romance

I start dating Charles–College Memoirs: Life At Roanoke–October 1994, Part 7

Mike’s driving was now a byword, and we had just had a debate in the Journal about it.  Astrid told us about the time she wanted to say, “Pick one lane and stay in it!”  There was another time he scared her half to death by nearly running into a truck.

But now we had to deal with Charles’ driving, as well.  He sped like a maniac and called everybody who didn’t a “putz.”  (That’s the first time I ever heard that term.)  He spent so much time getting mad and flipping people off and saying “you putz” that I worried for the safety of us passengers in his little, black car.

On Sunday, October 16 at 5pm, he took us down to Milwaukee to see Pearl in the hospital.  At least I wasn’t in the front seat watching, but in the back seat with Sharon.  She liked to zone and muse in the car and not talk, just like I often did; on the way back he thought she’d gone to sleep.

(But when I went to KFC and a movie with him on the night of the Shantytown, which I will describe later, I had to sit up front and see firsthand how he drove.  😛  )

At least I didn’t have to deal with Phil’s driving anymore.  He was an inattentive, erratic driver, possibly worse than Mike or Charles, often taking his hands off the steering wheel and dancing around.

That’s why Persephone and I both laughed when Persephone told me one day that he offered to drive a group of people to Fond du Lac for dancing.

And one time junior year, Carrie told me she was waiting at a stop sign when she saw Phil and me in a minivan; Phil took the corner and almost hit her.

We planned to go to Florida over Winterim with Pearl, whose parents would help pay.  But now Pearl couldn’t go because of her surgery, so her parents decided not to help us go to Florida.

At some point during the year, however, possibly Spring Break, they took Pearl to Florida as a family trip.  We were jealous, of course.

As it turned out, though, my taking a Winterim instead of going to Florida helped lead to meeting my future husband (and we went to Florida on our honeymoon).  But more on that when the time comes.

Pearl loathes Barney.  The nurses got their wires crossed somehow and thought Pearl liked Barney.  So they gave her a purple dinosaur balloon.  Pearl said to us, “Death to Barney!”

We all sat down in Pearl’s big, private room and watched some show about ways people got engaged and married.  I felt a bit uncomfortable, thinking of Phil, probably wondering why these marriage shows were everywhere now, but tried to hide it.

Charles said he liked tradition, and would go all out for his engagement and wedding: a buggy ride in the park, top hats, tuxedos.  My other friends weren’t too sure about tradition.  I said, “What’s wrong with tradition?” and Charles smiled at me.

****

I sat with Carrie and Elaine one evening at dinner, possibly Tuesday the 18th.  My roommies hadn’t shown up yet.  Carrie was Catherine’s roommate sophomore year.  They didn’t get along, so Carrie ended up with Elaine the following year.

Elaine’s parents used to be a priest and a nun!  (They went from being celibates, to being so lovey-dovey that Elaine couldn’t stand it.)  Carrie and Elaine often hung out with the Group.

Carrie said, “Persephone and Phil O’Hara have been going out.  I’ll have to warn her about Phil.”

No, I never talked to Carrie about Phil; she said this all on her own.  Maybe she heard things from Pearl, Sharon or Catherine.  Or maybe she always disliked him.  But it was comforting that other people saw him this way, after I was abused and unceremoniously discarded by him.

Then Persephone sat down with us and said, “Phil and I aren’t dating anymore.  He said something really bad at a really bad time.”  She wouldn’t tell us what it was, or what the situation was.  I didn’t ask; I didn’t want to know.

That evening, we had an IV meeting in the gazebo by Jubilee, probably an executive board meeting, which we had at 7pm each Tuesday.

It was a warm evening, lit by a moon which would be full the next night, a beautiful background to our meeting.  Charles leaned up against the inside wall of the gazebo and looked through the openings at the moon, saying how pretty it was.

I started back to my room after the meeting, but Charles asked me to go for a walk instead.  I was suspicious.  We walked along the side of the road in the moonlight and down to the lake.  We sat at the picnic table by the lake and he asked me on a date.

The subject of Phil came up for a moment and Charles said, stroking my hair and caressing my back, “You deserve better.”

I said, “I don’t want a serious relationship.”

“I didn’t say it would be serious.”

I was reluctant to take his hand, so he said, “You’ll set the pace.”

Charles walked me back to my room and my roommies soon discovered why he’d asked me on a walk.

However, even though I’d dreamed of this, and even though I’d been attracted to him ever since I met him, it started to fade as soon as he asked me out.  I didn’t know why.

But then, I’d felt that way soon after I started dating Peter and Phil.  It went away both times.  Maybe this would go away, as well.  Maybe it was just shyness, or getting used to a change, going from liking a guy to actually dating him.  It’s not as if that happened often.

One day in the next week, I sat with Catherine and Kay at a meal.

Catherine said, “You and Charles are a better match than you and Phil, because you’re both ‘royalty.'”

Through my paternal grandmother, my line goes back to King Duncan, immortalized in the play Macbeth.  Charles said he was descended from a Sicilian noble–a duke, I think.  I believe he also said he was a reincarnation of some noble or royal.  (Yeah, right, but anyway.)

Catherine and I spoke of Phil and I said, “I’ve decided Phil is a jerk.”

Kay got very quiet.  I later learned that Phil had been confiding in her.

I also said, “Charles and I are going slow because I don’t want this to be a rebound thing.”

Charles and I started sitting next to each other at meals (he usually sat with my friends, and had become a part of the Group).  He came over to my apartment in the evening and hung out.  We always watched Alternative Nation at eleven and Mystery Science Theater:3000 at midnight, which in those days was played in hour installments.

We cuddled up, but no kissing or anything else.  I didn’t want to fall into sin, you see, as badly as my body missed what Phil and I used to do.  Charles was soft and cuddly like a teddy bear.

We got along very well, having several things in common, such as a love of alternative music.  We talked a lot and enjoyed each other’s company.

We were both Republican, though his views were more conservative than mine, which did make me nervous at times (he could be loud with people).  (I eventually became a moderate Independent, and around 2004 or so, turned more liberal.  Around 2010 or later, I realized I was a Democrat.)

He was 24, which seemed old to me.  He was a senior when I was a freshman in high school.  “You’re one of those old seniors!” I said, and laughed.  He made a sound of fake annoyance.

Sharon didn’t hide from Charles her annoyance that he was always there in the evening.  Later on, my roommies and I thought he had a crush on her because he liked women with opinions, she wasn’t afraid to give him hers, and he acted like he liked her.

****

Sharon and I began straightening up the microfiche drawers at the library, making room for new microfiches, putting them in order, etc.

It seemed tedious at first, but with both of us doing it, it became a chance to talk on and on about guys and life and things like that.  Many of the microfiched magazines were short-lived, and Sharon started calling them “failures.”  “It’s another failure,” she would say as she put one into the drawer.

I think I listened to alternative music as early as elementary school, about 1983.  I remember listening to a little-known station that soon got replaced by Sunny 101 (shudder).  It was great.  They played songs U93 didn’t play, such as Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom.”

Then there was the stuff played on the Notre Dame University station late at night, which I discovered back in my junior year of high school and listened to all through college (on breaks).

And I also liked the alternative tapes that the weird, redheaded, leather-jacketed skinhead brought in to Drawing class my senior year of high school.  He played Misfits and Faith No More.  Everyone else at our table ripped on them, and said, “These Misfits don’t know how to play their instruments!”  But when one of the guys asked me if I liked it, I said I did.

Of course, now alternative music was turning oddly normal and boring.  102.1 overplayed a lot of so-so songs but played little of the really good stuff, such as “Deliverance” by Compulsion (which I saw on MTV).

Alternative, suddenly popular, became too popular for its own good–which eventually ruined it.  It became a cliché, a joke, and lost a great deal of its popularity, just as heavy metal had done in the late 80s and early 90s.

It was replaced by electronica, techno, even swing for a short time.  By 1998, listeners lamented that all the bands sounded alike now–and, for an example, named several bands which all sounded like Matchbox-20.

It took the fusion of metal and alternative, forming a new style of music around 1999, to breathe new life into alternative.

****

The night of the annual Shantytown, Charles and I went to see Only You, a cute movie about a young girl who grows up believing her future husband’s name has been revealed to her on a ouija board.

Charles and I loved the Italian scenery, Charles especially because of his descent.

I wondered if Charles and I were meant to be together, because at the time we seemed more suited than Phil and I, and he was kinder.

We had a wonderful time, both at the movie and at Kentucky Fried Chicken, where we went afterwards and talked about many things.

He told me about his time in the Air Force, which I thought was cool.  He didn’t want to join a frat because he’d already been through boot camp.

(Unfortunately, he changed his mind for some reason in the spring semester, and joined–can you guess which frat?–the Zetas.  Why did my exes keep joining the Zetas?)

We got back to Roanoke and went over to the Shantytown, which, as usual, was on the large lawn between Old Main and Krueger.  Almost everyone in the IV group was there, since they were all sleeping in either the IV shanty or the Phi-Delt shanty.

Clarissa slept in the RC-Cab shanty.  I think Pearl, back home from the hospital and on pain medication, was in the Phi-Delt shanty.  Mike, of course, was sleeping in the IV shanty.  One other person, a woman, slept in the IV shanty.  Of course Mike and this person would never do anything naughty, but it looked bad enough to joke about.

The shanties, as usual, were all cool, some cooler than others.  Astrid decorated the IV shanty with various Christian designs, crosses, fishes, trees and verses.  She was very proud of it.  The rest of us may also have helped.

Charles and I joined our friends in roasting marshmallows by the bonfire on pointed sticks.  Carrie or Elaine said one of us had a crush on a guy, but wouldn’t tell me who.  I feared, of course, that it was Phil.

I don’t remember who had the crush or if I ever found out who it was on, but I doubt it was Phil; she was probably just shy.  As a group, we entertained someone’s young son with ghost stories.

Charles and I went back to the apartment for a while, since neither of us were sleeping in the shanties.  Then we went to the door and exchanged a good-bye kiss.

It was the first and only kiss we ever shared, and very long and sweet.  I was enchanted by the evening and felt attracted to him at the time, and like I was really starting to fall for him.

