Tocky's Tales

[Tocky]

I've been trying to avoid most of the sex stuff. It seems a betrayal to mention it too much but damn that was a LOT of our relationship and it isn't possible. Since our next breakup involves it I will have to speak of it to some degree. I know I confused sex with love but damn I love sex. That isn't fair to her. I loved her too. I loved her inventiveness and humor and imagination and conversation. She was a wild child and who among us doesn't love the wild one? Lord those eyes sparkling with mischief.

We were rough on condoms. Mostly I was about oral. I had been bent that way by the neighbor girl long ago. I would have been happy with just that. But she liked the um... the other. After the second condom break she got on the pill. Arranged it with her eldest sister I believe to get on them. It's a smart move for active teens and if we are honest most are. I still recall the first time one broke. We sat in the car after and I promised her I would take care of her. I would get a job. It wouldn't be the way I wanted it but I had worked plenty of places by that point in my life. She was my girl and I would stand by her come what may. We would marry. She calmed and smiled for me. We lucked out. She had her period.

But she must have felt some guilt. I joked with her in bawdy ways to alleviate some of it. Together we had an odd sense of humor anyway. For my birthday she got me a rock. It was shellacked with a picture of a flower. Um... yeah... nicest rock I've ever gotten. We were both giggling. Of course she had gotten me something else. I can't recall what. That damned rock stands out though.

I had made her two heart shaped boxes for her jewelry in shop class. I was pretty good at it. Shaped the tops by hand and added scroll work touches. For my next project I made her a penis. Hey, I had given her my heart, why not take all of me as Frankie said. I presented it to her in the the hall near her locker so she could get rid of it quick. It was huge. She did get a laugh out of it. Slammed it in her locker quick and said she couldn't believe me. I carved her a bigger one the next day. Three foot long and four inches thick. When I told her I had something for her she said as long as it isn't a giant penis (like I knew she would). No. It's a gianter penis! Oh god you ass! But she laughed. I offered to get rid of it for her but she said she would take care of it.

Still, I think all the constant sneaking took a toll. We had done it in each others rooms while the parents were away. We had done it at school, friends apartments, everywhere. Oh we went to the pool hall and bowling and saw the occasional movie but mostly we had the other pursuit. I also took a lot of photos of her. We both agreed she was beautiful. I wish, though, that we had wandered about the campus of Ole Miss where I would soon be going and discussed my major and our future. Instead we parked in the lot overlooking the chemistry building and made out.

She broke up with me again. We were too intense. I wasn't being fun enough. What? I was the same as I had always been. If I wasn't fun and exciting then sure as hell no other guy was going to be. She had been listening to Paul Simon sing slip sliding away and felt it was speaking of our love. We were having too much sex. Ummmmm okay. I sort of thought we were too. I wanted to know more of her aside from that myself. I did? Indeed. Despite that we talked hour upon hour each day I felt we should do more things together. She was in love with me again. I was the perfect guy after all. Third time is the charm. Ah sweet love.

We went out the next night. We were so happy to know we weren't bound by sex alone. She wanted to celebrate. What did she want to do then? She wanted to have sex. I was the wrong person to expect to be strong about that. I was a slut. Ah sweet love.

[Tocky]

All things come to an end they say but I never subscribed to that. Once I set myself I'm done. But even I could see this coming. I was pretty wild. She was pretty flight prone. Not a good combination. I loved her though. I thought nothing could change that.

My senior term paper was due in another month or two. I decided to do it on "The reality of reality". I had been reading Masters and Johnson's book "The Psychedelic Experience" and the pin downable definition was atomic structure verses perception of course but "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" would have you think that was up for grabs too. Nevermind "The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" which everyone held in high regard but said a lot of obvious aphorisms. Basically I was slinging a lot bull with a good deal of citations for things like Hopi Indian rituals and shit like that. In the end it held together and I got an A- but it had me interested in LSD.

Now I kept appearances as if I were Mr. goody goody good grades straight arrow. I won Laurie's mom over and she was a judge. No shit. Her Dad was a construction worker built like a gorilla and I had worked all summer with him building batter boards and leveling for concrete at a golf ball factory in Pontotoc. I can't pass that place without thinking what a hot hard job that was. I earned his respect. As an aside I recall listening to somebody's radio playing Queens "You're my Best Friend" and thinking Laurie and I just were not at that level but it's what I wanted. I thought with enough honesty that could happen.

Right. One Friday she wanted to go out with her friends to skate and she thought I ought to go be with my friends too. We had been up each others business too much lately. Ostensibly that sounded right. I knew I should be able to trust her and if not then what was the point right? I tested it a bit by telling her I hadn't been skating in a long while and that might be fun. No no I should go be with my friends. Her and Sandra were going to catch up on their friendship and I should go. I knew. I've often felt I have lived this exact same life before. In those days I sometimes recalled entire sentences of dialogue. Nobody believes that shit though. Deja vu? Even I didn't believe. I felt something though and ignored it. What could I do?

So that night one of the guys has some micro dot. Cool. It was great. I'm not going to lie, if it wasn't unseemly to take everyday in minor doses I think I would. We laughed and hung out talking of the mysteries of the universe. The usual thing you do on it. It tweaked my perception of color for the rest of my life. I notice nuances most can't now and that helps me in my line of work. It didn't help me the next day when I told Laurie what I had done. She immediately broke up with me. It hurt bad. More than I thought it would. Don't. It will be the last time. She did. I came outside broken and asked a friend for a cigarette. I had been quit for six months.

I tried to pretend it didn't bother me. It did. It did every minute. What hurt more than anything was she told her friends who liked me like Toni that she was scared of me. That I might hurt her. How could she have been with me so long and not know who I was? How could she say that? Something was not right. For icing on the cake she told her parents I took acid and they told mine. Great. Any other betrayal you want to throw in? I won't go into what I went through with my parents. They went through my room on the sly though and read all her letters to me. That was bad. Bad for her too. She never held anything back about what she liked me to do.

The hurt just compounded. But I knew something wasn't right. I knew there was more to it. I told her there was another guy involved. There had to be. She swore there wasn't. I went to see her at Toni's (pronounced Tawny) house. I laid out everything I felt for her and why. It didn't matter. I fell to my knees and cried. I was abject wretched. Never again would I be that pathetic. Then she said something that woke me up. She said, "you just can't understand that I don't love you". It wasn't the words so much as the tone of marvel in them. As if she was incapable of understanding that level of feeling. I left a bit wiser then. All her words were just words. I understood that now.

The following week she began to treat me human again. Lord what confusing shit is this now? Turns out she wants her naked pictures we had taken. Sure. I'm a good and decent guy. Despite the horrible person she was making me out to be to justify herself, I am. Nothing she could do could change that. As I handed them over I told her she could stop being nice to me now.

I was walking back from some outside class and she and a friend were in front of me when I caught a snippet of nonchalance about some guy she seemed to be giddy over. I dropped my books right there in the street and walked home twenty miles. I just did not feel I could deal. She handed me my books the next day. Was there anything she wanted to tell me? No. One of my notebooks had flown like a frisby and hit her ankle. Sorry about that then. I never meant that. What about the guy she was talking about? There was no guy. If I didn't believe it I could check her notebooks.

That was a weird thing to say. The more I thought about it the weirder it seemed. She was counting on my honor to not check. I fought myself a while on it but had to know. While she was elsewhere I took her up on her offer and went to her locker. There in one notebook was the whole story. She had met a guy there. She was telling her friend Sandra all about that night at the skating rink in an unsent letter. To assuage her conscience and make it look like she was a victim she made me out to be as big a villain as she could. All to date this guy.

I couldn't date anyone. I was asked out by a sweet little girl in Art class. I declined. She was so sweet even about that. She put in her signing of my annual that it was a worthwhile try. That stabbed my heart a bit but I couldn't. I was asked out by a funny black girl and she made no bones about what she wanted on our date. I couldn't. I may as well have been neutered.

She came to my senior dance with the guy. She wasn't a senior. I had danced with a lot of the girls by that time of night but it was like learning to swim again with no arms. I left. I took acid with some buds not going to the dance. I forgot I had promised to help Craig with something so I came back as it was ending. She and he came out just as I was entering and I asked did they have a good time. They had. Good. Enjoy your evening. She never knew I was tripping. I was Mr. Cool.

Just before I entered college she called me up. Did I want to date again? She missed me. Just a trial thing. No sex. I found myself going along with her, believing the possibility of resurrecting that old feeling when I recalled her voice saying in awe "you just don't understand I don't love you". Oh god it killed me again. No. No, I didn't want to date again. You will just hurt me again and it might kill me this time. I guessed the boy had dumped her but I would never find out. I certainly would never ask.

