La Paloma

The festival of “setting sail” in the cruise line business is always very corny. They make a big champagne toast, a party. Dinner that night is usually quite formal, and they make a big deal of it. Except the crew onboard do this sort of thing every week or so, and so they are usually not actually caught up in the sense of occasion. It is obviously a sense of occasion for the passengers who are onboard. They do this quite rarely.

The MS Rotterdam is the proud flagship of the Holland America Line fleet. Built in 1996 to replace the former flagship of the line, SS Rotterdam, an ocean liner from 1959. Differentiating the ship from its similar sisters was a collection of artwork valued at millions of dollars. It has a huge variety of amenities not even thought of the last time I was on a cruise. Holland casts itself as a “traditional” cruise line, visible in their teak decking, varnished wood railings, and their rigid adherence to maritime traditions.

After the traditional sailing festivities, all four of us returned to our rooms to prepare for dinner. It was a fairly formal event, although not as much as the one I took with Suzie 26 years ago. Black tie was not strongly recommended, and a suit was not even required for the so-called “semi-formal” night. Not even a tie, actually. Just a shirt, jacket, and slacks. They had moved the “Formal” night to the second and final nights of the cruise, having “Semi-formal” and “casual” nights the rest of the time.

Dinner was good; we were seated at a private table for the four of us. I was trying to open dialogue with the kids. Susan was not too much of a talker, and what talking she did was more on the babbling side than the interesting conversation side. I mean she was a four year old kid. She was asking the silly questions about the world that sometimes opens up thinking on an adult.

Do you know the type I’m talking about? It’s when kids start to ask questions about things we don’t really know; we just assume that the world is that way and works that way. Going through life as a normal adult, you are asking questions like “how am I going to pay my bills?” Or “How do I get my kid to eat healthy food he doesn’t like?” Or in my crazy world “How am I going to get food tonight?” Or “Where am I going to sleep?” Or even “I see this person; they are doing something horrific; what should I do about them?”

We stop asking “Why is the sky blue?” Or “Why do mommy and daddy fight if they love each other?” Good question. Why do we fight with the people we love? “Why have I only met daddy one time before?” Very good question, Susan. And it did get me thinking; thinking about something I should have been thinking hard about before.

Here I was, thinking about how, and under what conditions, I would be willing to let Jenny into my life on a permanent basis. I hadn’t really considered her letting me into her life on a more permanent basis. I sort of assumed she wanted that, from things she said over the years, although I had given thoughts to whether she wanted the me of 22 years ago in Reno, or the me that was sitting here at dinner with her tonight.

But I totally ignored- shamefully- what Johnny Jr. and Susan wanted.

Junior was already in college. He was already shedding the bonds of childhood. He loved his mother; that was obvious. He didn’t love me; he barely knew me in the context Jenny thought she knew me. He certainly was very unlikely to want to move from his childhood world of Reno. He was going to college at Western Nevada College, in Carson City. He was a Nevada kid. He would likely want to stay in this area. It was naive of me to think that I could drag him away to go live on a farm in North Dakota; a world so far removed from where he grew up, it was like it was on another planet. Certainly not for a man he barely knew.

I doubt I could indoctrinate him into Clan Mahoney. He would find them weird, and gross. He was an education major. He believed, I assume, in institutionalized education. The school system. Cheryl believed they were brainwashing facilities. She had been reluctant to let Kelly go to college; it took a lot of convincing to believe that college is not as much about societal indoctrination as K-12 is.

Susan was just a child; she could easily be removed from here and brought to North Dakota. But she didn’t know me. Her love and trust must be earned. I had to think about what the kids wanted, not just what I wanted. Jenny had to get along with Cheryl. I honestly don’t know how Cheryl gets along with normal people.

Beyond this, the conversation at the table between me and the kids was very formal and cordial. Junior was having a hard time connecting with me. I hadn’t expected that; I had assumed we’d be a lot alike because he was my son. But that was a false way of thinking. I mean I could see myself in him; no question of that.