It was a pity I didn’t feel that way for long.

Index 
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

 October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound

January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD

 February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?

April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign

May 1992:

Sophomore Year 

Summer 1992:

September 1992:

October 1992–Shawn’s Exasperating Ambivalence:

November 1992:

December 1992:

January 1993:

February 1993:

March 1993:

April 1993:

May 1993:

Junior Year 

Summer 1993: Music, Storm and Prophetic Dreams

September 1993:

October 1993:

November 1993:

December 1993:

January 1994:

February 1994:

March 1994:

April 1994:

May 1994:

Senior Year 

June 1994–Bits of Abuse Here and There:

July & August 1994:

September 1994–Divorce: The Long, Dark, Painful Tunnel:

October 1994:

November 1994:

December 1994:

January 1995:

February 1995:

March 1995:

April 1995:

May 1995:

 

 

Film Class; I Spend a Night with Phil–College Memoirs: Life at Roanoke–January 1994, Part 2

[Please note: This is NOT the “Tracy” of my other memoir, The Darkness Engulfs Me.  The Tracy of “Darkness” lived in a far different region, far away from mine, and was probably in middle school when I was in college.]

Film Class

We saw many classics in Film class.  The first was D.W. Griffith’s 1915 silent movie, Birth of a Nation.  It may have been blatantly racist, but it was important because it introduced many techniques Griffith had invented, such as irising (blacking out the picture around a particular thing you want to emphasize) and cross-cutting (cutting back and forth from one scene to another during such things as battle sequences).

He was a filmmaking genius, and the movie looked so real, even seen on a small TV screen.  Maybe it was the “real” look of the actresses, who didn’t seem Hollywood perfect like the actresses of following years.

They didn’t look painted-up with makeup, even though silent pictures required special makeup, so maybe they were made up differently than in other silent films.  It seemed as if these people would look in real life exactly as they appeared onscreen, except in color.  The film was surprisingly clear.

As for the other movies mentioned in the textbook, I wasn’t even aware before this that silent movies were made in the days of Merry Widow hats and leg-of-mutton sleeves.  I thought they started in the 20s.  It was so strange to see movie actresses dressed this way when they weren’t in a costume drama.

It was hard to have to read all the lines and hear only music for three hours, which probably made the movie seem even longer, as did our hard, classroom seats–but it wasn’t impossible.  If it weren’t for the racist plot, the movie could actually have been great.

In the beginning, it introduced itself with a words-only screen in which it called itself the “greatest movie ever.”  Considering movies were brand-new, this was quite an arrogant claim.

Oddly enough, this movie was a catalyst for the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the 20th century.  The Klan had disbanded in 1869, and then this movie came along and praised it.  This movie may have become almost obscure over the years, but in its day it inspired major controversy.

History repeats itself more than many people realize: My textbook read on page 62, “The film was suppressed in some cities for fear of race riots.”  I believe a similar thing happened in the early 90s with one or two movies about the ghetto.

Maybe the next day after we saw Birth of a Nation, it was time for much more pleasant movies by Charlie Chaplin.  We saw one or two of the shorts (I think one was One A.M.) and then The Tramp.

The next day, we saw the impressive talkie The Great Dictator.  Hitler had supposedly taken his peculiar mustache from Chaplin to make himself seem more lovable to the German people; now, Chaplin returned the favor, and played Hitler (Adenoid Hynkel) in one of two roles in the movie.

He poked fun at Hitler in a well-deserved fashion.  I loved when Hynkel gave speeches interspersed with such words as “Wienerschnitzel” and “Sauerkraut” and other German words for food that had no place in the speech, and coughs and German words with very English pronunciations (like “joo-den” for “Juden,” which should be “yoo-den”).

I also loved “Tomainia” for Germany, “Bacteria” for fascist Italy, and “Osterlich” for Austria.  The last one was my favorite, because it sounded like “ostrich,” and Austria in German is Österreich (oes-tehr-rike).  This movie was often serious, but often funny.  The whole class seemed to love this movie.  It was certainly a lot easier to take than Birth of a Nation.

This film class taught me that there are many, many classics and non-classic but brilliant films which have fallen into obscurity because they are silent movies.  In the early 2010s, I would finally have a chance to see Intolerance (Griffith’s ironic response to people being “intolerant” of his own intolerant movie).

I have seen Metropolis (the robot movie clipped in Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga” video) on TV in 1985, on DVD in the 2000s, and on TCM in the 2010s, the latter being the finally restored, mostly-complete version.

I have also seen Nosferatu and many other silent movies, thanks to TCM running silent movies on Sunday ever since around 2005/2006.

Since I haven’t been able to find my Winterim syllabus, I don’t remember when or in what particular order we saw the movies, or what they all were.  But I do remember they were in chronological order.

I do remember seeing Citizen Kane for the first time and discovering what a masterful work it was (the shadowing, in particular, could not have worked in color, but is exquisite in black and white), The Grapes of Wrath, It’s a Wonderful Life, Meet John Doe, Sunset Boulevard, Rear Window, Easy Rider, Dr. Strangelove (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb), The Conversation, Do the Right Thing.

Most of these movies I had never seen before, so I would associate them ever after with Film class.  I liked most of the movies we saw, too.

Since it had been years since I read the book Grapes of Wrath, I didn’t mind the film’s liberties with it.  (Though I hated the book, I am a purist about movie adaptations.)

Rear Window was a fun and sometimes erotic play on the voyeurism of watching TV.  The eroticism may not be apparent to everyone, but it, according to our textbook, had to do with the long camera lens sitting on Jeffries’ lap, and his lack of sexual interest in anything he didn’t see in the TV-screen-like windows across the street.

The textbook also considered certain parts of Dr. Strangelove to be sexual jokes: the two planes in the beginning, apparently copulating; the bomb at the end looking like a phallus symbol which Slim Pickens rides down to earth.

It was a great pity that we could not hear Dr. Strangelove very well in that classroom despite Dr. Nelson’s attempts to fix the problem.  This distressed him, because we couldn’t hear all the jokes or appreciate just how good this movie was.  We made note of this, and didn’t judge the movie as bad just because we couldn’t hear it.  No one knew why it was so hard to hear, because all the other videos sounded just fine.

I went to San Francisco in 1999, and probably saw many of the sights shown in The Conversation.  Though the movie often dragged, at the same time I couldn’t see how it could be cut.  There was something professional and intriguing, yet abhorrent about the way Gene Hackman’s character kept recording and endlessly replaying the targets’ conversations.

Do the Right Thing both amused and horrified us.  Many of the scenes were funny.  But the deaths in the end were so awful, especially the one of Radio Raheem, the kid with the jam box, since it seemed he hadn’t done nothing wrong except make an error in judgment.  It was such a shame that he, whose jam box was everywhere during the movie, would be killed, so ending his music-loving days.

Also, I saw in this movie what I had read about, perhaps somewhere in the textbook: that in the scenery and composition of his movies, Spike Lee used colors that complemented black skin.  It made for a truly beautiful effect.

Some of these movies made you feel good and noble; some made you feel bad and part of a diseased society.  But you could see what made them all great and/or significant movies in one way or another.

They weren’t all wonderful movies, but even Birth of a Nation used groundbreaking techniques, making it significant, though not great.  I don’t remember what other movies we saw than the ones I’ve already mentioned, just that I liked most of them.

Nelson also wrote suggested movies on the board every day, movies which were being shown on TV that night or week.  This was the first I heard of The Graduate, but I didn’t get to watch it.

I saw very few of the movies, though I did try.  I wanted to see Stalag 17 again, but it was playing on AMC, which Roanoke’s cable system, Warner, didn’t have.  I did see North by Northwest on the 18th and used it as a subject for a response paper, which I noted in my day planner on January 19.

I saw Strangers on a Train and wrote a response paper on it, which I noted on January 20.  I don’t remember if I saw A Night at the Opera, but since it was the Marx brothers, I know I wanted to.  I wrote down movies even if they were on AMC, probably just in case I still got a chance to see them, however remote.

I Spend a Night with Phil

The miniseries Tales of the City came to PBS; Wisconsin played the censored version, the one without nudity.  The movie played over two nights or more.

I discovered after the first installment that Pearl and maybe Sharon had come across it and watched it.  As demented as it was (it was about a young, innocent woman’s experiences in the twisted world of 70s San Francisco), with its marijuana brownies and gays and lesbians and free love and a woman who used to be a man, we couldn’t take our eyes off it.

On Wednesday the 12th, Pearl asked me to record it for her that night, since she would have to miss it.

On Friday, January 14, apparently I was supposed to expect Sharon to come over and hang out in my room for a while, but I don’t think she did; Phil, however, did.

We had a long conversation, during which I got my point across, that he wasn’t being fair to either Tracy or me.

Clarissa was out of the room.  It was bitterly cold outside.  That was the first night of the sub-zero temperatures we had that year.  It was cold in our room, too, so as Phil sat in a desk chair, I sat in another chair in front of him and wrapped myself up in my flag afghan.

He said that friends could marry and be happy even though they weren’t in love with each other.  One of his relatives had done this.  But I didn’t buy it.  Sure it could happen, but why settle for a marriage or dating relationship with someone who’s just a friend, when you have someone you can love wanting to love you?

To this day, I don’t understand why he chose Tracy over me.  Got there first, hogwash; he already knew I liked him and wanted to go out with him.  He’d come right out and asked me about this before he chose Tracy.  And he said he knew Tracy better, but he could’ve gotten to know me before making his decision.

I also didn’t know that during this conversation, he realized he was in love with me.  He didn’t tell me this for maybe a couple of weeks.  It was also much later that he told me how badly he wanted to unwrap my afghan and ravish me.

We finally went over to the Phi-Delt suite, where a bunch of us were to watch my tape of Tales in Jennifer’s room.  We ripped on the insanity of the movie all the way through, but enjoyed it at the same time.

Phil said his birthday was on the 16th.  He would be 20, the same age as I was.