I had been in college for awhile and I get a call at my cousins house. It's Ken from Lafayette. He wants to know if Laurie and I had had sex. What? Get out of here. I can't tell you that. She said she was a virgin. What? Well if that is what she said then. But he wants to know. Can't tell you bud. Get it from her. Well about that time helpful Elliott (who was dating my cousin and later married her) piped up with "he fucked the shit out of her!" No no damn it it was not like that we were in love I tried to tell him. Look if you are dating then you should get her to be honest with you. I never could do that. Just be honest with her and try your best to get it back. Whether or not she had sex already should be the least of your concern. I wish the two of you luck. I really do.

After I got out of the service where I had slept my way through a few women I thought I was okay finally. I wanted to see her one last time but I was going with a girl. All I wanted to do was wish her a great life. To convey some remnant of feeling for her. She was graduating and I went to it. I was at our old hangout spot between classes and talking to my girlfriend when she came over and stood nearby but not so near that I would figure it was for me. Belinda told me there she is. She said it in that fake smarmy you are mine now tone. I told her I wanted to leave it to her whether to speak. Laurie let out a gust of exasperation and stalked off. Belinda is a whole other did not work out story. That was the last I saw her. She moved to Texas. Her and Ken had a son and lasted ten years.

But dear lord her sister never fails to inform me of her life every time I'm in Kroger grocery. A lot of it about failed relationships. She seems to take delight in it. I avoid her now. All I want to know is that she has found love and knows how to love at last. I wish I could hear that for old times sake. Some small part of me will always be that hurt kid who still loves her.

[Tocky]

So Laurie's thoughtful concern for my welfare caused me to reevaluate the direction of my life and turn from my wicked ways. I straightened up and became a serious straight-laced student of the seminary. Then monkeys flew out of my butt. LOL.

Hardly. This is the summer after the breaking of my illusions. Not that I held many. I was told by my art teacher that I had the ability to see the world as it is and that was a rare commodity. But we are also told our memories are lies and if we don't believe that then we are lying to ourselves. My lies are always those of omission. My battle therefore is to include those things which color me as reckless and irresponsible as I am. Ah yes, I remember it well.

So I decided to pick some mushrooms. I had gotten the low down on them from Rusty, a hippy of another generation just a tad older, who was a friend of Kevin. The thing you never want to do is poison yourself of course. The thing you most worry about during the first hour is that you have. A single Destroying Angel will kill you but those are white with pink gills and nothing like tan with dark gills. Anything that you risk killing yourself for is a stupid thing to do and I specialized in that. However the easiest to identify is the one whose stem turns blue when it is bruised by rolling it between thumb an forefinger and those were what I was after.

So early in the morn and into a farmers pasture with a high ho a dairy 'O. I had also been advised on which pasture and given a cover story should I be caught. Say you are a grad student at the local college gathering specimens. Nobody particularly wanted to go with me on this mission though. I had made a basket of my T shirt and had it filled to satisfaction and was on my way to the fence when I received a hearty "heeeeeyyyyyyy" from an old guy starting down the road toward me. Lovely. This would be interesting.

Come with me up to the porch. Sure thing. I was a friendly guy. I started in with my cover story when he interrupted. You are boiling those down and making marijuana out of them. The sheriff done told me. Well no, that would be THC, and you can't get that from these. Actually this would be the make up of the benzine ring of molecules. Nope y'all are boiling them down and making mary gee wanner! Alrighty then. Put those down on the porch there. Sure thing. What's your name son? Timothy Leary, sir. Well, you stay right here while I call the sheriff, Mr. Leary. Sure thing.

The screen door slapped. Surely he didn't expect me to sit here while he called the sheriff? I did a five count then scooped up the shrooms and hit the road at a run. My car was just around the bend. I hope he wasn't too surprised to see me gone when he got back. Nice old guy. A little misinformed and naive but nice.

That night I was back at Rusty's for final identification. Yep, that's them. You got some big ones. Time to boil. We boiled up a half gallon or so and seasoned with grape Koolaide. Me and Kev split the mixture. Rusty abstained. His wife and kids were due home soon. What? Wife and kids? We already drank ours. It's cool. No. It's not. See you later, Rusty.

We were sitting at a crossroads deciding where to go. Should we go to Sardis lake? Nothing was kicking in after a half hour and we were sort of bummed and worried. Maybe we should just go home. Then the song Groove Line came on. Ordinarily I'm not a big fan of disco but this hit just right. The "pack your grip takin' you on a trip" and "grab your friends" and "leave your worries behind 'cause rain shine don't mind we're riding on the groove line tonight" lines seemed decide for us. Sardis it is. Our last blowout before Kev headed to California. This was going to be epic.

Only we have to drive through the heart of Oxford, Mississippi at around one in the morning. The bars let out not long ago. The cops swarm then picking up some DUI's. EVERY SINGLE CAR was a cop car. There we are in Kev's piece of crap Coronette with rusted out glass packs echoing down every alley we turned. The shrooms were kicking in. Look another! A turn down a cross alley. Look another! Another turn. Damn that can't be another can it? It is. Somehow we made it through back alleys all the way.

We took the least used way, the one Faulkner wrote of in his story "The Reivers" which used to be the main road to Memphis before the lake cut it into. On the way we had to take a leak so we pulled into a short field road which led to, wonder of wonders, a field. It wasn't far off the main road and there was a dark outline of a building just ahead. I'm not sure I want to pee without knowing what that building is. Kev says it is a barn but I want to know. So we head out across this hard crusted row field.

It has rained on it and the plowed earth has dried hard and crunchy beneath our feet. Crunch crunch crunch. I make mention of it being like the surface of another planet and we are explorers into the most foreign. What's that? What? Listen. Flap flap flap. What IS that? It sounds big but I can't see anything. Shouldn't we be able to on a cloudless full moon night? Flap flap flap. No really, what the hell is that? Flap flap flap. Jesus it sounds right overhead. What IS that? How big would you say it sounds? Ten, maybe fifteen feet wingspan? What IS that? SKEEEEEEEERRRRRRROOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNK! Oh Jesus what IS that? You ever hear anything like that? No. That's not normal. SSKEEEEEEEEEEEEERRROOOOOONK! Holy crap. Calm down. Calm down. It must be a bird of some kind. Maybe a large bat. SSSSSKKKEEEEEEEEEEERRRRROOOOOOOOONNNNNK! Bat my ass, that sounds like Godzilla. No bat ever sounded like that. Jesus what IS that thing? SSSKEEEEEEEEERRRROONNK! Flap flap flap. Listen it's going away. Flap flap flap. I swear I could feel the breeze from it's wings for a minute. You know we are tripping right? Yeah. We have to remember that. Yeah. But what WAS that? I don't know. Offhand I would say an invisible pterodactyl.

Crunch crunch crunch we walk up on the new brick home with a beach ball next to an outdoor water spigot. Wait. Isn't that a new brick house. No it's a barn. Are you sure? No. We can't just walk up on somebody's house like this. Wait. It looks like a barn now. Are you sure? I'm seeing the brick house now. Oh shit. What do we do? Go back. No wait. It's a barn. I walk forward ten more feet and it's absolutely a barn. Pretty beaten down one. We pee.

We go back to the car. It's not safe to drive like this. I know. Let's just sit here till we sober some. Yeah. Hey buddy? Yeah? I can't think of anybody I would rather not know which way is up with. Me too, man. Woah dude, you look like you are shrinking. I FEEL like I'm shrinking. Okay you are getting bigger now. Yeah. I feel that. Hey how could you make this car if you had to? From scratch I mean, smelting metal and forming plastic? You couldn't. It takes a lot of folks working together. Yeah. We evolved that way, to do this working together stuff. As a society I mean. Yeah. We can't ever do this again. I know. This was way too much. Yeah. It's cool though. Yeah. Why can I feel the weight of the overhead light on my skin when the door opens? Light has no weight. It must be a photo electric skin response then. Yeah. Yeah that's it.

We talked about everything under the sun until the sun came up and we had come down. Less than a month later he was gone to California and I would not see him in person for another twenty years. We kept in touch with letters and phone calls. We raised our families. We did what was good and right. But we will never forget that night.

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me" said Hunter S. Thompson and it strikes a deep chord in me. But when you get a family you set that shit aside. Nothing comes before that. I was damned serious when I said that to Laurie. Not alcohol even. Once I got the responsibility of a family I drank just twice a year, on my birthday and Christmas night... eh, more or less some years. Lucky for you folks my responsibility is greatly diminished now. But that drive we did was wrong. That was one of the things we talked about that night. If you can't tell the difference between a barn and a new brick home that is bad. I would notice that old barn many times as it got worse over the years until it fell completely in.

Some fifteen years back I'm on my way back on my motorcycle from a company outing at Sardis and pull over my bike just staring at where the old barn used to be. My wife asks what's wrong. There is a new brick house there with a water spigot out front. So? Yeah. Nevermind.

[Pyrian]

I'm going to guess you annoyed a goose. I'm pretty sure they use Chinese geese as dinosaur sounds in movies.