But not the me of now. The me of my youth. Maybe not as sexually repressed and deeply conservative in upbringing. But I could see the same intensity that caused the feelings I had had for Suzie. The homebody. The boy who loved his mother, who wanted to make something of himself. The emotional nature. He was a good kid.

Nature versus nurture is a false argument. It is nature and nurture. He had the same nature and nurture more or less that I had when I was growing up. I wasn’t born with wanderlust. Suzie and I had always assumed we’d end up in Hornell. Then I ran away. Marty became my friend and future and then died. Sadie set in a course of events that made me hurt Daphne. I attempted suicide in the fire of a Cadillac. Suzie betrayed me. Rachel loved me; Rachel killed a man to save my life. We burned down a building to hide a crime scene. I killed a priest because he molested a girl, and to save Rachel.

I adopted a lifestyle of wandering. Living life like a bum, practically, while working my butt off, but never in one place. Meeting up with Rachel and living the high life of $500 meals, insanely expensive wine and liquor. I came to enjoy that life. A life outside of Junior’s comprehension. He was nothing like me.

I was like Michael from Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land”. I was 90 degrees from everything else. I got along with people who were also 90 degrees from everything else. I might as well be a Martian for as well as I would get along with these earthlings. I recognized the futility of my plans. Still, as potentially dangerous as it was, I needed to explain myself to Jenny.

After finishing the delicious meal, we released Susan into Junior’s custody. There was a whole world of activities to do on the ship. Jenny trusted Junior to watch Susan, and I had no reason to question her judgement. She knew the kids better than me.

We went back to our room and sat out on the balcony. We stared off into the sea for a while. It was a clear, clear night. Tomorrow we would get to spend a day on Half Moon Cay. If it was anything like Stirrup Cay had been, it would be a fun day on the beach.

“I know this sounds like a weird question,” Jenny said, “But who are you? I mean who do you think you are that I don’t know about?”

“Let’s start with I have a family,” I said, “And I don’t mean the parents I walked away from 25 years ago.”

“What do you mean?” She asked, “We’re your family. Of course you have us.”

“No, Jenny,” I said, “I mean, you are part of my family, I mean you are the mother to my children and you never endeavored to make a family with someone else, so yes you are family, and I love you, but that’s not what I mean.”

She looked very distressed by what I was saying. Not angry, just confused.

“I have a family in North Dakota,” I said, “Not far from Fargo. A woman named Cheryl. There are children with her, two of them, two more from other women, one of whom is still alive and I love her- Kelly, and a bunch of kids of her own, and an adopted one. The adopted one is married to her oldest. This is my family. I can go into more detail if you want, but they are a little nutty.”

“What makes them your family?” She asked, “You make it sound like you are quite close to them.”

“I am very close to them, Jenny,” I said, “Most of them live on a farm about an hour west of Fargo. I have a room, like a permanent room to myself. I probably spend a couple of months total a year there.”

“I’m a little unclear on the child situation,” Jenny asked, “I want to get that straight.”

“Cheryl is the head of the family,” I explained, “There are twelve people basically raised by her, Jason, Samantha, Kimmy, Kelly, Jimmy, Sally, Johnny, Megan, Jared, Josh, Jeffery, and Little Rachel. Johnny, Josh, Jeffery, and Rachel are my children. Johnny and Jeffery I had with Cheryl, Josh is with a woman named Rachel, and Rachel is with Kelly.

“Jason, Kimmy, Jimmy, Sally, Johnny, Megan, and Jeffery are Cheryl’s blood children. Samantha was legally adopted. Kelly was the girl I found living on the streets in Chicago. Jason and Samantha are effectively married; they live in a separate house on the farm, Jared is their son.”

“I’m going to mention some things I am sure I got wrong,” Jenny said, “Jason and Samantha are Cheryl’s children and are married.”

“No, that’s correct,” I said, “But Samantha is adopted, she’s not a blood relative.”

“That’s a little gross,” she scoffed, “It’s like they’re step-kids.”

“If you saw them together, you couldn’t say that,” I said, “I’ve never known a couple so happy.”

“It doesn’t matter how happy they are,” she retorted, “It’s still gross.”

