Saturday I made a few phone calls and got together for the afternoon with Ray Shorn and Randy Bronson. We decided to get together later that evening after dinner.
I should have stayed away from dinner. The first thing that went wrong was that Mom made meatloaf, and I hate meatloaf. I ate some and just pushed some around on my plate. Mom noticed and said, “I thought you liked meatloaf.”
“Sorry, Mom, not really.” Maybe if it’s made with brown gravy it’s alright, but Mom’s recipe called for it to be made with tomato sauce.
“But you loved meatloaf when your grandmother made it!” she wailed.
I buried my face in my hands and then gave her a sheepish look. “I hated her meatloaf, too. I was just being nice to your mother.” Dad groaned at this and Suzie giggled. Mom simply gave an outraged, ‘Hmmphh!’
The really bad part was when the others started asking about the girl who was coming to visit. Who was she? What was her name? Where was she from? Etc., etc., etc. Hamilton got really pissy at that point. I didn’t live there anymore and I shouldn’t be bringing anybody around. The others ignored him, but he said it once too often for my taste.
I set my fork down and pushed my chair back, and then took a deep breath. I was sitting next to Suzie, on the opposite side of the table, so I was able to look straight across the table at my brother. “Hamilton, I am going to say this only once, but I want you to listen very, very carefully. If you do or say anything to Marilyn, I will beat you to within an inch of your life. If you touch her, I will simply kill you. I have had it with your crap. Your life is hanging by a thread.”
To say there was an uproar was an understatement. Hamilton loudly protested his innocence and Mom demanded I behave myself. Dad ended up yelling at everyone to shut up, and then he said to me, “Adult or not, I expect you to keep a civil tongue in your head.”
“Dad, I love you and Mom and Suzie, but Hamilton needs things explained to him. I really want to be clear on this. This girl is more important to me than anything or anybody else. If you want to meet her, you need to keep him under control. This is not a threat, but a promise. If he gets out of line, I will never come back to this house while he’s alive.”
“Sounds good to me!” said Hamilton with a smirk.
Before I could even come across the table at him, Dad swung a vicious backhand at him and knocked him to the floor. Mom stared in disbelief as Hamilton, crying, climbed to his feet. “Hamilton, you stay away from her and leave her alone. Do you understand?”
Hamilton didn’t reply, but he ran off to his room crying. I got up and left the table also, and went off to see my friends. I drank more than I should have that night, but I lucked out and the cops weren’t around when I drove home. I was sleeping in Suzie’s old room, now the spare bedroom, and I put my bag in front of the door in case Hamilton decided to attack me in the middle of the night.
Sunday actually turned out to be a pretty good day. Dad made his regular big breakfast on Sunday morning, a tradition I continued when I had my own household. We might have had cereal the other six days of the week, but Sundays were for bacon and eggs and sausage and pancakes and French toast and waffles and every other thing guaranteed to clog your arteries and raise your blood pressure. We had pancakes and bacon that morning, and everybody had two stacks. Even Hamilton seemed civil, or maybe he was quiet because he had a split lip from the other night.
After breakfast I was asked if I wanted to go to church. It was communion Sunday, which in the Lutheran church only comes around about once a month. I wasn’t feeling all that religious, but I also knew it would settle my mother down, so I pulled a sports coat and some decent slacks out of my bag and went. It wasn’t optional for my siblings.
In church we went to our regular pew, and sat in our regular formation. Like most parents, Mom and Dad learned very early on to separate their kids at important functions. We sat Ham, Mom, Suzie, Dad, and me, an arrangement that left us kids with easy reach of a parental smack. It also allowed us to return the favor. Dad had about a fifty-fifty chance at falling asleep and snoring during the sermon, and he did so today. When he started sawing lumber I glanced past him at Suzie, who was grinning, and held my hand up with three fingers extended. I gave her a three second countdown, pulling a finger in each second, and when I got to zero we both elbowed him from opposite sides. He woke up with a snort and a rumble and we just looked innocent while the people around us chuckled in their pews.
Marilyn called me around 3:30. I had given her my parents’ number and told her to stop at the first Maryland exit on the Harrisburg Expressway and call. She would be at the house about half an hour later, so I went out on the front lawn and played fetch with Daisy. It was closer to forty minutes before a candy apple red ’71 Dodge Challenger came slowly tooling down Ridgefield. Oh my God, but I had forgotten about that car! Marilyn never thought twice about her car, and her father never realized the folly of giving the thing to a teenager, but I always remembered it as an absolute wet dream of a vehicle! It was simply gorgeous, and people stared at it as it went past! I waved my arms and flagged her down, and she pulled up in front of the house.
I was all smiles when she got out of her car. “Oh, baby, is that your car?!” I asked.
“Uh, yeah. Why?” She gave me a confused look as she got closer.
“That’s gorgeous! You are going to have to let me drive that around!” I held my arms open and she scampered up to me.
“I think you’re only interested in me for my car!”
“Let me change your mind!” I bent my head down and kissed her, and put a lot of effort into it. I only stopped when the pawing at our legs got too bothersome.
Marilyn looked down and found Daisy standing on her hind legs and trying to climb up. “And who are you?” she asked, kneeling down. Daisy immediately tried to lick her to death.
I had to laugh when Daisy bowled Marilyn onto her ass. I grabbed her collar so that she could sit upright. “That’s Daisy.”
Marilyn let Daisy lick her a little more before she climbed to her feet. “I think Daisy likes me.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but Daisy likes everybody. If you were Godzilla, she’d lick your face.”
“That’s awful!” she said, laughing.
“I like you, too. Can I lick your face, too?” I stuck my tongue out and barked and gave her a goofy dog impression, which set Daisy going again. Eventually, I managed to lick Marilyn’s cheek and she threatened to have me neutered, which did the trick in making me behave.
Marilyn glanced at the picture window on the house, and then turned bright red. “I think we’re being watched!”
I looked over and saw Suzie grinning at us. “That’s my kid sister, Suzie. Come on, let’s get your bag and take you inside. I feel like I’m throwing meat to hungry lions.” Marilyn popped her trunk and I stared at the profusion of suitcases and bags, all haphazardly arranged. I looked up at her. “You leave anything behind?”
She bristled. “I had to pack for two weeks!”
“They have these new businesses called Laundromats,” I replied.
“I’m not going to spend my vacation in a Laundromat!”
I shrugged. “I know one way you could have saved some space.”
“Oh?”
“You could have left your underwear at home. I wouldn’t have minded.”
Marilyn blushed and blurted out a loud and protesting sound, and smacked me on the arm, and then said, “You wish!” She pointed out a suitcase for me to bring in, and I snagged it and closed the trunk. She followed me to the front door, with Daisy trailing behind. By the time we got there, the door was open and my mother was there to greet us.