[Tocky]

That would be a good guess. Slow it down to a quarter speed and I think you might have it, Pyrian. When I saw the movie "American Werewolf in London" the scene where Jack and David are asking "what the hell is that?" nearly dropped me from my chair in recognition. I knew exactly how they felt.

I'll tell this story on the way to another. It happened close to the time of the one above.

Since I live near a college town we often took the road through and sometimes there was eye candy on the way. Some women like to be looked at and some like to pretend they don't or actually don't but regardless any in bikini top and Daisy Dukes bending to pick something up will draw an eye. "Well STARE then!" she said. I suppose we all were, me at shotgun, Kent at the wheel, Kevin, Perry, and Kelly in the back.

So we turn the car around and drive back by holding our hands on our eyes like binoculars as she fumes with hands on hips. then we turn around again and Perry, who is in the middle back gets the idea to moon her because she is surely going to be looking as we go back by again. Give her an eye for an eye. A brown one. So he pulls his pants down and gets into position.

We get about even with her and she looks and makes a face worthy of the moment but Perry is off balance from the middle and Kelly is leaning back to give his ass room to come as close to the window on his side as he can for her sightseeing pleasure. Have you got that picture in your head? Well I turn and see a cop coming the other way. COP! COP! COOL IT! and if everyone had been cool and easy then what happened next wouldn't be as funny.

Kent takes that as his cue to floor it for some reason. Perry who was off balance already half turned and reached for my seat but missed and fell backward. Right onto Kelly's face. I mean his ass cheeks split by Kelly's nose. Firmly planted by the acceleration too. Kelly was making this muffled "murf wurf" noise and I got so tickled I couldn't get a word out. We had to pull over and finish laughing before we could go any farther. Hell, I'm laughing now thinking about it.

The cop kept on going by oblivious but I wonder how much that girl saw. We didn't go back by to see if she was laughing but I wish we had.

[Tocky]

My wife says I only remember the best about folks. I don't think that's true but even if it is what's wrong with that? Most folks are decent in most circumstances and even when they make mistakes it isn't with ill intent necessarily. And lord don't we all do stupid shit growing up?

Kevin wanted me to go park behind the Pizza Hut as we passed it. It was like a sudden idea he had. Okay sure. What now? Back up to the woods there. What the hell? Wait here. So he goes into the patch of woods just back of it that stretch a short ways to the next street over. He comes back pulling a Christmas tree. What the hell dude? It's not Christmas. Open the trunk he says. Why? What in hell? It was then I noticed it wasn't a Christmas tree but a pot plant.

Whoa. I open the trunk. Where in hell did this come from? You been growing this back there? No. It's Perry's. Huh? It didn't occur to me right away that Perry's house was one street over from the Hut. This is one of the four he had out back of his house? Why in hell would you do that? He owes me. What? Like money? He stole my girlfriend. I didn't know what to say about that. It was wrong. I felt that but what was I going to do now? Maybe a better person would know but I'm not exactly Mr. clean. We drove to Kevin's house and offloaded it. He was going to dry it out and pay back Rusty for some of his mooching over the past few months. I didn't want to be there so I left but before I went I told him one thing: this goes no further than the two of us. Got it? I don't know what to think about it but you have to promise that.

So he tells Kent. Kent busts him to Perry. I have no recall of Perry doing anything to get Kevin back. I'm pretty sure he just let it slide. I don't know if that was because he accepted it as payback for what he had done in taking Kevin's girl or what. But that didn't mean a shit-storm wasn't coming. Kevin was pissed at Kent. I liked Kent. We got on well. But Kevin was and will always be my best lifelong bud. Damn it.

We were riding in Kevin's Plymouth Coronet when he spotted Kent's car on a side street and went back to park behind it. I'm unsure whether there was some prearranged thing going on or what. Seems like there must have been but maybe this is one of those things I mostly don't want to recall. We all get out including Kent's brother Jay from Kent's car. Kevin and Kent start to argue and me and Jay just kind of hang back watching. Lot's of recriminations and loud words passed.

Unfortunately that wasn't all that passed. Licks started to flow as they tied into each other. I figured to just let them knot each others heads a bit and get it out of their system but Jay didn't see it that way and jumped in. Damn. No way I could let that happen. I hated to jump on Jay because I have a brother too and I have fought for him before but I just gave in. Damn it, no other way. Only, as I'm grabbing his arms from behind, I see a cop pull in. My hands go up immediately and I step back. The cop tells me that is the only thing that kept me from going to jail like everybody else.

Kevin went to California not long after because his dad (separated from his mom) wanted him to or his brother Chris who was a city planner in LA or something. The whole damn family wound up there for some reason. But this didn't end then. Oh no. Kelly, who was a good friend of Perry's, was an evil shit. He had shot Slyvan, a guy I went to school with, because Sylvan had become a narc. He took him hunting and shot him in the back as he climbed a tree and got away with it as a "hunting accident". Oxford narc police were notorious for turning those they caught into snitches. There was a Sixty Minutes piece on their abuses even. Anyway, me and Kelly had an appointment with destiny a few months down the line. That will be my next story if anyone wants to hear it. Hell, even if you don't, I'm on a gut spilling roll.

[Tocky]

I likely started college at the worst possible moment in my life. I was adrift mentally, I had weepy longings for Laurie still, I couldn't even pick a major right. I picked premed. That might have been okay if I had preregistered and gotten decent classes but I worked and partied all summer then did things last minute. I got a very early morning Algebra class by a student teacher. To top it off I forgot my book first day and by the time I got back only the rear seats were left and I'm a bit deaf. Still, if I had made that last test I might have squeaked by. Without figuring in Algebra I had a 3.5 which is the way they sent my grade to me before I pointed out they hadn't figured in the Algebra. I'm just fucking brilliant about picking moments to be honest aren't I? It cost me my scholarship. Why? Why in hell didn't I follow my heart and pick Archaeology with a minor in geology? I figured I couldn't make a living at it. And now one of my friends in high school is curator of the Natural History museum in Jackson. That could have been me. Or maybe I would have just fucked up in a different way.

Well anyway, I was at the Abby bar drinking with Beth just after a psychology student had done some research I had volunteered for on rate of drinks per hour and alcoholism. At the end of several sessions he proclaimed I was in the safe zone which surprised the shit out of me and made me highly doubt his research. Me and Beth got along so great. She was bi and we could talk about girls and she would give me the straight dope. No bullshit about her at all.

She was good looking but I didn't think of her that way. I saw how she treated guys, just used them for sex and moved on like dipshit guys do. Then again she didn't treat girls any better. But I think she was helping me heal. I was feeling like I had a friend I could talk to about anything and she would sympathize in a real way. We were always happy to see each other and hugged in that deep feeling way you do those you really like. God I wish we didn't have that night together on airport hill. We were such good friends. After that I was just another guy she had slept with. Oh she pretended like I had seen her do with those guys but the difference was that I knew. We had talked about those guys. The "hey how you been" guys. I screwed up. But this story isn't about her.

We were sitting there drinking a pitcher of draft when Kelly came and sat down. He had this really smug smartass smile on and he went straight into some shit about Perry and how I did him wrong. I allowed I might have and I was sorry for it. Well he was still pushing and it became annoying. At a certain point I quit being sorry. I asked did Perry's ass still taste the same. Remember he was the guy that got a mouthful in the story a little up from this one. That didn't strike his funny bone too well. I guess I had the smartass smile on then. He told me he was going to kick my ass. I told him anytime he felt froggy to jump. He did. Straight at me.

I got him in a headlock right off, hell, he may have even come at me head first. We went over backwards but I was in control. I was knocking knots on his head and face and feeling really pleased I was getting the best of this stone cold killer when I was picked up from the floor by one arm and held out dangling like a rag doll by the scruff of my collar. Toto had come over. Toto was the bouncer and a really big guy that loved to work out. He had each of us in hand. We had to go. Outside Kelly told me this wasn't over but he was saying it walking away. A bit later at another bar Beth found me and told me Toto was sorry. She had told him who started things and he wanted me to know no hard feelings and I could come back anytime. I liked Toto.

Anyway I saw Kelly again at the same bar and he gave me the evil eye and I guess I did him too but neither of us made a move. So much for it ain't over dude. It was. Unless he shot me in the back sometime.

[Tocky]

Do I tell about Belinda or Linda now? How about we go back a bit and I tell about Dena? She was in the Airforce. I think she may have been the one to help me most with my screwed up sense of being physical with women. There was no bullshit with her at all. She was just natural and easy though she didn't say a lot. She was also smoky sensual.

