*Author's Note: Any persons engaging in any sexual activity are at least eighteen years of age.
1978.
Jeff Tait graduated from high school. Barely. Jeff did the barest minimum possible to get by. Coming from a family of Over-Achievers, Jeff had tried for a time to compete, but always fell far short. His parents never failed to let him know that they were severely disappointed in him, so he just quit trying.
The six foot three inch blond haired youth was an intelligent, athletic boy, but couldn't compete with his older sister who was taking college level classes in her junior year of High school. He couldn't surpass his younger brother who was the Varsity quarterback for the football team and starting Point Guard on the high School basketball team. And second best was unacceptable in their household. So the handsome young man simply didn't compete at all.
He played bass guitar in a punk rock band, 'The Stained Class,' and played the local nightclubs in Lafayette, Louisiana. A producer from Atlanta, Georgia happened to hear them one night and offered them a recording deal. Their one and only hit, 'The Death of Disco,' hit number one hundred at sixty four on the Billboard charts and the band toured extensively.
The thing that Jeff loved the most about being a musician was the non-stop stream of pussy. Even with a minor hit that saw very little air play, the women would swarm the shows, swarm the tour bus, and swarm the five musicians. He also liked the seemingly endless line of drugs and alcohol available to them.
1981.
On New Years Day, 'The Stained Class' fell apart. Drugs and money problems tore the five musicians away from the music and each other. Broke and hungry, Jeff took a variety of jobs, never staying in one place for very long.
He met Velvet at a strip club (her real name was Greta Offelstien) and several days of drugs and sex convinced him that they were in love and were meant to be together forever.
She was five foot ten, bone thin, with silicone implants. Her long hair was dyed blonde; the carpet did not match the drapes.
Velvet did not adapt to monogamy very well; dancing brought in around two to three hundred a night, but turning tricks brought in seven hundred to a thousand a night. Her heroin habit was escalating to five to six hundred a day, so fucking some old guy for a few bucks suited her just fine.
Fucking Jeff did not. In a drugged stupor, she would try to push him off, then would just lie there and let him pump into her nearly comatose body. Finally, he quit trying to have sex with her at all.
1985.
He'd not seen Velvet, or Atlanta for three years, rarely even thought of them. Last time they'd seen each other, Velvet had thrown his few clothes into a cheap suitcase and tossed them out onto the streets.
He took a Greyhound bus north, leaving Atlanta behind.
----
"Is this Mr. Jeffery Tait?" a voice asked.
"Yeah, this is Jeff Tait," he said and shut his eyes against the harsh sunlight.
The sunlight streamed into the dingy one room flat he was sharing with a girl that told her parents she was attending college. She'd never seen a college classroom, but they wouldn't have sent her money every week if they knew that she was just lying around, doing drugs and 'writing the great American novel.' Right now, she was out, trying to coax her last girlfriend back to the apartment for more drugs and sex.
"I am sorry for your loss, Mr. Tait. Greta passed away last night," the voice said in a not very sympathetic tone.
"Who?" Jeff asked, the hangover pounding in his veins.
A Ms Greta Tait, married to Jeffery Tait," the voice said in an exasperated tone.
"Oh, oh yeah, Velvet," Jeff said. "You said she passed...she's dead?"
"Complications due to AIDS," the voice said. "Would you like to make the arrangements in person, or...?"
"Arrangements?" Jeff asked.
"For burial, sir," the voice coldly said.
"Do whatever you have to," Jeff said, finally managing to sit up. "I haven't seen the bit... her for at least three years, and you want me to pay for her funeral? I don't think so."
The click told him that the caller had hung up.
He staggered to the cardboard box he used as a table and poured him a stiff gin and vermouth, and cursed Lilia for not replacing the ice trays in the small refrigerator.
"Here's to you, Velvet," he said aloud and toasted her.
He did not harbor any resentment toward the girl, even though she'd stolen his bass guitar and amplifier shortly after their marriage and sold them for drug money. For a few months, they'd been in love; he toasted her again.
1986.
Jeff was washing dishes at a diner, making just enough money to drink every night. Most of the time he just slept in the alley behind the restaurant.
It was a typical Thursday in the diner; most of the patrons wouldn't get paid until Friday, so few had money to come in for a bite.
He looked up when Daisy screamed excitedly and watched a man enter the diner. The man had on a highly starched uniform, chest adorned with medals. Daisy babbled nonsense and hugged the man and hung all over him. The man smiled happily and hugged her back.
Daisy dragged the man around the diner and introduced him to everyone there.
"And this is Jeff, he's the dishwasher," she happily said. "Jeff, this is my big brother, Jack."
Jack's eyes took in the scrawny figure, the hollow eyes, and smiled sympathetically.
"Jeff, it is a pleasure meeting you," Jack's rich voice boomed out.
"Uh, um, thank you, sir," Jeff managed to say and winced at the strong handshake of the man.
"Jeff, have you ever considered the Armed Services?" Jack asked, even though Daisy was trying to drag him over to meet Gil, the fry cook.
"Um, uh, no, no I haven't," Jeff, said.
"They can give you a way out," Jack said in a low voice.
1991.
Jeff enrolled at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. The four years he'd put in as an Army grunt was paying for his tuition. Loans were paying for the rest of his living expenses. He did a weekend every month and two weeks every year as an officer in the Army Reserves, a second lieutenant.
Then the Iraqi Army invaded Kuwait. Diplomatic and UN Resolutions fell apart and the atrocities and inhumanities foisted upon the Kuwait citizenry escalated. President Bush called upon the Army Reserves for Desert Shield. Shortly after Jeff Tait and his platoon reached the Persian Gulf region, Desert Storm was enacted.
Victory wasn't long in coming, but it was nearly a year before Jeff would return to Tulane University.