Sensible, or Not? (a short story)
Sensible, or Not?
At 689 Dolores Street, he broke off his concentration, left his dreaming behind, and began to climb the winding stairs a tireless anxious long walk from the Castro area of San Francisco, that took him forty-five minutes to walk to his apartment, in an old mansion on a hill, to his one room in the high dreary old house in the middle of the city, on a side street that was really nowhere.
If you listened early in the mornings you could hear the sounds of the streetcars squeaky wheels, coming to a halt, it woke him up, around 6:15 a.m., he’d toss about in his bed somewhat, and then get up, and get ready for work. If he was late, he’d catch the streetcar, if not he’d walk the two miles down to Mission Street, and over to Lilly Ann’s where he worked.
In the morning, this particular morning he waited at the corner for the street car, it would come at 7:15 a.m., and drop him off at work by 7:30 a.m., when he started, not a minute too late. As usual he was in a hurry; it was the fall of 1968.
He had been married at the age of 18-years old, his wife left him for another man, and both knew the awful proposal of marrying young and into a life of poverty. He was now twenty-one years old, the marriage had only lasted fifteen-months and produced a child, and she had gotten pregnant a second time, which was in question of whose child it was, one of several men it could have been.
Poverty put a strain as well as a struggle upon their love for one another, and then she started seeing another man.
In her new marriage, Barbara Eagleheart, found more security, a larger house by a lake outside of the City of St. Paul, Minnesota, purchased in the following twenty-years forty antique clocks, a new car, separate bedrooms, and an ugly coward of a man to keep her company, which she never loved, but he was easy going.
Yet all this became maddening, too much kindness you might say. She shook her had afar twenty-years, realized her first husband had traveled around the world, now thirty-eight years old, a year older than she, and had been in a war, and had really lived the life, went to collage, got his degrees. All the things she would have liked him to have when they first met, but of course, that was not impossible.
She hesitated for a while in her wild moment, in her domicile, listened to her clocks ticking, away, away, and then the phone rang.
In any case, she received a phone call; it was her ex husband, Keith O’Dell. He had never forgotten what her new husband had done, and she had done to him, forcing him to go off on his own, and ended up in San Francisco, and Vietnam. Oh it didn’t bother him to any high degree, but he had always felt someday, he’d like to confront the issue face to face with his ex wife. Oh he had once before done so, when her boyfriend was bragging how he was going to beat him up, not sure what for, he was dating a married woman, and Keith had told him that, that if anyone should be mad it should be him, but once confronted, he ran like a worm behind several of his friends to be protected. It wasn’t worth anymore of his time, at that particular time, so he felt.
At any rate, here he was on the other line of the phone, twenty-years had passed.
“I’ll be in town Barb,” he told her, “for a while, haven’t been back for twelve-years, how’s my daughter?”
“I told her you got killed in Vietnam, she thinks your dead.”
“Oh well, perhaps we can straighten that out somewhere along the line, but I’m really calling you to see if you want to get together?”
“I’m married, you do realize that, don’t you?” she commented, with a low voice, as if it was a mistake.
“Yes,” Keith said, “I know, but can we or can’t we, get together?”
The timing was right, and she agreed.
When they finished the phone call, she ran to the bathroom, looked at herself, fixed her hair, and brushed it smooth, she was nervous; they would meet in two hours at an Inn, in Hudson, Wisconsin. She wondered how he looked, he was always handsome she thought, with his dark blue eyes, and reddish hair, and muscular body. She was Italian stock, and short, with dark brown hair and dark eyes, but she had aged not well.
Her husband Dan Horton was gone up north, with his group of guys, drinking and smoking, and fishing in some resort, they did that often, and he’d not be back until Sunday evening, it was Friday night.
•
“Well,” said Keith to Barb, when they met at the bar, in the Inn, in Hudson, “its real nice seeing you again.”
Her eyes, eyes like old spring water, glared at his, she had aged quicker than he. Ruthlessly so.
“I want to get to know you better,” Keith told her as they sat at the horseshoe like bar, ordering their drinks.
“Why, you really look well and good after twenty-years, you’ve kept yourself up.” Said Barbara.
She moved her stool closer to his, right next to his, so close she could lie on his shoulder, and it seemed that was her idea in the very near future.
“Well,” she said, “this time were much older, not sixteen and seventeen anymore, are we?”
Then she started talking to the bartender as if she knew him forever, but she didn’t know him at all.
“I see you haven’t changed,” said Keith, “at least you’re consistent anyhow.”
“That’s not true, I have changed, desperately so, but I’m just being friendly now, is there something wrong with that?”
“All right,” said Keith, “but you can do as you please, we’re not married you know! I’m just informing you.”
To Keith’s astonishment, she asked, bluntly, “Are we going to have sex tonight, we can get a hotel room here you know?”
It dawned on him, she had personally picked this place out specifically for that, how shrewd, he kind of figured it, and it made things easier for him.