The way we met was great. I've never had this happen before. We were in this orientation class shortly after I had come to Upper Heyford. We kept looking at each other. You just know sometimes. I don't know how. Anyway after the thing was over everybody files out except us two. She is sitting on this gurney in this searsucker nurses uniform with those white stockings on. You know the ones that make that whisp whisp sound when they rub together? Oh god. She was sexy as hell. I walked right over without saying a word. I pressed myself between her knees and leaned in and kissed her. We hadn't even spoken. Had I been wrong I guess it would have been sexual harassment. I wasn't wrong. We kissed a long time.

She was dark haired and dark eyed. She was rock and roll. Not this disco shit but hard core rock and roll. I had a concert partner now. More than that, I had a dance partner at the NCO club. Every damn time we danced it became dirty dancing and we wound up in bed together. That would have been fine except she lived in the girls dorm and I had to sneak out the next morning. She would watch at the door and I would wait until she gave me the go ahead. With a final kiss it would be out the door and running down the hall to the end door. I wish she had lived closer to the end. Sometimes girls wandered out of the communal shower in nothing but a towel and I had to run past them. Nobody ever told though. Girls are cooler than guys ever will be. She was the girl I was talking about every time I mentioned sneaking out of the girls dorm.

What I want to tell about is the AC/DC concert at the Hammersmith Odeon. I got us tickets because I knew she would go nuts over them. The back in black tour. The Airforce would ship us all over on a bus together. That was about the coolest thing the Airforce ever did in my opinion. We were all drinking on the bus. I had this wine skin bladder thing we were pulling off of. We were tipsy halfway there. Folks had to pee. Rather than find a service station or the like the driver would pull off the side when folks got too noisy about needing to go and we all piled out to do our business. It seems a tad strange to me now but that's the way he did it.

What happened was the girls would go first and the guys would avert their eyes looking the other way and still on the bus. The girls lined up beside the bus as close as they could for concealment but I have a feeling they were not real worried. After the girls got back on the guys piled out and lined up whizzing away from the bus. Well the girls weren't as prudish about turning their heads. Not by a long shot. They came out of the bus, some of them, and took a walk along the line making comments about penis sizes. Some of the comments were really funny. Oooo do you have a date tonight? Or awww poor little guy. Well I didn't get much singling out either way until a girl came by and said "hey, I recognize that one". It was the friend of my girlfriend and so when my girl came by not long after to stand beside her I said "she does not! It's a lie! I swear I never!" But they just laughed. They kept staring though. It was enough to get me um... excited but thankfully they moved on not too long after.

Anyway we had a great time at the concert only she got sick and we had to go out the side door and while she puked some idiot burst out the door and knocked her sideways so that I caught her and bitched at him. Numbnuts. The door locked and we had to go around front but had no problem getting back in. We took care of each other and no shame in it. I had to sneak out the girls dorm that morning too.

She was great. ACDC wasn't bad either.

[Tocky]

Damn I have a lot of stories that involve sex and violence. I've been trying to think of some that don't. Okay how about this one.

This sounds like a lie but it's the truth (I swear they all are) which makes it perfect for one of my stories. I had taken my family camping at Sardis lake back when my son was with his first wife and my daughter in her early teens. It wasn't going too great. We had got the tent up when I heard the door slam on my truck. There was only one problem with that. All the rods, about ten of them, were poking out the door. All but one broke. Sorry, honey. So I go to The Dam Store (that was the name) and get all they had which was five. Now most of us can fish. I didn't expect everyone to get up early anyway.

I also didn't expect nobody to. I rose about five and built up the fire then put on the bacon expecting the smell to wake up somebody. Nobody got up. I told them I wanted to be on the lake when the sun came up. Everyone but me and my daughter had drank beer the night before so that might have been some of it but if bacon can't get you up then nothing will. I ate alone.

Feeling kind of pouty I got the gear together and stood by the boat a bit. Then I tried nudging shoulders. Come on get up. The fish bite early. No deal. Well they would be sorry when I came back with a stringer of crappie. I off loaded the boat into the dark water of the boat ramp by my parking lights and pulled the truck to a parking spot then set out for a cove nearby with a lot of reeds sticking out perfect for bass and crappie. The sun was just coming up.

I tried everything I had including live minnows. Nothing was biting. I figured maybe I could lure a bass with an H & H spinner. If not I would move somewhere else but this place looked so promising. Great. I hung my lure on a stump or something under the water. I tried yanking it this way and that and no dice. It was stuck good. Damn. Well I would just have to start the motor and drive careful to the other side of it and hope it came off from that angle. First I would try just a little longer working it back and forth.

I got a little play out of it. Hmmmm. Maybe it wasn't a stump. Maybe it was an old tire. Could I get it to the boat without breaking my line and retrieve my lure though? Then it started moving sideways. That surprised me. It also scared me a little. I had been pulling pretty hard before and it hadn't moved. This was something big. Real big. It moved sideways and pulled me and the boat a bit as it did. My line was on the cusp of breaking and I was trying to recall what pound test it was. Holy crap this thing was big. Surely it's not like an alligator or something. This isn't normal.

I can't explain the feeling I got. Some deep primordial fear. But I wasn't going to let go. I had to see. I was trying to baby the line and I did start getting some gain as it went back and forth maybe twenty yards at a pass. The boat had also been pulled closer to it and further into the deep water of the cove. I wondered would I tire before it came close enough. I didn't. The last several yards I seemed to drag it in a straight line until it was directly under the boat. It was still too deep to see.

I cranked the line easy. No way was I going to break it now and not see it. It came straight up from the depths slowly. It was shiny. I was wearing sunglasses because of the angle of early morning sun being so bright but I could see the glimmer well. I hadn't a hand not occupied to take them off anyway. Up it came slowly coming clearer. It was as big as the boat or near enough that I knew I was never going to get it over the gunwale. It was an alligator gar, a trash fish that plagued Sardis, but I never knew they could grow this big. Most folks would pull them to the edge of a boat and beat them to death with a paddle because those long teeth they sport could really injure you if you tried to take out your hook.

I wanted him. Here was my "Old Man and the Sea" moment. But I knew I could never get him in the boat. There wouldn't be any tying him to the side like Hemmingway had his character do. This guy was nowhere near that tired anyway. I could see his eye become clearer as he surfaced and I swear I could see curiosity in it. It had to be my imagination. No way I could unhook him and something as old as this I was not going to kill. It wouldn't be right, trophy fish devourer though he was, I would have to cut my line. Mygod what a monster.

We stared at each other eye to eye, me looking over the side and him looking up, his body sideways to the water surface. When he was nearly at the top he bent quick and casual catching the line in his teeth and snapping it. His snout had broken the surface and it's closing sent a jet of water in a perfect line straight into my right sunglasses lens. Maybe he had to wait until he was that close to the surface to be assured of breaking the line. I like to think he could have broken the line any time and just wanted to see what had snagged him.

One thing was certain. Nobody was going to believe me when I got back to camp.

[Tocky]

I wish I could get some stories out of you folks. Maybe when you get my age you will want to unload some dirty laundry. Or maybe I'm just jabbering like a meth monkey. This next one is sort of sobering.

We were driving the back roads sipping some suds not long after I got back from the service. Roads here are real curvy. A lot of them were Indian or game trails originally. As our lights swept around one curve we saw the headlights of a vehicle off in the woods. Did you see that? Yeah, let's go back.

We pulled off and there was an old ford truck that centered a tree pretty bad about a dozen yards off the road. I opened the door on the passenger side hoping it was abandoned because there wasn't anyone in sight. He was lying on the seat. I couldn't feel a pulse. More than that, he was cool to the touch. One of the guys had a flashlight and I took it and swept it across the mans left eye. Fixed and unresponsive. I swept it across his right eye. Fixed and dilated. Brain damage. I looked at his forehead. A deep steering wheel type dent. The man was dead and I said so.

"We have to try" said somebody. I looked up and saw Leggit looking at me. I didn't know how to respond to that look. I wanted to explain how I knew he would never come back but the look was pleading. Help me get him out. Ordinarily you don't move them but nothing was going to hurt this guy now. We got him on the hard ground where chest compressions would work. Or would normally. He was about the age I am now with salt and pepper hair.

I got his head tilted and made sure his tongue wasn't obstructing or there was no tobacco chaw or anything. The tongue was cold and sticky, not slimy like it should have been and likely was an hour before. I filled his lungs with two quick deep breaths and turned my ear to listen to the exhale. I could hear a fluid bubble. There might be a punctured lung. I felt along the chest on the way to the sternum tip but there wasn't anything obvious. I began to pump. I could feel no snapping under my palm. The ribs were springy which was good.

I wish I could say we saved him. I wish I could say he coughed and came back but I knew from the get go it was useless. If I hadn't then when he aspirated cold blood into my mouth I would have known. Even as I spit it out I noted the black color of it. No oxygen in it. I already had the worst he could give so I kept up till the ambulance came. At some point somebody had to have gone somewhere to make a call. I was so into the rhythm I didn't notice till one of the EMT's put a hand on my shoulder. They intubated and bagged him and took him away on a gurney.

