Chapter Twenty Eight An Opera in Three Acts But with Five Parts
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And –– then –– it was, indeed, Legion True’s time to leave this place. This temporary place of my three Children’s footings. Barring another Ol’ Black breakdown and in order for me to be back at my Forestry post early on the Monday morning of the 19th, I felt I needed to leave the central West Virginia areas not too much later than high noon of the first day of that weekend. And I did. But all throughout southern Ohio I was still weeping … after exiting the western border of the state off to which my Boys’ sperm donor had literally, even though allegedly “legally” by the various judges’ pen strokes, … kidnapped them. The backend of Ol’ Black was rather completely disheveled by now after so many days and nights of hostelling use –– with blankets, sheets, pillows, papers, books, bags and other items of the Truemaier Boys’ play scattered all about behind the front seat bench. In addition to this back – of – the – wagon scene of the heartbreaking memories which I’d just made, into my rearview mirror flickered flashing cop – car, trooper lights. “O – O – O shit!!! This is just what I fucking need right now! What the hell could be wrong?! What was I doing?!” my thinking jostled –– as I, of course, found the first, safe shoulder off onto which to pull, gather my license and roll down the driver’s side window. I couldn’t even see above his khaki – uniformed chest wall … he was so tall. “Ma’am, I need to see your license, please,” he boomed. I mean that I literally, out my car window at the levels which both of our visual fields scanned and without either of us straining this way and thataway, … I could not see his face! What I had remembered seeing with that last look of mine into the center mirror before noticing those flashers of his aimed at me … was my face: brown – black mascara had made inroads, forays and encroachments all over and down my cheeks and chin. I looked like shit! The sclerae of both of my eyeballs were as red – streaked as my facial skin sooty – streaked and inked. And I felt like hell, too. “Okay, okay, here ya’ go, Sir. I have it right here, Officer,” I sobbed. And tried, simultaneously, to smear the streaming nasal mucus away with a very, very used and spent Kleenex as delicately and daintily as I could manage. Tallest – Ever Ohio Trooper Man took it from my left hand and, with the obvious sounds floating up to his eardrums from Ol’ Black’s driver’s seat as the license was passed to him, his waist did bend to his right side and he did then sort of come down out of the clouds to see who, indeed, had been cry – driving. Or, more accurately according to him, weep – speeding. “Ummm, from Iowa you are?” Tallest Trooper Man half – ass asked, full – well knowing this fact … from his having just read both the vehicle plates’ and my license’s information. “O yes … yes, Sir. Yes, I am,” Boo – hoo, sniffle, sniff, sniffle, boo – hoo – hoo. “Ma’am … Ma’am, did you know you were speeding? Have you clocked, Ma’am, I do, at, ah, ah … … at 75 miles per hour, Ma’am.” Wail, whimper, sob, sob, “O no! No, I wasn’t! That can’t be!” jettisoned those very words right out of my mouth and now shot straight on over onto a bent – over cop peering at me sort of sideways through the rolled – down window space, a face with no expression whatsoever on it but one with a voice emitting out from under that boulder – size of a trooper hat that definitely matched any timbre and tone of that which belonged to the lovely, although now – late, Barry White! O, Tallest had a voice on him! “Ex – cuuuu - ze me, Ma’am?! Are you saying that I, um, I, I …?” “O my, my … my, my, myyyy NO! No, Sir. Not at all. I am not saying that you’re not telling me the Truth, Officer. O my, No! That idn’t what I’m saying at all? I mean …, ah, what I mean, Officer, is that, um, Ol’ Black here, he can’t go that fast! He can’t even get up anywhere near like that fast, Sir! That’s what I’m saying! He’s just too much an ol’ beater, and he can’t get it up that far a’tall. I jus’ don’’ think he can go that fast, Sir!” “Aaaah – aaah, I see.” And Tallest, whose back must’ve been mightily stressing him by then, straightened himself all the way up once more so that I, again, could not view anything more than his torso’s khaki shirt buttons, the solid, chocolate brown tie and the two most massive of human hands of the very same hue. “What is all that in the back of your station wagon there? And what’s the matter anyhow? Why’re you crying so much? You were