Sunday, August 05, 2018

THE ROAD TO NOWHERE - PART IV

I saw the writing on the wall soon after my association with Carol began. Life with Carol was never going to be dull or routine. Although I was not guilty of the whole married man thing (as far as I knew anyway), in the eyes of many I was just as guilty as Carol because I knew what was going on. That type of thinking seemed to escape my way of viewing things and I decided early into my Vernon experience that I’d have some fun with my guilt by association. Peggy McDade (Psycho Bitch #1) sent her minions out to do some feather ruffling one day. Carol and I had stopped at the local generic hamburger joint to grab some lunch. While Carol was inside using the restroom, Janice Arrant (Psycho Bitch #2), a fiery spitfire about 8 inches shorter than me approached me 
while I was sitting in Carol’s car finishing my lunch.  When she announced that she needed to talk to me, I looked up at her and smiled sweetly. I told her that I don’t like being disturbed while I was doing 3 things. For future reference so she would know my list of do’s and don’ts, I was courteous enough to list them for her. I believe in arming a person with facts so they can make an informed decision. I explained my "don’t disturb me" sign is up while I’m sleeping, eating and fucking" and I let her know if she had something to say to me she was going to have to wait until I was done eating and then we’d talk. She left in a huff! You could almost see the steam coming out her ears as she walked away. Score ONE for the Yankee. Later, I got mixed reviews on what many thought was a foolhardy action on my part, but I can say I didn’t get my head blown off for my little power play that day. Risky? Maybe! But it was definitely satisfying, too. By the time Carol returned to the car, harmony was restored and the potential volatile situation was diffused for the moment…

One of my most memorable moments with Carol was when she introduced me to The Cat’s Eye one evening. The Cat’s Eye was a typical small town honky-tonk. It was the only place adults could go locally for entertainment, but in doing so, one stepped into the arena of barroom fights and many other rowdy, redneck activities. What I didn’t know when we entered the bar, Carol had an agenda.  Carol always had an agenda!  She scanned the bar and then quickly introduced me to a pleasant laid-back Southern hippie with long curly blonde  hair and a gorgeous smile, then announced she had to go meet someone, but would be back before closing. She assured me that I was in good hands and asked Rickey Brooks if he minded "babysitting" me. He made some cute remark about how hanging out with a Yankee might ruin his reputation, but he agreed to make an exception this one time. Carol mysteriously disappeared after enlisting Rickey's help for the evening, but didn’t return as promised.  Was that part of some master plan to hook me up with Rickey? I never asked and at this point I can only speculate. I'm sure if I asked Carol today that she'd give the same sly smile she was famous for back in the day.

Rickey and I hunted for Carol after closing. We found her car, but naturally it was locked and she was nowhere to be found. I left a note on her windshield telling her to pick me up at Lucas Pond where Rickey lived, but I didn’t expect to see her until the next day. During the course of the evening, Ricky and I had discussed a wide array of topics which even included revealing our favorite breakfast food and he seemed pleasantly surprised that this long-legged 18-year-old Yankee hottie had a brain. He confessed that he had a preconceived notion about me before he met me and that he had been wrong. I was equally surprised by his confession. Rarely, do men reveal things like that especially when they’re hoping to get laid. You see, I had a preconceived notion also…I thought getting into my pants was his motive for being nice to me and was even more convinced of that when we arrived at his cabin on the pond.