I got a fresh beer and swished my mouth out but you can't swish your mouth out enough after something like that. I got some pats on the back for my effort but they were as useless as my effort. The cop that was there took our statements but didn't bother us about having beer. They likely wouldn't do that these days. I sat with my back against the rear tire of the truck and put my head down on my arms over my knees. After awhile I heard the door open and wiped my eyes in the crook of my arm before looking up. The guys were gathering the peppermint schnapps bottles from his floorboard and chucking them into the woods so his family wouldn't know. I joined them. There must have been a couple of dozen.

[Pyrian]

I wish I could get some stories out of you folks.

I, for one, am really boring.

[Tocky]

I bet you aren't. I don't think I've ever met a boring person. They just don't know they are interesting is all.

[Tocky]

Okay, back to sex then.

Me and Dit were in his room working out some bass licks for a song I wrote which was part of an album concept for Alpha and Omega of man when Belinda and Kim came in. I had already worked out the lead for the most part on my Fender Mustang and Dit was getting the bass I wanted. I recall some of the words:

Well the sun comes up and the moon goes down and the icy wind whispers that you're still around for another day

The wolves did not get their prey

It's a game of survival

And it's either fight or die

No time to question why

But ten thousand years have come and gone

We've corralled the beasts from the land they roamed

Man the master of the game

We've changed it all but it's still the same

It's survival survivalohwoeohwoe

We forgot the change ourselves

And we could blow it all to hell

Sometimes it's just as well

Because telecommunications stations beam frustration from the cities of the towers of the powers of the world

It's claws unfurled

And tearing at our heart

They're tearing us apart

Bunch of pretentious metal along the lines of Spinal Tap with about as much self awareness so it's really not so surprising Belinda poked fun. I don't recall what she said but I said a dismissive "fuck you" and she said "oh you would like that" so I countered with "honey, I couldn't get it up for you". Well that shut her up but I think it put a bug up her butt about me. They went on through to talk to Dit's mom about something and we got back to what we were doing. It actually wasn't a bad tune when it was sung right. Too bad neither of us were singers.

I had dated Belinda's sister Michelle a few times after I got out of the service (and the oldest sister Felicia before) but we didn't really hit it off. We were better off as friends. Then this dick named Lewis (who had married my aunt then she divorced him then he broke in on her and she shot him but he survived) was caught hiding behind her door. He ran but she was afraid to be alone so I came to keep her company while her mom was away at work in the evenings. Michelle was a high school senior so I was already reaching to date her. I sure didn't want anything to do with her 16 year old sister. Hell, I was nineteen and a man of the world. She did look good though. All those girls did.

So I had missed my supper that evening by coming over and Belinda made me grilled cheese and had been coming on to me all evening. Even Michelle had made note of it and I think was getting a bit jealous though we had already cooled it between us. When she brought it to me on the couch it was cut into bite sized pieces and she insisted on feeding them to me. I should have told her no but she was just so damn cute. By the end of it I was licking butter off her finger tips. She was so smiling clever and she knew it.

I guess this was my judge Roy Moore moment of weakness. I'm not even sure exactly how it happened but I found myself on my back with her on top kissing me and Michelle saying she was going to bed and for us to be good though it was a bit late for that. We fooled around on the couch getting hotter and hotter until she took me by the hand and led me to her room. I felt like I hadn't had a chance to even attempt to be good. I'm not a strong guy to begin with.

I was wrong about not being able to get it up for her and I guess it was like a challenge issued for her when I said that. I was really really wrong. I so want to tell some of the things we did because she had some kinks but I've already been way too prurient. I've broken Reb's rule all to hell at this point but I can't tell other parts without the main part. Anyway at one point we see lights on her wall. Oh shit. Her mom is home. We struggle on our clothes and dash for the living room where we pretend to have fallen asleep on the couch. I don't know where my socks are.

Her mom tells me she trusts her girls and she appreciates me looking after them in light of everything that has happened but maybe I shouldn't stay so late. Yes mam. Point taken. We stand and talk a bit with Belinda making lewd faces behind her moms shoulder and me trying my best to appear good and proper though I'm a black hearted cad. Belinda walks me out to the porch where we say goodnight. Her eyes go wide. Your shirt is on inside out. Ohgod do you think she noticed? She giggled. We were so bad.

To be continued.

[Tocky]

So the next day I have the remorses. I've taken measure of my soul and come up lacking. There was this Englishman I walked around with all night at some town between London and Banbury when the train line shut down at midnight on my way back from the Pink Floyd concert at Earls Court. I didn't know the train shut down like that and he was on his way to his job at Oxford University Press the next morning. At any rate I talked his ear off the whole night as we walked around this place and he bought me my first curry come first light. Just before the train began service he read my horoscope which I had already told him I didn't believe in but he said was the true personality reading and required year and time of birth. He said I was torn between sun and moon. Yeah, everybody is I said. He said yes but you are sun descending and don't know it. WTF? That was ominous. I took it to mean I was bad and didn't know it and now here was proof. The moon was ascending and the wolf at the door was me.

I always thought I was the good guy cast in bad circumstance. But I was the bad guy. And worse, I only liked bad girls. I would never find and like the good girl. I would never have a family but drift from woman to woman my whole life. "Gonna lay my head on the railroad track waitin' on the double E". I figured to just stay away from Belinda from now on. But then Michelle called and asked was I not coming down and she was still afraid Lewis might retaliate for her reporting him. Oh and somebody else wanted to talk to me. She was giddy and chattering about how she wanted me to bring her my high school ring to wear on a chain because wasn't it great we were going together now. We are? Well aren't we? I guess.... I could figure all of this out later.

So I saw her most nights and kept it to just kisses and talk and leaving early. There was one day she skipped and came over to my place and I taught her "Smoke on the Water" on guitar and we were already on the bed sooooo. In a couple more weeks she says she hasn't had her period. She wants to go house hunting. Ummmm I have to get a job first. I got the quickest thing I could find which was in the shipping department of a jeans factory. I had no plans to stay once she told me no she wasn't pregnant (and worse had faked it) but I did. This was the place I would later meet my wife.

We stayed together three months which was way longer than I would have figured. I caught her getting ready to meet another guy and she said she would not go and that we could still be together and she could change but I said no. Go meet him. You won't change. I thought I would be happy to be rid of my wild child but I had grown fond of her. It hurt anyway. Not like Laurie but enough. Her friend Kim called me and wanted to go out. No. I'm way done with teens. I never meant that to happen anyway. What the hell was wrong with me? I felt like a terrible person.

She didn't stay with that guy but another guy who kept after her and was a good guy did finally convince her. I liked him. You couldn't not like him. They married and lived in my small town about 15 years. One thing I did not like was when my daughter spent the night with her best friend (who was Belinda's oldest sister's kid) was told by Belinda herself that she had seduced me when we were single. Why the hell would she say that? It was true but damn what was she trying to do in saying it to my daughter?

One thing I liked about her was that, when she and her husband decided to leave in order for her to be nearer to college they were having a yard sale and I came by to buy as much as I could to help, she hugged me. She held my hands and looked in my eyes smiling and saying goodbye and don't ever change. I could feel she still cared. THAT was what I had wanted out of Laurie that day we went to her graduation. Just humanity. Some caring gesture for what might have been. She is a teacher in Alabama now and her husband is a preacher. Reminds me of a ZZ Top song.

[Tocky]

Well crap. I thought I could tease some stories out of somebody. I've been telling some embarrassing stuff about myself. Surely you can do no worse. Okay, how about this one.

My last fight in high school happened not long after Laurie broke up with me. I was angry and hurt that my character would be so called into question. I almost felt like proving I WAS as bad as she made me out to be. Also I had been taking Tae Kwon Do and wanted to test out some stuff in a real situation. So I picked on the biggest kid in school. Not the fattest but the fittest. I figured that way I wouldn't feel so bad about picking the fight. Heh. Yeah. That ain't how that works.

I was fit. The best shape of my life nearly. I could stick my foot directly out from my body perpendicular to the floor and bend my other leg until my ass touched my heel. Then I could rise from that position on that one leg with my other still perpendicular. I don't recall seeing anyone ever do that. Try that sometime. I could do one handed pushups, true ones, with my other arm behind my back. But none of that matters if you can't bring yourself to hit someone hard.

We met at a back corner of the school. I had made some excuse for the fight about him saying something about my friend David but I didn't give a rat's ass about David. We were never friends. As a matter of fact I secretly agreed David was a loud mouth puss. That was my excuse though. I asked did he want to take it back. I was giving him an out. Of course he wasn't going to take it back.

I was quick. I danced around him picking places to land blows but they were just taps to get him swinging. I would fake high with hand then kick him in the arm pit when he raised his guard. I wanted him mad and punching hard. If I got one good lick on me I could finally put some weight in my punches without guilt. He didn't have that problem. He even asked with some amazement if that was as hard as I could hit.

