Tulsa

I don’t know how long I cried. I blacked out to it. Blacking out doesn’t necessarily mean that you are out for the count as it were. Sometimes it just means that the events that took place while you were blacked out are gone from your memory. The memory of the one time Rachel and I actually had sex was one of the hardest I have.

I mentioned earlier that having sex with Rachel was the most meaningful. It was. It was also stupid. It was meaningful because the main effect of drunkenness is to reduce one’s inhibitions, excessively even. Rachel had deeply wanted to have sex with me. I don’t know if she had gotten drunk with that in mind, or if simply being drunk had made a passing idea a determination. Either way she deeply wanted that.

I don’t think it was from hope of pleasure. We never really talked about that event again. I think she either wanted to share that with me- to christen our relationship- or she was praying beyond all hope we could have a child together. It was extremely meaningful that she needed to do either. Somewhere in her mind having sex with me was of great importance.

It was not meaningful because it was pleasant. Only two pleasant things came out of it. One of which was that it was touching that she wanted to. The rest of it was horrific. We didn’t see each other for a practically a year; the longest we were ever apart when she was alive. I lost that time with her. Our trip together out of Wichita was cut abruptly short; we never spent such a short time together before that.

The pleasure I got out of Rachel, first and foremost, was her company. I was deprived of that; except for a brief visit about a year afterwards, I never saw her again. She died. Rachel and I were soulmates. I knew that, I think, before this. But I only truly grasped what I lost when I lost it. I loved her manner, her nature, her sense of humor, her view of the world. Her cute accent, her way of cutting through the world’s bullshit like a hot knife through butter.

She was so genuine, so honest, so true to her beliefs. We could have- should have- spent the rest of our lives together laughing at the joke that was the world. I was ready to give up the charade of not wanting to be with her all the time when we met up in Wichita. That’s the reason I asked her to marry me. I believe, to this day, that she ran because of the sex we had- and misinterpreting my proposal as being part of that.

If it wasn’t for Kelly I would have likely died not long after Rachel did. I would have taken my own life. Reliving the chain of events that lead up to that moment was like reliving a fatal car accident, over and over, in slow motion. I couldn’t process anything else until I re-groked what had happened. That’s why it is usually so deeply buried in my psyche.

Next thing I remembered, we were crossing the state line northbound out of Florida with a load of General Steel Casting rail trucks for refurbishment in Alstom’s plant in Hornell. I was so upset the implication of Hornell as a place was lost to me. When I came back into what I can only call consciousness I was still crying.

I started recording life again, exiting my trance. But I was still messed up. Often going over those events could send me down for the count for a week. This time it was only a day and a half. I don’t know if that was healing, or just that there were things around me that called my attention harder.

After asking where we were and what we were doing, I still sat there crying. It might be unseemly for a person that the normal folk would consider as tough to cry, but I’m not tough-and I have a lot to cry about. The events that wouldn’t have happened if Rachel had not panicked at that particular moment were to painful to contemplate, and I had been contemplating them, which is why they were lost to me.

Now that I had returned to the world of the living, I wanted to talk. To occupy my mind with anything- everything- else. Something different. Something perhaps happier. It didn’t have to be a happy moment, it just had to be one that hadn’t quite torn my soul from my body.

Jake may have been a trucker, but he wasn’t dumb and he wasn’t uncaring. He took my asking him something to mean that for the first time in over 24 hours of crying I was back in the world of the living man. He decided that what I needed was to take my mind off the subject.

“So,” he said, “You left Sarasota driving an ancient Cadillac-”

“It wasn’t that ancient at the time, realize,” I jumped in. My mind was begging for another place to be, and Jake had simply provided it.

I was blind to what was going on around me as I piloted the gigantic Cadillac out of Sarasota. I had found a lot of money in the glove compartment. I suspect Sadie left it there on purpose. I estimate there was twelve to fifteen thousand bucks, but I honestly don’t know. I never counted it. I was too angry to count the money. $15,000 and the trade in on the old Fleetwood would probably come close to buying me a new Cadillac.

I knew that the money was an apology for what had happened with Daphne. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Was it an apology or a bribe for forgiveness? I didn’t really like the idea of being paid for hurting somebody. It seemed to me that Marty would have not smiled kindly on such behavior. It wasn’t the actions of a gentleman.

