From the Desk of The DBeazy One-Man-Think-Tank

Welcome to part 7. Once again, if this is your first time here, you may click on the following link(s) to catch up on Part 1 thru Part 6.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

 

**** THE FOLLOWING IS A WORK OF FICTION.  Any semblance to a person, place, or experience is 98.8% fabricated. 

****  Also, I’d like to call attention to the featured image, by the very talented, Chelsea McKenzie.

 

 

A Religious Experience, Terror, and a Long Ride Home

“What a BITCH!!!” Charla exploded, pounding the table with her fists and drawing attention from everyone in the bar. “Do you mean to tell me that she strung you along the whole time and sprung that information on you just when it was time to leave? No way! That’s so wrong……” “I don’t think they heard you down at the sawmill, dear,” I replied. “Sorry Boss, but I’m tellin’ you right now, she needs to be bitch-slapped!” “It’s alright hun, that all happened a long time ago. It’s alright,” I said, glancing over at Cullen who seemed to be enjoying himself.  Charla continued, “Ahhhhhhhh, so you’re still hung up on that skank?  Say it ain’t so. SAY it ain’t soooo. This is why you never hit on me, you’ve got this bastard child out there and you are punishing yourself because of it. Because of HER.”   “You are just too much woman for me Charla, that is why I never “hit” on you, that’s all,” I came back with a wink. “You are so full of it,” Charla replied.  “So, what happened? Get on with it while I’m still young.”  For a moment, her words echoed in my mind, stinging some as unaccepted truth does from time to time.

“Well, as you might expect, the revelation hit me like the space shuttle falling from space and landing squarely on my head. I am certain that I stood there absent of any shade or hue of color in my face. As colorless as my face was, my inability to formulate verbal expression was even more obvious. Then a total look of abandonment covered her face as what I imagined a feeling of complete subjugation covered her entire spirit might look like. Like some ominous cloud. It hurts me today, imagining how totally alone she must have felt at that moment. Finally, I found words and attempted to speak, but it was too late.  She cut me off and told me to go, that she just couldn’t elaborate more right then, but that she would call me that evening to talk. Then she put her hands on each of my shoulders, leaned in close, and whispered for me not to worry, that everything was okay. And again, I tried to speak, but she shushed me and told me that we would talk later and turned to go into her building, at first, at a normal clip, but then she advanced the pace to the point that she was running as she made the front door, and I knew she was crying.

I had no other choice than to step away; to begin toward the truck, wanting to break into a run myself. In near panic, the inexperienced boy in me wanted to be angry, I wanted to lash out at her for the method in which she delivered this news, instead of grabbing her in a big bear hug and promising that all would be ok. That I would make it all okay. I never got the chance to convince her that I would find the grit necessary to mature and be who and what she needed. I cursed as I felt that I had failed a test, though to be honest, it was not a fair one. Even the inexperienced boy in me knew that it would be pretty shitty of me to call her out on the small sequencing issue. Maybe it is best that she chose to tell me that way. I mean, I’ve played that weekend over and over and over in my mind.  With so many ways that she could have done it right, yet she chose that way.  Had she resequenced the timeline of the weekend and told me the news from the start, well, I doubt that it would have varied any outcomes.

In my truck, I fired off the old eight, the Holly 4-barrel reverberated the helpless feeling I felt as if the 350 engine and I shared identical turmoil deep within. I calmed down and wisely waited until after I had exited campus. I didn’t consult a map, I just drove in the direction that felt like South, working my way until I found road signs that seemed correct. I don’t know how I made it home that day, I just drove, and with four hours ahead of me, my mind covered the entire spectrum from praying the cup would be removed from me to a visualization of a house on a quiet street, a fenced yard, and a swing set.  Then nausea swept over my being as the image of a nursery, a crib, one of those umbrella-looking things with elephants hanging down, playing music to soothe a squalling baby appeared in my mind’s eye. The very idea terrified me, I just wasn’t ready for such and I reminded God that I wasn’t, just in case he had gotten my case mixed up with that of someone more capable. I made deals with God, promising anything under the sun in return for sparing me the cross of fatherhood at 21 years of age.

I drove along, alternating between prayer and profanity, unable to find solace from music which rarely failed me. I searched my mind for that first time in the back of the convertible. Did we discuss birth control? “We did, did we not?”  I asked myself. “We did,” I remember it clearly. We were kissing, touching each other, caution thrown to the wind as we feverishly pulled, tugged, and wrestled with each other’s clothing. I did ask, well, sort of. I asked, “Do I need to?” But she shut me up, kissing me and without separating our lips, I clearly remember her saying, “it’s okay.”  But I wondered if I had somehow misunderstood her or if she had misunderstood what I was trying to ask. Then it occurred to me that God probably didn’t appreciate me trying to make the one-sided deals and altered my approach to begging and pleading.  Knowing the futility of an attempt to convince an omnipotent God the extent of mistake it would be to make me a father. That I was twenty, had no future, no prospects, and therefore, couldn’t possibly be expected to be responsible for a family at that time.  Not to mention that she did have plans. She had goals. She didn’t want to be a mother, let alone, to be yoked to the person that I was at the time.