I tapped him a few more times but my heart was no longer in it. I was going to give up forcing him to fight. As I turned to walk away I did one last backhand dishrag limp slap to his face. I had my face turned away as I was stepping the other direction even. That was when he reached under my arm and stepped forward flipping me head over heals into the air. Keep in mind I was a hundred pounds lighter than him. I did a revolution and a half and landed on my face. Not my best moment.

I managed to get to my hands and knees before he jumped on my back. I rose from the ground anyway with him a dead weight. Here was my chance to do some shit. He had committed to fighting back. I turned but didn't make it all the way around before he caught me in the eye with a fairly good punch from behind. But it wasn't a dizzy making one. I sort of wondered did he hold back. This was a big guy and it shouldn't have been something I could shake off so easy.

I was wanting to stand toe to toe and trade hard punches. I wanted punishment and to dole it out. Instead he wrapped me up in his arms just as soon as I made it all the way around and drove forward like a tackle. Makes sense because he was an offensive lineman. This time he had me pinned and sat astride me and there wouldn't be any bucking this heavy bastard off. Not with him constantly swinging at my face. I blocked or dodged everything he threw and he was throwing hard now. He was throwing them so fast I couldn't even get off of defense. He was tiring and I thought I would finally get in at least a punch when the teacher showed up and pulled him off.

My worst fight ever. I never landed a serious blow.

He was smiling as we walked the hall to the office. He wanted to shake my hand. He told me good fight. The hell it was. I didn't get to do shit. I said that aloud. I looked at his open hand and then his earnest open face. Goddamnit. I wanted a rematch. I looked at his face again. Shit. I shook his hand. As always the paddling hurt worse than any lick taken in a fight.

I had to tote a black eye again. Some punk a grade below me said something smartassed while I was behind him at the coke machine a week later. Oh. You think you can take me now? I kicked the coke machine a half inch from his head and it rocked back bouncing off the wall and smacking him in the back on the return. You CAN kick hard he said. I just stared at him in disgust. Maybe I did have anger issues but I walked away. I would have never hit Laurie. How could she have said she was worried I would? I have never hit a woman in my life. Even when I was hit. That is pussy behavior and I've never been a pussy. Not since Sammy taught me better.

One last thing. Pam was walking with me (hopeful I guess now that Laurie was out) and mentioned the fight. I told her I got my ass kicked and deserved it. She said way to take it like a man. Only way to take it I replied. I was feeling really disgusted that I had taken it though. I look over my shoulder and there is Sandra being an eaves dropper for Laurie. That just doubled my disgust.

[Medlar]

I would like to be able to write as well as you Tocky, but my excuse is that I have an engineers attitude to creative writing, just can’t do it. You had an interesting early life and it makes for great reading.

[Tocky]

Medlar! Great to hear from you even if you won't write me a first kiss story from an engineering perspective.

[Medlar]

Just a nuts and bolts and press specification

[Tocky]

She leaned the fifteen degrees until the apex of her mammary made contact with his prominent pectoral. At that chronological juncture a PSI of .6 was applied by her mouthal region in agreement with Newtons third law to his corresponding region. After a suitable orbit of tongues the tensile strength of saliva was found to be within acceptable range. Ah sucrose love.

Nuts and bolts (with washer) aside I think I would like to hear a story of engineering love.

May you have an interesting life is a Chinese curse. Being stupid makes things interesting. On that note I'll tell of another time I got to examine a gun barrel.

Me and Elliott were hanging out on the square in Pontotoc talking to a couple guys we had just met and looking for something to break the boredom when a Suburban full of guys shouting "fuck you" or something equally brilliant sped past flipping us off. There were half again as many of them as us but we weren't about to let that slide. Oh no. What was life if not to be spent cheaply and foolishly on a whim. Besides the two of us were always one upping each other on the bravery bit.

We followed them to a sand pit and stopped at the entrance. He turned to me and said "do you think it's a trap?" Prudent thinking but I wasn't having any. No way was I ever going to let this guy out balls me. "Nah. Lets do it." So we drove on in. The second car with our two new companions waited at the entrance... wisely so.

The Suburban waited near a shack at the heart of the pit and we had no more pulled alongside when a man stepped out from behind the shed and fired one round from a pump shotgun into the air, jacks in another round and levels it at our no doubt startled faces. Many is the time I wish I had a snapshot of such things.

Elliot floored it spinning a rooster tail of sand and cutting a donut in our bid for escape. Once pointed in the right direction we saw our good buddies peal away and two other cars take their place one to block the entrance and the other pulled along side disgorging others with guns. I saw Elliotts hand slowly reaching beneath the seat where he sometimes kept a single shot sawed off twelve gauge cut down like a pistol. Old Betsy was a crowd pleaser with a six inch barrel and a pattern disbursement like a grenade. It wasn't there. God only knows what would have happened if it were. I was looking at him and shaking my head like he was insane for thinking it anyway.

To my window came a little old lady spitting curse words like a drunken whore and holding a 38 in a shaky tightfisted grip. I remember her knuckles white and the palsy of anger in her whole body and thinking just one small squeeze, just one emphasis too heartfelt in her curses and that trigger will click home. That black hole at the tip of that gun will be the last thing I see. All pretense of bravery fled as I slunk lower in my seat.

All was chaos. Our doors were opened. Much threats of mutilation and what would become of our corpses. Redneck pandemonium. Out of this came a girl our own age yelling to be heard over the rage. "It's not them! It's not them!" Turns out she went to school with Elliott. We gathered through her explanation some of their kin had been beaten badly the night before by guys parked just where we had on the square. The others wanted so badly to believe we were the ones even knowing better that we left like our asses were on fire as soon as the way opened. Even so one guy threw a tire iron which hit the rear of the car. Elliott cursed but he did not slow down.

Ah bravery... that bird had flown.

[Tocky]

Let's knock out the last few girls before I went out with my wife. That's the best story.

After Belinda my friends kept trying to hook me up with girls they knew. Dit set me up on a date with a girl who had seen me out drinking with him and wanted to know me. I took her to see Eli which was a local band that I thought should have made it into the big time. We danced a lot and a girl came over that I knew who asked me to dance. I thought that was kind of rude so I told her I was on a date with who I wanted to dance with. That got me in aces with the one and burnt the bridge of the other but that was fine.

We left about midnight and I continued pretending I was a gentleman by opening her door. When I got in the car I turned to say something to her but I couldn't get it out past her lips. That was a nice surprise for me. It was a hungry kiss. The best kind. I sort of wanted to be a gentleman so I took her home. She may have wanted me to be a devil and take her somewhere secluded but here is the thing: I'm shallow. She was a foot taller than me and I just could not see it going much farther. I didn't want to just use her. Maybe I was a gentleman of sorts. But maybe she wanted to be used for all I know. We kissed a long time in her parents driveway.

No. That's a lie. I was no part of a gentleman because I would have called later and let her know if I were. I might have even gotten over the height thing and found out how great she was. As it was Dit told me every time she asked about me after. I should have called. That was wrong and I'm a dick. Lets not get too Smeagol though. I'm sure I wasn't too hard to get over. Lots did it damned quick.

The next date set up was done by Scott's girlfriend Paige who is a friend of mine and cuts my hair to this day despite being flung out of our house by my wife by hers (that's another story). She wanted me to go out with Denise whose brother Rick I already knew. Sure. I should have gone slow but we wound up at a hotel.

We gave it a good try. It lasted over a month. Maybe two. Thing is we were not that compatible in the bedroom. She only seemed to like vanilla and I could eat peach for hours. There were a lot of disagreements. When we argued over something at a party she stormed off saying we were over and I guess she thought better of it and came back but by that time her "friend" had her arms around me and she stormed off again. That was a bad ending. Although we argued a lot she deserved better. I found out the friend was under age and fled. No more teens. Yeah, I was a dick in this relationship too.

Then my buddy Richard set me up with his cousin Linda only he didn't tell me that was what he was doing. What he did was bring me along for a visit. Or possibly toss me like a wounded mouse to a cat. I had no idea that was the first day her divorce was final. We sat on the porch steps smoking herb and talking and she kept doing that touching thing girls do when they like you. Oh ha ha that's so true *hand on thigh*. After a while the hand stayed there and it was getting late so Richard said he had to go and I was halfway up when she said she could take me home. I don't think his tail lights were gone before we were on each other.

She was pretty damn great. There was nothing incompatible about us at all. She was twenty seven and my most experienced and certainly up there with the most enthusiastic. She taught me things. Wondrous things. She had a tattoo of a butterfly but not where Steve McQueen did in Papillon. Hers was alighting on a bush. I loved that butterfly. I didn't love her but that was okay. She didn't love me either.

