On Leaving America - Part 13

Packing Up My Things To Go - Part B

Digging up Bones

Papers and journals, notebooks, documents . . . certificates

And note books

I do not keep notes

Except when I traveling

India, Brazil, Berlin – wherever

This black notebook in my hand is dated 1974

Where was I then?

In India . . . this book

Some random thoughts

Not particularly brilliant.

           *     *     *

Sorting though journals

Ideas for stories . . . fiction

Non fiction

“’Truth about Sri Lanka’”

Been revised that at least 5 times

It’s still not right

And nobody cares.

I’ve saved newspaper clippings, magazine articles,  photos and notes

Fills up a carton realms of paper shipped in

All of that hard copy . . . printouts – variations & critiques

Most 50, 000 words

Taking up space with information I could probably find on Google

But Google  is not like looking at a yellowed newspaper clipping from 1985

I should throw the box away

Forget about it

It might be a mental cleansing

Clear the mess of thought. Subtract one subject

I’ve been putting papers in this file since 1984

I should get rid of it . . . or not.

                   *     *     *

Photos fall from another folder

Some old girl friends

Black and whites from college days:

“The Spanish Armada”

She was from Quito, Ecuador and very upper class

Probably had servants there

Her father was a respected professor at my university.

I was a sophomore, living with a roommate, Phil

Who was a nice guy

A great pal – good roommate

Both are hard to come by.

He comes back one day and says he’s met a girl

Who was good looking and wanted to lose her virginity

She had asked him to do that for her.

My God. What luck!

I should mention I was in a constant state of heat those days

Had just turned 20

Thought about sex 50% of my conscious time . . . at least.

 “You lucky dog!” I told him.

“I’m not going to do it,” he said.

“What?”

“I’m not going to take a girls virginity,” he told me.

Like I said, Phil was a nice guy

This was 1950’s chivalry

Nice guys did not take a girl’s virginity

Girls were expected to be virgins when they married

 I think some of them were

But I digress.

Phil took me to meet Elena at a nice restaurant

She was hot

Maybe five foot six inches tall

She wore high heels and was very well proportioned . . . nice!

And she liked me

Was right out front about it

We discussed the matter as if it were science project

Which maybe it was in a way

I had a 1953 straight-eight Pontiac Chieftain that would do 100 miles per hour easily

And often did

It had big bench seats

There are a lot of densely wooded areas in Southern Illinois

And farm country dirt roads, passable if not raining.

So . . . We got it on a few nights later

I was careful. Use a condom—always

Kept a bandoleer of them inside the glove compartment.

It wasn’t very  painful to her.

She seem interested by the event

Almost as an observer.

“Now you are a woman,” I said her as I lit her cigarette.

Thinking these words would mark deflowering an important moment

A life changing event

I’m not sure it was

Seems more like a milestone – a rite of passage.

We had a wonderful time in the week that followed

Learning the art of sex

I was almost naive as she

We were creative experimenters.

She let me shave her pussy

It was like a D.H. Lawrence thing

She took me home

To meet her mother  . . .  an elegant blond haired woman

And the father . . . the professor

He slept in their garage

At wife’s insistence I supposed.

He was never around

A younger brother, Armando, was there sometimes.

They had a dog that never failed to hump my leg when came in

Elena and her mom thought this amusing

It embarrassed me

I thought it mythological

Symbolic  . . . dog knew what was going on

Bet mom did too, now that I think about it.

I took Elena to meet my parents after a month or so

A two hour drive

She was to stay the weekend with us

On our way I felt uneasy . . apprehensive

Not so sure how things would go

My folks were very working class

My dad a welder who came home from work dirty

Her father a university professor.

Things were going more or less okay until we had dinner

Elena seemed relaxed and intellectually chatty

Expressing her thoughts about art

I could feel my parents drawing back

And then she said it:

She was talking about her brother, Armando.

“He looks like a Greek god,” she said.

That did it.

We slept in separate rooms, of course.

Next morning I got up and she was gone.

My parents took her to the railroad station

Bought her ticket

Put her on a train

Not bothering to wake me up

The must have really planned it out

I can’t remember how I felt

Surely some anger and most certainly embarrassment

What would I say when I saw her again?

But it went okay.

I remember discussing what happened with Elena and her mother

They thought my parents quaint

Vaguely amusing,  and intellectually ignorant

Noblesse Oblige

The insult was forgiven.

             *     *     *

After a while Elena got to be too much of a good thing

I felt smothered by her

And fell out of love, or lust, or whatever it was.

I might have been feeling what my parents felt

An upper-class superiority – a creature from another world

I stopped caring

She did not

I think she took it more as an insult than heartbreak

Her man had walked out on her.

She became what would call today, a stalker

She stopped by

She called

Talked to my friends

Phil named her “’The Spanish Armada’”

A considerable force . . . determined

She waited for me outside classrooms

She was driving me nuts

She gave Phil a note to pass on to me

Said she was pregnant

Scared hell out of me at first

Then I was sure she was faking it.

I used to blow up my condoms after taking dates home

Like balloons . . . to see if there were leaks

There never were

But the note was enough to make me meet her for another talk

She admitted she was not pregnant

It was a ploy

I started seeing her again, just once in a while

And more to keep her away than to be with her

Paying tribute

I don’t think we were having sex by this time

One night I was sick, the flu or a bad cold or something

Hadn’t mentioned it to her

Not all that bad

But still  I threw up in her driveway one night when I took her home

“So going with me makes me sick,” she said.

I didn’t answer,  which of course meant yes.

Seemed like it might be worth a shot

It worked!

She left me alone after that

I think, to her, it seemed a proper ending

A sort of Harlequin Romance thing.

                      *     *     *

I kept the “’I am pregnant note.’” A souvenir

My mother found it one day

She was always snooping and freaked out

“Don’t marry her. Whatever you do! We’ll take care of it!”

“We’ll get the best lawyers.”

Took here almost year to be convinced that the note was a fake.

I wonder where she is now

After 60 years

And wish her happiness.