When I was a boy, I heard the story of the fox who chewed his own leg off when it was caught in a trap. I have no idea if this ever actually happens, but the story was applied to many things, particularly stories about girls you didn't mean to get with and guys who played football for Mississippi State and kept chewing off the wrong leg.
In my second year in college, I became entangled with a girl from the Mississippi Delta. She was descended from Washington County royalty and knew it. She could, and often did, out-shoot and out-drink me. Our time together nearly got both of us kicked out of college. After that, she left Millsaps for Mississippi State to get sober and marry a boy who wanted to be a dentist but never made it out of dental school.
After that, I figured keeping one special girl was asking for trouble, so I avoided it and adopted them all, mostly Chi-Omegas, but I eventually married a Kappa Delta.
There was, of course, one special girl, but apart from a few wanton glances and moments of electric passion when we touched in ways we weren't planning to, we never discussed it. Not discussing it didn't keep me from getting written up several times for staying too late in her dorm. There were more than a few nights when Ken Ranager and I would together seek an escape route without getting caught. He was very good about it and about as willing to go out a window into the limbs of an adjacent live oak tree as I was. Trees and climbing things were intricate parts of my college experience.
After college, I tried again to make one girl more special than the others. A lot of my friends were doing it. She turned out to be a pretty neutral experience—lots of fun and not much drama. I wasn't the only boy on her dance card, but she wasn't the only one on mine either. After about a year, it was clear this wasn't going anywhere, even though she talked me to sleep on the telephone nearly every night.
After that, there was a girl who would be a sophomore at Millsaps. She wasn't really my type at all, but she kept talking to me and asking about my day, what I did with my life, and what happened to that girl who called all the time. She was very pretty, and she was absolutely determined to be a part of my day if not part of my life, even though we had absolutely nothing in common.
Her hair was a mass of blonde curls, enormous and rigid, like a light helmet, but attractive if you didn't try to touch it. Bid day was coming up, and she labored mightily all Summer for Phi Mu to make sure they had a great year. There supposedly was a boyfriend somewhere in her life, but he was in again and out again, and on bid day, he was out again, so I told her I'd take her to dinner, and then we could go to the KA house and CS's to see her pledges running around.
Taking her to dinner downtown at the Mayflower Cafe, she began to cry as we passed the courthouse. I pulled over and held her hand while she got her cry out. Asking her what was wrong was fruitless. "A bad day" was all she said. I assumed it had something to do with Mr. out-again at Mississippi State. Even though she lived here, she'd never been to the Mayflower before. I had to tell her what to order and how to put the dressing on the crackers, which was the best part. After dinner, we went to the KA house to watch the madness, where I pointed out to her and the active members where we planned to put the addition with the concrete room and the fancy patio behind. I would spend the next two years raising money for that and getting it built, even though the architect seems to have screwed us over on some aspects.
At about two in the morning, I took her to where she parked her car by the library under the Academic Complex. For a little over an hour, I leaned against my car and held her as tight as I could. Lightly kissing and lightly talking, it seemed really important to her that I hold her and keep holding her as the night hours slipped by. "It really must have been a bad day," I thought. This was a wounded creature hiding in my arms in the night air. I'd experienced that before.
About a week later, a mutual friend asked if I would see this girl again. "I dunno. Maybe." I said.
"I just feel so bad about what's happening with her daddy." My friend said. This was the first I heard anything about this. Maybe this is what was behind her "bad day." Her father, it seemed, was in a federal prison in Texas, having been sentenced at the courthouse we passed on the way to the Mayflower.
In high school, my steady girlfriend's father shot himself, and I found the body. I spent two years unsuccessfully trying to fill the hole he left in her life. Now God sent me another broken bird with a missing father. I didn't mean for this to be something I did with my life, but it wasn't fair for me to have more than I needed when some people didn't have enough.
I called for another date. This time to Scrooges. Before we got out of the car in the parking lot, I held her hand and said, "I know what you've been going through, and I just wanted you to know that I'm your friend."
