Story 5: The Aftermath

She wrapped both arms around me and rocked me as I sat trembling and weeping on the edge of my bed. For 65 years, she wrapped both arms around me and rocked me and held me up, no matter what. 

“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” she whispered in my ear. “I want you to know, that no matter what you do, what choice you make, I am with you, I love you no matter what and I will always support your decision,” my Mom said.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

By the time I left middle school and entered 9th grade, Mrs. Berg and the 4-O’s (the “400’s”, the cool kids from Lakewood) rebuked my efforts to become a Southwestern Central High School JV cheerleader. “I’m as good or even better than Laurie Samples and she got in, and I didn’t” I whined to my Mom. 

“Well, after you burnt down the Hut,” my Dad butted in, “you’ll just have to pull yourself up by the bootstraps.” 

I could a punched him right in the face. I ignored him. But I’ve never forgotten it, especially when someone tells me ‘No’.

I took a boy chill pill in eighth and ninth grade after the whole Dan Spring thing. I think we were too busy moving from place to place for me to do much else but schoolwork and pack and move, again and again.

My parents went bankrupt after my Dad’s attempt to build an eight-unit apartment building. He sunk every bit of his money and expertise into it and was just weeks away from opening it. Four of the units were already rented! 

But the bank held liens, some real estate bitch in the area got the inside scoop on it, negotiated with the bank, and swiped it from my Dad. Plus, my Dad lost several thousand dollars when, in the middle of a closing for a model home he had built, he had to go rescue his eighth-grade daughter at the ER after she tried to commit suicide. 

By the time I was in tenth grade, we settled at 41 Glidden Avenue in West Ellicott, a high-end suburb of Jamestown. That’s when I met Rob Moore at Brigiotta’s Farm and Garden Center on Fairmount Avenue. 

We were in line at the register. He stood in front of me and I noticed he was holding two small wheels of basket cheese. I had basket cheese in my cart, too. 

“Do you like fried basket cheese too?” I asked him, trying to strike up a convo, but he ignored me, or maybe he didn’t hear me, or maybe he was just rude. 

“Hey, don’t you go to Southwestern?” I said, too loud to ignore. 

“Yes,” he said, but he barely turned his head to answer me, like he didn’t want anyone to see he was talking to me. This annoyed me. So again, I said forcefully, 

“Do you like fried basket cheese too?”

This time, he turned all the way around and grinned at me, realizing there was no escaping me.

“Yes, I like fried basket cheese too. Aren’t you Steve Bush’s sister?” he asked. I got this question a lot, since Steve was two years older than me, tall, lithe, handsome, and one of the cool kids. And he was super friendly and funny-cocky. Everyone seemed to know him, and they all had a “Steve-Story” to tell.

“Yup, that’s me, but don’t tell anybody. I hear he’s got a bad reputation,” and I returned his grin.

After that, when we saw each other in the halls at school, we would stop to talk for a minute. We became friends, until one day, Rob asked me to go to the prom. I was shocked! But I said “Yes! I would love that!”

Rob’s classically handsome face sported a large brow, which made him look mature and often, pensive. His parents bought him a yellow Camaro with a black landau top, and he was cool as hell because of this car. His Dad was super friendly, charismatic actually, and his Mom was eclectically challenged. She demanded that the real Christmas tree be left up until June 30th, every year. She watered it and rearranged the decorations and garland to keep it fresh-looking, every day.

I liked Rob. But he could not carry a conversation about nothing. After we went to the prom, he was my boyfriend for a while, until I met his cousin from Jamestown. 

I went to Rob’s house on a Saturday in February to hang out and meet his cousin Brian, but before Brian arrived, I wanted to go outside and play in the snow. The yard behind Rob’s house in Lakewood was the size of a basketball court, lined with Norwegian pines and blanketed with a thick layer of gleaming white smooth snow.

“That snow is about two feet deep,” Rob told me. “You’re gonna soak your shoes and pants if you go out in it,” he warned. 

“I don’t care,” I told him, “If my pants get wet, I’ll just take them off!” I laughed. 