I piloted the behemoth of a car onto Interstate 75 heading for Atlanta. I don’t know if you ever have seen the inside of the wheeled bordello that was the Cadillac Fleetwood Talisman. Tufted, pillowed crushed velour seats. Carpet that could only be referred to as “shag”. It was the epitome of the Brougham era of automobiles. Cheap luxury applied using a steam shovel, flash without function, plushness devoid of quality.

It was almost as if it was large for the point of largeness’ sake. Actually, forget the almost, that’s what was. The engine for example had an unfathomable 500 cubic inches of displacement split among 8 cylinders; each cylinder the size of a quart paint can, making very little power, a lot of torque, and did it with eerie silence. The leviathan was a living room on autopilot running itself. But in the mood I was in at that point, a Lotus Seven would probably be driven primarily on autopilot.

I assume I took 75 up to Nashville, god alone knows why, and then headed west on Interstate 40. But I don’t know. I just know that after a daze I found myself looking at a road sign indicating that if I took this exit, I would be on the road to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Even though it was still pretty much winter, the A/C on the Caddy was working overtime to keep the temperature bearable in the huge car. The weather was stifling in its heat. Or maybe it was me.

I decided that I wanted a night in a hotel, a bed and a shower. After several days on the road I needed a change of pace, and I didn’t want to sleep in the car yet again. I took the road into Tulsa. Not that Tulsa was the nicest city on earth or anything but it was large enough that it likely had a nice hotel with a nice bed at a nice if inflated price tag, that had a nice restaurant. Given the amount of money I had on me, it would be a fitting salve to the depression I had been feeling. Sadie caused this problem; let her money try and heal it. That was my thought process, anyway.

Driving into the bustling downtown of Tulsa, a metro area of nearly a million people, I drove up to the famed Ambassador Hotel. It was a grand old hotel with a history, and it had a nice grandeur to it lacking in most modern hotels. When I walked up to the front desk and asked if they had a room, they did what many hotels seemed to derive pleasure from doing when they see me. Which is assume that I can’t afford a room.

I don’t know what it is about me that brings up that impression in people; I had rolled up to the place in a ten-year-old mint condition top-of-the-line Cadillac. There was no more expensive or grand owner-driven car in 1975. It had been kept in the kind of pristine condition people dream about when they hear of a elderly lady driving her retirement gift to herself.

I didn’t want to get into an argument. I was in that kind of dark mood wherein I would have likely shown the desk clerk not only the roof of his most beautiful hotel, but the stunning view that can only be experienced once as you take the fastest possible trip from the roof of the hotel to the sidewalk below it. And a murder rap just wasn’t something I was interested in picking up in Tulsa. I fear jail and captivity far more than death.

So what I did was simply pull out a big wad of the money Sadie had left in the glove compartment of the Cadillac and waved it in his face before peeling off a couple of hundred dollar bills and asking him if this would be sufficient payment. He relented, even giving me some change for the price of the room. I was in a dark rage. Seething. Foaming. I was trying to keep it in control.

The buffoon of a desk clerk then rang his bell for a bellhop who proceeded to herd me into the elevator and walk me through the quiet and subdued corridors to my room. After he sat around carefully demonstrating the mundane features of the nice but ordinary room, I got tired of looking at him, pulled out another one of those hundreds, and handed it to him.

You’d expect thanks, or offers of extra service. At least that would be logical. But, of course, as with all bellhops the world over, this resulted in him sprinting head first down the hall in search of the next customer interested in giving him a tip. I needed that. It made me chuckle a bit. This kind of stuff made me laugh, thank god. It knocked the steam pressure down a few notches, so I didn’t explode.

I sat in the rooms armchair in a weary but angry contemplation of what I had done to sweet and innocent Daphne. Besides being your average silly teenage broad looking to grow up, she hadn’t done anything to deserve what happened to her ... and I was not proud of it. I came to realize that Daphne needed a better explanation. It would be the least I could reasonably do to make up for some of what had happened.

I rang down to the lobby and talked to the misanthropic dunderhead of a desk clerk once more. I demanded that a typewriter and paper be sent up to my room. I intimated it should arrive at my door posthaste. I hinted that it would be to his financial benefit if he made sure that its arrival was on an even better timeframe.

My subtle suggestions worked wonders, for minutes later a man was there with the items I had requested. I made it worth his while, too. All I had was hundred dollar bills, and hundred dollar bills went even further back then. It was blood money; I had a desire to get rid of it.