I'm sure she intended to tell me sometime, but she wasn't ready for me to know without her telling me. There's some embarrassment in people knowing your daddy is in prison, on top of all the devastating emotional losses that come from him losing his liberty; all of these feelings were crashing over her like a flooded creek in a rainstorm while she gripped my hands for her very life and did her best to push out the pain by grinding her back teeth together, lest she scream while she wept.
Fortunately, despite the elaborate engineering that went into her hair, she didn't wear much makeup, so it didn't take much effort to repair her face in my rearview mirror when the tears stopped and we went inside. This was during the era when Scrooges had a different quiche every day, despite the popularity of the book "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche." I had that, and she had a chicken sandwich, and we talked. We talked in the sort of way that people who no longer have secrets talk. Even though it hadn't happened yet, we spoke in the way that people who had seen each other naked in the stark reality of daylight talked.
"If Daddy doesn't come home, I don't know if I'm going to make it. If my life doesn't get better, I don't know what I'll do." She said. "I'm doing the best I can, but some days, I just can't." She said. Was that a threat? Was she saying she might do something if her father didn't come home? Would something happen if he didn't? Would she break? Why was this happening in the path of my life? Was I supposed to do something?
I let her talk. I wanted to hear all of what she was thinking and what her plans were. Forever after that, I became something of an expert at gauging her emotional health by the words she used and the way she moved her face and hands.
After dinner, taking her back to her car outside my apartment at Pebble Creek, I again leaned against my car with her deep in my arms for an unnaturally long time. "Look," I said. "I'm only twenty-three, and I've never done this before, and I really don't know what I'm doing--but I'm going to do my best to get your daddy home. I’m worried you won't make it to the end of his sentence."
She pushed her face deep into my chest. Soon, my shirt was wet with her tears, and then my skin underneath as her nearly silent sobs floated out into the night air. I wasn't really that interested in this girl, but she was in a great deal of pain, so I committed myself. No one should feel that much pain.
Over the next year, I talked with lawyers and judges. Sometimes as a personal favor, sometimes for a fee. I educated myself on the consequences of federal drug charges and the parole system. I knew something about parole from my brother's experience, so I wasn't starting from scratch. It didn't look good. He had prior convictions, which was part of why his sentence was the way it was. From what I could tell, it looked like he was covering for somebody else. I knew about some of his associates, and they were pretty unpleasant guys.
That next Spring, she told me she might be unable to return to Millsaps the next Fall. Something had gone wrong with her student loans, and she didn't know what she was going to do. I called Jack Woodward, Dean of Student Aid, and asked if I could buy him lunch. He said he was gonna eat at home but to come by his office. In his office, we discussed the situation, and he was able to find some more money. I'd give him a check for what shortfall was left, and he'd put it in one of his many spent-out scholarship funds and award it to her without her ever knowing I was involved. We'd made that deal before.
With her junior year at Millsaps assured, I moved on to work on her father's upcoming parole hearing. It didn't look good, even though he'd been a model prisoner. What happened next, I can't really talk about. Other people were working on his parole hearing for very different reasons from mine. We were able to come to an understanding. There were no guarantees, but the outcome looked much better than it did before.
The next time I saw the friend who had originally told me this girl's father was in prison, I said to her that I thought there might be a chance he'd be home before Christmas. Then I said, "If this happens, I'm going to separate myself from this girl as much as possible. I've gotten in way over my head, and it's not going to end well no matter what I do, but if I end it now, then it won't be that bad." I'd developed feelings I never intended to have. I developed them by spending a year trying to pull this girl's oxcart out of the ditch she found herself in, and now I was stuck.
Going into exams for the Fall semester, I met with her to say that she would hear the outcome of her father's parole hearing in a few days, and I was praying for them both. I gave her an envelope with two one-hundred dollar bills in it, with instructions to use it to visit her dad in Texas before Christmas to help restore her mental health. Within a few days, she received word that he was paroled. She and her mother and little brother used the money I gave her to go pick up her father so the family could be home together for Christmas.
In my mind, my part in this story was over. I'd stuck with it long enough to see happen what I said I wanted to happen. My own well-being was in jeopardy, so I formulated an escape plan. I went to Albrittons and got a drop with an opal surrounded by diamonds and amethyst. These parting gifts were a silly ritual I'd adopt to end relationships. After New Year's, I arranged to meet her at The University Club for dinner.
