1.
I grew up in Dawson and I never wanted to return.
The town was famous for two things...trees and football. In the autumn the trees around Dawson showed glorious colour and brought tourists from hundreds of miles, and it was the season that high school football was on everybody's mind.
Dawson was state champion every year and several of their young men had gone on to great college careers and even careers in the NFL. But if you were a young man lacking the skills to play or a young woman who wasn't pretty enough to date a football player, then you were considered second class.
If you were a skinny nerd with glasses, like me, you didn't even rate second class.
I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I wasn't beaten up every day or treated badly, but it was a sense of never really belonging and of never being accepted. And of course when you fall in love with the prettiest girl in town, there is bound to be a lot of mental and emotional misery.
I fell in love with Laura Mays in the third grade and I loved her, from afar, I admit, all the way through grammar school and high school. When we were in the ninth grade, I finally expressed my admiration for her and asked her out. She wasn't cruel in her rejection. She kindly explained that she wasn't really interested in me that way and had her heart set on another.
She married the high school quarterback right out of high school. I was even invited to the wedding. I didn't go because I was on the road then with the Night. The Night was my first band and it was terrible. We did a mixture of punk rock music and old favourites and played at a lot of forgotten joints along the highway.
When the Night folded, I was asked to join Temptation. I was a pretty good bass guitarist and Temptation lasted for eight months before it folded. I was in Los Angeles when the band played the last show and had no idea what I was going to do next.
And then I got lucky.
A guy by the name of Richard Max asked me to back up his band on a song they were recording as his own guitarist had the mumps, of all things. I did the back up and the song jumped to number one on the charts and I started getting a lot of offers to back up bands and singing groups. I was making a pretty good living and decided to try my hand at writing a song. Richard Max said it wasn't good for his group but he knew of a group that it might work for.
A group called the Malcontents loved the song and we recorded it. They let me do the lead vocals and when the song was released, it was released under the title of Bobby Wise and the Malcontents. The Malcontents weren't happy that my name was first on the label but they were a lot happier when the song reached number one and the money started rolling in.
Bobby Wise and the Malcontents had six hit songs in a row and one major hit album that went platinum and almost by accident, I had my own band and I was famous. And I was rich.
I wasn't yet thirty years old and suddenly I was big time. It's funny what being famous and rich can do for your love life. I was suddenly very popular and had my own bunch of groupies following me around. It went to my head, I admit it. The groupies wanted me and there were no strings attached and I took advantage every chance I got.
We were playing in Las Vegas when I got the letter from Jennifer King. It took me a few minutes to remember her. She had been in the grade ahead of me, one of those shapely blond cheerleaders that always seemed to be so unattainable. Her letter had the scent of expensive perfume and her penmanship was very delicate and feminine. I was invited to participate in our ten year class reunion. We were having a picnic and a dance and they would really love for me to be there.
I dumped the letter in the trash. Although there may have been a few people I might have wanted to see, I really had no interest in returning to Dawson.
The second letter I got was a week later and from Laura (Mays) Templeton. Her letter was pretty matter of fact until the end. She told me about her marriage to John Templeton, their two children, her job at the county tax office and how the town hadn't changed much. Then at the end, she mentioned how much she'd really like to see me again.
I still had no intention of attending the reunion but Laura's words stayed with me throughout our Las Vegas show. We hit the road again in late December and played six cities before the end of January. In Houston Texas I got yet another letter from the school. Another cheerleader named Elsie Walker. I couldn't remember what Elsie looked like....only her name...but she sent the letter on stationary belonging to the Dawson Real Estate Company. I looked up Dawson Real Estate Company on line and she was listed as Vice President. I remembered her then.
Out of the seven cheerleaders on the squad, she was probably the prettiest. She was prettier even than Laura. She was a redhead, with flashing green eyes, and she looked spectacular in the school sweater, jumping around and doing cheers. If the cheerleaders were unobtainable to anyone except the jocks, then she was the most unobtainable of all.
Her letter was crisp and business like. I hadn't responded to the invitation to the reunion and she was wondering if it had been lost in the mail. If so, she would love to personally send me an invitation. She would like to see me again. Very much.
Oddly, I don't even think Elsie knew my name in high school and why was she very much interested in seeing me now.
In the next few weeks I got letters from all the rest of the high school cheerleading squad, plus a letter from the Class President and a couple of my old teachers. Suddenly I was a very popular fellow and I started suspecting what it was all about. I knew for sure when I got a letter from a school friend, one of my real friends, and he included a clipping from the newspaper stating that there would be an exclusive concert by Bobby Wise and the Malcontents at the upcoming tenth year reunion.
I was hurt and angered. It wasn't the old days anymore. In the old days Laura, or anyone of the cheerleaders probably, could have snapped their fingers and I would have come running. I was not some insecure nerdy boy anymore and I wasn't at their beck and call.
For the next few months we left the road and recorded a new album, which also went platinum. We started making the rounds of the late night talk shows and a comedy show, and we were riding the wave of success. I didn't expect it to last forever and I was enjoying it while I could. At the very least, when the popularity waned, I would be left with enough money to live out my life comfortably. I couldn't ask for anything more.
On the first of May, two months before the reunion, one of the cheerleaders came to see me in person. I was resting in the small room back stage after the show when Elmo, my drummer, popped in his head in the door.
"There's a chick to see you, Bobby," he said.
"I'm tired." I said.
"Not the usual type at all. She says she knows you."
"Let's see her then," I said.
I knew her immediately when Elmo let her into the room and shut the door behind her. Her name was Alexis Bishop and she was one of the Dawson Cheerleaders. She had never been one of the prettiest. She had long black hair and blue eyes but she had also been a bit plump, and she fought a constant battle with weight. What made her popular was her vitality, her love of life. Standing before me, looking nervous, she lacked that old spark of vitality. She was still fighting the battle for weight but she would have looked more attractive if she'd picked out her clothes more carefully. The form fitting mini dress she wore, the stockings and high heels emphasized her heavier figure.
"Hello, Bobby," she said.
"Alex," I said. Maybe it was mean of me but I knew Alex was a name she hated. To call her Alex one had to be high up in the social strata. Her fellow cheerleaders and the boys on the football team called her Alex. Nobody else dared.
