It’s All-Good

(Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.)

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After finishing "Between Two Lovers" (Sequel to: Something We Have to Talk About), I wanted to just leave that storyline for others. I wanted to stop writing stories about cheating, and go on to other ideas I had. Both "Something We Have To Talk About" and "Between Two Lovers" is in fact only parts, chapters, of an idea I have for a novel, and far too early in my writings to think about properly doing.

Then shortly submitting "Between Two Lovers", I went to visit a long time friend of mine, Cindy. Her father was also visiting her, and since I get to see him so little, he was much of the reason I was there.

Cindy and I are very close friends and have been friends ever since we were 12 years old. Though we hadn't always lived near each other, we always stayed in contact. We shared most all of our life experiences with each other, all our ups and downs. I was there for her when her parents broke up and had their continual fights. I was at her wedding and when her children were baptized, and the same, she's been my shoulder to cry on, every time I was suffering from one more love lost, and when my mother died.

Being able to fly in and spend time with not only her and her children, but also her father is something special.

Her father is one of those unique men. He looks like something out of a past era. Since we are talking Rocky Mountains, he looks like a cowboy, either in jeans or bib-overalls, lace-up cowboy boots, and western shirts. Every piece of clothing he has on has a well worn and used appearance. He's overweight, but solid. I've seen him pick up and carry things twice my weight.

Yet, his appearance is deceptive. The reason I was willing to travel such a long distance to visit with him, is his unusual perception. He's quiet and almost shy in nature, but when he does speak on something, he's always spot on. He's never judgmental. He really does listen, and whatever he has suggested me to do, has always been the right thing. Some times I'd have to ponder on the meaning of his cryptic, slow speech, where one word usually paints a whole picture of thought, but if I really listen, I understand.

He also never tells you what to do, it's always advice, and only if asked for, never any expectations.

I've seen him sit for hours in a group conversing, waiting for his moment to speak, letting all others speak before him.

So he's the type of person I go out of my way to see. He's a value. A person to have quiet one on one talks with about serious things. A guy, a girl can talk to about not only guy things, but also other things. He's the type worth a flight on one of those overly crowded little jetliners, where everything is one class and you usually end up with someone's elbow in your side for the whole flight.

Even though he also looks rough, mean and hard, almost like a Hell's Angel, when he's with children he's a gentle lamb, a beloved pet dog who would never think of nipping or biting the small hand of a child, no matter how badly they hurt him.

With me, or any other woman, you'll never hear him speak a swear word. No matter how tired he is, he'll always stand to give his seat to a lady or older person, open the door for her, or carry anything heavy, even if it's out of his way, and he's in a hurry.

It's only if & when, that I've seen the other side of him. It's startling to see this quiet gentle man in seconds change so drastically into a rolling mountain of fury and rip into some obnoxious male, pounding him to a pulp. I've only seen it happen once, and I never want to see him that angry again in my life. It's frightening. It's traumatic to see that gentle giant that you think you know so well, become a demon from hell bent on destruction.

That moment was for me, a peek into this other world of his. A world, I never have known, and could only make guesses about, a world so foreign and strange, as if it were on a completely other planet from ours, a world harsh and brutal, cold and without consideration for social niceties. A world my father might understand, but I could never.

That day we talked about a lot of things, and my story writing came up. He was very shocked at my telling him where I had posted my story. I could see in his mind, him wondering why I would be writing such a story. I know, in his mind he still sees me as the little 12-year-old neighbor girl. That's okay, I guess. I can have babies of my own, but in his minds eye, he still sees me as a little girl.

Of course he wanted to read my story, but he didn't want to read it then. Only after Cindy told him it wasn't a porn story and he could read it in front of us, was he okay in doing so.

I found it so odd; my large laptop looked so small sitting in front of him. It looked so unusual to see his big leathery hands, hands gnarled, calloused and scared by weather and work to the point where they could neither open nor close fully, sitting perched on the now small looking keyboard.

Cindy was sitting pensively on the edge of the sofa watching him. I thought she looked even more in anticipation of his opinion than I was.

He sat; he read quietly, the first I noticed of how deep his emotions were was when he took out his pipe. Of course, he's not allowed to smoke his pipe in the house, but him taking his pipe and chewing on the stem, is always a sure sign to us all, of how deeply and emotionally he is in contemplation.

He never drinks, or parties, that I have ever seen, the only vice he allows himself is his pipe. The aroma, some times good and some times bad, always permeates anywhere he is. Even his freshly washed clothes have that smell on them. It his smell, I can go anywhere in the world and smell that smell and think of only him.

When he takes his pipe and starts to chew on the stem, you know he's distant, and even if you would speak to him, he's not there and won't hear you. So there he sat, his weather worn and wrinkled face silent and without emotion other then the slow movement of the pipe in his mouth, the smell of old burnt tobacco smoke with a hint of spices slowly enveloping us all into his solitude. The only noise to hear from him was the occasional deep and heavy outward and inward breaths forced through his nose.

Finishing the story he stood up slowly, as if he were carrying a burden and closed the lid of the laptop. Without saying a word, he turned and walked out the front door and onto the porch. There we could see him through the front room window slowly, painstakingly stuffing tobacco into his pipe from his black leather tobacco pouch.

Even after he had placed the pipe back in his mouth, for moments he stood only there staring out into the distance, his hand holding the lighter in ready, but not lighting his pipe.

