It was my birthday. It rained. One of those
July downpours that they call 'buckets', come in off the lake, and requiring buckets for a summer cabin with a roof compromised of poor old shake, and holes through which you see the sky But
there wasn't a bucket among
us. Read on, and you won't be surprised.
Didn't bother us much.
We were 'away'.
Twelve of us in all. All six cabins occupied,
We wondered why, what with the Fourth upon us, and all?...but, the roofs
immediately leaked the answer to the
question, and now drenched, we understood how we got in...so sneaky
cheap.
“Saps! We was taken!”
But, in reality, it didn't much matter, Hell you're
only young once.
You need stories to tell.
This is where they start.
Something to laugh about
when you go back to work. Something
to tell the kids when they
are born, if
ever...and memorable, only if you can
remember, by making it so. But now wasn't the time to think of that...no...not the time to think at all. Fall would be here
before you know...somberness arrives...
with oh-so dreary, Winter...and his bitch-wife, Snow....no. This was summer
…ours…and this was to be a Vacation to remember.
We had just arrived the day before...old Pontiacs, Chevy's and Fords. Rainbow-parked in an arc to shed headlights
on the our new homestead.
Six shacks. We unpacked
and had one heck of a party. Six packs of hot dogs, and buns...eight cans of beans. Plenty of salty treats. And it seemed no one wanted
to be caught short of hydration....the most beer I've ever seen…at
least at that early age. So, maybe now, you get a sense
of the scene.
A couple of the brew-plied fella’s got surly
and the rest broke it up. A few
of the girls gone tipsy, ran out to the woods and
puked. A ritual first night.
The sky was a lovely, starry
canopy... but down below,
wasn't so pretty at all. And there
could be some truth to the
rumor that the dogs were bad because
we all were called at some point into the night,
even those that abstained,
and that don't seem right.
Ruth Ann, the girl that came with me, had some great expectations of what our lives were going to be. I did not harbor those same dreams,
but she was willing to accommodate readily, eagerly willing to seduce
me, and do to me whatever I desired!
“I love to ‘obey’…” she was quick say.
And yet...
She was naming and numbering
children:
"Number One is a Boy...Alden."
“Number Two…naturally
is a girl named after me, only she
will be Ann Ruth...isn't that cute?"
....and on she went, until
finally naming and explaining, all 'seven'. So you see what I mean?
If this was foreplay, for the
way it's going to be, then I needed more beer immediately.
So I got a little
drunk.
But on an 'often
Torrential...eternally Humid' night, no stars in sight, the cabins a blight, we all took to our vehicles.
Windows steam. The wet sweat of body heat. Some cars
rocked, while others sat still in
the night. Me and Ruth Ann...? She took care of me by hand, but I was in no shape to share…so her night wasn't grand.
She wanted "off"...or out...so
I opened the door.
"Benny this isn't
funny. I don't want to see you anymore."
She crawled in back and went off to sleep. Me upfront with a beer...so
sufficiently Relieved.
That's when I saw the flash go by. Something white,
caught quick in lightning's light.
Switching headlights on, I saw her run
into cabin number
One. Which one was she? The
blonde? Who'd she come with?...where's she from?
Oh yeah. Butch. One of the brawlers.
Natch'... Drunk and belligerent, probably tried to maul her.
Butch was now bellowing, like some rutting
elk stag in the
dense woods. (I can only imagine...never heard one.)
Now he came into my ‘brights’…he staggered and covered his eyes.
"Hey!? You saw her! Where'd she go?!"
I switched my wipers on, pretending not to see clearly. He approached and slammed
my hood with his brick
fist.
"Hey! Excuse me...!" It was on. He caught
me with a hook
coming out the door, but I held to the handle and didn't
take the fall, instead faltered
back, gathered some slack,
then swung the door hard and it smacked him flat. Dumped him in the car with Ruth Ann...no, not in back...then went off to
look for the girl. He might have hurt her…I sure hoped not. I got to One, and knocked
gently on the door.
Didn't want to spook her
anymore.
"It's not Butch." "Who is it?"
"You don't know me."
“I don't know anyone. I shouldn't be here. I owed a favor to my
brother...”
“If your brother
set you up with ‘the Butcher’,
he's some sick sibling.”
“…Whole family is…not
fair to single
him out.”
“I see...and you?
“What?”
“Will you open the door?
You realize that beast
could dismantle this place with his bare hands?
And I 'knocked' …politely.”
“It's still raining...”
“I am standing
proof.”
“Why don't you go back to your car. Leave
me be. Stay out of it.”
“Too late. I’m in it. Butchy's in my front seat...out cold....same as in the back, with my date, asleep.”
She opened the
door...finally.
She WAS young. Seemed almost a girl. A waif. Wet, washed by rain, clean,
hair plain and straight…barely a teen. The ceiling drained countless falls from above,
and not mere trickles at all. She had found a corner in which to huddle. Wasn't much left
to wonder, through that wet white dress, nothing not to be seen.
“We can't stay here.”
“I got the keys.
“That's why he's so angry!”
“Do you want to sit in
he car?”
“Do you want to go home?”
“Are you serious?
Steal his car?”
“We swap cars. He's in mine,
I'll leave the key on the seat.”
“You'd do that? …to HIM!...for me?”
“I'll deal with him. I have my own
reasons to leave... “
“I see.”
She was not as young
as I had perceived... least
that's what she claimed.
Deirdre was her name. She was two months short of eighteen. So we were close in age. Close in
the car. Rain stopped
shortly....windows down...still muggy, still steamy. We drove and listened to the radio mostly.
By dawn we were back in town. I bought
her breakfast. It seems, between the weather
and melodrama, neither
of us had eaten the night before. And, now, when we did,
we
both ate like we’d been starved, and relished the appetite in the
other. Fellow food-wolves, ravaging
plates with gusto.
She slapped the ketchup bottle
toward her hash brown
mound, but found..splat! ...too hard!…me
splattered...like I'd been raked by rapid fire. I fell to the floor. A woman
screamed but we calmed her, and said we were sorry. We all
had to laugh. People were soaking
napkins in water and
offering to blot, but my Florence
Nightingale knelt beside
me and blotted out each bloody spot.
I was saved.
I was also as mess. As was she. We'd been beaten,
while camping, and stomping through
muddy bottoms, on wet
cots, shoe rot...stunk a lot…we needed to bathe. She couldn't go home
that way. I had a place
to stay. We paid and slipped away.
“You shower first.”
“You shower
with me”, and held out her hand.
“You're not eighteen...”
“No actually I'm twenty two, No one believes me...I
know.”
I was now with an older woman. “You...what?…”
“I didn't trust you?...would you? ...being me? ...with that crowd? Was I right
or was I wrong?”
“Agreed. With that clown...! Wow. So, you're really twenty two?”
“Do you have 'conditioner'?”
“For…?”
“Hair.”
“I'm sure. Somewhere in there.’
“Show me.”
“It 's a small bath.
You shouldn't have trouble.”
“Oh, yes. Yes, I should. It's exactly what I need.”
Simply put...we did the deed. It plainly…memorably…has conditioned me.
Prologue –
...the moral being?
Butch and Ruth Ann,
married, with seven off-spring…awaiting eight. So, who are we...to question Fate?
To this day, I get their Christmas cards, and they never
fail to thank me.
Deirdre married some oil guy...lives and thrives in
Dubai.
Me? I’m still a
happily-single-sorta-guy.
V