I felt like a little snow bunny out there, hopping here and there, and throwing snowballs at the pine boughs, watching big clumps of snow drop from the limbs and plop in the snow, making craters in the taught plane.

“He’s here,” Rob yelled from the kitchen door. “Come on in!” he urged me. Rob liked me because I filled up all the holes his shyness created. And he liked the make-out parts, too. I’m not sure he liked me much beyond that.

As I bent over and whacked off the chunks of snow stuck to my jeans, a pair of brown leather work boots appeared, and met mine on the floor in front of me. Whoever this is, I thought, is standing pretty darn close to me. 

I stood up slow. And here’s this guy, tightly squeezed into my personal space, with the biggest, bluest eyes, the whitest skin, the reddest cheeks, and slightly tilted teeth lining a stretchy smile, standing right in front of me. 

“I’m Brian” he said enthusiastically, and his hand was jutting out from his side, ready to give me a hardy shake. Brian’s face reminded me of the gleaming snow out back. His skin was very white and drum smooth! I liked him very much right away and I could tell he liked me very much right away too. 

“I’ve been watching you hop around out there,” Brian said, continuing to smile and shakin my hand vigorously. “What’s your name?” he asked me. 

“I’m Cindi Bush,” I said, reflecting his big smile.

“I’m Brian Lake” he said. 

“I know,” I said, and we kept shaking hands and smiling at one another way too long.

I broke up with Rob the next day. 

And took up with Brian the day after that. 

Brian lived on Broadmore Street in Jamestown and went to Jamestown High School. He drove a 250 Kawasaki and if the weather was bad, he drove his parents’ big ol’ Bonneville convertible. He smoked Marlboro cigarettes, which did not fit his looks or his personality. 

“Your breath stinks and your clothes wreak and if you don’t quit smoking, I swear to God I’m gonna start smoking right now!” I yelled at him one day. 

He pulled out a smoke from the pack in his flannel shirt pocket and flicked it at me in the big ‘ol Bonneville as we were on our way to a party. I lit it in protest. I coughed and choked and hacked. “Geezus, what the hell do get out of this?” I gagged. He laughed.

And for the next 30 years, I coughed, and choked, and hacked, in protest.

Everyone thought Brian was my first “real” boyfriend, as in “old enough to have a boyfriend” boyfriend. But Dan Spring was my first boyfriend, my first real love. Because I was so young, no one took my loyalty and devotion to Dan, seriously. “Just puppy-love” is what everyone called it. It was never puppy love. But who’s gonna believe anything a twelve-year-old girl from Celoron has to say? We were so underestimated, so misunderstood.

So Brian was my first: The first boy I was allowed to go to the drive-in with, the first boy I was allowed to ride on a motorcycle with, and the first boy I had sex with.

“Karla, I gotta ask you something,” I said nervously on the phone. “Brian and I are going to give ourselves to each other as gifts for Christmas and I think we need -,” I started.

“What the hell does that mean?” She snarked, louder than hell, as usual. “And why haven’t you called me in like ten thousand years, bitch?”

She didn’t mean it like that, it’s just the way a lot of Celoron girls talked. And she was right; I hadn’t bothered to call her or talk to her since we moved out of Celoron. And I didn’t see her in high school. She dropped out.

Karla’s home life was rough, but she knew about a lot of stuff. Sex stuff. She said one of her mom’s boyfriends taught her all about sex stuff with a book. Plus I knew she liked boys even more than me. 

I don’t think I would have been friends with her, but one day while I was walking home from fifth grade, a bunch of stupid little boys started mocking out my big hiney. 

“Hey Crisco, fat in the can!” they laughed. “Hey Bush-el Basket butt! Is that thing heavy?” “Hey mighty meat!” And on and on. This happened a lot, and it always made me cry, but I just kept walking.

That day, it just so happened that Karla was walking behind these button bucks. After she finished laughing her ass off, she suddenly rushed the boys from behind and stomped a couple of them good. 

Karla ran up behind me after her bully stomping. “What the fuck are you crying about?” she yelled at me. “I’m the one that ought a be crying, that little bastard bit me, look!” She pulled back her sleeve, and there on the back of her bicep were tiny little teeth marks. 