I thought for a moment to go out to him, but Cindy's look stopped me. We let him stand there alone. We watched him light the pipe, and slowly smoke it to finish. All the while, he continued to stare out into the landscape beyond.

When we did finally go out on to the porch to him. He turned to me, with his eyes and face now looking tired and more worn than before. "You wrote about us." He said more as a statement than a question.

I didn't know what to say. I was speechless. When they had divorced, I had been 14 and we had moved away the year before. How much had I known of the reasoning of their divorce? I couldn't remember. Had Cindy told me things during her summer visit to me that I had forgotten, and only sub-consciously written into the story? Or was there a large part of my story that was simply universal and there are many such stories, one and the same? I had thought that I emotionally wrote of my own feelings, during a break up between an ex and supposable life-partner, into the story. I had felt that I was emotionally the Jonathan in my story. Yet, here was now Cindy's father standing in front of me saying that he was Jonathan. I didn't know what to think.

He turned and looked out again, out beyond the landscape in front of him. "You know, I forgave her for that. It took time, and it was hard. But, what I'll never be able to forgive her for, is taking Joey's flag and medals. You know, I've only got the one photo of him... from over there. She's got all the rest."

He then turned and walked into the house and down the basement stairs to his room. The room in the house, he had fought so long after the divorce to hold onto. The house he had finally paid off by himself and then given to Cindy and her husband to live in. In that house where that room was guaranteed him to come back to from his travels with his 18-wheeler, for as long as he lived. His room, built by his own hands, in what seems ages gone by.

His words were still echoing in my mind, "But, what I'll never be able to forgive her for, is taking Joey's flag and medals." So typical of him, to say one sentence and mean so much, leaving me standing there flooded and mired in thoughts and memories.

I remembered that cold March day last year. Standing at the graveside, the winds, bitter, biting winds with still no promise of spring, blowing against and up my skirt, freezing me.

I remember standing next to him, in the place where Nancy should have been. The Nancy that had died now almost four years ago on a drug overdoses. The Nancy, who had been his baby girl for so many years, only to grow up, confused and angry, not even knowing why she was so confused and angry. A Nancy lost to us, for seemingly no reason.

I remember one of the pallbearers, dressed in full dress uniform, walking up to Susan and handing her the flag now folded. The red, white and blue flag that had shortly before laid over Joey's coffin. Lying on top of the flag, for all to see, were the ribbons and medals of a National Guardsman, never to return to family. A national Guardsman, who in fulfilling his promise to country, had broken his promise to us. Leaving us alone and without him.

I remember standing there with my fist clenched in anger. Anger at seeing and knowing how many new graves bore the white cross of a guardsman lost to home and family. My fist were also clenched in anger at knowing how some states sent an overly large burden on troops abroad, while other more affluent and larger states sent less. Too many times these last years had I flown back here, only to stand again at the grave of one less neighbor or highschool friend, that I would never see growing older. Always the question in my mind, "Would my father's be the next one?" How many times would he go back there? Looking across the grassy hilltop, I knew the names and locations of each of them. Even though I was not yet thirty, I felt very old.

Standing there on the porch, I also had to think about the other emotional meaning of his words. I thought of how, even though they had been divorced for years, they never seemed to be a divorced couple in my mind. Even now, where she, finally just a couple of years ago, had married some other man. I pondered for a moment, thinking, trying to remember how many times in all these years since the divorce that they had gone back together again, just to break up later, the original travail long since forgotten and buried deep in their history. Always, they had been at their cat and mouse games. Always seeming to play their own little game of "who hurt whom, the most, or first".

Was he the real Jonathan of my story? I don't know, and I don't think I'll ever know. I do know though, that since that moment, I cannot disassociate him from the Jonathan of my story, and this makes my storyline, if I am ever to write that novel, far more complex, emotional and complicated.

That late evening in my hotel room, and even since then, I have a new goal, a goal of writing his story someday.

So since that day, I've begun to accumulate and write down the memories of him I have.

I remember him telling me of the time he was somewhere in western Pennsylvania. It was an early autumn morning, in a small older town.

I can imagine the little white houses, with porches leading out to older garden lawns sprinkled with massive oak and maple tree, their leaves now turning shades of red, brown and yellow. I can see in my mind the pumpkin heads already cut out and waiting for Halloween, perched on these porches. The children dressed in costumes later on during Halloween evening, scurrying from house to house, and filling their paper bags with small candies.

I can see him now, with his truck, just like he says, "Nine axles down and rolling", the heavy piece of machinery overlapping way out beyond the boundaries of his trailer which is barely inches off the ground. I see the lights of the police cars flashing in the early morning, where dawn has just broken, and no one yet has left their houses. Each police car is either blocking a street, or guiding/following him and his load. I hear the crackling of the radio talk between him and the men walking alongside, watching and instructing him through the curvy streets of the town. I see him stepping out onto the running board of his cab, the truck still creeping along in slow motion, his right hand on the wheel, he is looking back, guiding the load of his trailer mire inches from light poles and other obstructions.

In seeing all this, I wonder, I want to know, what took him from his secure job as a mechanic, home each and every night to wander the countryside like he is doing now. I want to know and feel his emotions. I want to tell his story to others.

Yet, the next day when I arrived at Cindy's house he was gone again, elusive as always, his W-9 and him now again alone on the roads and highways, for the next six months.