Let's . . . WHAT Did You Just Say??

It was hell for hot and she had another mile to go. She neither wanted to break pace nor deal with the kind of idiot who honked, hooted and hollered as she executed her run. The engine growled a little louder and the car invaded her personal space more than she liked. She shot an angry glance over her shoulder. Oh, boy. The red monster machine. "Hi! I seen you running and thought I'd stop to say hello. It's pretty hot." Of all his shortcomings, perhaps his mangling of the language bothered her most. The man had a better education than she. He was a business professional. Why didn't he speak properly? "No, you saw me. Get off my ass with that car." "Would you like to go to Denny's later, as long as we can get there before 5:00? Early Bird Special!" He dropped back a few feet in the car. "No!" She was shocked there was that much reserve energy in her body. She nearly broke the sound barrier. He dropped back still farther and then roared off around her, tires squealing.

She worked hard to regulate her breathing, maintain her pace, and concentrate on the run, not on him. She squirted half a bottle of drinking water over the top of her head. "Freak! Lummox!" For she was not indifferent. She actively disliked him. Her disdain and abhorrence caught fire and she slowed to a walk, her intense focus on the run broken. Well, walking was still exercise. "God damn him." She fumed along, her head roaring with negative energy, the positive draining out through her pores. She felt her feet stomp hard as she thought about all the framed art in his home - "pitchers" - and the "picture" of beer he shared with buddies after golf each weekend. She felt backed into a corner, the right angle of two walls pressing against her back. Now he even made her crazy when he wasn't in her presence. She gave him entirely too much power to sap her strength and she hardly recognized herself. What had happened here?

Her son was concerned. "Would you like me to tell him you don't want to see him any more? I can do that nicely." She didn't want that. She was the parent, the adult. Her son was barely more than a kid. He shouldn't have to dig her out of situations. Her therapist asked, "What is your role in this? We know what's up with him. He's never had it so good. He has little self-esteem and he has you for a charm bracelet. He doesn't have to perform sexually or be responsible for you in any way. He's not going to change anything. He is a man for whom a little bit of nothing is sufficient." She tried to think what the real answer was. What was she doing? "He's not giving you money. He doesn't provide you a home. You have no common interests. He makes you insane. He seems unable or unwilling to care about any other person. You've lived - happily - uninvolved with anyone from time to time. What are you getting from this that you're so resistant to screaming 'Enough!'?" The tears began to roll. If this counselor really could not see the problem, she wanted a rebate for the $150 per hour she paid to be treated. Or was he trying to force her to see it for herself and say it out loud? For she knew, without question. It was the same old thing, new time, new station.

Her own personal flock of charlatan analysts was sufficiently large to break into subcategories. She only even exchanged holiday cards with a handful of them any longer. "Mehhhh," she thought, striking another from the list just last December. She'd been much analyzed, medicated and treated, for everyone knew there was something wrong with her since she was very young. Her disputed, dire potential and actual diagnoses filled volumes. This she hid behind a veil of (mostly) respectable and successful behavior, a life acted "as if". She was (mostly) a grand actress. Some of the professionals went far afield from time to time, suggesting some psychological malady that hadn't been considered previously. Those counselors, their diagnoses and treatment generally were dismissed shortly, for she and her primary health professionals felt they knew what the core issues were, and how to set her right for a peaceful life.

She could repeat the guidelines by rote, having heard them so often. "People who endured early childhood abuse and psychological neglect often develop a protective personality subself whose goal is to please others at all costs. The pleaser's intense, narrow focus is on protecting shamed, abandoned and scared young subselves from the pain of social rejection, scorn, disapproval, criticism and dislike." It didn't matter who the other people were, or what they asked for. Compliance and pleasing were paramount. She'd often found herself doing things she didn't want to do with people she did not like.

"Common behavioral clues of an overactive pleaser include:

• rarely confronting or disagreeing with people
• over-apologizing
• smiling and joking despite major inner pain
• focusing on others' needs and feelings while neglecting their own (self- abandonment)
• rarely asking for, or accepting, help.

Until the pleaser reduces shame and fear of abandonment through personal recovery, he will attract and seek out other wounded people for companionship, often the narcissist or the controller, whose needs are so many, the pleaser knows he will be completely consumed with pleasing the other and, thereby, protecting himself from abandonment."