One of the reasons The University Club didn't make it was because they were never very full. By the end of dinner, we were the only people in the restaurant, but the bar was still pretty lively. I ordered a cigar from the girl with the cart, lit it, and pushed the gift box in white paper toward my friend.
I explained that we'd accomplished what we had set out for. I fulfilled my promise, and it was time for me to go. She began to cry. She didn't understand. "Look,” I said, “I can't have feelings for you when you don't have feelings for me. That's a disaster that can only get worse. You have to let me go. Your life is pretty good now. That guy from Mississippi State wants to talk again. Your daddy is home. It's time for me to go."
"No." She said. "There has to be another way."
"I'm not going to hang around like some sort of mascot,” I said. “There's probably somebody out there who wants to be as devoted to me as I was to you. If you don't let me go, I won't ever find them." That part wasn't true. The future didn't hold anyone who had that kind of devotion for me. At twenty-four, I thought, surely that's how the world works. I'd put myself in harm's way enough times that surely there would be somebody who just wanted me to be comfortable and was devoted to that. I believed that if you gave life enough time, accounts would balance out, and life would be fair. That wasn't the case.
For months, this woman tried to talk to me, to hug me, to ask about what was happening in my life. Eventually, it started to really bother me that she wouldn't just let me go. I felt like I'd been fair with her and done my best for her. I deserved enough space to get over all this and move on to whatever was next in my life. She didn't understand that. Slowly, I started to resent it. I started saying really hateful things when she tried to talk to me.
One day, she said, "Sometimes, when you look at me, it looks like you hate me!"
"I don't hate anyone," I said.
She threw her arms around my shoulders and wept. She wept with the same passion and resignation she had that night we went to the Mayflower. She was back with the boy from Mississippi State again full-time. She knew that I knew that. Soon, she'd be showing everyone the ring he got for her.
Through her tears, she said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Still crying, she pulled away and said, "But I understand." And I didn't speak to her again for five years.
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Even though it cost me a leg, I got out of that trap pretty well, I thought. All I had to do now was wait for somebody wonderful to come along and make me forget all about it. Wounds heal. I’d done what I thought was best. I helped the hurting. I was done. I thought.
In preparing for this story, I opened computer files I hadn’t opened in thirty-five years. In it was a scan of a photograph this woman gave me, a print of the portrait she had made for her sorority composite photograph. I’m pretty sure the hard copy is still in my scrapbooks, but I didn’t want to dig through those.
My goal was to see if I’d described her hair fairly. Since it was important to her at the time, I felt like it should be important to the story. I’d seen her hair without the hour of preparation she usually put into it, so I knew that both the curls and the blonde weren’t natural. Hopefully, somewhere along the way, she decided it was okay to adopt a hairstyle that was less work.
I hadn’t seen those eyes or those lips in many years. Seeing them again, I could feel ancient, rusted, and broken machinery inside me begin to move. I could hear the labored breathing of a wounded beast deep inside me. Once a man becomes fully devoted to someone, things may change, life may change, you may split apart or come back together, but that devotion never really goes away, even if you meet someone else, even if the object of your devotion dies, that thing that made you risk yourself for someone else remains in you, forever.
It’s important to point out that this woman never asked me for a single thing. She never led me astray, and she never lied to me. She never danced with seven veils to seduce me and make me the subject of her will. All she ever did was tell me she was in a great deal of pain, and that pain made her unsure about how she wanted to live her life or if she cared to live it at all. Everything else, every move, every effort, every decision, every step, was my own. Most of it I never even told her about. Young as I was and inexperienced, I just began pulling and pushing at the things in her life to see what I could get to move and what I could get to improve.
She didn’t ask for any of that. She just told me the truth about how she felt. The rest was up to me. I’ve had people say I was foolish. I’ve had people say she knew exactly what I would do if she told me she wanted to hurt herself. I don’t think any of that really matters. I believe you should live with your decisions. That helps you make better ones. This was my decision, and I was satisfied with the result, especially now that I was out of it. Or so I thought.