“Happiness is so elusive, hon,” I replied, “It’s one of the things I’ve picked up wandering the country like this. So few people are truly happy and content. They work the farm together, Samantha is pregnant again, actually. They are inseparable. You’d have to meet them to understand. Keeping apart two people who love each other so dearly, that would be the gross thing.”

“I still don’t get it,” she said.

“You will if you meet them,” I said.

“I doubt it,” she said, “Next, and I hope I don’t have this right, you had a daughter with Kelly, named Rachel, and then had another kid with Rachel, Josh.”

“No,” I laughed, “That’s actually gross, good god, no. There was a woman named Rachel who I had a long lasting relationship with starting in 1987. She was nine years older than me, I met her in Buffalo after Suzie betrayed me. We had a very strong and close relationship, but it was not a truly sexual relationship because she was a rape victim, it hurt her, and she thought she was infertile. One night in 2000, we were both very drunk and did have sex, the result of which was Josh, born in 2001. Rachel was murdered shortly thereafter.

“After Rachel was killed, I was bereft. I was suicidal, actually. Kelly, who I saved in Chicago in 1994 and brought to Cheryl because I thought she could raise her, she had a long lasting crush on me. She had always wanted to be with me. She loved me like that, I don’t know, maybe since I helped her on the streets. Anyway, with Cheryl’s blessing, she dragged my suicidal self on a trip. I didn’t want to, and then I did. It was her idea. She said I saved her, and now it was her turn to save me. Anyway, she had a daughter. She named her Rachel, named after my late lover.”

“You had two children by Cheryl, Johnny and Jeffery, and a kid with her adopted daughter, Kelly, named Rachel.”

“Yes,” I said, “Cheryl encouraged that. I didn’t go behind her back or anything. She’s raising little Rachel, too.”

“You think that’s appropriate?”

“God, I don’t know,” I said, “I love Cheryl very much. I love her children very much- the ones I didn’t father. I love the children I have with her. I love Kelly so much, I couldn’t even put it in to words. Little Rachel is the apple of my eye. They are all good people. They are all happy and content with the way things are. How wrong can all that be?”

“It seems like all kinds of wrong to me,” she snorted, “But I have a new question: If you have all this love from all these other people, what the fuck do you need me for?”

“I love you, Jenny,” I said, “You said yourself, I have a big heart, I have two lovely children with you. My life would have probably been blissful if I didn’t get scared all those years ago and just went out and bought you a ring. I value you deeply as a perso-”

“You’ve fucking seen me a half dozen times over the past 22 years,” she bellowed, “You have this family you spend all this time with, and you practically never come to see me!”

“Guilty as charged,” I told her, “I’ve been horrible to you. I don’t dispute you. I wished for so many years that you would move on. I kept telling you to do so.”

“It’s like there is this world for you,” she said coldly, “Where the rules don’t apply. You can do anything you want. Nobody can find you if you don’t want them to. Where you have no responsibilities, no tie downs.”

“Yes,” I said, “That’s exactly how it is for me. At unbelievable expense, I built that world for myself. I am free as a bird, and lonely as all hell. Something happened that made me realize how much all of this has cost me. It’s too expensive. I’m trying to salvage all the pieces I can, Jenny.”

“What makes you fucking think you deserve-”

“Nothing,” I said, “I deserve nothing. I already have more than I deserve, I have my family with Cheryl. I was really stupid to think I could salvage this.”

I stormed out of the stateroom, and went to a bar. I ordered some liquor, and started just thinking. I was sort of trapped on this ship now, this situation was beyond salvaging.

It reminded me of the time I was trapped in La Paloma, Texas.

Jake wasn’t the first truck driver I had been with for more than a period of time. One time was with a truck driver named Maria “Missy” Ficcotelli. Picture a woman truck driver. Yeah, that’s not her at all. You’re thinking big, strong, well built, tough. Well I guess she was tough. No, forget the truck driver bit. She looked like what you’d picture when you imagined pretty and the name Maria Ficcotelli.

She was a short, cute, shapely, Italian from Northern Jersey. She was short, and intense. Dark curly hair, dark brown eyes, a hooked nose, a plump rear end, and big lips. And she was dynamite in bed.