Then the thought of having to tell my parents and my aged Grandmother. “Oh Lord, please don’t make me have to be such a disappointment to my dear old Grandmother.” I really doubted if she would be able to survive that kind of shame.  My Grandmother had lived with my family for much of my life after retiring to serve as a babysitter. She had had a profound influence on my life and through her, I learned many of the values that have served me throughout my life. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to disappoint her, I was terror-stricken at the thought. With nothing more than a look, that seventy-something-year-old woman had a way of exacting punishment more dreadful than she could have possibly done with a wet, green pecan limb, even though she had proven many times that she could go that route as well. I just knew that I was screwed at every turn. Not only would I have to deal with the shame and embarrassment that such news would bring to my family, I also had my friends to consider. I could see how the rumor mill would rapidly pick up the subject and as many times as I had been a part of the chain, this time, it was going to be me on the subject line.

In as much as the first hour or so of my journey home was spent in fervent prayer, the next two hours were spent analyzing every word she had uttered and her every gesture or action of the past couple of days. I was certain that I’d been picking up on a strange vibe from the start and I allowed my mind to gallop with the possibility of her dumping me for some frat guy. I realized that I had experienced the first-ever ping of jealousy and had learned that the world was much bigger than I knew and how insignificant I was in it. She could have picked up a rock and threw it and hit any number of guys who were a better catch than I was, so why, why, why did she even consider speaking to me that first night a few weeks ago?

Had she been testing me in some way?  Had she been gauging my responses for signs that I was the one worthy of hitching her wagon to in the eminent event of a dead rabbit?  What had she meant when she told me that everything was going to be okay and that I shouldn’t worry? I mean, I really didn’t know her well enough to know if she had formed an opinion of the prospect of abortion. Had I even formed an opinion on that topic one way or the other? I felt that I needed her to know that I was the one. That I could be anyone, anyone in the world that she needed me or wanted me to be.  As it was though, with the way she broke the news and dismissed me, I didn’t feel that I had a chance. By way of result, I guess I failed miserably and had doubts that she would even call that night.

Farther down the road, the initial shock behind me, I allowed myself to think realistically and more analytically.  I said, “Okay, then. So this is happening, what will I do? Again, my belief in a loving and graceful God reentered the thought process. How I believed that my God would never put more on me than I could handle and that whatever the outcome, I knew that HIS will would and will always be done in this world and in my life in particular.  Yes, I acknowledged the fact that if not for my sin, I would not be driving from Oxford, Mississippi with the weight of the known galaxy on my mind. I stopped and asked for forgiveness for my sins, but I knew that it had been a sin that I’d commit again and again and I asked God for forgiveness for that knowledge as well.

The question that I finally got around to asking was this. “Would being married and a parent at the age of 21 be the absolute worst? I couldn’t answer that question on a mature level. Especially given the fact that I’d experienced so little of the world as an individual, so how could I fathom a world with two other constants there. I admitted to myself that after a few hurdles were jumped, life wouldn’t be so bad. After all, I’d already awakened a few times to those beautiful green eyes; a man could do worse, and other than the one stressful departure, I admitted that I absolutely loved spending hours and hours with her. So I decided that I’d await the results and trust that things would work out and for the rest of the trip, I allowed my mind, as much as it could comprehend, to cycle through the possibilities of a lifetime together.

For the final 40 miles or so, I began to comprise a list of potential employment possibilities. I’m talking about jobs that might not be so glamorous but would provide a living for a family. I also made up my mind that if college and career were her goals, then as soon as possible, I’d find a way for her to accomplish those goals. For the first time, I considered looking into the opportunities offshore in the oil fields of the Gulf of Mexico. I knew several people who made their living that way and they seemed to be doing pretty well.  But I considered other things as well, in fact, anything. Anything that would provide a good living and allow me to be the father and husband that I would need to be for “them.”

At home, that night, I heard the phone and I answered on the first ring and I heard her voice, timid and shy at first. I had rehearsed my early lines, all aimed at sounding chipper, upbeat, and positive. While I may have scored a little better, than before, I still felt like my initial monologue sounded rehearsed, but I got by with it and I could hear the tension in her voice begin to subside. I told her that I’d had a lot of time on the drive home to think about everything and I shared my belief that we could be great together, no matter what. Those were the thoughts that I wanted to convey to her before she made any decisions. I began to hear strength and confidence return to her voice. Not to the level of before, but it was appreciably better than when I first answered the phone. Looking back now, I think that was the best thing that could have happened at the moment because she knew that she hadn’t been left completely alone. Then I lightened the mood by saying, “So I was thinking about the name Constance for a girl and Bartholomew if it’s a boy.” It dawned on me right then as she burst out laughing, that it was the first time I’d heard her laugh since that first weekend and she followed, still laughing, “There’s no fucking way I’m naming my boy Bartholomew, have you lost your mind?” We talked for a few minutes more, laughed at the predicament in which we found ourselves, and then said our goodnights.  As we rang off, for the first time, I told her, “I love you, girl.” “I love you,” she said and she was gone.  “Dammit,” I yelled, and my Mom, who had chosen that moment to be passing, opened my door and asked if I was alright.  I made some excuse like I’d stumped my toe or something just to get her to move on, but I have to say that at that very moment in space and time, as I rode the Earth around the Sun, I was simultaneously scared shitless and plain giddy from the prospect of having her in my life permanently.

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