When she was aged 5 and 15, she pleased with a smile on her face - oh, so sincere - asking about the next need on the list even before she'd finished with the pleasing act she was performing now. She was an adolescent the first time it dawned on her that she was working awfully hard, to the detriment of her own interests and fulfillment, to make others feel satisfied and fulfilled. She wasn't sure, then, what to do with that. The need to please pulled her in one direction, the anger and resentment at having her time, energy and will displaced in another. As she aged, the balance began to shift, the resentment growing in equal proportion to the diminishing need to please. But the deep seated need did not entirely disappear, and she grew to recognize in herself the hybrid disease she called submit-and-resent. Oh, yes, she could claim such boundaries as "I will not get out in the cold and snow" or "I will not be routed out of my bed early because you are prepunctual and impulsive". But she could not manage a firm, "No, I will not go to Brenton Mountain with you. I don't want to." The therapist said, "He does not believe you when you take a stand." She understood that.

He sat alone in a booth at Denny's, dour, at 4:45 p.m. He fist-gripped a fork, forgetting exactly what he had ordered, but enjoying the copious smothering of white gravy it sported. Who didn't like white gravy? He'd never met anyone who didn't like white gravy. Why was she such a bitch about food? Maybe she had one of those eating disorders. Whenever he ordered his favorite orange Fanta, she visibly winced. Why shouldn't a man order his favored orange soft drink? Was there something wrong with it? The longer he brooded, the more determined he became. Nothing was going to make him call her to see if she'd like to get together this evening. He'd go home and engage in some furniture rearranging, something he thoroughly enjoyed and yet another thing for her to bitch about. "You don't line up all the tables in a row like train cars," she crabbed. His staging of the upholstered furnishings never made sense to her, and she bitched incessantly about his placement of his pitchers. It was his home. She had nothing to say about it. And he wouldn't stoop to call her tonight.

"Hello." "Hi, are you in a better mood now?" Bad choice of greeting. "I wasn't in a bad mood earlier until I felt the hot breath of that red monster breathing right up the back of my running shorts." He remembered why he'd previously determined not to call her tonight. "I went to the VA clinic today. I got an appointment to have my hearing tested next week. I told them about my leg." She was happy to hear that. He was in fragile health due to the effects of his Agent Orange exposure in Viet Nam, suffering both near-terminal and fairly minor ailments from time to time. He now presented with a small area on his upper thigh that gave him intense and constant pain. There was no visible symptom and nothing could be felt internally upon palpation. They were both concerned about it. "What did they say about that?" He told her they weren't yet certain what was going on, but they had prescribed him something for the pain. She asked what they gave him. "A Lubriderm patch. They're really expensive. My co-pay was $45. The pharmacist said I could try half a patch to start and if that was effective, I'd get twice the use out of my prescription." Her head began to pound. Lubriderm patch? What? Was there reason to suspect he suffered from fatal dry skin? She'd never heard of skin lotion in patch form. She asked him to repeat what was prescribed. "Lubriderm patches. I bought a bottle of the lotion, too, for my hands." "So they're treating this mystery pain with an intense application of lotion?" "I guess."

She felt a sinking sensation, fatigued. His voice became a drone without words. Her friends enjoyed her laughter and sense of humor, but she hadn't guffawed in a long time, and couldn't work one up now. "Is your prescription near you as we're talking?" He said it was right at his fingertips. She asked him to read the name of the medication and he replied, "Lubriderm Patch." She thought, "What the hell? Don't make me come over there!" Finally she thought to ask him of pitchers/pictures, seen/saw to spell the name of the potion. "L-i-d-o-d-e-r-m Patch." Oh. That made sense. "That would be lidoderm, probably so named because it contains lidocaine, an analgesic painkiller. It has nothing to do with lotion or dry skin. It sounds really sensible to use that to control your pain while they figure out what the problem is." Silence. She waited for some response which she imagined would be the "Errr?" of Scooby Doo and Tim, the Tool Man, Taylor. The silence went on and on. Then the call was disconnected. She hadn't done it.