In sixth grade, me and Karla and Debbie Shipley walked home together after school a lot. I learned so much from these girls. They knew more about boys than I did. 

One day, Karla decided it was time to tell me everything about how babies are really made. I was stunned. After she was done, she grabbed my Raggedy Ann doll out of my arms and flung her high and far off the Dunham Avenue bridge. Ann landed face-down on the railroad tracks, fifty feet below. 

“Now that you know the truth, you won’t be playing with dolls anymore,” she said brusquely. 

“So now you say, you’re gonna have sex for the first time and you thought of calling me?” Karla continued. “You mean you didn’t do it with Dan in the Hut? Everyone knows you did,” she said. 

I didn’t feel like arguing with her. She wouldn’t believe me even if I said we didn’t do it. No one ever believed it. There was always lots of digit inquisition, but no intercourse, although we were close to it many times.

“So does that mean you’re gonna do it with this guy?” she said sarcastically. “Like you guys are virgins or something so doin’ it is your present to each other? That’s gettin’ off cheap,” she asserted. “He better give you something more than his dick for Christmas,” and she laughed like hell. 

God, she made it all sound so nasty. But she was funny!

I cut her off. “We’re going to his house Christmas eve. His parents are going to a Christmas party and no one will be home and,-”

“And we need to find a rubber and I thought maybe you could tell me or give me…” I continued.

“Oh you won’t need that because you can’t get pregnant the first time you have sex; everyone knows that,” Karla told me. 

I was so relieved. But when I told Brian what Karla said, he thought we should still get one anyway. He said his best friend Steve and his girlfriend Kim were doing it and that his Dad always left some rubbers in a box under the bathroom sink. 

“Then go ask him for one,” I told Brian.

“No way, then he’ll know and he’s got a big mouth and he’s cocky so he’ll tell other people,” Brian told me. 

We drove to the Rexall Drug Store near 6th Street and parked. Then we sat in the car and argued for almost an hour about who would go in and ask the pharmacist for a rubber. We finally flipped on it. I lost. 

I slinked in, wondering skittishly, slowly, toward the pharmacy counter in the back of the store. I picked up hair clips and bobby pins, and tampons, trying to make sure no one was in store before I reached the pharmacy counter.

“Excuse me sir,” I stammered. 

“Yes,” he said, never looking up at me. He was perched high above the counter, so he could see the whole store.

“I was wondering if you have… “

“Yes”, he said, still looking down, counting pills.

“I need to get a, I need to buy a…”

“Do you have a prescription here young lady?” he said, losing count of his pills and his temper, finally looking up at me.

“No, I, I just need a-”

“WHAT?” he shouted, and raised both hands, palms-up, mid-air. 

“What do you NEED?” he hollered.

“A RUBBER!” I roared back at him, not realizing how loud I was because I was so pissed at his rudeness! 

His eyes bulged wide open and he glared at me.

“You are a very bad girl and you should not be asking for this” he scowled, and speared each word with his index finger, sending pointed jabs in my directions as he spoke from his perch. “Only bad girls do what you want to do, very bad girls!” he bellowed. 

Then he clenched his thick eyebrows until they formed an ape-sized unibrow that arched over the dark circles under his eyes. His slanderous rant sliced open my gut and my knees buckled a little. I felt weak and sleazy, dirty. Whorish.

I dropped all the sundries on the counter and turned to rush out of the store. But three people were standing directly behind me, two old ladies and a heavy-set man, all with their mouths gaped open. 

“Catch any flies lately?” I cranked off as I ran towards the door. His degrading rant continued to echo throughout the store and in my head for days. 

Actually, I can still hear him.

I wish Karla would have had a spare rubber in her pocketbook; she said she never went anywhere without one. I wish my Mom would have shown me some pictures in a book like how Karla learned. 

“This is the man, and this is the woman,” my Mom instructed me one day, with the help of a hot dog and a donut. She inserted the hot dog in the donut hole once, and pulled it out. “And that’s how babies are made,” she told me.

After that, I never ate wieners and donuts at the same time again.

I wish someone would have told me, “Yes you CAN get pregnant the first time you have sex”. 