I don’t remember what else we did that night, but I do remember that it got so bitterly cold (wind chills were probably well below zero) that Phil and I didn’t want to go outside to go home.  When Jennifer and her roommate asked us to stay overnight, Phil agreed, and then so did I.  I think Clarissa left anyway.  I only lived in the next dorm, but if Phil was going to stay there, I wanted to as well.

Jennifer’s Mike was also there; he and Jennifer cuddled in her bed.  Several of us crashed on the carpeted floor; I slept with my coat as a blanket and maybe also as a mattress.  It was very cold on that floor, but the room wasn’t as cold as some other rooms were.

It was a long night and I got little sleep, since the floor was not at all comfortable.  Phil slept nearby in his jacket.  We inched closer together all night; I think some of our friends noticed this.  Phil had passionate dreams about me.

I was glad when morning light finally came into the room and I no longer had to try to sleep on that hard floor.  When it came time for people to wake up, Phil woke up and sat in a chair for a while, watching me.

I suspected he was watching me, but my eyes were closed, so I didn’t know for sure until several days or weeks later, when he told me.  He also later told me that he stayed there because of me.

After he left, I spent some time in the lounge with Pearl, maybe Jennifer, and Jennifer’s roommate.  I spoke of Phil, but they called me the Other Woman.  I was convinced he really wanted me, not her, but they weren’t.  They seemed to think it was really Tracy he wanted, and that it was hopeless for me.

On Tuesday, it was so cold that classes were canceled.  For Wisconsin, that has to be pretty dang cold: We’re not wimps up here.

****

According to January 27 in my day planner, that day I got a Gothic novel from the library to entertain myself over Winterim Break.  I may have gotten The Monk at that time, though I thought I got it earlier and had the flu while reading it.

The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis was written in the 18th century.  This strange book amused me while it scared me, because of all the sex going on in this 18th-century novel.  No wonder it was considered pornographic for the time!  (Of course, this was the same century that produced Dangerous Liaisons.)  For ours, it’s pretty tame, however.

It’s about a monk tempted by a novice who’s really a woman in disguise.  Meanwhile, he also lusts after a 15-year-old girl he saw around town, and plots to rape her.  She wants to marry this guy she’s just met.

There’s also a couple who break up for some reason I forget, and she enters a convent.  The guy comes to see her, and they end up doing things that they shouldn’t.  Then, even though she had a part in it, the girl calls the guy a foul seducer.

There’s more, but just in case you want to read the book, I don’t want to give away what happens.  I probably finished reading the book on Friday, March 6.  In February I told Phil about it, and he jokingly scolded me for reading such a racy book.

****

On the 27th, Pearl talked to Phil, and he told her he was able to date other people as well as Tracy.  The problem was, he’d just found out about another girl who liked him, even though he wasn’t that interested in her.  (I think she was 16, and he recently discovered that wasn’t “legal,” so he wouldn’t want to put himself in temptation’s way and end up in jail for statutory.)

On the 28th, everyone else left for Winterim Break, and I stayed.  I had tried calling Phil the night before, but he wasn’t home.  Now he called me, wanting to hang out, if the weather allowed him to come to the campus that night.  It was supposed to be pretty snowy, but he came anyway, around 8:30.  Once, while Clarissa was out of the room, he said,

“I decided that Tracy is a good friend and will stay around.”  He talked as if he broke up with Tracy nicely.  She understood, saying she didn’t expect to hold onto him, anyway.  (Not until summer did he admit that he wasn’t so nice.  In fact, he said to her, “I’m sick of being nice.”)

He was available again.  This made me happy, of course.  Finally!  No more “other woman” stuff from people!  And note the date–exactly two years after the day Peter broke up with me.

I wondered if this was deliberate timing on God’s part, a consolation, giving me someone better (so I thought at the time) on the anniversary of the day that was so black for me.  As for Peter, all I had left for him was friendship and concern.  What I’d felt the past few months was probably nostalgia.

Phil stayed to watch Mystery Science Theater: 3000 with us, though finally Clarissa wanted him to leave so she could go to bed.  Phil and I stood outside in the hallway for a few minutes to say goodbye.

He looked like he might want to kiss me, but as far as I was concerned, this was our first “date” since we became a couple, and kissing should wait for the second date.  He seemed to sense this–maybe it was my body language–and didn’t try.

****

On Saturday the 29th, Phil came over to pick me up at 4:30.  It was now Winterim Break, and we had no homework to worry about.

As we walked along the sidewalk that led from the side door nearest the suites, I looked up at Phil’s clean-shaven face and thought, “He doesn’t look as cute now!”  I had a strange, momentary loss of interest in him.

But I remembered my loss of interest with Peter soon after we started dating, and realized that this would probably soon pass.  I also soon asked him to grow his beard back.

(I didn’t use to like beards.  Maybe I did now because all the alternative rockers were wearing goatees now, so all the college boys were also wearing goatees when the school year began, so I began to think goatees look cool.  I still think so.  Phil’s beard was more shaggy than a neatly-clipped goatee, and had patches which did not grow properly, but I still liked it.)

We went to Phil’s house to watch movies: Top Gun, Dead Poets Society and Room With a View.

I thought he played these for me because he loved them, which impressed me; he told me much later that he liked View more because it was good for dates, than as a movie.  At the time, however, I innocently thought that his liking it showed how sweet he was.

As for Dead Poets Society, I believe he legitimately liked this one, because Robin Williams was his idol.

My mom and I had watched View before, the uncut version with the skinny-dipping men getting caught by women.  (Turns out that really is in the book, even though it was written about a century ago.)  Mom said, “Whoops!”

We watched these movies in Phil’s tiny room.  He had no bed, just a couch, which he later said was a sofa bed.  There was no room for a regular bed.

On the wall with the door was his full entertainment center, with TV, S–‘s Marcus Cable with Weather Channel reports for S– (rather than Green Bay, which we got at Roanoke–and they even had different colors, fonts and features), VCR, Nintendo, and possibly a stereo.  He even had remote controls.

Also in the entertainment center was a porcelain bird, a beautiful, white sculpture, maybe a foot high or shorter.  It was probably a falcon, though people thought it was an owl.  He later told me about the artist he got it from (I forget the story now).  When we began talking about engagement, he said it would be my engagement ring, since he didn’t have the money for a real one.

Up on the back of his door was a picture, drawn on a piece of notebook paper.  I think it was a unicorn, and around it were the words, “I love you.”  I hadn’t drawn it, of course, so I smiled and asked Phil what it was.  I may have feared it was from Tracy, but it was from girlfriend number 6.

I think he had broken up with her only the previous summer, and I don’t think he was mad at her for anything, so he still hadn’t gotten around to removing the picture.  I smiled, completely without jealousy, and said nothing about him taking it down.  But once, I got up to go the bathroom, came back, and noticed it had been removed.

As we sat on the couch watching movies, getting progressively closer, Phil’s four-year-old nephew kept walking in and talking to us, because the door didn’t have a lock.

He brought in his drink; he chatted with and smiled at me; he acted like a four-year-old who didn’t understand the concept of dating and wanting to be alone.  We laughed.

He finally fell asleep in the living room.  Phil and I got even closer then, with Phil stroking my hair and kissing the top of my head.

After the movies, Phil turned off the TV.  He sat beside me on the left arm of the couch, and looked at me.  He half-smiled and may have nodded his head.  Then he leaned over and kissed me, leaning me down onto my back on the couch.

He told me he’d liked me as long as I’d liked him, and that’s how long he’d been waiting to kiss me.

We shared so many long kisses that evening that my lips grew tired and chapped.  But my stupid daily wear contacts dried out as it got later and later, so I finally had to reluctantly tell Phil that I had to go home and take them out.

During this date or the next, Phil told me that Peter had warned him about going out with me.  He named some reasons, and said he had no problem with them.  At least one was news to me.

Phil agreed with me that the reasons were petty, and I said how glad I was to be with someone who was not petty.  He said, “Peter said, ‘Phil, she waited outside the bathroom for me!'”

We both thought this was the most ridiculous thing we’d ever heard.  Where else was I supposed to go, we wondered?  Was I supposed to wander all over the building while he was in the bathroom?  Was I supposed to ditch him there and go off to class without him?

A short time later, Phil and I were alone in the cafeteria and about to leave.  We went over to the doors, then he went into the men’s bathroom, which was between the two sets of doors leading to the hill outside.

I leaned up against a table which had been used for holding various foods during the meal, having nowhere else to go.

Phil came out of the bathroom, saw me, said with a grin, “You waited outside the bathroom for me!” and kissed me for it.  He couldn’t imagine somebody not doing this!

My husband also can’t figure out why Peter had a problem with it, and once got upset with me because I went to a nearby cafe in the movie theater instead of waiting outside the bathroom for him!

Whenever we’re out and about, or traveling, and have to use the bathroom, we wait outside the bathroom for each other.  So Peter–WHAT THE HECK was so wrong with this?

On Thursday, March 9, 2000, several of my college friends came to my home and, with my husband and me, went to a restaurant for dinner.  As we were leaving, the girls stopped in the bathroom for five minutes or so.

And you know what?  We didn’t go out to the cars, oh no.  We all stood and waited (not my idea) right outside the bathroom for them, with the guys holding their coats, and nobody said a word about it!

I don’t think Phil ever did agree with any of the things Peter told him were supposedly “wrong” with me.  For the record, when Phil broke up with me, I don’t believe he used any of those reasons.

In fact, when I told Phil early on that being with Peter too much destroyed our relationship, and that I didn’t want to spend all my time with Phil for fear it would happen again with him, Phil said,

“I’ve had ex-girlfriends tell me that if they’d spent more time with me and knew more about me, like they know now, they wouldn’t have broken up with me.  I want to spend as much time with a girlfriend as possible so this doesn’t happen again.”

Peter also told Phil and Phil’s mother that I had talked about marriage all the time.  So I told Phil what really happened, that I only talked about marriage all the time because Peter did the same and we were essentially engaged.

Though in many ways I was not yet aware of, Phil was bad for me, in some ways he was good for me, at least for a while, because he showed me that Peter had indeed been petty and not all guys have problems with these things.

Phil said Peter was right about one thing: that I was a good kisser.  Hearing that even an ex-boyfriend would say this about me, was flattering.  Hearing that two guys thought this about me was even more flattering.