crying before I stopped you, weren’t you? What’s the matter? What’s the real matter, Ma’am?” Words that wafted down from his humanistic heights that I couldn’t anymore see all the way up to … yet were now said with a resonance and pitch that seemed ever more gentle and tender than some of the phrases he had stated before. In full view to the outside of the car and, therefore to Tallest too of course, had been one of the items from the wagon’s messy backend, a neon orange – colored, three – ring binder with the black letters on its cover identifying it as a manual for Safe Iowa Hunter Education with the silhouetted logo of a young man cradling a long gun with a similarly shadowed, four – legged retriever walking along beside him. And, again, Tallest – Ever asked, “What’s with all that stuff in the back there?” “O, aaahh, O, I, uh, I just left … um, I just left my Boys.” “What?” “I just left my Boys. Back there in West Virginia.” “What? What do you mean … ‘ya’ left ‘em’?” Tallest – Ever Ohio Trooper Man was bending over again and gazing at the left side of my down – facing profile. I was staring into my lap … remembering, of course. “O,” I turned toward him once more, “I was … I was visiting my three Sons in West Virginia.” I didn’t see any true threat now nor need to lie anymore about the purpose of my trip or on my being found here on Tallest – Ever’s particular piece of pristine and sunny roadway and, thank goddess, I wasn’t wearing the Sam stuff because Tallest – Ever Ohio Trooper Man would have, I am sure, seen right through that disguise … first thing! What … with my tears and bleary, bloodshot eyes and all. Plus all of it, the Sam costume, was stashed away in bags which the cop could not see from his stance at Ol’ Black’s door anyhow. “And, an’, aaahh, now I have to go back home to Iowa without them. And, ah, an’ I, uh, I don’t know when I’ll ever see them again. Or how long it’ll be. Ya’ know? That’s … uh well, that’s what it’s about, Sir.” “O. Yeah.” “Yeah.” “Um. Well, Ma’am. Ah. Um. Why, you … you got a heckuva haul ahead of ya’. You thinkin’ of getting there yet today, are ya’? Ya’ know, all the way back to … to where is it now?” And he glanced back to the driver’s license, “to, ah, … ah, Ames, Iowa, there? Yet today still?” “O, O yeah. I gotta. I don’t have the money for … ah, well, yeah. Yeah, I am. I’m gonna get back to Ames yet today. That’s the plan, all right! Ya’ know?” “Okay then. Well. Well, you better get a – goin’ there then. Not a rush, I mean. Don’t be speedin’ now. Not that ya’ could, I mean, with your old beater wagon here ‘n all. But you jus’ best be gettin’ on your way there then.” “Soooo ... So?” I looked around to him again just as he was straightening himself all the up again –– for the last time. In an asking mode, questioning without so many such, exact words about what was to be done with me –– now that an Ohio state trooper of the tallest, mountain – like manner had just stopped and pulled me over for an alleged speeding violation on the interstate. “So, so … ah, so that’s it then, Ma’am. So, so … you just be safe out there then.” And he turned back around and strode to his unit. I watched him from the rearview mirror crawl, nearly literally back into it, take its gear out of park and into drive, pull out around me and Ol’ Black and without facing me again then, his eyes glued on the straightaway in front of him, his right arm and hand waved to me as the trooper’s vehicle tripped off westerly out in front of me –– me … still pitched there on the side of the highway. No ticket. Not even a warning. I could not believe it. Tallest – Ever Ohio Trooper Man, that is, this dude’s involvement in my life and in my life’s story, … as far as I know … , had forever vanished from it now. Yet, within just a very few more miles on up this stretch once Ol’ Black and I maneuvered our way back onto the westbound thoroughfare, there appeared off to the right side a rather large and, therefore easily readable, white, rectangular road sign. It was placed there by the State of Ohio’s Transportation Department and in big black letters delineated on it with succinct wording and numbering the gradations of amounts that a speeding motorist could be fined. Totals that that state levied in tickets which could be issued for specific, set increments of miles per hour over the posted limit. In just the time that it took for me to notice the sign and drive 65 miles per hour on passed it, I could see that Tallest – Ever Ohio Trooper Man had just saved me, those few miles back there on the interstate, at least $85.00. The sign stated that Ohio’s very first ticket amount, for just ten or fewer miles per hour over the speed limit, started at a fine of $85.00 –– and increased upwards from there into the hundreds of dollars for possible violations incurred, depending upon at what rate a speeder was clocked. And that, likely, did not even account for the extra court costs and all of those other specious fees tacked onto a person’s assessment at time of payment besides! I knew Iowa’s fines weren’t that high, and I had not really recognized if penalties in any other of the states through which I had traversed during those past ten days were so huge either! * * * * Hauling Ol’ Black back into Ames finally and returning without any further breakdown or other untoward incident whatsoever, I was, indeed, back to work Monday, the 19th of April bearing not only my gifts but, of course, also such great, great news to all of my co – workers. Yet not before remembering and marking well Zane’s last West Virginia words to me, “Ma, uh, Ma, if you try this again, can you please let me know you’re gonna?” “Ya’ mean, somehow get in touch with you that I’m coming to see all of you again? Disguised or otherwise?” I asked. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I mean,” Zane had appealed to me. I knew that in one way, notably the secrecy and the clandestine nature of the past surreptitious week, my coming had been difficult for all of the Boys –– but especially for him. Zane the Eldest. He had always shouldered –– all on his own and never because of any request of mine –– that silent yet so heavily burdensome task of the role of My Siblings’ Protector. By him, … the Eldest. That most solemn of jobs of where the older brother is supposed to look out for his little ones. Zane has always taken that all on not only willingly but very, very seriously. And he was letting me know that for that specific, self – assigned labor of his, he just needed some heads – up’ time in order to prep himself and his two younger brothers –– in the case that, well, that “Sam” may one day again appear to him alongside a darkened Grubtrop street in the very midst, actually, of some future nighttime. I assured Zane that I so would get that done –– because their mother soooo would be coming back out to see him and Jesse and Mirzah! 1993 was, of course, before email and even really before faxing had become widely available to individuals. While the Truemaier Boys didn’t have, even between the three of them yet, one personal computer I so hoped that because of their own proclivities and because of Dr. Edinsmaier’s money, my particular three Children out of all of the World’s kiddos soon would. At the moment I vowed to Zane that I would get him warned of my intentions to come see them all again, I did not know how I would accomplish that –– but I? I had friends so, well, … so that would just get done. I knew that it would –– and, therefore, I meant every word of it when I made Zane my promise. And then? Then … the Truemaier Boys’ mother was gone. I liked the smiles on Dr. Joplin’s and Rosalind Franklin’s faces not only when I walked through the Forestry Department’s door but also when they saw what souvenirs I’d selected for each of them. That pewter wind chimes of John Deere tractors –– well, who knew it’d be such a smash hit!? And then it was right back into the mix. Those International Agroforestry Conference dates were fast approaching, only four months to go now. With 350 to 450 expected to register. From all over the World so many, many different persons where the English language would not be their first tongue at all. This was truly fun. I was experiencing not only something at which I, with details, details, details and excellent writing and editing knowledge was very, very skilled, but I was having a whole passel of fun putting this deal together. And, no, I most surely did not do all of its prep alone; but by almost every single male (as well as each female) professor and colleague in the Department, I was given the respect and the honor certainly due me –– and professionally due any lower – level clerical type at all times actually –– but which was a completely unusual, even nearly foreign thing for me. What … with all of the name – calling, the evil appellations, his degrading sexist jokes, the mere questioning of my validity as a human person, let alone, as a mother, a good – enough one at that –– not to mention my very sanity and the overall selfish narcissism and silent, shunning and shaming passive aggression with which Antisocial Herry treated