But in the fifties and sixties, sex talk was scarce, little was taught in schools, and parents felt that just talking with your kids about sex was a green light to go get it on!

Karla was wrong. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“How did you know?” I sobbed to my Mom. “How did you know I’m pregnant?” I asked her. 

“Wait here,” she said. She left the bedroom, returning quickly with a box of tissues and a cool washcloth, which she gently swept across my forehead and tear-soaked cheeks. 

“How do you know you’re pregnant?” she asked me.

“I went to the doctor last week and peed in a cup. I just found out today,” I sobbed. My Mom wrapped me up in her arms again and held me.

“I mean it,” she said as she gently held the side of my head to her chest, “I will be with you whatever you decide,” she murmured. 

“I do not want to have a baby now,” I told her. “I’m only 16! I don’t want to have a baby.”

“Shh shhh, your Dad is here, in the garage I think.” Mom got up, walked in the living room, scouted the room for my Dad, and returned. “I don’t think we should tell your Dad.”

“I know,” I agreed, “but there’s a part of me that wants to talk to him, to tell him,” I told her. 

“You will crush him if you do,” Mom said.

I did not have the baby. 

It was devastating, sickening, traumatizing, heart breaking, but Brian and I did not break up. We talked about it and cried about it and lamented over it for the next three years, and beyond.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As devoted and dedicated as Brian was to me, and no matter how much we loved each other, he was determined to fulfill his dream of joining the military. He signed up for the Air Force early in his senior year, completed all his high school credits by March, and left for basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in April.

I was beyond bereaved after he left. I wrote him every single day and he wrote me too. I remember bartending at The Zoo, a disco dance bar that was a hoppin’ and happenin’ place near Falconer. Before they opened in the afternoon on Fridays, I ran into the bar, sobbing and babbling, waving one of the first letters Brian ever wrote to me in the air. 

“What’s the matter?” Jack, the barback asked me, concerned with my mental state. “Did Brian send you a ‘Dear Cindi’ letter?

“He wrote me, Brian wrote me the nicest things I’ve ever heard,” I continued my histrionics and clutched the pages of his letter to my bosom.

Oh Prunella, what a maroon!

He came home after basic training, and his parents were so angry with us, with me mostly, because Brian and I stole away every moment we could, to be together, alone. We went to his Dad’s hunting cabin in Frewsburg a lot. And the drive-in. A lot. 

“As soon as I get settled in Denver, I want you to come out and be with me,” he said. “Just give me about six months to get settled in school and-”

“Six months?? Are you crazy?? I’m not going to wait around here for six months!” I exclaimed. We argued about this for a few days and settled on two months. 

HE settled on two months. Two days after he flew out to Denver, I packed a few clothes in my ’67 Dodge Dart and headed west for Colorado. I saved $217.00, and had about $75 from graduation gifts. I figured that was more than enough to get me out there if I slept in my car for a night or two. 

It took me four days to get there, and I had a total blast driving, cross-country and getting the hell out of Jamestown! I met some great people, especially truck drivers; if they were broke down on the side of the highway, I always stopped to see if I could help. And whenever I pulled over to the shoulder on a highway, there was always a gracious and helpful truck driver, pulling over to help me. I have great reverence for truck drivers. 

But you should have seen the look on Brian’s face when I walked into the pool room on base! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I forgot to mention to Brian that I was on my way out there. 

“What the ?? How?! What are you doing here?!!” He squeaked out as soon as he saw me. 

“How did you get on base?” he asked. “How long are you staying??” he started to laugh as he walked fast around the pool table and then lunged into a big Brian hug, surrounding me with his big Brian warm body.

"Forever!" I laughed. “I’m staying forever!" I told him.

When I first arrived in Denver, I found Ava Rubenstein, thank God. 

Ava was a large woman who lived in her tattered white t-shirt, flowered underwear, and shoeless wide feet. She was so beautiful, stunning really. The long black ringlets in her hair encircled her face like a perfect frame that highlighted her almond-shaped dark chocolate eyes. 

She lived in the top apartment of a brick two-story home off of Colfax and Broadway near Lincoln Park. A good friend of mine from Jamestown knew Ava, gave me her address, and told me that if I needed a place to stay, Ava would just love me, and I would love her. 

