It wasn’t easy. I kept that half-pack for a month, fearing a
backslide. Then, I gave it away, along with my Zippo lighter and a carton missing
one pack. The carton had cost me $2.10 in the ship’s store, or 21 cents a pack.
I think the price went up later.
That wasn’t all. They—the Navy—used to serve four meals per
day. If a person stayed up until midnight, he could have a meal along with the
guys going on the Midwatch.
Yeah, I formed a habit of that after I quit smoking. Worse
still, they opened a “Geedunk Stand” up for a couple of hours in the morning.
To put it mildly, I was eating like a pot addict by the time
I left the sea.
I had ballooned up to 230 pounds, but was enjoying this
fantasy that one of the world’s premier goddess might look at me. Not likely. I’d
see myself in the mirror and think, “Who are you kidding?”
Beautiful, sexy women judged the outside of a man, not the
inside. Or so I thought. I waddled around the apartment complex, watching for
the Redhead, or even her twin sister. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of flowing
red hair entering or leaving that pale red Impala. Sometimes I saw her and her
friend walk by my window going to my next-door neighbor’s house.
I just watched.
Oh, and speaking of my neighbor, she caught me once coming
back from the dumpster. Isn’t it interesting about lines of communication? Ours
was the dumpster. If you wanted to catch up on gossip, learn the history of a
stranger, or find out where the nearest washeteria was, jut hang out by the
dumpster. Help was always available.
It was around 7:00 p.m. one Friday when my neighbor caught
me. “Hey,” she said from inside the screen door, “do you like Scotch?”
I looked. She was more or less dressed. She wore a pair of
shorts and a man’s shirt, much too small for her. She had buttoned it across her
bosom and the buttons were hanging on for dear life. The bottom halves of the
shirt flared outwards, revealing a charming navel. This was "fully dressed" in her
world.
Someone had given her boss an expensive bottle of scotch whiskey.
He gave it to her. “Treat your boyfriend to some actual 12-year old single-malt,”
he had said. She didn’t know what that meant and, having no boyfriend, she
thought of me.
I said, “Sure,” but I had no idea what the product was
either.
“Meet me on the patio,” she said.
I went out on my patio, then around the partition to hers.
She had a table set with a Coke for her and the bottle of scotch and a jelly
glass for me. I sat and we talked. “I hear you ran into Brenda at the Burger Chef,”
she said.
“How do you know that?”
“Not much gets by me around here,” she said. “Don’t do anything
you wouldn’t want passed along the ‘Dumpster-Graph,’ or you’ll regret it.” She
sipped her Coke. I took a drink of whiskey and swallowed. It was so smooth that
I had to stop and make sure I had.
“Did you ask her out?”
 |
| Brenda or Brendhilda: both on the feisty side. Which one for me? |
“No,” I said. “It was in the middle of the Burger Chef and
she looked … well, different,” I drained the glass and poured another two fingers.
“What are we going to do with you?” she said. She pointed at
the bottle. “Drink that,” she said. “I can’t stand the smell. It must have spoiled
being so old and all.”
I drained another glass. The world seemed to be getting
level and I was growing more handsome by the minute.
“Here I am,” she said, “the apartment match-maker and I can’t
even get this idiot to ask the girl of his dreams for a date.” She threw her
arms out in a motion of despair. “Give me patience,” she said. She widened her
arms as if in supplication. A button on her shirt popped and sailed into the lawn.
“Okay, okay,” I said, the scotch filling me with self-assurance.
“I’ll ask Miss Brenda out. But which one?”
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