Chapter 7

“You know?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Tell me, please.”

“At first. When I started to look for you, I was only going back to that night. But by then, I was so into you and who you were that I couldn’t stop and went back further.”

“How far?”

“Viet Nam.”

“Shit.”

“No! Don’t be like that.”

“I didn’t know much about Viet Nam. As I looked into it, I found out that the books in school were a load of lies.”

“Well the war was that too. Damned politicians killing Americans for no reason.”

“I know that now.”

“And do you know that we could have won the damn war in a few years if the politicians would have let us fight to win?”

“Yeah, just like today. The politicians won’t let the borders be controlled; they won’t let us fight to win anywhere that we have to fight. It all makes me pretty pissed.”

“You pissed!? Don’t get ME started.”

“Should I sit on your lap again?”

“That would get me started too.” I finally smiled.

We ate and sipped our wine as I cooled down and Kendi gathered her courage.

“I’m OK now, Kendi, if you want to go on.”

She sipped her wine again and started up.

“I found your record. Even in war and with all of the killing you remained a good man.”

“There were a lot of good men there. Some didn’t make it.”

“Harvey?”

“Harvey was one.”

“You ran through a huge field of fire and dragged seven men out of a bad situation. You saved their lives.”

“Yeah, then they put Harvey on a chopper and when it was about twenty feet off the ground it was hit by a mortar shell.”

“Is that what broke you?”

“Who said I was broken?”

“You requested a reassignment out of combat.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“The record says that you did.”

“I didn’t. They told me that I had enough and shipped me to a rear area.”

“And gave you a Silver Star.”

“I guess.”

“When it came time to re-up, you didn’t, you got out.”

“It was time.”

“As soon as you got back, you went to school.”

“Is that the part that set you off, me going to school to be a minister?”

“Nope.”

“Really?”

“You going to school to be a minister did not set me off.”

“After all of the shit I saw, I needed some answers.”

“The church you chose is a different matter.”

“Yeah, the Assembly of God is a bit conservative.”

“Yeah! And it took you two years to figure out that it was not for you.”

“Well, that is not really the case. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be a minister anymore. I did.”

“I never did find out why you walked away after two years.”

“Really?”

“Truth?”

“Truth. They wanted me to take an elocution class so that I could learn how to say “Jeeasus” the right way.”

“It that the way they wanted you to say it?”

“Yeah, real TV evangelist southern-like drawl.”

“It was too fake for you, wasn’t it?”

“It was really fake for me. My God is not a fake or a liar and he doesn’t send men out to sell steak knives from the Holy Land.”

“So, you didn’t go back.”

“Nope. I figured out that God needed good people in front of the pulpit more than he needed them behind it. So, I went to a local university.”

“And you left there after a year.”

“Yeah. The classes were bull shit. After spending two years in Nam, these peace-loving butt pirates were standing there and telling ME how it was.”

“They wrote the history, of course they knew how it was.”

“I was glorious on my last day. I think I verbally leveled the logic on four professors and two TA’s. I actually got a standing ovation in my US History class.”

“Then you went into coaching.”

“Well I began swimming competitively when I was 6 and when I went to that church college, they didn’t have a swim team, because God forbid boys and girls would use the same pool water. The girls might get knocked up from sperm floating loose in the pool.”

“What?”

“That is what I was told. But there was another college in the town, and they had a great swim team, so I talked to the coach and he let me train with them. He said that a man with war time leadership skills would be a plus for his program.”

“You caught the coaching bug there?”

“Nope. I caught it in junior high.”

“Really?”

“I knew what I wanted to be in 8^th grade. I never did get a degree.”

“I know.”

“But I learned to speak well before groups. I learned to get my ducks in a row before I spoke. I learned to teach. I learned what to look for and how to fix stuff I saw swimmers do wrong.”

“West Allis, Wisconsin.”

“Yup. My first team. In two years we went from no one qualifying for the State meet, to finishing 12^th.”

“Then you got fired.”

“Yup. A 12-year-old kid punched another kid in the face and so I made the boy sit on his hands in the bleachers. That night his rich mommy had me fired because I was endangering her son’s future as a surgeon by cutting off the blood supply to his fingers. Funny thing is that kid grew up to become a doctor and is still in prison for selling huge quantities of heroin to a drug boss.”

“But you kept going and kept getting better and you ended up in So Cal and rescued me.”

“I did.”

“And you still believe in God?”

“I do. His son and I are real good friends.”

“He is my friend too.”

“What church?”

“None. They all seem so fake to me, too.”

“Yeah, I could set my watch to the time for the first song and the offering and the second song and the sermon and the call to come to the front and kneel and pray and the time to get out and drink beer and watch football.”

