Previously on Ungruntled 3.0: A Love Story

[Posted February 11, 2018]

It was the trailing edge of the Steamy Seventies when I wandered into The Pit Stop on that cold, blustery March day, figurative hat in hand. Three months out of the Army, I was getting hungry for a job. (The first "Will Work 4 Food" sign hadn't yet been scrawled on creased cardboard, and I still wasn't quite that desperate. Or that inventive.)

The Pit Stop was a foreign car dealership, at the time, a somewhat eclectic -- exotic? -- business. This was the Seventies after all; the Urge to Merge had yet to overcome the American automotive industry. (Hell, the Japanese were kicking our asses in car sales. It would be another decade before we'd discover the only way we could lick 'em was to buy 'em. But I digress.) This particular dealership sold Saabs, Fiats and Lancias.

At that point, I didn't care if they sold Barsoomian Trundle Buses; they had an ad in the paper for an assistant parts manager, and I had some background. And hunger; did I mention hunger?

I walked into the bright, clean, glass-walled reception area. I wish I could say my heart stopped, or went pitty-pat, or that cherubim appeared in the air over her head and blew trumpets or something, but no. I was so nervous I wouldn't have heard 'em anyway. See, there was a girl sitting at the desk. She was beautiful, with auburn tresses and a sweet, sweet face and piercing hazel eyes. She was so pretty that this Army-toned-but-still-fat-kid-inside man would never have had the self-anything to risk something more personal than "Uh, hi. I'm...er.. I'm here about the...um...job in the paper?" Which I said.

She smiled up at me. My heart didn't pound like a trip-hammer or throw itself against my ribs like a trapped birdie or anything naratively useful like that. I just gaped, then smiled back crookedly, then went over and sat down to read the paper while she called her boss.

Besides, I was already still married.

It was a take-no-prisoners interview, but my hair was short, my hunger-driven demeanor was earnest and pathetically eager to please and I'd already slung car parts at people for three years before my long-term visit with Uncle Sugar.

"So, you want the job?"

"Yes. Please," I answered, proud at how well I'd kept the whine out of my voice.

"Okay. It's yours."

Hey. It was a different time.

So it came to pass that the next day I was unboxing and checking-in doubled-net-list-priced, foreign-language-labeled, grease-smelling shiny guts of Swedish and Italian cars. I was also meeting and greeting mechanics and generally getting the feel of the place and of civilian life once again. Soon, money was flowing in as well as out. Hunger was drubbed severely about the head and neck with blunt macaroni and cheese. Life was good.

Well, sorta.

My then-current marriage might have used some work. I'm not going too deep, to our mutual relief, Gentle Reader, so let's just leave it at this: the fabric of that particular nuptial arrangement had been badly frayed during my military years, and neither of us knew how to sew. Needless to say, it wouldn't be long before we finally accepted what had been obvious to the most casual observer for years.

In the meantime, the GI Bill was burning a hole in my pocket. After sweating through the Viet Nam draft lottery in '73 (my number was 248, which to the uninitiated was very, very good), I had turned around and joined The Green Machine in '74 for said tuition resource. I was still standing in front of the candy store window as far as career plans went, so rather than do anything intelligent like thinking about it or researching my possibilities - hard things, both - I just picked something. Electronics was cool, what with all those neat science-fiction switches and blinky lights and things that went beep and teletypes clack-clack-clacking in the background.

Yeah, that was the ticket. I'd learn that.

So I did. I signed up for a night course at the Southwest School of Electronics in (believe it or not) southwest Austin. By then, all the shredded marital cloth had been swept up at home and my ex-car was once again living in Michigan, so every night after work I'd wander out onto the road and ride my thumb south. Believe it or not, people would stop in the middle of traffic on South Lamar to give me a ride. But then, people being nice was one of the reasons I chose Austin in the first place, wasn't it? (Just nod. It's the right answer. Thank you.)

I'd done this for a while when, one day, the car that stopped looked familiar. I'd been working at The Pits (as we lovingly called the ol' place) for maybe four months now, and had gotten to know everyone there pretty well. It was a nice kind of family atmosphere - if you're used to your entire family working on cars and being stoned or drunk all the time and your dad being a tightwad asshole. It was fun. Really.

Of all the interesting people there, I'd had the fewest interactions with the lady in the office. I'd gained a little background, though. She was nice and kind and beautiful. She had three kids, all daughters, all very young. She had a live-in boyfriend who gave rednecks a bad name.

