The class was English Composition and I'd been given three papers to write. I'd been given the subject for the first two and they were already written and turned in. The third paper was to be on whatever I could think of. The paper was actually one that should have been done in freshman year, but because of all the credit hours I'd accrued in the Army I was admitted as a sophomore. But it turned out there were certain core credits I had to have that hadn't been covered by what I'd done in the Army and English Composition was one of them. The problem was that I couldn't think of anything that the instructor hadn't already seen a thousand times.
I sat there at the kitchen table with my elbow on the table and my hand under my chin as I stared down at the legal pad and tried to think of something to write about. Nothing came to me. Nothing grabbed my attention. I noticed that I had written the word 'nothing' on the legal pad and had underlined it a couple of times. I stared at the word and wondered about it.
It was such a negative word. It meant what? Not anything? Why did we have it? It meant the same as a dozen other words. As I looked at it some of those other words occurred to me and for some reason I didn't understand underneath it I jotted down nil, no, zero, and zilch. On a whim I opened up the dictionary and looked up the definition of the word. There were a bunch and all negative.
I began to wonder if the word could possibly be used as a positive. Could it be used in a way that wasn't totally negative? Almost instantly I thought of my English Lit class. One of the things we touched on was Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. I smiled as I thought about it. Much Ado About Nada? Much Ado About Zilch? Much Ado About Nil? Curiosity made me open Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. Whoa! Pages 1399 and 1400; a page and a half on just the word 'nothing'. Could I? A paper on the word 'nothing'? Nah! Put your brain to work Bobby. You have to be able to come up with something decent.
Just then the front door opened and Nancy came in.
"How's the paper coming Rob?"
"It isn't. For some reason I've gone brain dead.
I suppose here would be a good place to let you know that I'm Robert Allen Denton junior and my roommate is my wife Nancy. I usually refer to myself as Bobby, but depending who I'm with I'm called Bob, Rob, JR or Al. Don't ask me why other people call me different names because I haven't a clue. I'm twenty-four and a junior at Metro State College in Denver.
My parents couldn't afford to send me to college so at eighteen I let an Army recruiter sweet talk me into joining up for the educational benefits and two days after high school graduation I was on a bus for Fort Knox, Kentucky for basic training. After basic it was Fort Lee, Virginia for Quartermaster School and then I did some world travelling. Korea, Japan, Okinawa, Washington (the state) for Fort Lewis and lastly Fort Hood, Texas.
Discharge in hand I headed for home and heartbreak. On the way to the airport to pick me up my parents were killed when a truck driver lost control of his truck. It put me in a severe funk. I was really close to my mom and dad. I ended up going on a six month drunk and pity party. What the hell; I could afford it. Their life insurance and a settlement from the trucking company along with the money from selling the house because I couldn't bear to live with the memories it brought gave me enough to stay drunk for the rest of my life. It probably would have been a short life if not for Jazmine Knoles.
I was on my third Jack on ice when Jaz sat down beside me at the bar and said "Hi Rob; how've you been?"
"Not so good. You?"
"Good days and bad days. Hear you've been trying to drink yourself to death."
"Why would you care? As I remember it you always considered me a loser."
"I did not!"
As I sat there I thought back to when I'd first met Jaz. It was the seventh grade. I was smitten. It took me two months of trying before I got her to say yes to a date. The first led to several more and by the middle of the eighth grade we were going steady. That lasted till the middle of the ninth. We had a date for Saturday to go to the movies and before we left school on Friday I told her I would see her at noon on Saturday. She gave me a funny look and told me that she thought she had cancelled the date because she had to go with her parents to see her grandmother. I was pissed at the short notice, but I could understand. There were some things I had to do with my parents from time to time. When I got home my next door neighbor, Billy Neubert, asked me if I have ever been roller skating and I told him I had. He told me his dad had been given a pair of tickets to Skate City and he had given them to Billy and he asked me if I would like to go with him. Since Jaz had cancelled on me I said yes.
The first person I saw when we walked into Skate City was Jaz and she was skating with Ronnie Holbrook. He was a tenth grader and also a neighbor. I did not like Ronnie. We'd had a couple of fights over the past two years and as far as I was concerned he was also an asshole. I gave a seconds thought to going up to them and saying something like "I didn't know your grandmother was so ugly" but that probably would have gotten me in another fist fight with the asshole which would likely have gotten us thrown out of the place and barred from every coming back. I decided to just ignore them. Jaz would see me sooner or later and know she was busted and that just might be enough to ruin her day.
