Growing Up Then and Now

When Fred left my parents’ a year before at age 18, she’d come to Florida with a different boyfriend who was going to be a car mechanic at his cousin’s gas station, but shortly after arriving she’d split from him and taken up with this guy Michael.  At any rate, after Bob and Michael took off for the store, I’m in the living room standing by the window while Fred’s in the kitchen, and I’m telling her about my plans and my future, when I realize this is the first time Fred and I were alone without Michael being around, so I ask how she’s doing.  “Not so good,” she says, “Michael’s beating me up.”

“What!  Jesus Christ Fred!  What do you mean ‘beating you up?’ – do you want to go with me and Bob to Denver?”  I had no idea she wasn’t happy being in Florida.

“Could I go with you guys?” she says.  Of course! I tell her, and can’t wait to whisper to Bob when he gets back that we’re back on The Rescue Mission!

Then she tells me that the last straw was when he made her make up the lie about the landlord and the Volare just to get me and Bob away from her . . . “and if my own Brother can’t even come for a visit, well I’m done with him” . . . but, she says, “I still want to think it over a little bit.”  She’ll have to leave the dog she loves dearly – ‘cos it’s really Michael’s dog . . . and maybe she should stick with Michael because she’s been trying to help him with his drug and depression issues.

Fred’s always been an angel, but to a guy . . . to a guy with a . . .

“Yah, you can be an angel to him Fred,” I tell her, “but not if he’s beating you up!”  And she tells me about the few times he’s hit her.  “Once is enough Fred!  You’re Outta Here!”

Just before Bob and Michael come in the door, she says, “OK, I’ll think about it – why don’t you and Bob pretend like you’re leaving town and stay at a motel and come find me at the Ramada Inn (where she waitressed) around lunch time tomorrow and I’ll let you know.”

Tomorrow:  The New Rescue Mission

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First on the list was getting Leslie to the airport in Miami for her flight to Guatemala to be in her sister’s wedding, but along the way we stopped in Ormond Beach to scope out The Rescue Operation.  (Actually, our first stop was still in New Jersey.  We each put $50 on Black at the Roulette Wheel in Atlantic City and when it came up Black! we put the $300 winnings into a kitty on the dashboard to spend like it was free money.  Even a non-gambler like Leslie couldn’t resist the temptation of risking $50 to win $300 with even odds.)

We arrived in Ormond Beach about 8 p.m.  Just at the edge of town on U.S. 1, the main hitchhiking route between New York City and Miami Beach, there was a place called “The Community House” which had a little sign welcoming hitchhikers, runaways and vagabonds who needed a place to crash.  It was well known in town, and when we stopped in we said we were here to visit Bette Finlayson who was supposed to be living here.

“Oh yah, but she lives in The Big House about 5 miles inland,” they told us.  They were friendly about the whole thing, asked us if we needed a place to stay, gave us directions to The Big House, and told us all about “Big Red” who kinda ran the whole thing.  He was a former “one-percenter” (motorcycle gang member) who in a sort of born-again fashion had decided to build a community of throwaways (actually a harem, we suspected) and bought this big house where almost a dozen people (not all females it turned out) lived.

But before we went to The Big House to pick up Bette and deliver her safe and sound to her sister and family back in South Jersey, we needed to drive Leslie to Miami and deliver Fred her presents in Madeira Beach.  Miami had zip going on (except for scouting out SuperBowl tickets to scalp for a profit), and we were in a hurry to get to Madiera Beach on Florida’s Gulf Coast.   Let’s get these presents delivered so we can get going on The Rescue Mission!

But when we get to Madiera Beach it was such a great place that we actually stayed three nights before getting back on The Rescue Mission.  My sister told us to check out this great bar on the beach, Skip’s, where they had an outdoor pool table under a cabana right on the beach – and if there was one thing Bob and I were into, it was eyeing the babes walking up and down the beach.  (Remember, I always thought people were the prettiest flowers in the world.)  Better yet, we find out every night Skip’s has a bonfire on the beach where you could bring your drinks to.  And that’s how I ended up making out on a blanket  – although only a one-night stand that didn’t make it around the Bases.  First Base was wonderful enough all by itself.   Barely making it to Second was just a friendly good-bye, softly brushing her, and saying “Oh Baby, Can’t wait to see you again!”

On the beach after rounding the bases with Ellen

Plus Fred was very accommodating and it was really great to see her.  I slept on the couch.  Bob slept in the Volare stationwagon parked in the driveway.

At any rate, Hannah, me and a group of friends had tickets for the 76ers game when I got a call from Annie she was coming out to Philly for the weekend, so I invited her to come along.  BIG MISTAKE.  For the first three periods of the game everything seemed to go okay because we were all part of a larger crowd.  Along about the 4^th quarter I realized, too late, that both Hannah and Annie expected I’d be with only one of them after the game – and that neither one of them knew I was being intimate with the other.  Hannah thought Annie was just a friend and Annie thought Hannah was just part of the crowd.  To this day I don’t know how I could have thought that somehow we would all love each other instead of thinking that they each deserved to know the (whole) truth before I extended the invitation.

In the 4^th quarter the best I could come up with was hatching a plan I thought Hannah would surely decline to participate in and thus go home with her other friends, so I suggested we all go to the burlesque show on Race Street after the game.  When Hannah said “Sure,” I was pretty much sunk, and when all the others declined, except Annie, I was really sunk.  The Sixers won the game in overtime and me, Hannah and Annie got in a cab for the Troc Theatre.

At the Troc I bought three tickets, picked three seats near a fire exit (in case I decided to just get up and leave and let them figure things out for themselves), and sat down in the middle between them.  Some dancer named Marilyn was doing a strip tease live on stage.  In the dark I could sense both Hannah and Annie were about to touch my knee (or worse) and bump into each other.  Marilyn started in on

Doing his best Gypsy Rose Lee

[[[[editor:  need Gypsy Rose Lee’s sheet music score with the musical notes to that famous song printed out here]]]],

and suddenly I had the inspiration to join her on stage.  I was on stage whipping off my shirt when the cops came and escorted me out of the theatre.

Both Hannah and Annie made it home by themselves.  (Annie to her hotel room.)  Needless to say, my relationship with both now had some ill feelings.  The moral to this story, boys, is that you need to learn sooner than I did to avoid any situation where your lover is emotionally disrespected.  Make sure the relationship is human, not just sexy, and be respectful of another’s thoughts and feelings.   Then it’s okay to believe real love is loving life in all its spices and varieties, to love the one you’re with, the love that is, and not necessarily confine yourself to the love, oftentimes faked, sometimes dishonest, that you are told

can only be part of a marriage.

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Checked by AVG – www.avg.com
Version: 2013.0.3462 / Virus Database: 3658/6910 – Release Date: 12/11/13