me! With which, also, all of daJudges and ‘the Court’, the American family law court system –– without policing check and balancing self – accountability whatsoever –– had behaved! As can be imagined, I had a radar. One of sorts mightily finely honed by this time. In only one colleague, did I sense discomfort, no, disgust it was actually –– of the likes of which I had known with Herry. To the same painful and abusive degree of sexual innuendo and actual assault, either emotionally or physically. A tenured professor, without his initially asking and clearly out of the blue without any warning or impending insinuation to me at all, proceeded one workday to put hands onto me and initiate a massage of my neck. Immediately, he tried to extend one paw further downward into an upper back and shoulder rubdown –– all the while stroking my long, blonde tresses with his other hand. About this particular action of his? I was, at that instant, consciously aware that to my knowledge, this man had not done nor offered this “service” of his to anyone else in our realm. Not even, at least on professional work time in the office in my purview, to his supposed significant other, a second wife who was also an academic researcher, the spousal – hire, inside the Forestry Department as well. I winced and pulled away –– having been seated in my office chair before the computer monitor. He did not apologize, just Dr. Edinsmaier – smirked and sauntered off from my workspace. He never tried these indecent liberties, this frottage with me again. But the Ick Factor was definitely set loose! Let loose onto my screen now; that was a certainty! My invisible, safety – screening radar picked this particular man up every single time that, from that day forward, he entered the Front Office –– until I eventually left the Department for a promotion into another one. I knew nothing else personally about this individual, but all of Dr. Herod Edinsmaier’s triggers, Herry’s frotteurism and indecent liberties as with Grace Portia for example, Herry’s use of pornography and its consumption with and around Zane, Jesse and Mirzah, Herry’s thinking and statements about wanting to drop his pants and fuck there on the spot vaginal – exam models in obstetrics laboratory, all of the forms of Herry’s exhibitionism from holes in his jeans to answering the door in only his underpants to leaving wide open the draperies when getting undressed at night on Othello Drive by the Brookside Forest –– all of Herry’s sex – addict actions would come flooding forth every time Professor Ick came around the corner of my workspace. It never stopped. Every single time Professor Ick triggered the memories of Herry’s sexual addiction around me and around my Truemaier Boys. It rained one day. And then it rained the next day. And the next. And the next. After the 09th day of July 1993, with the Agroforestry Conference merely a bit more than a fortnight away, it became exasperatingly clear –– and immediately so –– that its venue would suddenly have to change. Because its original one was … all of it … under water. The muddy flooding from Brookside Forest’s now – raging Squaw Creek reached into the second level of the Continuing Education and Conference Hall as well as into a host of other University buildings including its enormous sports arena and entertainment coliseum indiscriminately knocking out records and computers and all other equipment as well as the buildings’ structures this way and that –– and, of course, totally blocking off complete and main thoroughfares leading into the entire town, let alone, into the University. It was a fucking mess. Everywhere. Everywhere in Iowa, too, as a matter of fact! Before it was all said and done and subsided and the waters back inside their respective river banks all throughout the state, why, even our capitol city of Des Moines, population over 300,000, would, for over three full weeks, be without safe drinking water because its municipal waterworks’ operations became utterly contaminated by overrunning flood waters as well. And in Iowa’s 90 – to 105 – degree heat with its humidity set in the same numbers’ range! Karma sucked. Kismet was hell. Of the colossal kind. Life hurt. I still had my other job, too –– the one as delicatessen breakfast grill queen, of course. Only not as grilling or as cooking or as baking anything … now. At weekend brunch fests or at any other times whatsoever. The supermarket was not only flooded, situated as the entire grocery store was in the worst location of floodplains possible, the waters rose inside the