That’s what I was there for, actually. She had picked me up, one night, at a Flying J outside of Amarillo. Next thing I know I’m in a truck stop with her, naked, in the berth of her White/GMC Aero. She was looking for a good lay and I had been lonely at the time. We rode together for about a week. I must have said something that pissed her off. I’m not sure what it was, but she left I-69E and was driving to the middle of nowhere.

Next thing I know, I’m in the center of “down town” La Paloma, and I’m out of her truck looking at its taillights. Very strongly willed woman there. She was a lot of fun. La Paloma, not so much.

It was hot, ungodly hot. I had no water. It was a dry heat, but that was the only redeeming part of it. The truth is I do much better in colder, northern climates. There’s a reason I pick places like Fargo and Chicago to hang out in my non traveling moments. It was about 102.324° outside, and I was dying.

I had almost no money, maybe $100. That wouldn’t get me very far out of here. Border security made it a less than ideal place to be skulking around, although nobody would confuse me with a Mexican. I was hungry; I hadn’t eaten since dinner last night. I found a local Taqueria and ordered some tacos. They were good, but didn’t cool me down any.

People in this part of the world weren’t particularly friendly. I have never met a friendly Texan outside of Austin. Honest. I went into the local convenience store and bought a couple of liters of cold water. I downed one of them almost immediately.

As the lights dimmed, I fell asleep between a pair of dumpsters behind El Torito Meat Market. It made me hard to see from the road- hence my liking of sleeping between two dumpsters. It usually keeps people away, because they can’t stand the stench of them.

This was different apparently. Two people approached me as I slept. I must have been really out for the count, because usually I am up and pulling my butterfly knife out of my pockets before they are within a few feet. That’s another usual advantage of being between two dumpsters behind a closed store- there is usually nothing creating even vaguely human like sounds.

These two were good. They were silent enough to overcome seven years of roaming. These were the early years, too. I wasn’t so inclined to find places to stay, nor was I as religious about showering twice a week. I was a street rat hobo for the most part in those days. I either squatted or stayed on the street. This, obviously, was not a dense enough place to easily find places to squat. I mean maybe I could, but I had just gotten into town.

I was usually as attuned to people being near me, the way a seasoned boat dweller can shoot awake when the motion of his boat changes when somebody steps aboard. Sounds that didn’t fit the pattern of the environment usually brought me from wherever I was in the sleep cycle to fight-or-flight mode.

I was barely aware of them before one of them had me pinned down on one side, and the other was rifling my backpack. That was weird; the intelligent thief would have knocked me out before grabbing the backpack and running for the hills. I suspected they were illegal immigrants, or at least related to the trade, because of all of these details.

Its not a prejudicial thing. They were good at sneaking quietly and not making much noise. They’d have to be pretty damned good to blindside me on my worst nights. But they were also not seasoned thieves, which would otherwise be one possible explanation for their competence. But it did not explain their incompetence for the rest of it. They also didn’t check my wrist.

The most valuable thing I own is my Rolex; it would be worth a grand easily at a no-questions pawn shop. It is effectively a pre-Explorer model, and those are worth many thousands to people who know what they are. Watches are often a valuable item, even on hobos. Rachel had paid several hundred for her Seiko Turtle diver, for example.

I also don’t usually keep much money in my backpack. I keep it in the chest pocket of my overalls, which is snapped closed pretty securely. I still have my money if I somehow lose my backpack. I know that Rachel only keeps money in her backpack when its too much to fit in the pocket, same with me. When it gets that much we either beeline for Chicago or send ourselves a money order to our PO Box.

Not to say I don’t have valuable items in there. My Parker 51 Flighter is worth a quite a bit, although you’d need to be knowledgeable about fountain pens to know that. I also have a Sheaffer Triumph Snorkel-fill I picked up in an antique shop, which is also worth enough to be worth taking. My Brunton compass is also a fairly valuable piece, and would certainly be valuable to someone fitting my deduction of who these jokers were. The Maglite is also not worthless, and is a useful tool.