“Are you going to get the hotel room?” she asked.
“Fine,” he said, “I can, but I don’t have the money on me, I guess I didn’t expect…”
“Here,” she dug in her purse, pulled out a $20-dollar bill, “this should cover it.”
“I want to thank you for coming out,” he said.
“I think I’d have gone crazy wondering what you looked like, had I not, and you’re still very handsome,” she acknowledged.
He waved his hand at the bartender, magnanimously, sounded aloud, “Another round here please.”
The barkeep rushed them another round, and he paid for it.
To Barbara, Keith looked fresh, and to Keith, Barbara looked nice, but pale. She raised her arms, put them around him, her mouth centered on his, half open, for his kiss, but with a touch of embarrassment, he took a drink of his beer instead.
“This is some of your old ways,” she announced carefully.
She was disturbed by the unsuspecting pulling away from her kiss.
Then Keith said as the moment seemed to be at his advantage, “Let’s go rent the room out.”
She compelled him with a quick movement, off the chair and into the lobby of the motel area.
•
“Is this room the way you like it?” Keith asked as they walked into it.
“The clerk said it was a new one, I guess they meant, they’re building a new section onto the club.”
After a few minutes they were deposited onto the bed, meeting each other with little to no cloths on. He saw in her eyes, something he had looked forward to, something he had been brooding on for twenty-years, and then his ill humor increased as Barbara drew him near to her, with an old familiar embrace under a dim light in the room.
Her emotion reassured him, she was a fish caught on a hook. And they kissed somewhat, and looked at each other with very few words.
After a moment of excitation, and a dim one at that, and short lived, he sat up on the edge of the bed, she was overcome by it all, his presence, beyond all endearment. She liked him, she had been sorry to have had to let him go, but he did not sympathized with her in that area, nor recognized to any serious degree, her new engagement with him.
“Is everything all right?” She asked.
“Everything’s going fine,” he told her with enthusiasm.
“Then why couldn’t you complete the act?” She asked, she was at that moment really miserable, but holding it back, “you must like me?” she asked.
“No,” he commented “I was just curious if I could do to you what you and your husband did to me. I really don’t want you back, sorry I’ve wasted your time, and I’m not even sure if all this was sensible or not.”
“What do you mean,” she blunted out in a panic.
“I mean I would never be enough for you, and you are not enough for me.”
“Don’t jump at conclusion, Keith.” She whimpered.
“I’m not jumping at anything, but that’s how it is.”
Written 2-19-2009 •••
At 689 Dolores Street, he broke off his concentration, left his dreaming behind, and began to climb the winding stairs a tireless anxious long walk from the Castro area of San Francisco, that took him forty-five minutes to walk to his apartment, in an old mansion on a hill, to his one room in the high dreary old house in the middle of the city, on a side street that was really nowhere.
If you listened early in the mornings you could hear the sounds of the streetcars squeaky wheels, coming to a halt, it woke him up, around 6:15 a.m., he’d toss about in his bed somewhat, and then get up, and get ready for work. If he was late, he’d catch the streetcar, if not he’d walk the two miles down to Mission Street, and over to Lilly Ann’s where he worked.
In the morning, this particular morning he waited at the corner for the street car, it would come at 7:15 a.m., and drop him off at work by 7:30 a.m., when he started, not a minute too late. As usual he was in a hurry; it was the fall of 1968.
He had been married at the age of 18-years old, his wife left him for another man, and both knew the awful proposal of marrying young and into a life of poverty. He was now twenty-one years old, the marriage had only lasted fifteen-months and produced a child, and she had gotten pregnant a second time, which was in question of whose child it was, one of several men it could have been.
Poverty put a strain as well as a struggle upon their love for one another, and then she started seeing another man.
In her new marriage, Barbara Eagleheart, found more security, a larger house by a lake outside of the City of St. Paul, Minnesota, purchased in the following twenty-years forty antique clocks, a new car, separate bedrooms, and an ugly coward of a man to keep her company, which she never loved, but he was easy going.
Yet all this became maddening, too much kindness you might say. She shook her had afar twenty-years, realized her first husband had traveled around the world, now thirty-eight years old, a year older than she, and had been in a war, and had really lived the life, went to collage, got his degrees. All the things she would have liked him to have when they first met, but of course, that was not impossible.
She hesitated for a while in her wild moment, in her domicile, listened to her clocks ticking, away, away, and then the phone rang.
In any case, she received a phone call; it was her ex husband, Keith O’Dell. He had never forgotten what her new husband had done, and she had done to him, forcing him to go off on his own, and ended up in San Francisco, and Vietnam. Oh it didn’t bother him to any high degree, but he had always felt someday, he’d like to confront the issue face to face with his ex wife. Oh he had once before done so, when her boyfriend was bragging how he was going to beat him up, not sure what for, he was dating a married woman, and Keith had told him that, that if anyone should be mad it should be him, but once confronted, he ran like a worm behind several of his friends to be protected. It wasn’t worth anymore of his time, at that particular time, so he felt.