He roared aloud in the privacy of his own home. "I never knew anybody who knows everything about everything. Who the hell does she think she is, the bitch?" How was he supposed to know about medicines? He wasn't a doctor or a pharmacist. She began to prepare a salad in her kitchen with baby romaine, parmesan cheese, croutons and homemade vinaigrette. Her phone rang. Oh, no. No. She wasn't playing this. When he tried to call the fourth time, she turned off the call alert. She went through the house and closed all the blinds, stopping at the front door to arm the security system. She took her salad to her favorite, well-worn chair and sat down. Her mouth was full when she began to snicker. She quickly, but thoroughly, chewed and swallowed, because she felt it coming on. Her stomach and ribcage convulsed first, then her throat began to emit little bursts of air and energy. Her face broke into a smile that nearly hurt. When the guffaw emerged, it was stupendous. She was shocked there was that much reserve energy in her body. She nearly broke the sound barrier.

Let's Get an Interpreter

He did not like women. Not really. Oh, he wasn't gay, though even that mattered little any longer, as sexual activity was not possible. It was more that he didn't value women. He didn't crave their company because he found their company invigorating. He was simply hard-wired to pursue them and did so avidly, a shark moving continually to keep the water running across the gills. But once he snared one in his jaws, he didn't know what to do with it. They weren't as bright as men or as interesting as men or as compelling as men or as worthy as men. They were difficult to understand and not worth the time spent trying to do so. When she pointed out that he didn't really seem to like women, a row ensued. He didn't let on that he'd heard that before, from other people. She wouldn't have been surprised.

His manly accoutrements kept him in the game and competition with other men, whose company was all he really valued. His golf game was good, his big screen TV huge, his sound system remarkable, his car louder and redder than most. He wore good clothing and he wore her on his arm like a wristwatch. When they walked into a room, other men of a certain age gave him an admiring look and sometimes an almost imperceptible nod. If anyone spoke to them, he knew he could rely upon her to give a sparkling response and he wouldn't have to think. She'd remember where the car was parked and the names of each of his new-found men friends. He didn't realize she understood she was so handy and useful - her purpose. He would have been surprised to learn he was so transparent.

He was his mother's eldest and favorite child. The other six seem to have occupied a second level in common, but he occupied a loftier position. It was his mother who told him that women always want something - always. As she taught him this, it never seemed to register with him that Mother, too, was a woman. Because they shared a home until he was more than 55 years old, Mother had many opportunities to underscore her assertion. He would have been surprised to hear it was unusual to live with one's mother for 55 years, thereby avoiding relationships with other women. He wouldn't have believed it. His mother made his good food, kept his home clean and warned him against prowling, selfish females. He hadn't missed out on anything in life by choosing to spend it with his mother.

After his mother died, he began a series of short, failed pairings with women. None of them could cook like his mother. None of them could easily see his deserved position in any pecking order. None of them loved him the way his mother had loved him, and Mother had been right: they all wanted something. He was a man who did not feel many things intensely, but he grew a deep, burning well of anger. His mother was gone, no one would feed him, no one would idolize him, and they all wanted to take from him. With each failed attempt to engage with a female, he became more bitter, and soon he thought of them all as objects - things for which he might have some limited use. He liked the more pliable and less intelligent ones best. They required less effort on his part and tended to be grateful for even small attentions. Once in awhile he met one who could cook or one who was willing to put him on a pedestal. Those were pleasant for awhile.

This one was different. She didn't broadcast her needs through appearance or conversation. She didn't ask for what she wanted, not money or jewelry or meals out or home repairs. If he thought for even a moment that she really wanted nothing, he would relax. But he had the strong feeling she had deep wants and needs. He thought there might be fire hidden behind the ice, but just beyond his ability to grasp. This required him to spend a deal of time thinking and he did not care for that. It required him to guess at what might please her and he knew he was not good at that. If he had ever pleased her tremendously, she had not revealed it with a huge smile and squeals of delight. Whenever he grossly displeased her, she made it very clear in a way that even he could understand. He could certainly move on. The social networking website e-mails announced themselves on his computer hourly. But women of this age tended to look a little shopworn, bodies growing heavy, hair turning gray. This one caused the other men to give him an "Atta boy!" His male coworkers raved about how attractive and bright she was, and how did an old dog like him manage to catch her attention?