So ignore them I did, but they didn't ignore me. Twenty minutes after we got there Holbrook came up to me and asked if he was going to have any trouble with me. I laughed at him and said:
"Not that it matters, but you just might want to remember that the score so far is three for me and two for you and even in those two I gave as good as I got. But to answer your question there isn't any reason. She is a lying backstabbing cunt and if that is what you like in a girl you are welcome to her."
He gave me a look that he must have thought was intimidating, but to me looked ridiculous and laughable and I waked away from him. He and Jaz soon left. When I got home mom told me that Dick Moore had called and wanted me to call him back. I did and he told me a bunch of guys wanted to get together for a pick-up softball game at five. I cleared it with mom and then told him to count me in. I got home around eight and dad told me that Jaz had called twice and wanted me to call her. I didn't and she called again Sunday. Mom handed me the phone and I said:
"What do you want?"
"I want you to come over."
"Why?
"I need to explain yesterday."
"Nothing to explain. You lied to me, broke our date and went out with some other guy. That's pretty cut and dried. No explanation needed. Goodbye Jazmine."
She tried to get with me on Monday and Tuesday, but I just walked away from her. She finally got the message and stayed away from me.
I dated other girls but stayed away from going steady with any of them until the middle of the tenth grade. I was having lunch in the school cafeteria and I was sitting alone at a table for four when Jazmine sat down on the seat opposite me. I looked up from the book I was reading and she said:
"Have I been punished enough Rob? Can we please get back together?"
To be honest about it I had missed her and so I asked "What have you in mind?"
"How about a movie tonight and see where it goes from there?"
And just like that we were back together. I never did ask about the Ronnie Holbrook incident and she never offered an explanation.
Things were great until a week before senior prom. It was lunch time and I was in the school cafeteria waiting for Jazmine. I noticed that she didn't smile as she walked toward me and sat down. She looked at me and said:
"I'm sorry Rob, but I can't see you anymore. I've met someone and we seem to have an instant attraction to each other."
"A week before prom and knowing that it is probably too late for me to find another date? Thanks a bunch Miss Knoles" and I got up and walked away from her.
I couldn't find a date and I didn't want to go stag so I missed my senior prom and now here she was four years later seemingly concerned about my drinking?
"I never said you were a loser Rob."
"Sure gave me that impression."
"Damn it Rob; I was young, growing up and making mistakes like every other teenager on the planet. You going to tell me that you were perfect and didn't screw up from time to time?"
"Hardly."
"Finish your drink and let's get out of here."
"And go where?"
"To a party. If you are going to drink at least do it among friends."
It turned out it was a birthday party for Nancy Neubert who was a classmate of ours although her name was now Nancy Aldrige. There were several other classmates there and it was a little like old home week. I was talking with Billy Neubert (Nancy's brother) and he asked me what my major was.
"My major?"
"That's why you joined the Army wasn't it? So you could afford college?"
"Oh. Yes it was. I kind of got sidetracked by my parents passing."
I hadn't noticed Jazmine off to the side listening until she said "We are getting ready to fix that."
Billy looked at her and then back at me and I could read on his face what he was thinking,
"You two? Again?"
I turned to Jazmine and said "We are getting ready to fix it? How are we going to do that" putting heavy emphasis on the "We."
"Next term starts in three weeks and we (also with heavy emphasis on the "we") are going to have you signed up by then."
Billy wandered off and I asked Jazmine "You taking over the running of my life now?"
"Someone has to do it since it seems like you won't so it might as well be me."
"And you decided it should be you? Why?"
"I don't want my husband to be an alcoholic. I want him to amount to something.
"Whoa up there missy. You and I? That died a long time ago. In our senior year as I remember it."
"Yes, and we've had this conversation before. You remember? The one about being young and making teenaged mistakes. I'm not a teen anymore and I want the same thing I wanted back when I said yes when you first asked me to go steady. That would be you."
Ever been at a complete loss of what to say? That was me at that point. I finally managed to get out "I'm not an alcoholic!"