And she had just stopped to pick me up.

* * *

For the next six months, I rode with Susan to class. That first day she decided it was silly to have me hitching rides when she was driving to within a mile or so of my school every day. I didn't argue. My momma didn't raise no fools. It did however take me some time to get over the facts that a) I was sitting next to her and that b) she was beautiful.

For those of you looking startled, you may have never encountered this affliction, and I feel I must explain. I became a gibbering idiot around beautiful women. It was like Loki was lurking somewhere in the murky depths of my psyche, stealing selected words out of my speech queue. My IQ suddenly dropped by a factor of ten, and given its lowly average to begin with, this is truly a spectacle. Imagine the cast of Quest for Fire on Quaaludes and you're getting close.

It was therefore nothing short of miraculous that by the time we stopped to pick up her youngest from daycare, we were chatting like old friends. After the wee blonde had clambered into the back seat, Susan proceeded to quiz her on her day. This did not take the generic form of, "How was your day, dear?" It was, "What did you have for lunch?" and "What did you learn today?" and a number of other queries that required specific, detailed answers.

Having sprung from how-was-your-day-dear-that's-nice-dear roots, I found it fascinating to hear a four-year-old rattle off a list of all the foods in her lunch, what she drew and colored, and the names of the friends (and enemies) she'd encountered. "We had thalad peath [pea salad] and thelery and tuna thandwiches," she told us in a matter-of-fact tone through a missing-front-toothed, curious-about-the-big-hairy-guy-with-mommy smile. "I dropped my fork and had to get a clean one. And at playtime, Billy Hernandeth told Mrs. Sthtapleton that I pulled hith hair, but I really didn't."

I turned a wondering gaze on the driver, and she beamed - we're not talking smiled broadly here, but rather lit up spotlight-like. "It helps her memory develop," she said quietly.

I was intrigued.

Over the course of these six months, a friendship grew. We were both too busy in our separate worlds for anything more, and while it wasn't something we had the luxury to ponder, we were both walking wounded, emotionally. As the weeks and the Austin landscape rolled by, unseen and unnoticed tendrils of trust began to break through the hardscrabble of emotional scars and the detritus of failed relationships. The spiritual environment that emerged and grew around us was just what we both needed: no demands, no give and take, no stupid, hurtful games. What we each contributed was what we could afford and would give willingly - and no more.

In my experience, our relationship was unique. And it was enough.

By this time, I was sharing an apartment with the Pit Stop porter, another name for "gopher." He was easy to get along with, the finances worked out handily, and he had friends that all liked to party. Many a night I would stumble in with my head full of ohms and amps and joules, only to be handed a fat bit of doobage and a glass of something dark and reeking of alcohol. Under most circumstances, my appearance was brief; I would briefly self-anesthetize, listen to some tunes and then excuse myself for bed. It was good. Until one night...

When I crawled up out of the wobbly darkness, Susan was bending over me. The room was much too bright, and even my breathing was painfully loud. It seems I'd forgotten the moderation part the night before and had eventually collapsed across my bed, still fully clothed. This is how she found me.

She had called the apartment when the assistant parts manager and the porter had not shown up for work. No one had answered the phone, and this worried her. She had excused herself and driven south ... and into what looked like a crime scene.

There were bodies in open-doored cars out in front of the duplex. The front door was standing open. There were bodies on the couch and the floor of the living room. Like a triage doctor, she analyzed the situation, made sure everyone was still breathing, and then helped me to her car.

She took me to the emergency room of Dunkin' Doughnuts, forced on her patient per opus two cups of hot, dark fluids and three toroidal doses of complex carbohydrates, all the while reminding me that everything would be all right. She was wonderful. She spoke softly. She was a goddess of light and doughnuts. When she took me the rest of the way to work, I didn't throw up even once.

I thought she was dropping me at the door of The Pits so I wouldn't fall down as many times as I would from the parking lot. But as I closed the door, she said, "I'll see you tomorrow."

Two of my surviving brain cells had stretched and yawned and puked by this time, so they were awake enough to be mildly curious. "You're leaving?" I asked. It probably didn't sound like that exactly, but that's what I meant to say.

"I have to go talk to my ex," she said quietly.

Ex, I thought. Ex. Ex.

I grew puzzled. Why would she want to visit with the twenty-fourth letter of the alphabet? For that matter, where would she go to do this?

"He's asked me if we could get back together."

Oh?