At any rate, here he was on the other line of the phone, twenty-years had passed.
“I’ll be in town Barb,” he told her, “for a while, haven’t been back for twelve-years, how’s my daughter?”
“I told her you got killed in Vietnam, she thinks your dead.”
“Oh well, perhaps we can straighten that out somewhere along the line, but I’m really calling you to see if you want to get together?”
“I’m married, you do realize that, don’t you?” she commented, with a low voice, as if it was a mistake.
“Yes,” Keith said, “I know, but can we or can’t we, get together?”
The timing was right, and she agreed.
When they finished the phone call, she ran to the bathroom, looked at herself, fixed her hair, and brushed it smooth, she was nervous; they would meet in two hours at an Inn, in Hudson, Wisconsin. She wondered how he looked, he was always handsome she thought, with his dark blue eyes, and reddish hair, and muscular body. She was Italian stock, and short, with dark brown hair and dark eyes, but she had aged not well.
Her husband Dan Horton was gone up north, with his group of guys, drinking and smoking, and fishing in some resort, they did that often, and he’d not be back until Sunday evening, it was Friday night.
•
“Well,” said Keith to Barb, when they met at the bar, in the Inn, in Hudson, “its real nice seeing you again.”
Her eyes, eyes like old spring water, glared at his, she had aged quicker than he. Ruthlessly so.
“I want to get to know you better,” Keith told her as they sat at the horseshoe like bar, ordering their drinks.
“Why, you really look well and good after twenty-years, you’ve kept yourself up.” Said Barbara.
She moved her stool closer to his, right next to his, so close she could lie on his shoulder, and it seemed that was her idea in the very near future.
“Well,” she said, “this time were much older, not sixteen and seventeen anymore, are we?”
Then she started talking to the bartender as if she knew him forever, but she didn’t know him at all.
“I see you haven’t changed,” said Keith, “at least you’re consistent anyhow.”
“That’s not true, I have changed, desperately so, but I’m just being friendly now, is there something wrong with that?”
“All right,” said Keith, “but you can do as you please, we’re not married you know! I’m just informing you.”
To Keith’s astonishment, she asked, bluntly, “Are we going to have sex tonight, we can get a hotel room here you know?”
It dawned on him, she had personally picked this place out specifically for that, how shrewd, he kind of figured it, and it made things easier for him.
“Are you going to get the hotel room?” she asked.
“Fine,” he said, “I can, but I don’t have the money on me, I guess I didn’t expect…”
“Here,” she dug in her purse, pulled out a $20-dollar bill, “this should cover it.”
“I want to thank you for coming out,” he said.
“I think I’d have gone crazy wondering what you looked like, had I not, and you’re still very handsome,” she acknowledged.
He waved his hand at the bartender, magnanimously, sounded aloud, “Another round here please.”
The barkeep rushed them another round, and he paid for it.
To Barbara, Keith looked fresh, and to Keith, Barbara looked nice, but pale. She raised her arms, put them around him, her mouth centered on his, half open, for his kiss, but with a touch of embarrassment, he took a drink of his beer instead.
“This is some of your old ways,” she announced carefully.
She was disturbed by the unsuspecting pulling away from her kiss.
Then Keith said as the moment seemed to be at his advantage, “Let’s go rent the room out.”
She compelled him with a quick movement, off the chair and into the lobby of the motel area.
•
“Is this room the way you like it?” Keith asked as they walked into it.
“The clerk said it was a new one, I guess they meant, they’re building a new section onto the club.”
After a few minutes they were deposited onto the bed, meeting each other with little to no cloths on. He saw in her eyes, something he had looked forward to, something he had been brooding on for twenty-years, and then his ill humor increased as Barbara drew him near to her, with an old familiar embrace under a dim light in the room.
Her emotion reassured him, she was a fish caught on a hook. And they kissed somewhat, and looked at each other with very few words.
After a moment of excitation, and a dim one at that, and short lived, he sat up on the edge of the bed, she was overcome by it all, his presence, beyond all endearment. She liked him, she had been sorry to have had to let him go, but he did not sympathized with her in that area, nor recognized to any serious degree, her new engagement with him.
“Is everything all right?” She asked.
“Everything’s going fine,” he told her with enthusiasm.
“Then why couldn’t you complete the act?” She asked, she was at that moment really miserable, but holding it back, “you must like me?” she asked.
“No,” he commented “I was just curious if I could do to you what you and your husband did to me. I really don’t want you back, sorry I’ve wasted your time, and I’m not even sure if all this was sensible or not.”
“What do you mean,” she blunted out in a panic.
“I mean I would never be enough for you, and you are not enough for me.”
“Don’t jump at conclusion, Keith.” She whimpered.
“I’m not jumping at anything, but that’s how it is.”
Written 2-19-2009 •••
posted by Dennis and Rosa Siluk at 8:23 PM
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