I then took the paper, a nice quality bonded laid paper with the hotels letterhead on it, and inserted it into the machine. They had given me a nice one; an IBM Selectric. I assume it was from a hotel office; I was surprised they didn’t have more sensible machines for delivery to rooms for use, but it would serve my purpose nicely. Slowly, with tears in my eyes and the wrenching feeling in my gut of knowing I had done the wrong thing, I started to type.

Dear Daphne:

After several days on the road, I realized that the letter I left you in your grandmother’s house was way too short and way too curt. For all the pain I know you are to be suffering, a little note is just not enough. Allow me to at least set the story straight. Six months ago, I was a normal kid, living at home with my parents. I had a girlfriend, a dog, and was setting up to graduate high school. I was normal and happy, horny and wanting to explore the pleasures life can offer at the right time- just like you.

Daphne, I loved that girlfriend with all my heart, and still do. You are a wonderful girl more than worthy of being deeply loved by a wonderful young man. I think one of the things that really distressed me was that it would have been all too easy for me to want to be that to you.

But, six months ago, I made a promise to the girl I love. I promised she would be the only girl for me. I am running from her parents. But I told her that I will wait for her until she is old enough. I have to keep that promise. My word is my bond, and I intend to keep it. I can’t let myself love you, you who is so worthy of love.

You need, deserve, a man who can make that same promise to you, and keep it. A man who can understand that love is a lot more than sex, and that good things come to those who wait. A man who will treasure you like the jewel you are, for what you are.

I ask you to make me a promise. I have no right to request it, but it is out of my care for you that I ask. Promise me that when you decide to let someone love you, it is because you truly love them and know that they love you. You deserve all the happiness in the world that you seek.

Please don’t blame your grandmother. She screwed up big time, but she was doing it out of a deep love for you. Please forgive her.

I don’t ask for your forgiveness for me, though. I don’t deserve it. Just please accept that I do deeply care for you, and want the very best for you. I know that isn’t me.

Sincerely, Johnny

I didn’t want her to know my last name, although I am confident I knew it then. It would have had catastrophic results for her to find my parents and try to get in touch with me. I knew she loved me. She needed to stop loving me before she could move on and get the things I hoped she could find. I wasn’t confident; that girl loved too easily, too freely, and seemed to find the wrong kind of guy. But I prayed that she could.

As I read over the letter, I realized that I was right. It would have been all too easy to love that girl. That was the problem. So many girls are so easy to love. It was, perhaps, one of the turning points of my life. To some extent my wandering was because I didn’t want to break my promise- but also because my life has been a slow education on the subject that perhaps Suzie wasn’t all that special. And that was my first lesson.

It’s one of the reasons, I suspect, why I eventually walked away from meeting Suzie again. I loved the girl that Suzie was, truly. But she hasn’t been that girl in a long time. I loved Rachel far more, and she was who she was. I felt great love for Jenny, for Cheryl, for Kelly- for different reasons. Not because of some idealized fantasy in teenage puppy love, but because they were the people they are today.

I dug out my old fountain pen and signed the letter. I sealed the heavily bonded cotton paper with the hotel’s letterhead into a hotel envelope, and brought it down to the lobby. As I suspected, the lobby sold stamps, and I paid to have it stamped, and sent it to Sadie’s address. I hoped it would get to Daphne.

I went down to the hotel restaurant and had a nice dinner, then went back up to the room and went to sleep. The dinner wasn’t anything incredibly fancy. I had a nice salad, a good bowl of carrot chowder, a properly undercooked sirloin steak, some good mashed potatoes, asparagus, and a slice of apple pie for dessert.

The bed was nicely comfortable. The sheets were cotton and soft. The air conditioner worked well. The shower I had before bed worked with adequate pressure. The provided bathroom amenities were nice. It wasn’t the hotel.

Sleep didn’t come easily to me, but it came. When it came, it came with nightmares. It was a cold nightmare, not one of terror. My father came to me in my dream. He sat down next to me on the bed. He looked tired, and disappointed. He didn’t say much. He didn’t have to.

“Johnny, do you really think what you did is made right by money and a nice car?” he thundered. The rest of the night was spent alone, contemplating that question. It was a deep question. It ruminated in my mind. I had taken money- a bribe- to justify doing something horrible. I had hurt, caused pain, to a lovely girl.

It is hard to explain in words how Daphne was. It’s not that she was my type, as I’ve said before. She wasn’t my type at all. She was innocent. She was trusting. She was delicately ensconced in the goodness of the world. When someone said “I love you,” she believed it. She didn’t search for ulterior motives, or deception.