When he picked her up for her Mexican food dinner, he was already in a huff. He did not know about Mexican food and the resort had a perfectly good Denny's. Everyone liked Denny's. "If she says one word about my driving, I'm going to put her out in the street," he determined. It wasn't as if he actually hit people. Oh, there was that recent Saturday when he'd had a close call with a big, fat cow who stepped off the curb right in front of him. He'd barely avoided a knock-down there and he knew it. When the woman he couldn't understand screamed his name in warning, his immediate response was "It wasn't my fault!" Not, "Geez!" or "Good Lord!" or "Close call!" No. "It wasn't my fault."

"I didn't suggest it was your fault. I simply didn't want you to hit a woman right before my eyes. This is happening way too frequently. What's up with that?" He'd fumed along silently, noticing that she slowly and silently shook her head from side to side. Pulling into the parking lot at their destination, he asked her again: "Are you sure you won't come in?" She would not patronize the place. "No, I'll wait in the car. It's sunny and warm. I have a book in my bag." It pissed him off. Who the hell did she think she was? And as he pulled into a parking stall, he solidly thunked into the car in front of him, setting the alarm screaming. She didn't say a word, simply looking at him. He slammed his car into reverse and prepared to get out. "Are you going to leave them a note on their windshield?" she asked. He was not. "If they come out and ask me if you hit them, I'm going to tell them the truth."

But now it was time for a nice, celebratory meal. He stepped on the back of her shoe walking inside, causing her to step right out of it. She took it with good grace. Once they were seated, the server brought the traditional basket of tortilla chips, a selection of salsa and bean dips, and invited them to visit the salsa bar. "I suppose that's the salsa bar," he growled. She grinned and pointed to the enormous, festively Mexican sign, "SALSA BAR" located about 6 feet away. He lumbered up, peered at the offerings and returned to say, "All they have is beans and salsa. You know, they bring these chips and stuff so people will fill up on it and not eat their food." She smiled, dipping a chip into the hottest of the salsa choices. "Really? I'd think they would want us to fill up on their pricey entrees rather than their free chips." That silenced him. He busied himself with the menu. "What's botanas?" She explained it meant "appetizers". He thought he ordered his fajita burrito with some panache and felt pleased with himself.

The server arrived with their meal saying, "Very hot plates!" He picked his up with both hands to move it closer to himself. Yes, it was very hot. "I don't like rice. Do you want to take mine home with you?" She had rice of her own, she stated. He knew from the look on her face that he was doing something wrong. Trying to divert her attention he asked, "How's your meal?" She said it was excellent. "What is it?" As she explained, his eyes glazed and he kept up the attack on his burrito. She was watching him closely. He knew she was! What the hell? She had never seen anyone tuck into a burrito, tearing open the tortilla as if it were a paper wrapping, using a knife to push aside the onions, peppers and seasoned pan drippings. She idly wondered exactly what part of the meal he might actually be consuming. "The beans are real good," he said.

As they walked out of the resort, she trailed a little behind trying to figure out exactly what she was seeing. Once she understood, she said, "Your cloth napkin is sticking to the leg of your trousers with static electricity." It made him very angry.

Let's Get Something to Eat

She had made and repeated the fearless moral inventory of herself as an important part of her 12-step program. It had not been as difficult for her as some addicts find it. She had had a lot of therapy in her lifetime, spent many years seeking self-realization and was naturally quite introspective. She did not lack awareness of her many shortcomings. She mostly did not let herself off the hook for them either, working actively to correct some of them, and at least admitting to them all. That had come with age and growth. Her youth had mostly begat denial and excuses. But now she saw herself quite clearly and she was OK with most of it.

She was a wordy person which some people appreciate and some do not. She didn't care for numbers at all. Numbers were not logical to her, and she was bright enough to know that that was completely illogical. Words warred to be the first to escape her brain whether written, spoken, sung or expressed in some other media. Numbers remained more firmly lodged in the gray matter and she had to struggle to manage even their simple use. Oh, she could add, subtract, multiply and calculate square footage quite nicely. She just always had to check her work twice to make sure. It hadn't been difficult to embrace her affinity for words over numbers. Despite that, her head was a veritable treasure trove of dates of events both important and unimportant, even to those more affected by the dates than she. The plethora of dates and events she could spew was remarkable.