Kindred spirits inhibited all the cabins on the pond. The only late night/early morning sounds on the pond were the low melodic hums that came from the music within each cabin coupled with the sounds of nature from outside. The pairing made for an interesting effect. Rickey’s cabin was silent…dark, mysterious, yet inviting all the same. I tried to imagine what lurked within and was immediately amused by his "conversation pieces" hanging on his bedroom wall. Before me was a collection of women’s panties arranged into a huge collage. He noted my amusement as he asked me to select what music I wanted to hear. It wasn’t long after I had arrived, when the cavalry showed up to "rescue" me. Carol seemed surprised that Rickey and I were totally engrossed discussing music when she arrived and not in the throes of passion. Eventually, the four of us fell asleep. Carol and Chip took Rickey's bed and Rickey and I slept on the floor with Goats Head Soup playing in the background. As the song Angie came on the stereo, Rickey held me close and whispered in my ear, "we need to try this again minus the company." I couldn't help but notice how good his hair smelled and made a mental note to ask him later what brand of shampoo he used as I fell asleep with a smile on my face. That was just one of many nights I spent in the peaceful solitude on the Lucas Pond, but only after telling Rickey my panties would never be on his wall. 



Carol and I were always up to something...one night we decided to liberate pumpkins from a closed road side vegetable stand. Why? Because we could! So we did! We loaded her car up completely and made our getaway towards Lucas Pond. As we got closer to the pond, we ran out of gas. Great! Here we sat in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road late at night with a car full of pumpkins and not a gas station open in probably 10 or more miles. In Vernon, the sidewalks were rolled up at sundown and stayed that way until morning. The only thing we felt safe in doing was to stay put until daylight and then walk to the nearest gas station. I guess neither one of us wanted to run into a rattlesnake in the dark. As we settled in for the night, a truck approached us and slowed down as it got closer. It finally came to a complete stop when it was parallel to Carol's car. It was Royce Anderson. He was Rickey's friend who lived in the next cottage. After he got done laughing at our antics, he told us to hop in and he'd take us to the

cottages with the intention of remedying our gas situation in the morning. Like two naughty children, we obeyed him. As Carol and Royce walked to his cabin, I stood looking at Rickey with a "girls just want to have fun" look. He put his arm around me and led me inside.


When Rickey met my brother, Brian and his family, he could hardly wait to leave so he could mimic all of us. I had to admit that his fake Maine accent was right-on and I laughed hysterically at him. He definitely could "pahk da cah" (park the car) with the best of them. We went to all the usual places couples around those parts went (like softball games and other outings) and whenever we ran into Rickey's friends he introduced me as "Gail." Gail? But my name was Karen. He explained he did that because he didn't want any of his friends to know my real name and he thought the name Gail fit me. Okay! So I played along. I was Gail. Or Gale (a very strong wind). The only place Rickey wouldn't take me was when he'd go to Panama City Beach to do some "business." He said he didn't mix business with pleasure and that his business was risky and he didn't want to risk me getting busted. I was cool with that. I hung out with Carol while he conducted "his business" and when he returned, he returned to be with me. Rickey was different from most guys I knew. He really did pay attention to detail and seemed to enjoy surprising me. Our very first conversation led to him surprising me by making me my favorite breakfast...steak and eggs. Just when I began thinking this thing with him had definite real possibilities one night he didn't come back. Then one night turned into another and another and I didn't hear anything more from him. I'm not one to chase after anyone, so I just let it go. I assumed he had found something better to do than to keep me amused.

One night about a month after I hadn't heard from him, a mutual friend frantically tracked me down to tell me that Rickey had been in a horrible car accident and that he wasn't expected to live. He had been thrown from his car and the car had rolled on top of his head.  I really didn't know what to do. Was I supposed to go to the hospital? Was I expected to go to the hospital? What if I went and some other female was there? There I sat with my new boy toy, Kenny Rowe and I was seriously conflicted.  I wanted so badly to drop everything and rush to Panama City, but I was frozen where I sat. I was afraid to face losing someone I cared about. I couldn't do that again. I knew I couldn't see Rickey torn up and barely clinging to life. Everyone present was so impressed that I knew Rickey and Royce because they had a very tight group of friends that rarely admitted new people into their inner circle, but I didn't go into any details. I just acknowledged that I knew them and when asked how I knew them, I just shook my head as if to say "not now"and looked down. My eyes were full of tears, but I just sat there and did nothing. I mean what could I do? So, instead of doing the right thing, I chose to do what was easiest for me. My actions that night are something I deeply regret. Rickey, wherever you are, I'm so sorry for not showing you that I really did care when you needed it most. I was a coward!