“Hi!” I chirped at the woman who answered the door. 

“Not yet!” she said in a deep, warm, sexy voice, and then she began to giggle. 

“Come on in. I’m Ava,” she said, “and you are?” she asked. 

“I’m Cindi,” and as I walked inside, I quickly tried to explain to Ava that I was Kathy’s friend from Jamestown and that Kathy had given me her address, but Ava had no idea who Kathy was and didn’t seem to care a bit. 

“Whatever,” she undulated. “Come on in, make yourself to home,” she said.

Kathy was right; I loved Ava! How cool was this?

The apartment was sparsely decorated. A king-size bed sat in the middle of the living room with no sheets or pillowcases on the pillows. A plastic end table with an ashtray full of butts was next to it. A tiny black and white TV sat perilously on a flimsy dented metal TV tray. No curtains. No rugs. That’s it. Sparse. 

“Here’s your bedroom,” Ava pointed at the bed. “Mines in the back. And here’s the kitchen and bathroom. I gotta finish watching Donohue. Enjoy!” she said, as she walked into her bedroom and shut the door. 

I barely had time to tell her about Brian before she went back into her room. 

“Hey Ava, is it OK if I bring Brian over here tonight?” I yelled through the door.

“The more the merrier,” she said. 

Brian and I spent a lot of time at Ava’s. Brian and I and Ava all had a lot in common: we loved one another, we loved to smoke pot, and we loved the mountains. 

One thing Brian and I did not have in common: possessiveness. Brian had to know where I was and what I was doing all day long. All the time. And his obsession was thinly veiled with the excuse: “I worry about you and just want to make sure you’re OK,” he’d plead. He would call Ava’s house incessantly, and it drove Ava nuts, to the point where she told us “It’s time for you to move on.”

Eventually, Brian and I got a nice apartment with two of his best buds from his training school, Frankie and Matt, who I also loved. We all loved music, too, and spent hour upon hour listening to Stevie Wonder’s Fulfillingness First Finale, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, and Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark, my all-time favorite album. 

The men went to school during the day, and I was on the night shift from 6 pm till 3 am as a candy packer at Russell Stover’s Candy Factory in Denver, just like my idol, Lucy!  But this was not a good “fit” for me! I gained 21 pounds in three months! 

“Three for the box, one for me. Four for the box, two for me,” and so on. And smoking pot before work was never a good idea! 

One Sunday morning, after a Saturday night party with friends, the four of us decided to visit Pete’s Restaurant down on Colfax. In second place for loving Denver: Pete’s famous omelet, smothered in green chili, the only way to cure a hangover. We sat at a warm table next to the windows and as usual, we all started talking about things we did as kids, before we met each other, or stuff we did with our family. 

It wasn’t long before Brian chimed in about his Dad’s deer hunting cabin in Frewsburg, and he chatted up all the parties and fun he had there. And it wasn’t long after that when I asked him, 

“So did you do any deer hunting with your Dad, Brian?” 

He gave me the side-eye, and said “Yes, but I…”

“And how many deer did you shoot, Brian?” I cut in. 

“None, but I-”

“I understand that your girlfriend, Cindi Bush, also hunted deer. And how many deer did your girlfriend shoot so far, Brian?” And I gave him a big toothy smile.

“Two.” He said flatly.

“How many?” I asked again and held my spoon up to his lips. “Could you please speak into the mic so that we can all hear you?” I smirked.

Frankie and Matt just busted a gut laughing. 

Then I watched my spoon mic slip through my fingers and splat into Brian’s green chili omelet. That’s all I remember. 

Then I saw a body violently twitch and jerk, strapped tight on a gurney in the back of an ambulance. 

The body was scream-crying, but had no head.

“Nurse! Nurse! Doctor! She’s awake!” Brian yelled “She stopped! Take these things off of her!” he demanded. “NOW!” he screamed. 

Brian and Frankie and Matt were all standing next to my gurney in the ER. They were pale. Their eyes were wide with fear and amazement.