Shawn had complained about how I kissed–but who cared anymore?  This proved that it was just Shawn being his usual hypercritical self, never satisfied with anything about me or anything I did.

I was furious with Peter for trying to keep Phil from going out with me.  Peter seemed to have turned into Mr. Studmuffin, constantly finding new girlfriends, while Phil was the first guy I’d found since Peter who truly wanted to go out with me.

I deserved love, too.  And didn’t he realize that the best way for me to get over him was a new love?

This bit of evidence makes me wonder if other guys did not ask me out, because Peter poisoned the well with his lies and half-truths about me.

As he drove me home with the radio on Top-40, he sang along with songs that said, “I love you.”

****

The next night, the 30th, I didn’t wear my contacts, so I could stay as late as I wanted to.  We ended up falling asleep on the couch, holding each other all night.  Yes, we were fully clothed.

We often did this over the next few weeks, though soon it began to be too uncomfortable to spend the night holding each other on a couch.  He would begin to pull the couch into a queen-sized bed instead.

The first night, however, it seemed wonderfully comfortable and romantic to lie unmoving and holding each other on a couch.

The next morning, right after we woke up, I had to hide in Phil’s room until he spoke to his mom.  When he did, she said it was OK that I was there.

On the way back to Roanoke, he put his hand on my knee, sang along with love songs again, and said, “Don’t think I don’t mean it.”

A declaration of love this early?  Aren’t guys supposed to be reluctant to commit, scared away by girls who say “I love you” too early?

Though I loved hearing him say “I love you,” I didn’t know what to do about it.  Though I could be in love with him already, it was too soon to be sure.

When we got back to Roanoke, I began to feel as if Phil were already wearing on me.  This transient feeling made me a bit sad after Phil left.

What’s this, I finally have a boyfriend, one I really like, and already I don’t want him anymore?

Phil said to Clarissa with a smile as he dropped me off, “I think she’s getting tired of me already.”  I don’t know how he knew.

But it only lasted a few hours or more, the aftermath of forbidden fruit no longer being forbidden, but at the time I didn’t know what was going on.

Peter told Phil that I moved very slowly, and that we didn’t kiss until maybe a week or two after we started dating.  Phil told him we’d just spent the night on his couch, and Peter was shocked.

As I told Phil, I couldn’t figure out why he was so shocked.  I often crawled into Peter’s bed at night when I spent the weekend or a vacation at his house, and we both had wished that I could stay there all night.

I would have, but Peter told me his parents would probably go ballistic and perhaps ban me from his room entirely.  We didn’t want to have sex; we just wanted to cuddle.  I’m serious, so don’t laugh or say “sure.”

So I wondered why Peter thought I wouldn’t sleep fully-clothed and chastely on Phil’s couch on one of our first dates.  Did Peter forget so soon?  Oh yeah, he had a way of twisting the truth about me.

As I also told Phil, the only reason Peter and I didn’t kiss right away was because he took so long to do it.  I would have gladly kissed Peter much sooner, but though he had plenty of chances to kiss me goodnight, he always chickened out (as he told me later) and hugged me instead.  It made me very frustrated with him, since I wanted to kiss a guy before I died.

Also, Peter obviously had no clue how far I had already gone with Shawn.  I wanted to go back to innocence, stay away from the things I did with Shawn, but I was hardly the innocent one Peter thought I was, anymore.

I soon learned that Peter was thinking of joining the Church of Wicca.  From Christian to atheist to Wiccan: what a change in just a few years!  And how incompatible we would have been!

On Tuesday night, February the 1st, just before Spring Semester started, I don’t think I had a class very early the next morning, though Phil did.  But at the time he didn’t care, and was more interested in kissing me than in taking me back to school and then going to bed.

Late that night, Phil’s brother Dave suddenly burst into the room wearing nothing but briefs, and said in a scolding tone, “Phil, you have an 8:00!”

He left soon after, and I thought that was so strange.  How could he have been so bold as to 1) come into the room without knocking while I was in it and 2) come into the room in his underwear while I was in it?

I believe he was well aware that I was there, so ignorance was not an excuse.  I think Phil said Dave really didn’t care.

I was soon to discover that both Dave and his mother had a habit of bursting into Phil’s room without knocking.  They did this no matter who was in his room.

Index 
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

 October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound

January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD

 February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?

April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign

May 1992:

Sophomore Year 

Summer 1992:

September 1992:

October 1992–Shawn’s Exasperating Ambivalence:

November 1992:

December 1992:

January 1993:

February 1993:

March 1993:

April 1993:

May 1993:

Junior Year 

Summer 1993: Music, Storm and Prophetic Dreams

September 1993:

October 1993:

November 1993:

December 1993:

January 1994:

February 1994:

March 1994:

April 1994:

May 1994:

Senior Year 

June 1994–Bits of Abuse Here and There:

July & August 1994:

September 1994–Divorce: The Long, Dark, Painful Tunnel:

October 1994:

November 1994:

December 1994:

January 1995:

February 1995:

March 1995:

April 1995:

May 1995:

 

That Fateful First Date with Phil; Complication: A Rival; Call from Shawn!; Another Meeting with Peter–College Memoirs: Life at Roanoke–December 1993, Part 2

[Please note: The Tracy in these memoirs has absolutely nothing to do with the Richard and Tracy of my 2007-2013 abuse story.]

That Fateful First Date with Phil, Pt. 2; Complication: A Rival

Pearl told me that Phil had been seen at the movies with Tracy earlier in the year, and that he wouldn’t tell Pearl where he spent the night on the Saturday in between the choir’s Christmas concerts.  She thought he didn’t want to tell her.  But we agreed there wasn’t necessarily anything to all that.

Before dinner, we saw Phil in the Campus Center lounge, about 4:30.  I was shy and happy and probably smiled a bit.  I could barely hear my own “See ya.”

Sharon said he turned to me when he said, “140 minutes!”–but I didn’t see him look at me, and had to do some figuring to be sure it was said to me.  Yep, it was 140 minutes to 6:50.

Sharon said, “Ooh, he’s a hot one–he’s looking forward to it.”  She looked in the Campus Shop window and said, mimicking me, “‘Is he getting something for me?’  No, he’s not in there, Nyssa, so don’t get excited.”

It didn’t click in Pearl’s mind, when we ate an early dinner, that Tracy was at the next table with a girl who worked in the library with me.  I didn’t even see them.

Pearl told Jennifer to “ask Nyssa who she has a date with tonight.”

Somebody told her, or she guessed, who it was.

Later on, Pearl told Cindy, “Nyssa’s going out with Phil tonight.”

Tracy probably heard her.

Cindy said, “I thought he was seeing Tracy.  But if he said yes….”

Later, I said to Pearl, “Whether or not he ever did see Tracy, I have him tonight.”

I sat on the stairs by the side door of Krueger, and checked the other doors two times.  It was getting late, 10 past 7–Where was he?  I prayed he’d come, and soon.

At 7:12, he came.  I said with a smile, “You’re late.”

He’d gotten the time mixed up.  He’d been there around 6, then figured out that he was too early.  Then he figured it wrong again, and came too late.  (Odd considering that he knew at 4:30 that he had 140 minutes.)  We knew we’d never make the 7:20 movie (Three Musketeers) now.

We got to his minivan, a brown Dodge Caravan with wood paneling, and he opened my door for me.  (He tried opening doors for me all night, even when I’d already done it.)  When he got in the van, he saw an envelope taped to the windshield.

“When will people realize I have a mailbox?” he said, and took it off.  At first, I thought it was a parking ticket.  He pulled a bit of a yellow letter out of the envelope, put it back and said, “It’s from Tracy.  I’ll read it later.”  Tracy?  Just a friend’s letter, I hoped; not a girlfriend’s.

We got to the movie theater around 7:30 and looked for a movie on the posters outside.  We chose Cool Runnings and loved it.  Afterwards, we went to Pizza Hut.

There were no long-lasting, uncomfortable silences.  I talked plenty, and figured the lack of uncomfortable silences was a good sign.

I said I liked to play chess sometimes, and played it on various computer games from the Coco Computer (Tandy brand, 1985) to my family’s present computer.  Phil asked if I role-played.

Though The 700 Club had made Dungeons and Dragons sound evil, here was a Christian guy who played it; he’d mentioned it at one of the parties.  I didn’t know what to think of it, and wanted to find out more.  And I had always liked the idea of making up my own character for a game.

“No,” I said, “but it’s very intriguing.”

“Really?” he said, grinning.  “I’ll have to roll you up a character.”

We talked about these things because, on Tuesday night, he said his ideal woman would like role-playing and/or chess, just so he would have someone to play with.

I didn’t want to go back to the dorm right away, so he drove me around part of S– and showed me a couple of landmarks.  Past 10:30, we had to go back, to my dismay.  But then, when he parked the van, he said,

“I want to ask you something, but don’t know how.  How should I ask you this?”  Pause…pause…. “So I won’t ask you–no, really–I know tonight was for us to get to know each other better.  Do you want to be just friends, or do you want more, with the possibility of a relationship?”

I said, “The last.”  Was I about to get the “You’re a nice person, but” speech?  No, no!  But we clicked!  We’d be good together!–

But instead he said, “I’m available, and I’m interested.  The only problem is this letter.”  He explained what he thought it was about–Tracy explaining her feelings–and that he had to choose between the two of us.  He hadn’t been interested in her before, but we both had good personalities and a good sense of humor.

Phil was not attracted to her, but he was to me–probably infatuated.  The outcome of this dilemma seemed obvious.

“Most guys would choose you over Tracy because she’s overweight,” he said, “but I’m not most guys.  Thanks for being so understanding.  Of course, this letter could be different from what I thought.  In that case, there won’t be a problem–so I’d better read it.”

He did, and I waited patiently.  It was just what he thought.  “This line is scary: ‘I know that a movie and a pizza a few times does not mean we’re playing the dating game’–and that’s just what we did tonight!”  Tracy also said in the letter that when she saw him with us at the Study Break, she realized it bothered her.

“I almost wish no one were interested in me,” Phil said.  “Yesterday, I didn’t have to choose between two people, and I was happy.  Not that I mind having someone interested in me.  It just always seems like either no one’s interested in me, or too many people are at the same time.”

