My Redacted Life: Chapter 36 (Cont._2)

I opened one eye when someone hurled a bolt of fiery lightening through it. Then they did the other. Despite piercing pain, I opened both eyes wide. What I saw scared and confused me. I saw bright curtains of a flaming yellow background covered with pink flowers. A noxious serpent slid from my mouth, felt the heat, and crawled in again. I was on a bed, best I could figure, a short one. My foot hung over a foot from the end. Moving my head, I saw a dresser with a Southern Belle doll spread atop it. Was this Heaven or Hell?

Confusion reigned. A loud thundering in my head had awakened me as it slammed against nerve endings in what had to be what was left of my brain. I looked and saw that I was fully dressed. Then the thunder roared again and a voice echoed loudly enough to shatter my thoughts. “Hey lover boy. Coffee’s on.” I blinked and the movement shot pain through me like an electric shock. I had to figure this all out and it wasn’t going to be easy.

Rolling as gently as I could, I gained the edge of the bed and threw my legs over a spread festooned with clown heads. Normally, that would have frightened me, but I was beyond all that.

Then the door open and I saw Tom’s face. “Are we up?” it said.

I nodded, more from an attempt to escape further interrogation than to provide an informed reply.

“Are we okay?”

I said nothing.

“We thought you might ought not to drive, so I brought you home. I moved the girls into one room and let you have your own bunk for the night. Let’s have coffee and get you home.”

Home. Memory oozed into my mind like sewage flowing into a pond. Home. That’s where I had left from the night before, before I had met Tom and the others somewhere. Somewhere. That must be where my car was. That’s all I could recall.

“Remember? We played a game and you won,” Tom said.

“A game?”

“Yeah, one called, ‘weirder things I have ever done than getting married.’ Winner had to chug a beer each time. You tromped us, all of us, by fair voting.”

I said nothing. He said, “Was that one about setting your guard tower on fire really true?”

“The fireworks show?”

“Yeah. How much gunpowder did that take?”

“A bunch, but we had six hours to prepare,” I said, omitting the fact that it was actually Rick Beaton, and not I, who had overplayed his hand that night on the midwatch. I had performed well, albeit without the unfortunate after effects. But what’s a little prevarication from a condemned man? That’s what they kept calling me, “a condemned man.” A thought floated to the surface of my brain like a bit of matter rising in a septic tank. Wasn’t it John Steinbeck who said, “… a thing isn't necessarily a lie even if it didn't necessarily happen?”

“Come on, Champ,” Tom said.

He led me to a hall bathroom and waited. When I came out, he took me into his dining room and bade me sit for coffee. From there I could see into the kitchen where two young girls, all dressed for a day of excitement and fun at the country club pool sat at a breakfast table eating cereal. One was about seven years of age, and she looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and disdain that only those born for the manor can express so well. The other girl was younger, maybe five. Her look communicated pure disgust. It must have been her bedroom that I polluted. Tom’s wife never came out to greet us and I never asked why.

The ordeal didn’t last long. I refused a sweet roll and, as coffee began to roil in my stomach, I nodded that I was ready to leave. Tom drove me to my car. I rode in silence, concentrating on taming my stomach until we reached “the scene of the crime.” There sat the Green Angel with a disapproving look on her grill. As I emerged from his car, Tom said. “You only get married once … maybe twice … oh hell, who knows how many times? It’s good to have one good time before the shackles snap.” With that, he closed his window and off he drove. I stood on the parking lot with the rest of my life spread out before me, like a clown laughing from on a bedspread.

Good times? Multiple marriages? Multiple bachelor parties? Not for me. Anything requiring an event that made me feel the way I felt that morning was for one time and one time only.

What am I going to tell the girls?
Nothing, That's what.

My Redacted Life Chapter 18 (Cont._2)

My next-door neighbor and I were still sitting on her patio as the moon started casting a warm glow over the Arkansas River. The 12-year old single-malt scotch whiskey was casting a warm glow over me. She sipped her Coke and opened up a bit about her life.

