nagging worry I had as to what she might have gotten herself into and her eventual fate. I still did have feelings for the woman. There was a reason I had married her in the first place. But, it was already well past time for me to take the bull by the tail and face the situation. I called my attorney.

At this point I must digress. What is past is prologue, at least that is what they said in college. In order to see where or what something really is, you must see where it came from, quark theory be damned.

Baldimer circa 1980

Cathedral One

Smoking

Why do I smoke cigarettes? They’re expensive to buy. They’re extremely unhealthy to smoke. Their smell annoys the living shit out of almost everyone else but other smokers. Places to smoke are becoming fewer by the day, often leaving me forced to brave the elements outside, placing even further strains on my health.

Could it be the taste? I used to like it but not for in quite some time.

Could it be the nicotine? No, I can get that in gum.

Could it be the addiction? I think I’m just to lazy to quit.

Could it be the ritual. Possibly.

Could it be the self-indulgence of using something that is inherently life shortening? Maybe.

Could it be a control issue? Definitely.

I think it is to play god for seven minutes at a time. Think about it, you spark life into that little cylinder when you want, whether by match or lighter, expressing the age old dream of fire at your fingertips. Prometheus would be ever so proud.

You control how long it lives by how much of its life you suck into your lungs, however, it, in return, shortens your life by precisely that same amount, a quid pro quo if ever I’ve seen one.

When you’re done with that little cancer stick, you can leave it to die a slow death, forgotten in the ashtray, you can cripple it into an agonizing death, a half extinguished lingering demise, crush it beneath your feet, drop it into a toilet so the funeral can be at sea, or simply flick it into space, banishing it forever.

Imagine That

As it was within a day or two of me being finally divorced, I decided to check out a couple of dating sites. I signed on to one and was promply rewarded with a few hits.

"What the hell," I thought, and paid the 25 bucks for a month of "premium access". This entitled me to send and receive email from the free members instead of just the few pre-selected flirts.

One lady and I traded a few messages back and forth. She wanted a picture of yours truly. I sent this, taken a few years back at a Halloween Party. It was the only one handy.

I find it strange that I haven't heard from her since. I'm at a loss. Could someone explain what I did wrong?

Prologue

Had I only listened to Eddie’s Nana. She told us not to have anything to do with the kids we could barely see, playing in their front yard, across the street around the corner from her’s.

“Stay away from them, they’re bad news. Do you boys want some lemonade?” she said in her ancient, sharp, yet booming, voice.

Her words didn’t matter, my world was a one block area, bordered by wide stretches of dark red brick. Even though I could see Eddie’s Nana’s house from my front porch, I couldn’t go there. It was across the street, and I was not to cross the street alone. They were across yet another street, and down that block as well, so going there on my own was simply out of the question.

I must have been only about three or four at the time, and like most other preschoolers, had the attention span only slightly better than that of the average dog, and seldom able to state even my own name, not to mention phone number or address upon demand. The advice was thus honored and then completely forgotten, replaced within a second and a half with the prospect of Eddie letting me play with his best Matchbox car. I wasn’t to get to meet those kids for quite some time, and it is only in retrospect that I remember her advice.