I thought the whole thing was funny.

He walked me back, and said as we passed Verhulst (the music building), “My brother Dave asked me recently if I was going out with Tracy.  This guy in the choir wanted to know.  I said no.”

We walked pretty closely together now, I thought, and he definitely liked me.

At the door, I said, “So, should we do it again?  After Break?”  He said yes with an admiring look in his eye.  I invited him into Krueger lounge, if he didn’t mind the people.  Inside were Rachel, Ralph, Cindy and her boyfriend Luke, so I sat by them, and Phil sat by me.  Cindy kept smiling at us.

Then it was just us and Cindy.  Phil asked me if he could play the piano.  I said okay, as long as he wasn’t too loud: It was dead hours.

(During dead hours, you must be quiet so no one is woken up.  Otherwise, not only do you annoy people, but you get written up by the RA.)

So he played, and looked over at me a couple times with a silly smile that made me chuckle.

Cindy said to me, “I’m glad somebody’s amused by him.”

It got to be after 11, so I said I’d better go to my room.  We said good-night.

It was late, but Pearl had specifically told me to call her afterwards.  I tried to keep my report sketchy, not wanting to tell everything.  Once, she gave the phone to Sharon and gave Jennifer the other line; they had me repeat the part about Tracy.

Sharon said, “Did he kiss you?”

I said, “Hey, that’s a personal question.”

She got all excited and thought he did.

I said, “No.”

She said, “Come on, tell the truth.”

“I did.”

Pearl told her something about Phil, so she seemed to believe me now.  I tried not to paint Tracy in a bad light, but Pearl came back on and made an observation that made sense:

“That was impeccable timing on her part.  I’ll tell Phil good things about you at my party on Saturday.”

It was almost Christmas Break.  I had to miss Pearl’s party because she’d be in Kenosha and I’d be in South Bend, but Phil was close enough to go.

I began praying for Tracy, to keep from being resentful and unforgiving.

Call from Shawn!

On Friday the 17th, my Dad or brother didn’t come get me until after 7pm.  As I waited, I got three double-ringers.  Each time I thought it could be my parents.

The first call was–

Shawn!

My Christmas card to him probably inspired him to call.  We talked things out, finally settled our differences.  He said that on the night of our last phone call, his brother had died and he was upset.

(Until now, no one had told me when exactly his brother had died; for all I knew, it was after the phone call.)

Even though he’d left Roanoke to start his engineering degree at UW-Madison, he wasn’t there yet; he didn’t go there until a year later.

(And then he didn’t stay long.  It took him a little while to get back to a different college, but he finally graduated and got a job as a mechanical engineer.)

I told Shawn that Peter and I were friends again.  Shawn didn’t believe Peter’s assertions that he only got drunk twice, then gave it up, drinking only to get “a buzz.”  Shawn said, “He’d come up to me at Zeta parties and say, ‘Hi, Shawn!’ with this goofy smile and voice.”

The following proved that he read my late September/early October letter, in which I wrote, “I’ll admit that I have feelings for you.  I always have, and they got so strong last year that I’ll probably always feel something special for you”:

I told him about Phil.  “Replacing me already!” Shawn cried.  “I must not have been that special!”

I said nothing.

“You’re not denying it,” he said.

I laughed.  “Don’t be so paranoid!”  (I often called him paranoid during our underclassman years, because, well, he was.)

But he still was, and always would be special, even when years passed without our communicating with each other, even when at times I’d feel angry at things he once did.

Our relationship lasted longer than the ones with Peter or Phil; he was my first sexual lover; I had loved him deeply, even if he never seemed to fully return it.  I could never forget that.

The second call was from Clarissa, asking about Phil, about meals over Winterim Break, and for my new home phone number.

After 6, as I listened to Program 4 of the radio version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (a gift from my youngest brother), I got another call.  I thought it could be Shawn, Clarissa, or my parents.

“Hello?” I said.

“Boo,” said the caller.

“Okay, who is it now?”

Peter did his hyper-laugh into the phone and blasted my eardrum.  No doubt now about who it was.  He called to say Merry Christmas because he got my Christmas card.  He would’ve asked me to go Christmas shopping, but I was leaving in less than an hour.  It was a short call because, as usual, he was busy.

Another Meeting with Peter

Some songs from this time: The “Purple Haze” remake by the Cure was one more of the many reasons why Q101 played better music than any other station I knew of.

So was “White Love” by One Dove, a beautiful but elusive song; I saw the video maybe once on MTV, and only heard the song on Q101 while at home.

“Big-Time Sensuality” by Björk was new; the Q101 DJ said it sounded like it belonged on B96, the Chicago dance station.

Other songs: “Low” by Cracker, “Love Train” by Hard Corey and Wray.

Clarissa and I thought we could read each others’ minds at times.  We’d be thinking the same thing, or one of us would think of something she wanted to say to the other, the other one would ask, “Did you say something?” and the first would be freaked out and laugh.  Now that happens to me with Cugan.

The Phi-Delts put a beautiful, live Christmas tree in their suite.

I wrote this in a letter on 12/23 to Mona S., whom I met at Anna’s Bible study freshman year:

After Thanksgiving Break I called Peter, and we got together for another talk at the Pub.  It was easier to talk this time.

We spoke of a couple of his friends, who married at 18.  I said, “I can’t imagine getting married at 18,” and he agreed.

He showed me his new Mustang and drove me to Krueger.  Pearl and Sharon spied on us [in the Pub] for a while.  I saw him at Pearl’s party a few days later.

I’ve talked to him for a few minutes on the phone a couple times since then.  The second time was just a few hours after Shawn called, so that was a weird day.

I didn’t mention to him my date with Phil the night before; I think I was afraid of hurting his feelings.  I still didn’t know if he just wanted to be friends, or something more.

He hasn’t said anything about getting back together, but other people…sometimes see the possibility that he will.  There are certain things that are said or that happen that make people say, ‘hmm….’

I hope so, because that would give me a feeling of closure.  That is, if I decide I don’t want him anymore.

See, there’s this other guy now, Phil.  I really like him, and I just went out with him last week.  If he chooses me over another girl that likes him, then Peter may have little chance.  Especially since Phil’s a Christian and I don’t know what Peter is anymore.

Ah, the problems of the big city!  [Referring to Mona’s previous letter.  She lived in Milwaukee.]  Cars towed, locking doors…But I miss it when I’m at school.

I have this disoriented feeling whenever I go home, though, like I don’t know what’s home or what’s the real world anymore.  At school, I miss South Bend; at home, I miss school.

I don’t know where I’ll go after I graduate.  I’m still trying to figure out if I’d want to be a librarian for more than a little while, or be a stay-at-home mom.  But that’s a while off yet.

Anyway, as they say, Merry Christmas and Happy ’94!  (’94?  But wasn’t it just 1990?)  Can you believe how close the year 2000 is?!

After the Pub meeting I described above, Peter drove me back to Krueger in his car, short though the walk was.  The radio played I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by the Proclaimers.  Forever after, I would associate this song both with the summer of 1993 and with this event.

As I mentioned before, a football player named Bill would come in the library all the time while I was working, and chat with me.  He was nice-looking, though not handsome, either heavyset or muscular, and seemed really sweet.  He’d talk with the librarian Seymour as well.

I was almost certain he had a crush on me, and was just working up the nerve to ask me out.  However, I hated football, and Seymour and Bill both said he wasn’t too serious about his classes.

I got the impression we had little in common, and didn’t want to lead him on.  However, I did like seeing him every day, so if he asked me out, I might have gone.

Then he saw Peter and me in the Pub together.  After that, I never saw him again.  I felt bad, fearing he’d seen us, thought Peter was my boyfriend, and given up on me instead of finding out the truth.

At home for Christmas, I had two weeks of no homework.  Mom put a catnip toy in the tree for Hazel as her Christmas present, and Hazel tried to climb the tree to get it, but failed.

Astrid and Catherine gave me homemade ornaments, and I put them in the tree.  I still have and use those ornaments, which are some of my favorites.

On Christmas Eve, I wrote in a letter, “My parents are blasting Christmas music downstairs, so I’m upstairs in my room, and I can still hear it.  And they talk about me turning my music up loud!”

Christmas Break was a good time for me, despite catching the flu from my family.  I spent it anxiously waiting to go back to school and see Phil again.

I also wrote long, detailed descriptions in my diary of everything that had happened between Phil and me over the past few months.  I finally found a guy who wanted to be with me.

Even a flu bug didn’t depress me, because I knew that Phil was waiting for me.  I would do dishes and other things, and think of him.

Dad, my 27-year-old brother who lived at home, and I all had the flu that Christmas.  I believe my older brother had his own house by this time.  Mom, the only healthy one, jokingly complained about having to deal with all us “sickies.”

I saw one or two classic movies on a Chicago PBS station (24? 26?) which barely came in.  I’d watch them in my room.

One was M in German with Peter Lorre.  I could barely make out the subtitles through the static, and had to try to translate as well as I could; I did understand “der Kindermörder” (child murderer).

I had no idea at the time that my Winterim teacher would mention this movie in class, and that I would discuss it with him after class one day.  I also had no idea that, according to Leonard Maltin’s 1997 Movie & Video Guide, the courtroom scene at the end was now hard to find.

But I saw Peter Lorre in the kangaroo courtroom crying for leniency, as the criminals cried for his death.

In another amazing coincidence, MTV, in the next couple of months, began playing a station promo: a cartoon of Peter Lorre walking around not with an “M” on his back, like in the movie, but an “MTV,” and hobbling along crying, “Mercy!  Mercy!”

Another movie I saw on that station was Arsenic and Old Lace, which the S– High School put on as a play around that time.

I wrote this on December 27 in my writer’s journal:

“I have to write a novel about college, what it’s really like for the students of Roanoke.  It’s a driving need.”  Everything else I saw about college in those days was nothing like it.  So you see one big reason why I wrote these college memoirs.

I got a VHS copy of Wayne’s World from my younger brother for Christmas.  I didn’t watch it until senior year, however, because I feared watching it alone would take away half the fun, and that was the first chance I had to watch it with my friends.  I wanted to see it with my friends, the ones who’d taken so many catchphrases from it.