“I know.”

“So, you won’t mind if I pray before I eat from now on?”

“Not at all. I will gladly join you.”

“Well look at the two of us with so much in common.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“That is why I fell in love with you.”

I’m going to wear out these tracks if I keep stopping like this. I looked into those wonderful eyes.

“But I can’t fall in love with you.”

We both sat there quietly until the silence was too much and I stood and carried dishes to the sink. She washed, and I dried and at some point, I gently ran my fingers across her bare bottom.

“You won’t let yourself love me?”

“I can’t. You know why if you really looked.”

“I really looked, and I don’t know why.”

“I can’t love two women.”

“Jean?”

“Jean.”

“But she divorced you almost 20 years ago.”

“She quit loving me, but I never quit loving her.”

“My God! I don’t have a chance.”

She left me in the kitchen, walked to our room, and closed the door.

“Kendi?”

“Yes?” Her voice was muffled because of the door.

“May I come in?”

“No.”

Knowing that I had just ripped her heart out, I went back to the dining room and pulled out my laptop and opened the book I was reading. I read and ran thoughts through my head. Staying would hurt her. Leaving would hurt her and break my promise to watch over her. I closed my laptop after almost two hours and went to the other bedroom, showered and went to bed.

“I don’t love you anymore. I want a divorce. I won’t ask for anything. The courts will want the kids to stay with me in the house, but you can see them anytime you want.”

I felt her arms around me hugging me and crying.

“Is there someone else?”

“No, Mick. You are gone so much and come home so tired. The kids and I never get to see or talk to you. Your swimming team family has always been more important than us.”

“But I work my ass off to give you the stuff you should have. A nice house, in a nice neighborhood, in a nice school district, with nice clothes to wear.”

“We don’t need those things, Mick. We need a husband and a father.”

“But I love you”

I held onto her arms as they encircled me and felt the tears on my neck as I slowly woke up.

Tears on my neck.

Arms around me.

A hand in mine resting on my chest.

I turned my head to see Kendi, her eyes bright red and soaking wet with tears. I began to turn towards her.

“Don’t turn.”

I stopped.

“You hurt me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

“I am.”

“I love you.”

I didn’t speak.

A long pause.

“Kendi?”

“Yes.”

“About Jean.”

“Yes.”

“She was my first. I loved her with everything I had. She stopped loving me, but I couldn’t stop loving her. I still can’t.”

“That is not love.”

“Maybe not anymore. But how can I tell someone I love them if there is already another woman?”

“There isn’t another woman.”

“There is.”

“Nope! Mick, you show me that woman and I will rip her lungs out.”

“She is not here.”

“Right, Mick! I am.”

Another long pause.

“I knew she didn’t love me for almost a year.”

“Really?”

“I noticed that when I said, ‘I love you’ she stopped saying ‘I love you too’ and began to say, ‘I know you do’.”

“So why hold on?”

“I don’t know. I took a vow.”

“She broke them.”

“I just can’t walk away from my feelings.”

“Your feelings are bullshit lies.”

I tried to turn again, but she held me in place as she squeezed her chest to my back and continued talking quietly into my ear.

“You don’t love her. She is just an anchor for old, long gone feelings. They are an anchor holding you in place. I’m a sail ready to set you free.”

Poetic.

More tears on my back.

My bare back.

I went to bed nude.

My back was warm.

There was something warm and fuzzy tickling my lower back, just above my butt crack.

“Kendi?”

“What?”

“Are you naked?”

“Yes.”

“Um...”

“I have been all night.”

“Here?”

“Yup.”

“You should have said something.”

“I tried but you couldn’t hear me.”

“I snore.”

“A lot!”

“Sorry.”

“I don’t mind. I lets me know that you are with me.”

“But I wasn’t with you.”

“I figured that out and came to bed here.”

“It is time to get up. You have work to do.”

“So do you.”

“What do I have to do?”

“You are going to have to work very hard to get your fat head out of your ass.”

“It has been there a long time.”

“That explains your hearing problem.”

“What?”

“See.”

“What do you mean?”

“See.”

“Kendi, what do you mean a hearing problem?”

“You can’t hear yourself.”

“What?”

“See.”

“Kendi!”

“You didn’t hear yourself say ‘dear’ or ‘us’ or ‘we’ or ‘I love you’.

“I am pretty sure that I never said, ‘I love you’ to you.”

“Yes you did.”

“Nope.”

“Yup!”

“When?

“Last night in your sleep.”

“I said it in my sleep?”

“Yup.”

“I’m not sure of the rules here. Does it count if I say it in my sleep?”

“It does to me.”

“Oh.”