13 comments:

  1. My regrets are always for the things I didn't do rather than those I did too.
    I do hope that somehow your regrets and caring have indeed travelled through the ether to Rickey where ever he is.

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    1. Having any regrets are the pits. It would have been nice to get things right the first go around. Oh well...I'm sure Rickey looks back on me with a few regrets also or at least I'd like to think so.

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  2. Even though we've all done stuff we regret we learn a lot from it. I'm having a great time reading your youthful antics.

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    1. Thank you for joining me while I retell those antics. One of these days I'll be done with those years and I can move up the timeline a little. My life didn't really settle down until 2005 when I put myself in permanent time out. Now, I'm a hermit and have a rather dull life.

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  3. I've caught up with the adventures (misadventures of the saucy tart, and let me say this. It is a really good thing that we did not know each other back in the day. All that goes through my head is "Sugarland Express" and "Badlands."

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    1. I've always felt we're fortunate for not knowing each other IRL...what a game of "Can You Match My Crazy?" we could play. Can you picture it? I recently wrote a post about Can You Match My Crazy and thought of you and laughed.

      As for the movies, you probably won't believe this, but I had to google them. You see, from the end of 1971 until the end of 1973, my life has a huge void in it. It's time warp and I didn't really live through it even though I did live through it. I just lived it in some alternative universe.

      While I was in drug rehab, we could have no contact with the outside world. The only news, etc. that filtered down to the lowly residents were things either the staff told us about or that people learned about on home visits. I never had a home visit in that 2 years. I guess this Harry Houdini was considered too much of a flight risk and I had a thumb on me all the time. To this day, I still learn things that happened during that time period...it's always weird. I'll hear a song and know who recorded it, but I can't place when it was recorded. The only music, I listened to was the music the staff wanted us to hear and some staff members taste in music was pretty shitty.

      The same goes with movies, etc. The only television we were allowed to watch was the show, Kung Fu and that came about because one of the higher up staff members was into the show and thought the "family" should watch it. So gathered in the dining room huddled around a standard size television of that era, we, 100+ misfits watched David Carradine do his thing. So there you have it...Sugarland Express and Badlands happened during my void, but I plan to remedy that. Both full length movies are on youtube. I already watched the trailers and plan to watch them some night I can't sleep.

      With that said, I can't see Sissy Spacek without thinking about Carrie. And Martin Sheen! OMG! Both movies have good actors and I hope they don't suck too much. If they ever make a remake of the movie, they need to have someone like his well-adjusted son, Charlie play the part. In his case, he wouldn't have to "act" to showcase his crazy.

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    2. Okay, how about this? "Thelma and Louise." You decide which one you want to be. Just remember, Brad Pitt will be between us, having a hot three-way (which is difficult to do while driving), while we fly off the cliff to our death. Orgasm before we hit the ground.

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    3. What a way to go! And I never had to kill anyone to get there.

      BTW, the YouTube doesn’t have the two movies and neither does Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime. Before I purchase them, in your humble opinion are they worth it?

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    4. My guess is that they would have to be your cup of tea to invest in them. I haven't seen them in years, but they had a lasting impression because I'm a hot mess (and I love Sissy). Anyway, there is murder and mayhem, which is different than just being a sarcastic smartass with a penchant for adventure with friends with attitude and lack of respect for any kind of authority.

      Jnuts

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  4. sorry about the typos. my foot hurts. hahahaha.

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  5. Just catching up with your amazing adventures. Your story has me hooked and so does your writing. It's very good!

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    1. Thank you for your kind words. I just write it like it happened. I guess when a person writes about what they know, it makes the endeavor much easier.

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