"I'd like to take you out for dinner on Thursday." His face was a little more animated than usual and his fairly attractive smile lit it up.

Since he was pleasant, she determined to be pleasant and put a smile on. She teased, "Well, why Thursday instead of Tuesday or Saturday?"

He became kind of odd and the smile slipped. "It's the date we met each other. It means something to me." She cringed inwardly while trying to keep her game face. "I knew that," she lied. "That's why I was funning you!" Her hands became very busy and she moved the conversation forward. "Where shall we dine?" He named a couple of large resorts, each of which has several different cafes from which to choose. "You decide and I'll be happy with it." She pondered and said she'd enjoy a good meal of Mexican food. "OK, but you'll have to tell me what to order. I don't know about Mexican food." She felt the slow burn beginning again. It wasn't going to be about his deplorable driving this time. It was going to be about food. Food was not a good thing for her at which to aim anger.

She had never seen anyone eat the way he ate. Both his food choices and his table manners were atrocious. Some days he ate nothing whatsoever and some days he ate his weight in food. Sometimes he ate at 3:00 a.m. - ice cream and really bad "artificial" fried chicken one cooks in the oven to let all the grease run out from the crispy coating in streams. He'd never heard of low fat or reduced sodium or less sugar. She was certain he never knew vegetables came in any form other than canned until she pointed out the fresh and frozen varieties. He wanted white gravy on everything, just like his mother made for him.

By far, the bananas were the worst. She had never seen anyone consume 5 bananas in an hour. And there was something about the banana consumption that carried her from simple revulsion to real anger. She wasn't certain why she landed on anger. Perhaps it actually did start with disgust and escalated, as she longed to knock him in the head with a stick, to anger. His banana dance did not vary. Perhaps it was sacred to him. He first peeled the fruit entirely and then fist-gripped the naked banana like a child or a monkey would handle it, eating from both ends, with gusto and sound effects.

She had tried, rather half-heartedly and early on, to mine his food preferences so she could occasionally make them a meal. She found it hard going. Then she found it made her angry. He had lived his entire life in the southwest but he didn't know about Mexican food. She'd laughed at that! "What? You've never tried a taco?" He said he hadn't. She asked about lasagna, as she enjoyed making that. He'd never had that either. She didn't laugh. The man was more than 60 years old. In a part of the country where Mexican food reigns and has for decades, he's never sampled a taco? He's never tried lasagna at a restaurant or at someone's home or at a potluck meal at work? Never? Or did he simply open his face, insert food, never actually tasting it, never weighing whether he enjoyed it or not, never wondering if he might try it again sometime?

It occurred to her why he made her angry. It didn't come in a flash of brilliance. She'd had to sneak up on it, but it was gradually revealed. He went through life with blinders on all of his senses. Because he experienced so little of life, he had few memories, no stories. He had no texture. It seemed to her he simply ambled through the world, neither looking at anything, tasting or smelling. He paid no attention to other human beings, so he had never become socialized. He didn't know what 22-year-olds had already learned by simply asking or paying attention. He was singularly incurious, whereas she was curious about everything.

It seemed to her that it had finally happened. She had finally met a man to whom she would give utterly nothing of herself and he would find that acceptable. He might offer every fiber of himself to her, but she was not interested in the least. It had been her experience there was usually some accord about whether to continue casual relationships or end them. Mostly, the parties viewed the interaction similarly. That wasn't going to happen this time. For he was having the time of his life and she felt like she was losing ground. Her mistake was the same tired one: submit and resent. And now she'd allowed a situation to develop.

Some said she was a bit of a bitch. He was the salt of the earth. He had become sufficiently comfortable to walk up behind her as she typed personal e-mails, reading from the screen. She'd heard his hand on the doorknob a time or two when she hadn't quite finished getting dressed. She had become sufficiently uncomfortable to fantasize about running - literally, physically - down the street until she could not be seen. But, no. Running away like a child wouldn't resolve anything. Perhaps he'd even follow behind in his red muscle machine and find her! No, this time she'd have to stay and work to take back her sense of peace and self and self-respect.