When I saw it at the Zeta party it didn’t seem all that funny; I needed to be with people who would make it seem funny.

Q101 began playing the song “Loser” by Beck.  I loved it.  It was popular with the listeners.  Popular music stations didn’t pick it up until maybe a month or two later, so at first I thought I’d never hear it except on Q101.

Probably now or during Thanksgiving Break, I began watching Red Green on PBS.  Maybe sophomore year, I had checked it out, since it was on at the same time Red Dwarf used to be and I thought it was some sort of sequel or spin-off.

Back then, I saw what it really was, this strange show about a backwoods-lodge and the weird people who play in it, and found it moronic.  Now, I gave it another chance and found it hilarious.  I told Clarissa about it later.  I don’t think Wisconsin PBS stations had it yet, however.

My youngest brother’s ex gave him trouble in many ways: She had a drug-dealing friend, was or used to be a prostitute, and did drugs herself.

Once, she came to see my brother; while he was out of the room, she stole Mom’s checkbook off the desk.

She kept calling our house at all hours of the day or night, until my parents finally had to change the number shortly before I went home for Christmas Break.

I think she and my brother kept getting back together and breaking up; I remember him taking off with her one afternoon during my break, and not getting back till much later, worrying us all.

Once, she borrowed his car and it got impounded.

The police knew her well.  Fortunately, though, she left my brother alone eventually.  But now I had to learn a new phone number.

Index 
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound
January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD
February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?
April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign
May 1992:

Sophomore Year 
Summer 1992:

September 1992:

October 1992–Shawn’s Exasperating Ambivalence:

November 1992:

December 1992:

January 1993:

February 1993:

March 1993:

April 1993:

May 1993:

Junior Year 

Summer 1993: Music, Storm and Prophetic Dreams

September 1993:

October 1993:

November 1993:

December 1993:

January 1994:

February 1994:

March 1994:

April 1994:

May 1994:

Senior Year 

June 1994–Bits of Abuse Here and There:

July & August 1994:

September 1994–Divorce: The Long, Dark, Painful Tunnel:

October 1994:

November 1994:

December 1994:

January 1995:

February 1995:

March 1995:

April 1995:

May 1995:

 

My book “The Lighthouse” just got chosen for a little book club

I just got a notification from Pinterest that one of my pins–The Lighthouse–was re-pinned into a board called “book club book ideas.”  It’s not a big one–32 followers–but I’ve just sold three Lighthouse e-books and one Tojet e-book.  The e-books are free, so I don’t get any money from this, but I wanted to be read even in such a sluggish economy.  [Update: The e-books now cost $2.99.]

The Lighthouse

Enter the world of the Lighthouse, a club for supernatural beings and social misfits.  In this Gothic story collection you will find castles, ghosts, vampires, romance and terror:

 

Bedlam Castle–An American college girl loses herself in the hallways of a 900-year-old castle.  Eccentric characters invite her to dinner.  One is a genie, one is an undine, and most of the others are ghosts.  One man intrigues her the most–but is he a mortal man or a supernatural creature like the rest?

 

Jarkin–Becky Stevens falls in love against her will with Archibald Jarkin, an eccentric, austere and charismatic preacher.  Their passionate marriage is tested when Jarkin’s TV ministry turns into a witch hunt.  When Becky discovers the Lighthouse, their life together takes a startling new path.

 

Alexander Boa: Or, I was a co-ed vampire slave–When a young woman’s college is taken over by a vampire, she becomes his secret mistress.  Will she be torn apart when her friends decide to kill him?

 

Candida–A young man is stricken with a girl who falls under a vampire’s spell.  Soon married and pregnant with the vampire’s baby, she has no idea what danger she’ll be in if the baby is a boy.

 

The frame story–This story combines characters and settings from the other four stories.  Jenny, a social misfit, is introduced to the Lighthouse, supernatural creatures, and a deceptive man.  When he leaves her and then accuses her of stalking him, she can only vindicate herself by facing the horrors of a haunted cave.  Will she survive?  Will she fall in love again?

 

Story: The Last Night: Romance on a Rome-like Planet

Story: The Last Night: Romance on a Rome-like Planet

[Update 9/13/14:] This story (the top version, from 1992) received rave reviews and stirred imaginations at Writer’s Club in the summer of 2013.  🙂  I may revise it one of these days….

I wrote the first version of this story as a senior in high school, while listening to Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence.”  It was July 27, 1990.  The story was based on a dream I had just had that morning.

First I’ll include the much better-written version I wrote in 1992 or 1993, in college.  Then I’ll show the original version, which does have its own strengths.

Alkin’s character in the dream was Avon from the British sci-fi show “Blake’s 7“; his appearance was the same that he assumed in an episode of Dr. Who (Timelash), in which the same actor played Tekker: Romanish clothes and medieval hair.  The planet Roke was loosely based on Rome.

Revised version, copyright 1992:

The Last Night

The young woman of twenty threw on her cloak and hid her face with the hood.  No one must recognize her.  She opened the door and slipped out, as quickly and quietly as possible.  Then she opened the gate, and hurried away with light steps.

The villa was all dark.  Even the servants were asleep.  No one would notice her.

Her parents agreed with her political views, but would not approve of her zeal for them.  They would accuse her of the rashness of youth.  Her father was a senator and had to have a respectable family.

Well, the rashness of youth was getting the emperor stirred up, and, besides, one of their group was an old man, the adviser.

She found her way through the dark streets, her eyes constantly watching for danger of any kind–a soldier, a mugger, or a mere witness.  After what seemed only a few hours short of forever, she arrived at Morcub’s house.  She gave three raps on the door, and the peephole slid open.

“Reach for the dream,” she whispered, and the door opened just enough for her to slip through.  She did, and a man of thirty closed the door behind her.

“You’re late, Ocsabia,” he said, reproach in his tone.  “Morcub was worried.”

“I was delayed.”

“Don’t let yourself be delayed.  We have little time each night we meet; do you want the morning light to reveal us?”

“Why do you always treat me this way, Alkin?  I said I was delayed.  I didn’t cause it.  It’s not as if I was hours late.”

“Let’s just get going.  Give me your cloak.”

“I get a much warmer reception than yours when I go to meet with the saints.”

“Don’t compare me to those eccentrics.  Just give me your cloak.”

Ocsabia tugged at the string that held on her cloak, whipped off the cloak, and tossed it into Alkin’s arms.  Loosening the veil over her hair, ears and neck, she strode into the meeting-room.

Sitting on cushions in a close circle were the others: Morcub Padrit, the leader, a dark-haired man in his late thirties; the old man Alukremub, whose age no one knew for certain; [name], a couple of years younger than Ocsabia, of the plebeian class; and Hifary, about Ocsabia’s age, and one of the saints.

He was a dear friend, and she knew he loved her with more than just saintly love.  She and Alkin joined them, forced to sit next to each other because of the arrangement of the cushions.

“Welcome, Ocsabia,” Morcub said, then he addressed the group.  “The emperor is now aware of our presence.  We don’t kill as some groups would do, due to Alukremub’s counsel, but his voice in the Senate and our passive resistance to tyranny have made us visible.  We have to be careful now–we are probably being closely watched.”

“I tried to warn Ocsabia of that when she came so late to our meeting,” Alkin said.

Ocsabia glared at him.  “Alkin thinks the fate of our cause depends on me alone.”

“Please, let’s have peace at this meeting,” Morcub cried.  “I want to speak with you two later.”

“I don’t see why we don’t just kill the emperor,” [name] said.

“We are resisters, not assassins.”

“Then let’s kill some of the emperor’s guards.”

“No, let’s resist without bringing death on ourselves,” Alukremub said.

“Talikula will never change the laws except as they suit him.  He’s mad, and Roke is in chaos with him as emperor.  He deserves to die.”

“If our sins were measured, we’d see we all deserve to die,” Hifary said.

Morcub said, “I’m sure we all know of the new tax, on the hours each person is awake.  Next thing you know, he’ll be taxing us for the air we breathe.  We refused to pay the tax on people with eyebrows, and the whole city followed our lead.  Talikula had to let us go, and he stopped the tax.  Maybe the same thing will happen this time, so let’s all stand together.”

He ended the meeting, and took Ocsabia and Alkin aside and into a side room, after calling a trusted servant to get some food for everyone.

“I don’t know why you two don’t get along,” he said, “but please, at least try.  Ocsabia, do as your religion’s leaders say, and live in peace with everyone, even Alkin.”

“I try, but he’s so antagonizing,” Ocsabia said.

“She has too quick of a temper,” Alkin said.  “She’ll argue at the slightest intimidation.”

“There it is, then,” Morcub said.  “Don’t intimidate her, Alkin.”

“But she’s such an annoying child, with her pampered looks and silly, womanish concerns.  Her ideals show she knows nothing of the world, thinking man can possibly live in peace and harmony.”

“Let her have her ideals.  For us to survive, we must act as a group, and support each other.  I want to see an improvement in the relationship you two have with each other.  For a start, cooperate with each other and serve the fruit.”

He grabbed the fruit platter from the surprised servant’s hands, and left with him.

“Grab a bowl and put some of the fruit in it,” Alkin said.

“There you go, ordering me around,” Ocsabia said.

“You just don’t like being considered less than you want to be, a beautiful daughter of a senator.  You think you have special status.”

“I just don’t like being ordered around.  I am not a silly child, either.  How can we ever get along if you keep putting me down?”

“I put you down because you need to be humbled.  You may act like you love all people, giving your money to the poor and helping your servants, but inside you’re still as snobbish as you always were before you became one of these ‘believers.’  I’ve known you since you were a child, a proud child, and people just don’t change like that.”

“I can’t believe you said that.”  She wiped away a tear.  “There has been a change in me since I was a child.  I can see it.  I’m ashamed of how proud I used to be.”

“There’s been a definite physical change, not a change of heart.  But the physical one–” He looked her over, from her face to her calves.  She felt like a prized horse.  “Yes, I was wrong on one point–You’re no longer a child.”

