After the incident of the skating party, I started taking closer notice of Star. I don’t know if she wanted anything more than just to rile me up, but if that was the case, she got more than she bargained for.
On our first date we went to see Eugene O’Neal’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” in Spokane. I chose it just because of the playwright’s last name. Star really got off on the dark nature of the play. I thought it was well done, but depressing as hell. It became a part of our history together. Whenever one of us would sneeze or cough the other would remark “It’s only a slight summer cold.” I was in love for the first time in my life. The contrast of her pale skin and brilliant hair, paired with her dark side made such an irresistible combination. Kinda like Wednesday Adams meets Julie Andrews. We went everywhere together and did everything together.
In August, my parents and uncle had gone to the coast for the day and left me in charge of the place for the weekend. Being the sensible and responsible person I was, I threw a party. Not just A party but THE party. People came from all over the county. My parents claimed that they were digging beer bottles out of the bushes for years afterwards. No one got hurt, no permanent damage was done and a good time was had by all. I brought Star. I wondered why she wanted to see my parent’s bed room. She had been around the house before, but never been in there. I was showing her the big old brass bed with the pineapples on the four corners when I heard a whishing sound behind me.
It was the sound of Star’s skirts dropping. It was followed by a lesser repeat of the same sound as her panties hit the floor. And the rest. I could do nothing at first but stand there with my mouth hanging open. I know this because she remarked “Pat, you’ll be catching flies, with your mouth open like that.” We had made out and indulged in some petting, but this was the first time I had seen her in the nude. It was everything I had fantasized about, and more. The whole of the parts was greater than the sum, as the saying goes. I have a very rich imagination, but here was one of the few times that the reality was greater than the dream. It was the first time for both of us, but there wasn’t a whole lot of awkwardness. We just let our bodies do what they were made for, and while I know a lot more now than I did then, what I knew then was sufficient to the task at hand.
When I graduated from High School, I headed out to the Coast to go to work for Boeing. I have loved aircraft since I saw my first one, and have been known to go on for hours about the SR71 Blackbird, The A-10 Warthog, or the P-38 Lockheed Lightning. Actually earning a living by building them was my dream job. I hated to be parted from Star, so I did something stupid and asked her to marry me.
She said yes, and so we were engaged for the first time. I have to say it was one of the happiest times of my life, that summer. The colors were brighter, the air smelled fresher, and everything was a new adventure. Star still had to complete her senior year, but that was OK. I could go out to the Coast and get established, get a place to live and get everything ready for her to join me when she graduated. I could come back every other weekend. If I left Seattle after work on Friday, I could be back in La Grange by midnight. That would give us all day Saturday and part of the day Sunday together. I got to know that stretch of road real well.
Then on November 18th an unexpected letter came. It didn’t start with the words “Dear John” but it might as well have. It was nothing I had done, there was no one else. She just needed to work some stuff out. She would drop the ring off with my parents. Would I please not hate her? I felt like my heart had fallen down into the pit of my stomach. I really felt I didn’t have a damn thing in this world to live for. My job meant nothing, my possessions were worthless, my friends clueless.
I quit my job and wandered. It didn’t matter too much where I was or what I did because it was all pointless anyway. I ended up in Haight-Ashbury living the life of a Hippy. I really don’t remember much about the next year. Between the drugs and the gloom I don’t care to spend much time remembering it. Just living was to be in pain. I partied a lot, but I was trying to fill up a hole inside me.
I got drafted into the Army, and I suppose it probably saved my life. After I sobered up and straightened up, I found myself a half a world away from home. There is nothing to get your attention like other people trying to kill you. It would have been easy enough to just stand up in the middle of a firefight, but I came to the startling realization that I didn’t want to die. Now all I had to do was get out of there alive. This is another part of my life I really don’t care to remember or talk about. I saw some things that remain little terrible snapshots stored in a special place in my head. I try to keep a lid on them, but sometimes they pop out and catch me by surprise. Some of them can break me out in a sweat. Others bring goosebumps. Suffice it to say that survive I did, more or less whole.
The only injury I sustained was right before I was to be sent home. I had been out celebrating my eminent return to the real world and tripped over a tent line while scurrying for cover while we were under a mortar attack. I broke my ankle. Because we were in a combat situation when it happened, I was awarded the Purple Heart. I got a couple of pins in my ankle and it aches when the weather is changing, but I fared better than a lot of people that got sent to that hell hole. As a result of the injury, I receive a small Government pension as a Disabled Vet. To me it has always been "car money", which enabled me to drive a slightly better car than I would have otherwise.
My family sent me "care packages" while I was over there. There was a local butcher shop in LaGrange that made beef jerky, and I have never had better beef jerky, although I have tried every brand on the market. They would send a couple of pounds with every package. As we are all big readers, there were always some paperback books. And cookies and stuff. Whenever I got a package, the guys in the unit would just happen to be hanging around.
One time right after I had gotten a package from home, they brought in the drug-sniffing dogs to our unit. The Army was very serious about the "drug problem", and I was suspect because I had lived in Haight-Ashbury. When the dogs got to my locker, they went nuts. I was at work fixing the hydraulics on a Huey when I got the call to report back to the unit. They told me that the drug-sniffin-dogs had gone nuts at my wall locker. The only thing I had to say was "I just got a package from home, and it contained two pounds of the best beef jerky in the world. When I get there, if those dogs so much as drool on it, there will be hell to pay”.
I went back to the unit and opened my wall locker. There just in front of the vents were two one pound packages of beef jerky. Although they were apologetic, they still searched the wall locker. At the time I was smoking a pipe, and they confiscated it. I think more because they were pissed off than anything else. It was a hand carved Mercham pipe that had cost me quite a bit, and had been aged over the whole of my tour. They returned it ground up into powder in a plastic bag. The good Lord preserve me from small minded people.
One of the surprises was a letter from Star. Could she please go over to my parent's place and recover the engagement ring? As lonely and disassociated as I was, I said yes. I was engaged again. It gave me some comfort that there was someone back home that cared about me. She had sent a picture, and she looked mighty good.
So, here I was engaged to Star for the second time.
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