We had a lot in common. Our tastes in music were almost dead on. We liked the same movies. She was always delighted every time I came over and I came over a lot. I used to have a picture of her looking out her door at me with that smile. And she loved to do acid and have sex. It heightened sensation and lord you could come forever. Have I been too honest this time? TMI? Well we were honest with each other too. We knew it wouldn't last forever. I don't know why we didn't love each other. By all rights we should have. I liked her a lot though. I think we lasted six months and maybe a few last times beyond. It was easy and free till the end when I just did not show up again. I wonder did she look for me long past the final time.

[Tocky]

It was nice of my friends to try to help but I think some things are best done on your own. It wasn't like I was whining boo hoo I'll never find "the one". I did sort of feel that way though. I felt something was wrong with me for not finding one who wanted me for more than a few months and also for not wanting good girls who took things slow. Being me I wondered was it not that I had failed in the sack somehow. I vowed to use everything I had the next time a girl allowed me the pleasure of her company.

We had known each other at work for a couple of years. All of us in shipping sat together at lunch and talked. She thought I was an arrogant asshole (imagine that) and I thought she was a beautiful woman who picked actual assholes instead of great fun loving guys like me. I figured she always would and I had no interest in that type. There is a type which dooms themselves to misery and I was convinced she was that. Her stories of her marriage (mostly told to her friend and work partner) were awful. I tried to give advice. Get away from that shithole in human form mostly. Normally I wouldn't interfere in a marriage but this guy was a horror story.

She did divorce him but not because of anything I said. Let's just say when a shotgun is held to your head then goodbye is just superfluous for most folks. I didn't rush in and try to fill any gap. I had my own worries. She wasn't my type. I figured she would just date some other asshole now. She did date other guys and spoke of them at times but I didn't pay much attention. I just did my job and cracked jokes to alleviate the mindlessness of it.

Then one day we were both sitting on a sort table talking about what we planned to do that weekend. She mentioned she wanted to see a movie but didn't want to go alone. I noticed we were sitting with our thighs touching though the whole table was open. Just recently Dit had admonished me for not picking up on an obvious come on. A girl had asked me what I was doing after the party and I blathered on like an idiot instead of picking up on it. Well not this time. No sir. This time I was on my game. This time I was certain. I asked her out. She said she would have to think about it. Huh? Okaaaaaay. Wrong again then dumbass.

I was embarrassed I had asked. I was going to tell her I was mistaken and no hard feelings and we were still friends. Something made me say "think it over" and "no pressure either way". I worked the rest of the day trying not to think about what a fool I was. She came up to me and said she couldn't afford any complications at work. I said that was perfectly understandable and that I didn't want any either so not to worry. I was going to say the bit about no hard feelings and we were still friends then because I was certain the next words were going to be no. "Yes". Huh? Well alright then. Don't worry, no matter how it goes, even if I lose a limb, I won't say a word about it at work. Our secret.

Well okay. So she is ashamed of me and we are being sneaky, understandable since she is so good looking and I'm... hold up, I've been wrong at every turn so just chill (I don't say that aloud). I get directions to her home and we part with a smile and I'm still Mr. easy breezy. I'm not though. I'm nervous as hell. I go to see Legitt to get some smoke in case she wants to and while I'm talking to him I'm saying what if it works out and what if we get together and what if we get married and what if we have kids and I'm almost having a panic attack. Slow down he tells me. The likelihood of any of that happening is incalculable, just go on your date. Right. That's silly. I've never been like this before. Nothing is going to happen. So I put a quilt in the trunk just in case something happens.

I go pick her up and as beautiful as she is at work she has managed to make herself even more so. On the way she is fidgeting so I ask if she is nervous. She told me later she thought I was an ass for that but then I said I was too so she forgave me immediately. I forget all my inner turmoil never shows on my face. I've been told I have a face for poker. I assume they meant cards. They may have meant a fireplace poker. We get some wine for later. Inglenooks Chenin Blank. I know because I still have the bottle.

So we go to see Monty Python's The Meaning of Life at the Hoka. The guy who owns the place is a friend. You have to admit it's a strange first date movie though. She was thinking I was a bit strange for picking it but there are some funny bits we both laughed at. I realize then I haven't offered to get her any drink or popcorn so I go load up at the concession stand and pop my head in the projector room to say hey to Ron who is burning a J. He always is. On the way to our seat I realize I've not kissed her yet. I recalled how Cheryl had clacked teeth with me because I had waited so long. I put all the drinks and Raisinets and popcorn in an empty seat and sneak up behind her. I place my hands over her eyes and say "guess who?" and when she turns to see I kiss her. I got lost in it. Could have been ten seconds or ten minutes. It was a great first kiss. She said she fell for me right then. I fell a bit later. Literally.

More to come....

[Tocky]

After the show I asked did she want to go shoot some pool or bowl or eat or maybe go lay at the end of the runway with the wine and watch planes take off just over our heads. The airplane thing sounded kind of fun. My girl. When we pulled up to the top of airport hill I opened the trunk and took out the quilt. She eyed me suspiciously. You keep a quilt in your trunk? Did you put it there for me? What? No, of course not, I just keep one in my trunk for like sitting on the beach and stuff. I'm no fool.

The whole runway is on an uphill grade until it reaches Molly Barr road and can't be seen so you have to know where it is and pull over at that point. It's a steep climb but we held hands and made it. We stretched out the quilt opened the wine and talked of our lives. For every good memory I had she had a bad one. Oh she didn't whine. She was tough and fierce. But it made me protective. I couldn't express that because she would have never allowed anyone to feel sorry for her. It was a beautiful moonlit night and she was beautiful in it. Dark hair and eyes with arched brows like Cleopatra, her skin of cinnamon, her nose so small one had hardly to tilt to kiss her. We kissed. Things happened. Things happened for hours. She kept saying she couldn't believe this was the guy from work. Since she thought the guy from work was an ass that was a good thing.

A good first impression is important. I showed out. I spent every ounce of energy I had keeping her eyes rolled back. I was beyond spent. Just stupid dizzy frazzled. I don't think we drank much wine at all. If a whole fleet of planes flew over we didn't know it. We gathered our things and made our way to the brink of the hill. On the way down I told her to be careful where she stepped because there was loose sand. As if on cue I slipped and slid down the hill head first. I always say I fell head over heels for her that night and it's true.

We went back to her place. We had work the next day but we weren't done with the night. However the next morning found me red eyed in rumpled grass stained clothes. The same clothes from the day before. How did we expect her friend wouldn't be able to figure that out? I think we must have been addled. At any rate we all went to eat at Pizza Hut come lunch and there was some ribbing and knowing winks. So much for keeping things on the down low.

When time for the check came I reached for my wallet. It wasn't there. Oh crap. I knew where it was. I said for them to hang out a bit while I got something. On airport hill I found it where I thought I would, it was in the middle of a flattened patch of grass much larger than I would have figured. I knew we had rolled off the quilt a few times but you could set a house down in this. When I got back the ribbing was double. So where did you find your wallet? I looked at Rena and she was grinning. I guess secrecy wasn't so important anymore.

I went home only to get clothes and come back. The next evening I stood at her door looking out. It felt like a turning point in my life, like a fork in the road where you might mourn the one not taken. She came up to put her arms around me from behind and asked me what was wrong. I should leave but I don't want to. I've been here all weekend. She snuggled her face against my back and told me not to go. All thoughts of mourning another path left me. We have been together thirty four years now. We are still on our first date.

[Tocky]

Don't think things have always been perfect between my wife and I. Not that I'm going to tell the whole story but if you take on a woman who has been abused you will pay for it. Good men pay for bad. In my case I think it was well worth it but there were times even long after there shouldn't have been that I felt like giving up. The damage men do is awful. Quite frankly it makes me want to just beat the hell out of them. But I couldn't do that. I had learned that just wasn't the way and anytime I forgot she would tell me she didn't want that to happen and please if I loved her don't. So I mostly didn't.

I wanted to beat her ex most of all though. I came close the first time I met him. I don't think she knows how close. He made fun of her laugh. Yeah it's a funny laugh, it makes me want to hear it over and over, it makes me want to cause her to laugh as much as I can. I guess you never had that problem. She stepped in at that point. We had to deal with him because Danny was his biological son. He is my son though. I raised him while the biological continued being a drunken lazy worthless druggie bum. While I took my wife and son to see his mother on her deathbed he was at her house stealing everything including her checkbook which he used to write bad checks on her. I still wonder if it wasn't a mistake not to sneak off and beat his ass on the sly one good time. I'll never know now. He died of cirrhosis of the liver one Christmas eve. The bastard even found a way to screw up Christmas.

Her biological father wasn't much better. When I told her of my wonderful Christmases as a kid getting everything I wanted she told me how one Christmas her dad had found an old saddle and told her if she polished it well he would get her a horse. She did. She worked real hard on it and got it looking good. Then he sold it and went whoring and drinking and bought his family nothing for the holiday. I wished so much I could have gotten that little wounded child everything she wanted. Not to break my arm patting myself on the back but I sold my prized GTO convertible one year to give my family a better Christmas.