He grabbed her, and she struggled, thinking he was going to hit her.  Instead, he kissed her, and set her free.

Ocsabia stepped back, gaping.  “How could you do that?” she cried.  “I didn’t want you to.”

“You can’t tell me that,” Alkin said.  “You kissed back.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“A woman doesn’t kiss back when she doesn’t mean to.”

Ocsabia flushed, and bowed her head.  Alkin stepped up to her, took her in his arms again, raised her chin, and kissed her more gently this time.

“Where’s that food?” [name] called from the other room.  Alkin and Ocsabia let go of each other, and silently began to put some of the fruit into a bowl.  [Name] came into the room, and leaned on the doorframe.

“A little quicker, please, before you kill each other,” he said with a grin.  “Morcub is a fool.  His age has made him mellow.”

“He gets results,” Alkin said, irritated.

“His policies are the best,” Ocsabia said, “when compared to insurrectionists.  He respects the importance of each person, bad or good as they are.”

“Well, one bad person is dead.  I sneaked up to one of the palace guards earlier tonight, and killed him.  Talkula will know we’re not to be trifled with.”

“You’re a fool!” Alkin growled.

“I take action.”  [Name] pursed his lips and stalked away.

Alkin carried the bowl into the other room.  As Ocsabia rearranged the fruit left on the platter, Hifary came into the room.

“Are you all right, Ocsabia?” he said, saying her name as if it were the most beautiful word he knew.

“Yes.”  Ocsabia smiled.

“Did Alkin say anything to upset you?”

“He loves me.  And I love him.  That’s what caused the tension between us: We loved each other and didn’t know it.”

“Then I’m happy for you.”

Ocsabia studied his face–It showed his sincerity.  Even though her news had to be painful, all Hifary wanted was her happiness.  What love he had for her.

A commotion in the other room caused them to hurry there.  The sight of soldiers stopped them cold.

They’d somehow been betrayed, and one soldier said [name] had been seen by the body of a murdered guard–This group was in deep trouble now.

A soldier herded Hifary and Ocsabia over with the others with the tip of his sword.  One of the other soldiers tried to grope Ocsabia, but Alkin jerked his arm away.

The soldier ran him through with his dagger, and he fell at Ocsabia’s feet.  She screamed.  Hifary held her to his breast as she sobbed.

“Let the Holy Spirit calm you, Ocsabia,” he whispered.  “God is with us all the time, whether we live or die.  Just keep trusting Him.”

Even in her sobs, Ocsabia knew the value of such a friendship.  Just before the soldiers led them away, he squeezed her hand.

————————————

High school version, copyright 1990:

Untitled

Their leader was a tyrant.  He imposed taxes to pay for his own pleasure, killed anyone who disagreed with his decisions, restricted anything under the sun, and he and his soldiers persecuted those who believed in only one God.

A resistance group arose on this little planet named Roke.  The leader was named Morcub Padrit, and an elderly man named Alukremub counseled him.

Close in age to Morcub was thirty-year-old Alkin, an unprincipled man whose loyalty to the group was sometimes doubtful.  His views and those of a young woman in the group often clashed, and they argued as loudly as they could without being discovered.

This young woman, Ocsabia, was a lovely eighteen-year-old with an hourglass figure and of medium height.  She, along with a young man of the same age named Hifary, was one of the group and a believer in the one true God.

This was not the same as a Christian in every way, but in many ways.  The souls of believers and non-believers both went to the same place, however, since this was not humankind.

Ocsabia lived alone, a not uncommon thing for women to do.  She was fashionable, and always knew just what clothes and hairdo to wear.

Fashions on Roke lasted for hundreds of years, and included pants, capes, and long, flowing robes, along with long hair either braided–possibly coiled–or loose.

One cloth headdress covered both the head and neck and left only the face showing, and had a slit in the back through which the hair could be pushed.  Ocsabia, as all women did, wore this headdress most often.

She had chestnut, waist-length hair.  She was still a virgin, as she’d been born into the Church and kept its statutes all her life.  She was no spendthrift, but prudent in all matters.  Therefore she never found herself in debt.

Her pagan friends jokingly called her the vestal, or, as they would say it in their language, bessaf (bes’ sif).  “Surely you are a priestess of Bessa,” they’d say, “or do you even know who she is?  She’s the goddess of the hearth and hearth fire, little believer in only one God.”

She was desired as a wife by many men.

Alkin, on the other hand, was good-looking, tall, and strong, but not a believer.  He worshipped the pagan Rokan gods and goddesses, and this was another point of disagreement between him and Ocsabia.  He lived with a friend just a few doors down from Ocsabia.

He also was fashionable, and wore his dark hair chin-length, covering his ears, and in bangs reaching to just above his eyebrows.  Men’s fashion also included pants and robes, but also had a Roman-like tunic and toga.

Hifary was pleasing to look at, lively, and a bit fashionable.  He wore tunics mostly, and kept his red hair short and ears uncovered.  He wore his bangs about the same length as Alkin’s.

He was sweet, chaste, gentlemanlike, devoted to God, and a likely match for Ocsabia.  He and Ocsabia often went out on dates together.

Morcub held the meetings in his house, and the members entered through a trap door (in the floor).  Each member had a smaller trap door in his house which led to a tunnel, which led to Morcub’s house.

During one meeting, Ocsabia and Alkin let their voices get too loud while arguing, and Morcub said,

“Please keep your voices down!  Do you want us to be discovered?  Really, I don’t see why you two can’t settle your differences peaceably.”

Once, Ocsabia came down with a bad cold-like illness and had to miss a meeting.  As soon as he saw her work outside in her garden again a few days later, Alkin went over to find out if she was recovered.

She was, so he asked to talk with her inside.  She took him into a little room with no windows and closed the door.  She lit a lamp and said in almost a whisper,

“What’s this you want to talk to me about?  Does it have to do with the rebellion?”

“Yes,” Alkin said.  “We want to rescue a political prisoner from his cell tomorrow morning.  We need you to distract the guards while we unlock the door.  He’s in solitary confinement.”

“So how am I supposed to distract them?”

“Just walking by them in pants should be sufficient.  Get them to leave their post.”

“Like this?”  She walked forward a few steps, her hands on her hips and shaking her hips.  She had pants on so she could work in her garden, and that combined with the way she now walked caused Alkin to notice her figure for the first time.

“Yes, yes, that’s quite all right,” he said.  “That’ll certainly get their attention.”  Then, under his breath, “It certainly got mine.”

“What did you say?”

“Oh, nothing.”  Ocsabia took her place in front of Alkin again, and it was all he could do to keep from examining her figure with his eyes.

He tried to content himself with just looking at her lovely face, the innocent eyes of which now gazed up at him in anticipation of his next word.  The rosy cheeks; the shapely, red lips just waiting to form words in reply….

Before he knew what he did, he kissed her.  When he released her, the eyes on that face, wide with shock, stared at him, and the lips outlined a mouth gaping in amazement.

He could utter no words in explanation to those eyes, even though he had an explanation.  All he could do was turn and walk out.

*******

Ocsabia extinguished the lamp and left the room, looked around and didn’t see Alkin anywhere, then slumped into a chair.  Her thoughts, her emotions, her beliefs all scrambled together into one huge mass of confusion; and no matter how hard she tried, she could not sort them out.

One moment she felt disgusted, another moment she remembered the kiss with a smile, another moment it repulsed her.  One moment she thought she loved Alkin, another moment she fought to keep from hating him.

Believers weren’t supposed to hate.  What was the prudent thing to do?  What did God will in this case?  What would He have her do?

All she could do was pray for wisdom and guidance, and that her feelings for this man would become clear to her.

Alkin came to Ocsabia’s door the next morning to escort her to the place for political prisoners.  He only said why he was there, nothing more.  She wore pants for this job, and this made it all the more difficult for him to keep from possibly offending her by looking at her figure.

He led her to a place just behind the building, which had only one cell inside and was more the size of a shed.  Rokan solitary confinement was this way.

The other buildings stood hidden behind a wall to the right.  This building had only one door and no windows, and could stand unwalled near the street.  Solitary confinement buildings stood near streets so everyone could see what happened to political dissenters.

Alkin and Ocsabia sneaked around to the side of the building, then Alkin sent Ocsabia around to the front.  She collected herself, then assumed her “walk.”  She passed by the guards in their armor, short skirts, gladiator sandals and helmets.  She didn’t see what happened, but she knew the plan, and that Alkin took the keys from one guard as soon as their heads turned.

She turned around and beckoned to the guards, who walked up to her and left the building unguarded, obviously assuming it was perfectly safe, if they even thought about guarding their post at all.

She entertained them with flirtatious banter as Alkin unlocked the door, went inside, unlocked the prisoner’s shackles, and led him outside, behind the building, and into the street.  As soon as she saw they were safely away, Ocsabia said,

“Aren’t you forgetting your post?”

The guards spun around and found the door open and the keys on the ground.  As soon as they turned around, Ocsabia sprinted down the street.

Morcub hid the man in his house until they could depose the emperor.  Ocsabia began to wonder if someone would have to hide her as well.  She went to Alkin’s house afterwards while his friend was out.

“I hope they won’t kill those guards because he escaped,” she said.

“You and your compassionate heart,” Alkin said.  “They’re the enemy, girl.”

“Am I in danger?  Will the guards tell who I am?”

“I doubt they’ll even say they left their post to flirt with a woman.  All their commanding officer will care about is that they left their post.  If they mention why they left, it should only be worse for them.”

“You know, at first I didn’t like the idea of having to distract the guards and do all those things; I was glad when it was over; but it was also fun while I was doing it.”

“Ah, maybe you’re beginning to become more like the kind of woman I like.”

“Oh, I hope not.”  She thought for a moment, then said, “Why did you kiss me yesterday?”

“Because you’re irresistible even to me.”

“I am?  I didn’t know I was irresistible to anyone.”

“Are you blind to your own beauty, girl?  Or just overly modest?”

“Why do you always cut me down?  Why are you always so abusive to me with words?”

“Because you have such ridiculous ideas–compassion, brotherly love, not expecting payment from someone who’s borrowed money from you.”

“They aren’t such ridiculous ideas.  Just think about them sometime.”