Let's Not Talk About That

"Pedestrian!" "Pedestrian!" "Pe-DES-trian!" She literally screamed it as loud as she could, her feet scrabbling on the floorboards at the imaginary, and hoped-for, brake pedal, arms akimbo. No, her voice could not have been any louder. The braking noise was incredible, smoldering rubber from the tires, the car spinning nearly 360-degrees. She saw the pedestrian not 2 feet off the front bumper as she whirled, her body being tossed from side to side within her seat. She felt perspiration leap from her armpits and forehead, run in rivulets between her breasts. "I didn't see him." "No shit, you didn't see him! What the hell is the matter with you? You've nearly just killed a man."

She saw his hands shaking on the wheel as he tried to move them and the car off of the median. Though terribly distressed, she determined to take it a little easier on him. The pedestrian continued to mosey on down the road, apparently unconcerned. Ah, the oblivion of an alcoholic wet brain. "I didn't see him. I was looking off that other way for awhile. He needs to watch where he's going."

[Quietly.] "When you're driving the car, you need to look at the road. Yes, he was jaywalking, but it's a 4-lane highway here on Rummy Row. I'd watched him quite awhile before I realized you were not on the planet with us."

She watched his lower jaw slide forward. She'd noted before that he was not anxious to accept responsibility for much. He chose to pick a little beef with her. She was ready this time. "It's not my fault he was wandering across the highway and his clothes blended right in with everything. You don't need to be such a bitch about it." Uh-oh. She didn't care for the word. She didn't care for the implication that there was something wrong with her, with the pedestrian, and nothing whatsoever wrong with him. "Look, you. You can't see, you can't hear, you pay attention to nothing. You scream around the streets in this red muscle machine, gunning the engine like an adolescent with a perpetual erection and your reaction time is frighteningly slow. Twice you've driven me the wrong way and nearly got us into a head-on collision. I don't want to be killed and I don't want to watch you kill someone else. Freaking pay attention and act your age!" He gave his usual reply: silence, no facial movement. Was his silence a damning reply?

[Zooming along the highway again] "Would you like to go to the casino buffet and get something to eat?" The waves of nausea from the near-miss had not stopped washing over her. "Um, no." "You're awfully thin. You need to eat." "NO! Thank you!" When he dropped her off at her door, she told him: "I'm serious. You act like a wild teen and I'm unwilling to be hurt, maimed or killed."

"I already know I'm not the kind of man you want." She reminded him of something: "I told you on Day 1 that I was not looking for a man, thanks. Not in the way you mean. I told you if you wanted to have a human friend, I may be available for that." He gave his usual reply: silence, no facial movement. Had he heard a word? "Could you make me a sandwich before I leave?"

She had a well-honed skill for dreaming when she did not wish to observe reality. He stabbed at his Sugar-Free Jello, fist-gripping his spoon the way her son had done before he developed fine motor skills (certainly by kindergarten). The noise was incredible, so she tried to breathe deeply, filling her ears with the sounds of good air coming in and going out of her body. She noticed again that he wore well-made clothing, good brands. His sweaters had some heft to them and he bought his things in a size that fit him properly. She remembered an anecdote from family lore, dating back to WWII. It was said that her mother could shop at Saks and come out looking like Minnie Pearl, whereas her sisters could go to Woolworths and step out looking like Lana Turner. This man was clearly of the Saks/Minnie Pearl sect, Polo and Izod and Hilfiger tags flapping from the back of each and every piece of clothing. Salt of the earth. A hell of a guy. "Could I have another Jello?" "Sure."

She felt terribly scattered and wondered, "What the hell am I doing?" She had rejected more than one online lothario in favor of this man, clearly the most ill-suited of the herd of bulls. He was objectionable to her in every way and going downhill from there. Her BFF referred to the man as "time filler" or "time waster", and she couldn't come up with any compelling arguments against that. There wasn't even any sex in it for light relief, as his disability had given him an inability, about which he was very straightforward upon their first meeting. Uh-oh. Was that it? Sex? It was! It's not the hokey-pokey. Sex is what it's all about. She didn't want to deal with that subject. He was the perfect man with whom to align herself. He couldn't engage in that topic. The red muscle car allowed him to remember the days of the perpetual erection. She wanted to get him out of her kitchen. She had learned a great truth about herself. She was a bit of a bitch.

