Posted Thursday 14 August 2008

Peeping and Hiding

Wichita Falls, Texas, 1971: In my apartment I played my stratocaster. I was thin and trim in those days, and I'd picked up a girlfriend for a week or two, by the name of Mary.

I don't recall how I met her, but she had a teeny-tiny little apartment some dozen blocks away from where I lived, and so who knows? Maybe I met her on the street. But I'd met her somewhere, and always an eager experimenter at that time, I'd fetched her to my place for a while.

I didn't think she was a truly pretty girl, but she was eager and earnest, and ... well ... those are good qualities, with the right timing.

And Mary was a devotee of something called Sloe Gin. It's a weird kind of sweetish alcohol beverage, and she'd been drinking quite a bit of it that day there in my apartment, and she came to sit on the carpet about a foot away from where I stood, playing my statocaster.

I was rocking out. I must have thought I was pretty cool, and I was having a good time.

And ignoring Mary, for she commenced to writhe around my legs.

For just a minute there I thought I was probably Keith Richards.

But then other thoughts intruded, and we shall now pass over later events of the day. In silence.

Now, as it happened, I only kept company with Mary for a little while.

Maybe I got a better offer. Maybe I became bored with her. I no longer remember. But callous youth, I moved on, and forgot about her.

About a year later, I was walking up my street. It was a grey and overcast day, of a neutral temperature. I don't know what I was doing, probably just taking a walk to stretch my legs. Somehow the walk got longer and longer, and when I was on the block that was near Mary's old apartment, I was crossing the street, and about a block away, I saw Mary.

She was pushing a baby cart.

I ducked.

I jumped behind a car, and peeked out cautiously. Yup. Mary.

Yup. Baby cart.

Skulking out of sight, I went round the block in the other direction. She never saw me. With an interesting mix of thoughts and emotions flooding through my mind, I crept back to my apartment.

And that's the end of the story.