“I don’t want to be nauseated.”

Ocsabia bent over in her chair, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed.

“Oh, don’t cry,” Alkin said.  “I was just beginning to admire your spirit.”  She continued to sob, so he got up out of his chair and knelt beside her.  “I can’t stand to see a woman cry.  Fight it.  Then we can have more spirited conversation.”

“Don’t mock me.  Go away.”

“You realize you won’t be so desirable with puffy, red eyes?”

“Then I must continue to cry.”

“I don’t understand you, Ocsabia.  You don’t want men to lust after you and you only want to do good and pure things.  I don’t understand myself, either.  I desire you even though you’re like that.”

“Maybe you just want what you can’t have.  Or maybe you actually want to be like me, you see in me what you’re not.”

“Why?  Why can’t I have you?”

Ocsabia stopped crying and looked up at him.

“Because you’re not the kind of man I want to marry.  Such a man is kind, gentle, a believer, and my own age, like–like Hifary.”

“Hifary?  Do you really like Hifary?”

“Yes.”

“But I’m a man and he’s just a boy.”

“Do you think being a man means cutting down other people just because they believe differently than you do?”

“I was right, you do have spirit.”  He stood up and turned away.  He tried to keep his voice steady.  “Leave me.”

Ocsabia had no wish to stay, so she wiped her eyes and left.  Alkin’s fondness for her helped her influence his opinions, so he contemplated her words for hours afterwards, and began to wonder if she was right.  Or had this girl so bewitched him with her beauty that he was willing to believe the way she did?

******

Alkin, a prominent member of society, would rouse suspicion if he declined invitations to travel with his friends so he could help the resistance at home.  When a group of friends asked him along on a month-long trip to the tropics, he had to accept.

He visited Ocsabia to tell her this.  At first she didn’t want to let him in, but he said he had to talk to her.  She led him into the atrium, and he said, “I thought about the things you said the other day.”

“And you agree with me now?” Ocsabia said.

“I didn’t say that, I just said I thought about what you said.”  He smiled.  “And that’s a start, isn’t it?”

He was sincere, but the reason he admitted this was so Ocsabia would consider opening a space in her heart for him.  It worked, though he didn’t know it.  “I’m leaving for a month with a group of friends,” he said.  “I want you to come with me.”

“Come with you?  How could I come with you?  Are there any girls in the group?”

“No.”

“Then I can’t come.  It wouldn’t look right.”

“Then marry me.”

“No.  I don’t love you.”

This so frustrated him that he couldn’t control his voice very well.  “Then stay here,” he said, turning away.  He pondered for a moment, nearly despairing of convincing her.

An idea came to him, and with it a glimmer of hope.  He turned to her.  “Maybe this will change your mind,” he said, and kissed her as persuasively as he could.  When he released her, she said,

“I’ve never known of anyone who truly fell in love just because of a kiss.”

Alkin realized that if he managed to seduce her she would have to marry him, since her moral code demanded it.  They’d argued abut that part of the code before.

He kissed her again, lustfully this time, and simultaneously unbuttoned the back of her headdress and pushed aside part of the neck to expose her skin.  He then kissed her neck.  She immediately pushed him away.

“Whatever you were thinking of doing, it won’t work, either, so please leave.”

He could find his own way out.  He turned in a huff and left.  Ocsabia stared in the direction in which he’d gone, and said, “Good riddance–and good-bye.”

She didn’t really know why she said “good-bye.”  If only she could ask her heart.  It had to know more than she did about the whole situation.  Why did she long for more of Alkin’s kisses and feel repulsed by them at the same time?

During the next month, she dated Hifary, as usual, and she grew quite fond of him.  Near the end of the month he asked her to marry him.  She told him she couldn’t, her feelings were too mixed up.

“This may be hard for you to believe,” she said, “but I’m sure I’m in love with either you or Alkin.”

“Alkin?  How could you love Alkin?” Hifary said.  “You two are always fighting.  You’ve always been enemies.  He’s also an unbeliever.”

“I know.  It’s hard even for me to believe.  Maybe it’s not even true.  Maybe I love you.  I’ve got to be alone for a while so I can sort this out.”

Also during that month, Alkin tried to console himself with wine, food, women and luxury, but all of these things left him unsatisfied.  He was sure he loved Ocsabia, and she was all he wanted.  In desperation he cried out to her God.

“If you’re real, show me,” he said.  “If you make Ocsabia fall in love with me, I’ll serve you for the rest of my life.”

*****

At a meeting the night before Alkin was to come home, Morcub said, “I think the authorities have become suspicious.  I saw two soldiers watching my house today.  Perhaps the neighbors have heard us.  We’ll have to be extremely careful.”

*****

The next day, Ocsabia expected Alkin to come home, since it was the end of the month.  It seemed that she longed for him to come home.  She watched from her windows until she saw him.

As soon as she saw his roommate greet him and him go in his house, she opened her door on an impulse and ran over to his house.  She knocked on the door; the roommate opened it, and, having been told many times before by Alkin of his disagreements with her, looked at her with wide eyes and raised eyebrows.

“Baferiub, I’d like to see Alkin,” she said.

“Certainly, Ocsabia,” he said, causing Alkin to spin around and stare at the door.  Baferiub stepped aside to let Ocsabia enter.  She hurried in to Alkin, and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.  In a few moments, Alkin haltingly put his arms around her.  When she ended the kiss, he said,

“Ocsabia, what a pleasant surprise.  Your God is real, I know that now.  He answered my prayer.”

“He did?” she said.  “How?”

“I’ll tell you later.–Baferiub, would you please leave us alone for a moment?–Look, I’m sorry about all those disagreements with you.  You may be right about some things.  I’m also sorry I tried to seduce you a month ago.  I was trying to force you into marrying me by making you do something that would demand it, according to your moral code.  Now will you marry me?”

“Yes, I will.”

They set the date for a year from then, and Ocsabia told Hifary as gently as she could.  He told her that a year might be long enough for him to get over her.  He wished them happiness as soon as Alkin became a believer.  That issue had bothered him, as he knew of situations when a believer married an unbeliever and it didn’t work out very well.

The next time they had a meeting, which was a week later, Rokan soldiers listened at the door for incriminating conversation, then burst into the house and arrested everyone.

The little group wasn’t even tried, just put into a concentration camp.  Fashion was forgotten as their clothes were taken away and replaced with prison suits, which were pants, a shirt, and sandals, plus a cloth for Ocsabia to wrap around her body as a sort of primitive corset.

This was the only part of the prison suit that looked fashionable, but the group soon forgot about such things, and thought of fashion as trivial.  What really mattered was survival–a difficult thing.

They had little food, and almost starved.  Their taskmasters put them to work around the camp, every day of the week, all day long.  Their one relief: enough sleep.

However, the beds were hard, and barracks hot or cold, depending on the weather.  All they had to heat the barracks was one brazier each.

During the evening meal, Ocsabia could finally join Alkin and the rest of the group.  Afterwards, she and Alkin would walk around the non-restricted areas of the camp.

“Will we ever get out of here?” she said one evening about two and a half years after they arrived.

“Perhaps when that tyrant Kaebar dies or is deposed,” Alkin said.

“I wonder what they did with my birds?  Did they give them to someone, or are they dying in their cages in my house?  I know it’s a bit morbid….”

Alkin lowered his voice.  “I may soon find out for you, and if they’re dead, I can bury them.”

“Why, what do you mean?”

“I mean, I’m going to try to escape.  If God wills it, I will.  I want to start another resistance group.  I’d take you with me, but it’s too dangerous.”

The next evening, about the same time, he said good-bye to Ocsabia.  That night, when everyone was supposed to stay in the barracks, Ocsabia woke to the sound of Rokan canines woofing and guards yelling.

Alkin, she thought, it must be Alkin.  Soon after she heard a man scream.  She drew her blanket over her nose and mouth and sobbed into it.

During role call the next morning, the commandant said, “There was an escape attempt last night.  A prisoner tried to go over the wire.  But our guards got him with the sword.  You may bury him yourself as a lesson to you: attempting to escape is useless.”

Hifary provided Ocsabia with a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen to her voice her emotions, but didn’t give her advice or say it would get better.  He knew better than to say that to her; what she needed was a listener, not an adviser.

And he didn’t do this to get her to fall in love with him, nor did he rejoice over Alkin’s death.  He still loved Ocsabia, and did this out of the tenderness of his heart for her.  He had no ulterior motive.  Also, he grieved over the loss of one who’d become a good, respected friend since his conversion.

About two years later, as they went on one of their now-customary walks and discussed Hifary’s plans to go to many cities and countries as an apostle, if God willed him to, he halted.  Ocsabia, whose arm was intertwined with his, immediately stopped also.

“What is it?” she said.

“I must tell you something, but it’s terribly difficult, especially considering the life I’m called to lead.”

“What do you want to say?”

He hesitated.

“If you go ahead and say it, it’ll be much easier for you to do.”

“All right, Ocsabia.  I love you. I’ve never stopped.  I prayed I would while you were engaged, and then I tried to suppress it after Alkin died so you wouldn’t feel uncomfortable around me and I wouldn’t try to force you to love me back.  But it’s only grown stronger.  You also might not want to be an apostle’s wife.  It’s a hard life, whether you come along or stay home alone.”

“It sounds challenging.  And I’d be serving God–and probably loving it.”

“You would?  Then will you marry me?  Oh, I should first ask you if you love me–”

“Yes to both questions.  Not that I’ve forgotten Alkin.  I’m sure he wouldn’t want me to be alone for the rest of my life, especially if I marry such a dear friend of his as you.”

She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.  As she began to straighten her back again and her head moved away from his neck, in that split-second Hifary kissed her.

After five years in the concentration camp, a new resistance group deposed Kaebar, and put one of their own in his place.

During the fourteen-day celebration, Hifary and Ocsabia decided to celebrate in an additional way by marrying immediately, on the fifth day so they’d have time to prepare.

Ocsabia accompanied Hifary on his travels, and he wrote letters to the Rokans, Corinzians, Cafasians, Egebians, Gifidians, Cofothians, Zebafonians, and others.

 

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