Let's Do It Again Sometime

He was a great, shambling bear of a man, and good-looking enough, well-educated. His heart and good will were huge and easy, captured by cats and families in need, maidens in distress and good, liberal political candidates. Somehow he had managed to skip many of life's more intricate transactions such as marriage, children, travel, reading for pleasure, ordering from a nice menu. He worked, he watched 50-year-old reruns of Palladin and Gunsmoke after work each day, watched sports ad nauseam, Bill Maher sometimes (all at unbelievable volume), ate abominably and retired to bed at 8:00 p.m. He was prepunctual for every engagement and blurted out everything that came into his head, whether it was his personal secret to share or not. He became grievously ill 40 years after military service in Viet Nam, barely hanging onto life, and he genuinely believed the way to resolve a problem was to "think positive" and act quickly (whether the action was well-considered or not). He recovered. When one asked for advice, or just an ear, he quickly made and executed a plan to fix things, in just the way he felt appropriate. Then he gave it no more thought. "Salt of the earth. A hell of a guy." So said everyone who ever met him once. He was a simple man.

"She's a bit of a bitch," said many who did not love her immediately upon meeting her. And there were a number of such people. For it seemed people either loved her or didn't, with little ground in between. "Snotty bitch at that." She'd enjoyed many of the finer things in life (sometimes under the auspices of others and not by her own hard work) and wasn't afraid to say so. Not bragging, precisely, but retelling fine experiences, sometimes to people who hadn't experienced such times and who were not appreciative. She was deadly intelligent and wicked quick-witted, but perhaps not to the degree that she believed herself. She was a little handsome, appearing sweet and very open. She was not, particularly. Her heart was given neither quickly nor easily, surrounded by layers of cautious reserve formed by temperament and experience. Her admiration was given even more carefully. She was complex. "There is nothing easy about me," she was known to say right out loud and very early on. She thrived on communication and did not appreciate her comments frequently floating away without reaction. "Shut up'"would have been OK, or "I don't agree." Simply some form of acknowledgement. His hearing was not what it used to be, he said. She didn't feel her voice was a whisper.

"Would you like me to take you to Brenton Mountain this weekend? You said you'd never been there. It looks a lot like those pictures you keep around all over the place. I think you'd like it there."

"Oh, no, I don't think so. It's still cold and I'm not physically up-to-speed. But, thank you. Very nice thought."

"You really need to get away. Get some sun on your skin. Breathe a little."

"Well, that's quite generous, but I don't think so just yet."

[Next day.] "Let's go to Brenton Mountain this Saturday. We can go after I golf, about 2:00."

[Startled] "But we already talked about this. I don't want to go. I'm really not up for it." [She did not want to spend hours in a car with this man, going someplace she did not wish to visit with him. It's true she was not physically up to a vigorous hike, but it was more true that she only wanted to experience certain adventures in ways that were meaningful to her. Oh, no. This was a bad idea.]

[Next day.] "I can pack a couple of blankets and a flashlight for emergency. We can buy gas at Fallon City and coordinate our watches and we'll eat along the road and . . . . all expenses on me. Be sure to take a jacket and sweater . . . . . We'll go at 2:00, but if it's frosty and my tee time is delayed, I'll forego the golfing and we'll just leave. I'll call and let you know. What time could you be ready, if there's no golfing?" [His mistake was to keep pushing. Hers was the same old one: submit and resent. She managed her own meals and car trips all the time. She didn't need or want a travel agent. She did need to say "no" as loudly as it could be uttered. ] "8:30. If you call me by 8:00, I can be ready by 8:30. Be prepared: I am not hiking. I am not touching snow. If the air is cold, I'm not getting out of the car. I am taking several books."