store, despite sandbagging around its entire outer periphery, to the sixth echelon of foodstuffs’ shelving –– around eight feet high in places, that is. For the next six days then, the folks at the food chain’s parent headquarters not only trucked in busloads of workers from its other locales in other towns but also hauled all of us over to the makeshift free clinic especially set up to administer us flood workers tetanus boosters. I want to never work at mud – scraping and mud – scrubbing so hard again. Hands and arms and legs, and lungs too I am thinking, rubbed raw. And then –– well, then … Voila! –– we were back up and running and in the business of selling all manner of grilled stuffs again! Frieda Chicken Guthrie’s presence from leaning across onto the top handle of her black and twisty cane to her cheerleading – like promotion along with her storytelling whilst setting on a bench off on the sidelines –– hell, she was pushing nearly 80 years of age … yet so wanted to contribute in some way, so during all of the store’s cleaning, this was hers all right –– was most encouraging to me! It was during this six – day, free – for – all scouring melee spree that Frieda reiterated to me an offer which I would not refuse, “Now, Legion, if there’s ever a time when you think you jus’ can’t make those monthly premiums on that Ex’s life, why, Dearie, you jus’ let me know that –– an’, and I’ll make ‘em that month for ya’! You can pay me back later –– when ya’ can manage it then, ya’ hear me, Woman?” Frieda was, yes indeed, referring to the term life insurance policy amounting to $100,000 of coverage which in 1988, Herry had taken out upon himself as the insured and had done so through no participation and certainly at no request nor behest from me … just months before daMan had walked. That is, Herry had gone and had a physical examination performed and had filled out and signed all of the proper forms –– including the special one because he fancies himself a small – plane pilot with the very real possibility then of one or two or however many of his actually owned little planes suddenly falling out of The Blue at some future date –– and apparently made the first premium payments back then for a few months. All of that, of course, because he was accountably attempting to look out for the spouse’s and for the Truemaier Boys’ futures? Hardly! That’s a jest, a mother – fucking joke! After just moving to Ames from Kansas, the Good and Wonderful Doctor Edinsmaier by wielding his ‘wealth’ was trying to impress a dimwitted nincompoop, some fawning ignoramus … one working in insurance sales whom Herry had just met in alcoholics anonymous! Herry, of course, does this a lot –– that is, he is really, really into the fucked craziness of trying to dazzle, to amaze, to wow, to awe, to fascinate and to influence people whom he hardly knows, especially females. Especially DEhumans –– whom he considers, overall anyhow, less in stature … than he is. And particularly if they are in occupation and paid endeavor then … such as, in his thinking, insurance agents would be … compared to, say, physicians such as himself … if they are also what he wants to believe are less in their working – order castes than his. A very Mehitable – like practice. I say ‘practice’ and not ideology –– because Herry knows he is not ‘any better’ than others, including DEhuman – Others or their efforts, studies and endeavors; Herod Edinsmaier just wants to be able to act like he is. At any rate, however the existence of this insurance policy came about, it … for certain … was mine! That is to say, I was not only the primary beneficiary named on it with the Truemaier Boys, equally in thirds, being designated as its secondary beneficiaries, Dr. Legion True was also … the policy’s owner. That is, in every way, I controlled it –– and its continued existence! Or, not. It wasn’t like it was for a million bazillion bucks or something; the policy was for only a hundred grand is all! Enough to –– if ever I managed to retrieve my immediate footing again and eventually acquired for myself some paid – off debt load and present – day financial stability and if ol’ Herry were to swiftly and unexpectedly buy the small – plane farm, why then, Jury, barely enough … $100,000 is … to bury me and to settle my estate –– thereby leaving my Mirzah, Jesse and Zane with no unforeseen burden and probably without any other problematic money matters brought about on my account! To which end … I had faithfully, then, been making every last one of its monthly premium payments … since the divorce! |