"I'm having a lot of trouble making ends meet..."

Oh. That kind of ex.

Oh. Back together.

Oh, shit. "Are you sure you want to do that?" I asked her, leaning in the car window.

Susan stared over the steering wheel and shrugged. "I don't know anymore."

"I can help with the bills if you'd like," I blurted. Our friendship was shifting wildly in my head, and the changes were far from subtle. Feelings seemed to be sorting themselves into groups. If only I hadn't killed so many brain cells the night before. My head throbbed and pounded.

She smiled over at me. "I couldn't let you do that."

"I could at least pay for gas."

She sighed and looked back out the windshield. "Let me think about it, okay? We can talk later."

I can't begin to describe the panic that hit me then. She was going to leave, to go see a man she'd lived with before, that she'd had a baby with, for chrissakes. And suddenly all that was important.

She looked back over at me. "I'm a little late..."

Aaarrrgghhh! What should I do? "If I got a vote, I'd say don't do it," I said. Brilliantly.

Susan gave me a hard stare. I couldn't read the look, but I knew there was a lot going on behind those hazel eyes.

I wasn't exactly stumbling into unknown territory here. Twelve miles a day in rush hour traffic - even late-Seventies Austin rush hour - left a lot of time for conversing, and that's what we did. (Now that I think back on those days, the story of this part of my life could have been titled A Conversation With Susan; the rest of my hours were nothing more than a sepia-tinted dream I woke up from for half an hour after work each day.) It was only natural that the rubble of our individual love lives would take center stage for much of the discussion.

The ex Susan was going to see was Number Two. Number One had been physically abusive in the extreme. Number Two's violations were "only" mental - to include bailing when he found out she was pregnant. Little wonder she had decided marriage was a game she couldn't afford to play any more.

Except maybe to feed her kids.

She smiled sadly. "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind." I was out of answers, so I backed out of the car window. She drove off.

Watching Ol' Betsy (her old Chevy) disappear into the traffic gelled the feelings that had boiled up all around her announcement.

Gods save me, I'd done it again. No matter how many times or how vehemently I'd agreed with Susan's assessment of the prohibitive price of love, I was there. Downtown center. City hall.

The next hour was one of the most miserable I'd ever spent.

Then someone came to the parts window. I made the standard show of busy-ness, filing inventory cards, not glancing up. My heart wasn't really in it, but tradition is important, y'know?

"I changed my mind," she said from the window. This time, my heart did go pity-pat. And it took me weeks to get all the damn cherubim chased out of the Parts Department.

We dated. We found eclectic little restaurants and ate vast quantities of Italian food. I think we saw every movie the town had to offer. We picnicked. We danced. We camped. We sang. Together.

The five of us.

And I just kept falling deeper and deeper in love.

I'll not bore you with any more details, Gentle Reader, except for one. 

The 11th day of February, 1978 found us gathered together with a small group of friends and family at the house of Jan and Dave, our Austin "parents" and bestest friends in the whole wide world - after each other, of course. Nervous, bemused smiles and wobbly knees were the uniform of the day for the happy couple. The friends were full of bubbly, the girls were full of giggles and the Judge was full of finger sandwiches by the time the music started.

While our "photographer" "hid behind" a potted plant to snap pictures, we joined hands and repeated-after-me'd. Then, after one timeless kiss, tears and laughter and flying garters and bouquets ensued.

And happiness, both general and specific. Mustn't forget the happiness.

This story isn't over: we'll celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary today. It's been the best of times and the worst of times. Love doesn't make life smooth. But in those bests of times, it makes it indescribably sweet. In the worst, it makes it bearable.

I can't think of that day without remembering a conversation I had with Dave just before the ceremony. I was getting unfamiliar clothing details -- suits and ties and such -- worked out when he walked into the bedroom looking grumpy.

"I've changed my mind. I'm not giving her away," he said. Dave was, as his statement suggests, planning to give Susan away. This was an Unexpected Event.

My post-bachelor-party mind tried to seethe, but simply slumped. "Huh?"

"Nope. Not gonna do it."

"Can I ask why the hell not?"

"You can't have my Sweet Girl for free."

"Aw, jeeze, Dave..."

"Gimme a quarter."

Luckily, I had one in the pocket of my jeans on the bed. I threw him a curious grin as I handed it over. "And I don't do refunds," he growled. "No exceptions."

Bless his wise, gruff, heathen soul for eternity, it was the best damn' quarter I ever spent.