[Next day. 5:00 a.m. phone call.] "Just reminding you that if my tee time is delayed, I'll call you and we'll go earlier." [With none too good grace, she allowed as how she recalled that.] "What time is it now? Why are you calling me so early?" [He asked what time her alarm clock was reading and she thought, "I don't need an alarm clock. You go off more frequently than a cuckoo."]

[6:00 phone call.] "It's not frosty, but I decided to dump the golf game. Can you be ready at 6:30?" [She barked that she could be ready when she said she'd be ready. She made coffee, resolved to do things differently just as soon as she could, packed a leather tote with things she might need and many she wouldn't conceivably need. When he arrived at the door, not prepunctual, he imposed a review of the journey's checklist which she just barely endured. He courteously gathered up all it appeared she was taking along.] "Please give me my purse. I do not want you to carry my purse for me. Thank you."

When she realized there was to be no music to break the journey, her heart plunged. She feigned sleep awhile. "No." She didn't need a restroom. "No." She didn't want a drink or snack. When the reverb in her own head became unbearable, she began to chatter on, loudly, about all the natural beauty she had experienced in the general area. She told of plants, animals and their husbandry, her feats in cruel nature. He uttered not one word in reply. She wondered if he had not heard any of her words. She wondered if his silence was a more damning commentary.

"Be sure to let me know if you want to stop anywhere. Something to eat or drink?" Her answer was still no. And none of the establishments had opened for the season, anyway. For a man who had visited here before, he seemed to have no recollection of the roads or sights, nor could he manage a map. She could and did. He pulled the car into a shadowy, snowy parking stall. "Let's get out awhile." "I'm not getting out. I told you that. I am willing to read, nap, snack and wait here as long as you'd like to hike around. But I'm not getting out." Looking surprised, but clearly having heard every word, he got back in and started back down the mountain.

"Oh," she squealed loudly and with unmistakable enthusiasm. "A bighorn sheep. I've only rarely seen them in the wild. Look - sunbathing up on that rock formation that's rocking like a cradle!" As she scrabbled for her camera, he zoomed past the many open parking stalls. "Wow, it was a big one, huh?" "Um, no. It was a tiny one. A youth." Her ears roared with the sound of her own bloodstream and she worked to control her breathing. She didn't care for the curves and descents down the mountain. He seemed tired, and he should have been, staying up since dawn. As he bumped along the BOTS dots, tailgating other vehicles, she said, "I want to drive after we buy gas." "OK." Seeming to take some heart in the prospect of shared driving, he picked up speed a little. "Hey, isn't that just the kind of little place you'd like to visit and explore?" She craned her neck to see a used book store/antiques shop with a shop cat in the window as they roared by. "Um, yes. Just exactly like that."

He spotted a cafe and said, "Let's eat there!" She was less enthusiastic, but wanted the day to end as quickly and smoothly as possible. She pulled over, planning to use the restroom inside and gnash her teeth through a meal. "You've barely touched your food.Why don't we ask for a box and take it home?" She thought to say, "Because I won't eat it there, either," but she agreed and felt weak for not speaking. He appeared, once again, to be perfectly content riding for 90 minutes in silence, another person seated not 12 inches away. It gave her an opportunity to observe him out of the corner of her eye. Her peripheral vision was good after the surgery. She could see things clearly. It was not entirely true that she was a bitch. At least not a complete bitch. "I wonder if I am unreasonable about him." No, she didn't think so. Her self-esteem was not running at high tide, but she recalled a time when it was. She had standards. She began to think of steps that might be required before she could become a more avid companion.

Perhaps he could speak to the doctors at the Veterans Administration and tell them he could not hear. Aren't there ways to correct that, at least sometimes? Maybe, if he actually "took" the medications instead of simply "collecting" them, some of the more appalling OC tendencies could be ameliorated. Except for a teething infant, she'd never observed anyone chew a washcloth loudly and render it soaking wet while watching TV. Every time the TV was watched, and leaving the washcloth on the chair to be picked up another day for another workout. Had no one, not one person before her, ever pointed out to him that his finger [always the same one] was firmly embedded in his nostril [always the same one]? But only during the hours he was awake. Did no parent, brother or friend ever trouble to tell him a private room was the desirable location for making personal adjustments to one's body? How could a man reach such a mature age and . . .

"She's a bit of a bitch," said many.