I shouldn't be telling this stuff. Anyway life is never perfect. I don't think any relationship is either. And can you imagine living with me? But mostly we were happy and I think we have shaken free of most of the bad stuff and life is on an even keel now. She didn't always appreciate me as much as she does now. I mean, something really is wrong with me even if I can't figure out what it is. But still somehow I manage to attract women to me somehow sometimes and that is never a good thing.

After Scott had gone to prison for knifing that guy to death Paige was left adrift and hooked up with an asshole. I had gone along with Scott on one of his fights as backup to keep others from jumping in but thank Judas I wasn't there for his knife fight. My brother told me how awful it was. At any rate Paige was a good friend and my wife and I visited her from time to time. On one occasion she had a black eye. That kind of thing triggers me real bad but I let the girls talk things over and stay out of it. But then the dick comes in and sits down across from me. All the while talk is going on I'm just silent stewing. I finally get up and walk over to him and tell him if I ever see her with another black eye he will have two. That sort of stifled conversation and he gets mad and just leaves. Oops I've done it again.

Cut to a few months later and she has left him. Good for her. She could do way better. She is just a damned good looking blue eyed blond and if she hadn't been going with a friend of mine (Scott) when I met her then I might have made a move. I liked her dad who is head of the art department at Ole Miss and with whom I share a lot. We might have been more than friends then but now I'm married so what happened next was out of the blue to me.

She came to our house and we are all sitting talking and she asks me am I happy. Well yeah, sure. But am I really happy? I'm confused but my wife isn't. Her radar has sent up all antennas and she is manning battle stations. Paige keeps flirting. She came between me and the coffee table and drops her bandanna so she bends to pick it up sticking her ass right in my face. I thought for sure Rena was going to catch fire. She stays cool. But when Paige makes some excuse to lie on the floor and she does it with her legs bent and open toward me she goes off. She grabs her by the hair of her head and drags her to the door flinging her out saying "bitch don't you ever come to my house again".

Scott got out in six and she went back to him like everybody but her figured would happen and we are all friends now. I see way more of her than him because she cuts my hair but everybody is cool now. She really is a good person. I just think she mistook my concern for her. Anyway I caught hell for that. I'm not perfect (LOL no) but I thought I was innocent on that one. At any rate I thought I would explain what I mentioned earlier about Paige being flung out of the house.

Damn I'm just scattershot on my stories now. I'll try to do better next time. Any requests?

[Harvester]

Try to do better? Your stories are awesome, I've read every one of them with great interest. I also really relate to the last bit about living with a woman who's been through a lot and wanting to fix things for her. I even recognize the feeling of wanting to have met her earlier so you could've spared her from some of the awful things she's had to go through.

[Tocky]

I think I needed her. I needed somebody I could be a hero for. You get it in spades though. Abuse affects in long reaching ways. You might think being the victim of violence would make a woman less prone to anger and violence but that's not how that works. The urge to strike out is strong. But only by it meeting no resistance does it go away. You can't even hold them down and explain you are never going to hit them back though you could. Everything will be tested. You just have to be steadfast. My life before her sort of built me to be who she needed. The universe unfolds as it should sometimes.

I often let the pictures flip through on my computer screen saver and watch our life pass. We are smiling in most all of them. Genuine smiles. The bad times never lasted. They blew over like a summer storm. The worst was after our son graduated. We became a bit alienated then. She was depressed and I didn't think that was fair because we still had a daughter at home and she was entering her teen years. Sometimes you have to redouble efforts before they pay off. I think what helped us most was going on small vacations together several times a year. It recharged emotions and as long as there are those you are golden.

This then is the story of a small vacation you will not believe. I don't mean it's hard to believe. I mean you won't believe. Nobody does. It's always passed off as a lucid dream. Maybe it is. There are aspects which aren't and no way could they be but others, if you consider possibilities, can be explained. This will make everything I've said before suspect but it's just plain fact the same as the other. You can't pick and choose when it's what you have lived, this was real and that was not. It's either all real or none of it is. It's what happened. But you see what you think.

We had come from Pall Mall, Tennessee. Sergeant York's home to be specific. He was a fascinating bastard and part of me resonates with his not wanting to kill. He was really good at it though. Anyway, we stopped by Highland Manor winery on the way out of town and picked up some wine that was really good. We always stop at wineries and Tennessee rarely lets us down. After a winding mountain road we spent the night in Knoxville and stopped by to see some famous cabins like the one in the series Daniel Boone with Fess Parker that I grew up on as a boy.

None of that means a lick but we came into Gatlinburg late because of it and took room 147 in the Riverhouse Motor Lodge. The rooms there are seventies decor with lime green carpet, teak paneling, and old fake paintings like you would get with greenstamps but they are more spacious than most luxury hotels and the fireplace is huge. Our room had twin queen beds and we chose the one closest the fire which we built right away because it was early November in the mountains.

We sat on the balcony eating deli sandwiches and feeding trout in the Pigeon river with bread scraps. We sipped the wine and took in the beauty of nature and folks I recommend the Smokies for that. Renz can tell you that is a beautiful place. We kept being bothered by squirrels and redbirds so we left them some crumbs and cheese on the railing and went back inside to sit on the huge hearth before the fire. It was cold outside but the hearth large and its stones warm on our skin. I'm sure it was made for what we did there.

We took the next tryst to the bed and fed each other cheese with copious wine between rounds. Eventually we were sated and sotted enough to drift off in bliss. I felt as if I had been to sleep only a short while, if at all, when I felt the bed behind me sink and her cold body press against my back. Her nipples were like two chilled nickels. Despite the great sex I felt it was rude to come from the balcony so cold and snuggle against me like that. What was she doing out there anyway? I was going to complain when I suddenly realized Rena was spooned warm to my front.

Holy fuck I woke up fully then. I sat up looking in every corner and crevice. That DID NOT feel like a dream. I could still feel the fading cold of those nipples and it made me shiver. I looked at the rumpled covers next to me but there was nothing there. I thought back over the bed sinking and the tug of covers exactly as if someone had pulled them over themselves. Rena was dead asleep. I was wide awake and would be for over a half hour. But what can you do in the dead of night staring at shadows and creeped the hell out but slide back where you were and attempt sleep? After a few more darting eyes at nothing just in case I did eventually go back to sleep.

I've told that part before on the forums. That can be explained by lucid dream or excess carbon monoxide from the fire or something. But I didn't tell this part. About an hour later I woke up shivering. I looked around. There were no covers. None. We were still in our naked spoon never having moved but there was not a stitch atop us, no sheet, no blanket, no comforter. I looked on my side of the bed. Nothing. I looked on her side. Nothing. I couldn't have woken in a Kansas corn field and felt more strange. They had to be somewhere.

I turned on the bedside light. Nothing. I got up and looked around the room. Nothing. I went into the bathroom thinking maybe Rena got up and in her sleep dragged them there. No. I looked in the fireplace. Just the logs burning down. I looked on the balcony. Nothing. I went back to the bathroom and looked in the shower. I looked in the cabinet that held the firewood. What the hell? They had to be somewhere. I was going to give up and take the covers off the other bed when I saw them peeking out from under the foot of the bed. Not much mind you as they had been tucked under nearly out of sight.

I remade the bed and crawled back in. This shit was creeping me out. I thought about the covers being slowly pulled off and tucked under the bed while I slept. I didn't know what to think. What would you think? Would you be all sane logic at one in the morning? I wanted to talk to Rena but she was dead zonked out and never moved during any of this. Hadn't all night. That kind of worried me too but she was breathing okay so I just spooned against her back again and waited for sleep. Eventually I did.

About an hour later I woke up shivering again. No covers. What? Just in case I didn't believe the shit the first time it happened again? Yes. There they were tucked under the end of the bed. I got up bone cold naked and stoked the fire to a roar. I stood there warming. Am I going to have to stay up all night? Ohgod what if I woke up to the covers slowly sliding off? I said aloud "okay, I appreciate you are lonely, but I have to get some sleep". I went over and tucked the cover well, military corners and everything. Then I held them open just enough to slide in. I slept till morning. The covers stayed on.

I told Rena about it when she woke up. She was fascinated. Oh it was funny in daylight too. We both got a kick out of it. I took a picture of her grinning on the "ghost bed". I was still a little shaken and laughed it off thinking how scared I was in the night. How silly it was now. Rena called down to get breakfast sent up. They told her nobody was in room 147. Yes there is. We are. It was the last room available. No. That room is closed. Look we are in it so I know it isn't. Just send up our food. As she hung up the phone she went dee dee dee dee like Twilight Zone.

I'm sure it can all be explained but it didn't feel like it when it happened. I wish we could stay there again but Riverhouse was one of those that burned during the wildfire that swept through.