She was a handsome and shapely woman in her twenties with blond hair teased into a “business woman’s do.” As I may have already mentioned, her shapely body seemed to carry on a constant struggle with clothing. Her face could melt a banker's heart.

I learned that she was getting over a love affair that had ended tragically and senselessly on a lonely Arkansas highway in the middle of the night. That’s why she had currently relegated romance from a participative endeavor to a consulting one.

We were becoming good friends and would remain so. She even promised that when I got married, “Not if but when,” she would help out with the ceremony.

Tonight, she was trying to steer me toward a date with the star beauty of the apartment complex, my mysterious Redhead. She offered her advice in a warm and gentle manner so as not to scare me away.

“Just what the hell is wrong with you anyway?” She said.

The scotch slowed my reaction. “What do you mean?”

“Why don’t you ask that girl out? I happen to know she’s not that wild about that man people think she’s engage to. And he’s not even a veteran, so her daddy is suspicious. Her boyfriend before this one was a real war hero and passed muster just fine. But that broke up.”

I was having some difficulty translating this. I took a slow drink. “So?”

“Her daddy evidently was in the thick of things in World War Two. You’d better let him know you served when you meet him for the first time.”

She already had me meeting the Redhead’s family. “Let him know what?”

“That you are a Vietnam Vet.”

“Oh no,” I said, “you don’t dare tell people that these days.”

“Bull crap,” she said in that gentle tone. She suddenly sat up and gave the river a mock salute. Another button popped loose from her too-tight shirt and landed near the edge of the patio. That only left two to guard her ample bosom. “We don’t hate vets around here.”

“Okay.” I watched the remaining two buttons from the corner of my eye. Were we reaching a danger point of some kind?

“So you gonna ask her out, or what?”

“I’m gonna ask her out,” I said, standing, a little wobbly on my feet, but standing. “Yes ma’am, I’m going to ask her out.” I saluted her back. “Now,” I said, “I think I’m going to bed.”

“Don’t forget what you promised.”

“I won’t.” I turned around and took a step toward my own patio. I heard her stand, then heard the unmistakable sound of another button popping off to land on the patio. “Here,” she said. “Take this with you.”

I didn’t dare turn around. I just reached around and let her put the half-empty bottle of scotch in my hand. I left. As I turned the corner, I heard the final button pop and fly into her patio door with a loud ping. I didn’t look back, avoiding, I felt sure, transformation into a pillar of salt.

Late next morning, I woke to the feel of a ring of lightening flashing in my head and a band of pygmies marching around in my mouth to the sound of banjos.

“Holy crap.” I waddled to the bathroom and looked. Whatever thread of self-esteem the “Night of the Flying Buttons,” had produced, one look at my face dispatched. I had to get to the Burger Chef for my hangover cure of greasy burgers, fries, and a large Coke. I splashed water into my face, wet my hair into some semblance of order, and threw on clothing.

I left my apartment with my head bent low to avoid recognition. I passed my neighbor’s window and caught sight of her ironing clothes. Oh my. I had heard that women did that sometimes but I never knew. I bent my head even lower and somehow reached my car, the old four-door Ford sedan that I intended to sell. A voice the strength of a jet liner passing overhead pierced my head, making me nauseated.

It said, “Good morning. Nice car you have there.”

Oh hell. I looked up. There stood the Redhead, wearing a tight tee-shirt that hid no secrets and a pair of shorts so skimpy that she almost needn’t have bothered. I nodded and suppressed a retch.

“Do you like old cars?”

Was she studying me?

“They’re okay.” Please don’t ask me another question.

“Do you like Fords? We’re Chevy people ourselves.”

“That’s nice,” I said.

I thought, “I’m seconds away from emptying a night of fun on mine.”

I said, “How do you like your Impala?”

“It’s a Monte Carlo,” she said. “You don’t know much about cars, do you?”

With that, she spun around and left. I watched her sashay away, having just been spared the most embarrassing spectacle of my life.