“What’s going on? What happened?” I mumbled. “Why am I here? Why are these on me?” I asked. 

“You had a seizure.” Brian said. “But you’re going to be OK now, it’s OK, we’re all here to take care of you,” he told me. And I believed him. 

I spent the night in the hospital. They ran a bunch of tests on my brain but found no evidence of epilepsy or heart disease. 

There were four more seizures. During one of them, I was totally conscious. I could hear everyone, see everything, including myself, but I could not stop my body from flailing, from flopping and quivering. I could not respond to everyone yelling at me. I thought I was dying. 

This tore up Brian. He was missing work, and when he was at work, he could not concentrate. Months passed, but one Sunday night after I made mac and cheese and cut-up wieners, Brian insisted:

“You gotta go home and get some help, get your Mom and Dad to help you,” Brian said to me. “I can’t take this pressure all the time, worrying about you, and I can’t think, I can’t concentrate on school here,” he said. “I might fail out of the program.”

I knew he was right. I knew he was having trouble. I packed up my Dart the next day and went to stay with Ava until I could get home. 

“Having another “break-up for good” are we?” Ava asked me. 

“Not really,” I said. “I need to go home for a little bit, we just need a break, but I’ll be back,” I told her.

I didn’t tell Ava about the seizures. I just didn’t want to. 

I quit my job at the candy factory and got a job bartending at the Safari Lounge. It was a few blocks from Ava’s house, and Ava was friends with the owners. The tips were good, and I figured I could make money faster, get home sooner, and beat feet back to Brian and to Denver. 

One night, just before closing, I laid bare my woes about Brian to the managers of the Safari, a guy named Jim, who was well-groomed and in his mid 40’s, and his wife, Sheila, who I liked very much. 

He was Jim Jr. His Dad, Big Jim, owned the bar. Big Jim was 62. We got along famously. He was extraordinarily handsome, tan, muscular, virile and healthy, he always smelled romantic, and Big Jim had lots of toys: a cabin in the mountains, snowmobiles, horses, and he always smelled romantic. Wait, did I already say that?

Big Jim kissed me accidently in the kitchen one day. I didn’t mind a bit. We kinda messed around a little bit. I never thought about his age because he never looked like it or acted like it. He was just so… virile! And so fun to be around.

He was at the bar the night of my Brian lamentations, which he had heard many times before. 

“You know what you need?” Big Jim asked me. I had an idea of what he was going to say.

“You need a stiff shot of Wild Turkey,” he demanded, and slapped the bar with every word.

“Oh no, I’ve seen enough craziness after I pour shots of that stuff in here,” I told him. “Plus, I never drank whiskey before.”

That’s all they needed to hear. Big Jim kept at me, goading and cajoling me to “just throw back one,” and so did Jim Jr. Finally, I acquiesced. 

We closed the bar, Big Jim became our personal bartender, and the four of us commenced to getting sauced. I knew they would all take care of me if I got too hammered, so I said OK. 

Of course, I had bragged in the past many times of my drinking prowess, and after the initial burn of the first two shots, I started on White Russians to help wash down and sooth the turkey burn from the next two or three or, I don’t know how many more shots. 

Because I don’t remember.

What I do remember is opening my eyes and seeing three massive golden timber beams overhead. ‘What the hell?’ I thought. ‘Where am I?’ I wondered. I squinted my eyes and tried to focus, looking around the room without turning my head. Finally, I realized I was in a rustic log-cabin, in a bedroom, wrapped in a fluffy, feather-soft white blanket with a downy pillow under my head. 

‘Your clothes are in the dryer’ was written on a note taped to the lantern-shaped lamp on the bedside table to my left. Under the blanket, my right hand quickly swiped downwards from my neck to my navel. Nothing was there, but my skin. 

I turned my head, looked to the right and saw the outline of a body, on its side, wrapped in what looked like a giant fur coat. I reached over and slowly pulled the top of the fur blanket down. It was the back of Big Jim’s curly chestnut hair. 

I tried to jump out of the bed, but my head felt an explosion of gushing blood with each pulse of my heart, pounding and pushing me back in the sack. I waited a few minutes, hoping Big Jim would wake up, then hoping he wouldn’t. I felt embarrassed and ashamed, wondering what I did, what we did. I thought maybe I could get out of here without facing him.