After our last encounter, I heard about the ring, but I expected that, and it didn’t involve me. I’d been feeling better. I was getting out more and taking part in life more again. It had been a few months since I last spoke to this girl when my mother called. She received an invitation to the wedding, and did I want to go with her.
Being the middle child, my mother didn’t know as much about my life as she did with the other three. She was aware that I knew this girl, but not really anything else. As far as she knew, this was just another co-ed I’d been dragging around. To be fair, there’d been a few.
When they are hurt, many boys turn to their mothers for comfort. I wasn’t like that. My mother and I always had a very strained relationship. She never really understood me, and I never really made much effort to help her understand. Looking anywhere for comfort when you’re hurt seemed like a weakness to me. “Shake it off” and “Get back in the game” were phrases I was pretty familiar with.
I had a psychologist, but I went for long periods without consulting him. My life had gotten way off any reasonable track, and I was pretty miserable, but I didn’t feel it was time to bring out the head shrinker. The only person on the whole planet who knew the entire story of what I’d been through was my bartender, Alisa Keough. Everyone else got a compartmentalized or truncated version of the story because I felt like the whole world didn’t need to know this girl’s private business. Only Keough knew the entire story, and my mother knew none of it.
My mother further informed me that the entire family had received invitations. My father flat-out said “no,” so she asked me. My sister had been asked to be in the wedding party. I’d been very grateful that this woman stuck to our agreement and left me alone, and being left out of her life, I was feeling better again, but this sure felt like a loophole. Even though I wouldn’t be at the wedding, she ensured it would be as close to me as possible. I doubt if she saw it that way or meant it that way, but it sure felt that way.
“If I asked you not to go but didn’t say why, would you do it?” I asked my mother.
She made a face that let me know that whatever I was up to, she didn’t approve. She never asked why, but she didn’t go, as far as I know.
I felt really petty asking anyone not to attend a wedding. Still, I also felt like nobody would ever acknowledge what I’d been through, or what I’d done, or how I felt, and I didn’t want them to because that would mean exposing all of this woman’s private pain. It also would disclose the fact that I did all this, knowing in advance that I’d never get any of it back. Maybe that made me look a little foolish because the world is full of pretty girls with broken lives, and the only way to be happy was to focus on myself and find something that made me happy, not fighting for other people.
I’d felt the dragon’s breath on my naked skin without a moment of comfort anywhere. My mother was in the room, but she’d never know. I’m sure someone told her a version of the story in the days ahead, but she never heard it from me. Until now, very few people knew this story, and there’s still an awful lot I didn’t write down.
I chewed a leg off to escape this trap and thought I was free. When I realized I wasn’t yet, I began chewing on another leg.
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When my father died, a great mass of people came to the reception at the funeral home. I stood in line most of the day, shaking hands and receiving well wishes. Most of it wasn't really very emotional to me, mainly because of the sheer volume of people coming through. Although my friends came too, there seemed to be hundreds of my dad's friends between them. I was holding up pretty well, I thought.
Near the back of the line, I caught a glimpse of blonde curls near the staircase. "I really hope that's not her." I thought. I didn't look back again. Soon, I could feel her presence. I focused on the people in front of me so as not to betray my emotions. Suddenly, hers was the face before me. I froze. The muscles in my back began to twitch. I could smell her.
She reached up and threw her arms around my neck. We both began to weep. The line stopped, and then, realizing we were in a moment, they moved around us.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean any of those things I said. I said some really hateful things to make you go away. I didn't mean them."
She held my face with a trembling hand and kissed me one last time. "I believe you." She said. "I understand. Please be happy." She said, and pulled me tight, and held me for what seemed like hours. Then she turned and walked away, and I never saw her again.
From other people, I would learn that her father returned to prison and would die there. Her marriage turned out well. Her sometimes boyfriend decided to be full-time. Some people thought my story was really sweet. Some people thought I was a fool. She told me she didn't think she would make it if her life didn't get better. Her life did get better, and she did make it. Whatever part I had to play in that didn't really matter because I wanted to make sure she made it. It was her life, not mine. What I got out of it was the story. I can't say that a story is as good as somebody who loves you and takes care of you forever, but it's not bad. She was never my type anyway.