I finally became vertical enough to wrap my blanket around my clothesless body and began the search for the dryer and the phone. 

After locating the dryer and quickly putting on all my clothes, I tiptoed back to the bedroom, hoping to see Jim at least sitting up. I tried to gently nudge his shoulder to wake him, but he was really out of it. I went back to the kitchen and called Ava. 

“Ava”, I whispered, “It’s Cindi. I’m kinda in a jam” I said.

“Kinda??” Ava said. “Do you kinda remember what happened last night?” she asked me.

“ummm, no.” I said. “I remember doing a few shots with..”

“A FEW?” Ava raised her voice. “You fell backwards off the barstool, cracked your head on the floor, started puking everywhere, then you had a seizure so they called the ambulance to take you to the ER.” Ava sounded mad.

“Oh God, you’re kidding me, right?” I said. But I knew better.

“I wish! They pumped your stomach for about an hour, and then you waltzed out of there before they..”

“WHAT? WHAT? What the hell Ava, I don’t remember any of that, I don’t even know where the hell I am!” I started crying hard, scared, and feeling sicker by the minute. 

“Calm down, it’s OK, You’re at Big Jim’s house. What did he tell you?”

“Nothing, he’s out of it! I tried to wake him up, but he’s still asleep. I don’t really want to talk to him right now,” I said. “Where’s my car?” I asked her.

“It’s parked in front of the lounge, don’t worry, I’ll come and get you. I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” Ava said. “I know right where you are.”

I didn’t want to go back to the bedroom again. I sat at the kitchen table. Silently. Waiting for Ava. And staring at the stone fireplace, the giant vaulted ceiling, and the swirls of wood grain in the floorboards under my worn-out pleather shoes. 

After what seemed like forever, I decided to try and wake up Big Jim before I left. As I made my way to the bedroom, Ava pulled up and tooted the horn twice, lightly. I continued to the bedroom and still, nothing had changed. Jim hadn’t moved at all. 

I walked around the bed, put my hand on his shoulder, and tried to nudge him awake again. 

“Jim, oh Big Jim, are you sleeping in there?” I said softly. He didn’t move. 

I pushed on his shoulder a little harder, trying to jolt him to wake up. He didn’t respond. 

Then I put both my hands on him; one on his shoulder, one on his hip, and gave him several hard shoves. 

“Big Jim, Big Jim,” I called sing-songy to him, “were you a naughty boy last night?” He felt stiff. 

“Jim! JIM!!” I screamed at him and shook him hard, almost violently. His hands and his arms were folded up near his chest. And when I shoved him, his hands and arms did not unfold, they did not unfurl or fall listlessly from his body. They were stuck in the same position and moved in sync with his neck and his head, almost like they were all glued together.

My heart started racing, my blood began pulsating again, slamming into the top of my head. I tried to reach for a pulse on his wrist, I tried to ignore the chill of his skin, the stiffness in his hand and fingers, but I had no idea where to even look for a pulse!

I ran to my pocketbook, took out my mirrored compact, ran back to the bed, and placed the mirror under Big Jim’s nose. Nothing. No fog, no mist on the mirror, nothing. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“GO GO GO!!!” I screamed at Ava as I jumped into the front seat of the car.

“GO NOW!! GO! FAST!” I kept yelling. Ava floored it and peeled out of the driveway and down the road. 

“What did you steal, Cindi Lou?” she laughed. Ava called me Cindi Lou a lot, because that’s my name, which she always thought was a hoot.

‘Nothing. I stole nothing.” I said, monotone. I sat up stiff and straight and looked straight ahead. 

“I know it was a rough night, but I don’t think Jim did anything to you that he shouldn’t have done…” Ava started.

“Well if he did, it probably would have killed him,” I said, monotone, again. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Ava asked cynically. “Old Jim probably can’t even get a stiffy,” she chuckled.

“He can now,” I said.  

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I picked up my car, packed what I could, and headed east. 

Back to West Ellicott. Back to my parents, and 41 Glidden Avenue.