---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “Lost in the Past” cc&d (v266) (the November/December 2016 issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the book After the Blues the cc&d July-Dec. 2016 collection book		get the 318 page July-Dec. 2016 cc&d magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Mandy Black

Charles Hayes

    There comes a time in life, no matter how many bridges have been burned, that we must look back and recognize those periodic heaps of ashes that once were the important connecting points of our travel. But fire and distance alone can not obliterate what happened there, for buried in those ash dumps scattered along life’s path, like the bread crumbs of Hansel and Gretel, lay the real happenings of existence. They only await the gentle winds of a revisit, however long in coming, to waft away their cover for the fuel to be.
    Along those same paths sturdily built monuments, large and small, are easily seen for the counter balance they provide to those places that once held flame and burned hot. The monuments receive all attention, getting dusted off every now and then, but their shine remains ever cold and insignificant when likened to the hot coal of real life born of the vibrant blaze that once lived in its place. Monuments have no passion, and consequently little if any love, but fire, or even its glowing ruby red remnant, can transfix the gaze and thoughts of a long gone returnee who once loved, or hated, or went crazy, over the span of time that existed there.
    Obituaries are often the hook that will unwittingly bring one back to sift through those passionate places of the past to see if there still exist a glowing ember of an old love gone to ruin. It was one such obit that suddenly squeezed the heart of old Jimmy Holloren as he sat on a stump of firewood reading the Boston Globe that got mailed once a week to his Appalachian home. There on the rickety porch of his mountain shack with only the squawk of a feeding squirrel and the incessant shrieks of a marauding blue jay for his Sunday morning hymns, Jimmy was suddenly, irretrievably, returned to another time when he saw her picture along with the announcement of her death. Stunned, he was hurled back to that time when he had been a young man who had just burnt his bridges of war and marriage and fell for a love like none he had ever known.
    After the Marines and Vietnam, while finishing up school, he had met and married a co-ed from New York City who promptly drug him off to Boston and let it be known then, for the first time, that she was for all things sophisticated and properly ambitious. No way Jimmy could join up on that lead so when it became necessary to love it or leave it he was out and living alone with only a big sense of loss for all he had put into it. Yet, despite the loneliness and alienation of the big city and no real experience at urban living, he managed to hang on to a decent job and get by to the point where he could negotiate Boston and the New England countryside at least enough to hold himself in comfortable esteem with his peers at the research center where he worked. Even so he was still only on the fringe because they were all from the Boston area and had gone to school there which left him as the only bona fide Southern Appalachian and war veteran among them. But it was still a good workplace, with expansive grounds where occasional small social activities like picnics and softball games at lunch or after work took place. And it was at one of those softball games that he discovered the young woman that would deliver him from the fringe to the main in such a way that all would became his. Still young and in many ways inexperienced—some might even say undeveloped despite the whirlwind of the war, college and a broken marriage—he really had no idea of what a beautiful young woman could do to him.
    An artist who was practiced and accomplished at what she did, she liked Jimmy the moment she saw his natural ability on the softball field and efficiently and artfully built a bridge for them.
    Jimmy’s feet barely touched the planks as they crossed that span together.
    Her name was Mandy Black and he didn’t need her picture in his hands looking out at him from the newsprint to see and remember her as clearly as if she were climbing the steps to his porch that very instant. She just might have been the time of his life.

    Mandy was the sister of one of Jimmy’s co-workers and just happened to be visiting her brother at work that day of the softball game. Born and raised in the Boston area, she had a strikingly fair, almost Nordic appearance, except for her stature, where she was of average height and weight for a fit young woman in her early twenties. With her short blonde hair that framed a face set with the purest crystal blue eyes, dusted underneath with a hint of freckles, she was plainly beautiful yet she carried herself in such a way that it seemed she was a little embarrassed by it. But, as Jimmy soon discovered, when she locked her eyes upon something or someone there was no covering the beauty that looked out. It simply was and when she approached him after the ball game that day the excitement and afterglow of the game suddenly paled as she drew close. Totally captured by her gaze, ball games were no longer the excitement for him that they had been moments before.
    “Hi, I’m Mandy. That was really a great throw Jimmy, bet you used to play a lot of ball back in West Virginia,” she said as she extended her hand and playfully did a little half curtsey.
    Charmed and unexpectedly elevated, Jimmy let his fascination show when all he could say was, “How did you know that I was from West Virginia?”
    “Kevin told me,” Mandy replied. Kevin was Mandy’s brother who worked just down the hall from Jimmy.
    “There’s a lot of similarity between that part of the Appalachians and the mountains just north of here in New Hampshire and Vermont,” she continued, “but the cultures are a little different. Some real diehard Yankees up here and the winters are a little colder. No joking, that really was a great throw. You did used to play a lot of ball didn’t you?”
    Jimmy only heard about half of what she said.
    She was dressed in a very unremarkable sweat suit which certainly did not attract attention to her figure but as he watched her eyes while she spoke he saw a kaleidoscope of different crystalline shades of blue winking and blinking at him. So beautiful were they that he had to steel himself a bit in order to just respond to her conversation.
    “Yeah, I guess you could say baseball was my first love, I did ok, got to play a lot. There wasn’t a lot of other things to do—not like around here,” Jimmy paused just long enough to see that Mandy really was interested in what he had to say and was waiting for him to continue.
    “I’ve made a couple of trips up north and you’re right, the lay of the land there is a lot like where I come from. ‘Course here around Boston it’s quite different—don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this much city.”
    “You will,” Mandy assured him, “Boston has a lot to offer one who is keen enough to pick it up and by your moves and the work you do I’m sure you qualify.”
    Why this simple compliment had such an impact on Jimmy he probably would never know but it did. He had been more than a little lonely and the way Mandy seemed to hint that he was not destined for more of the same allowed him to settle down some and modestly reply, “Thank you, it’s really nice of you to say that.”
     Mandy just looked at him for a moment then said, “Nice is ok but it’s not where I’m really at Jimmy, it’s been a real pleasure to meet you. Kevin’s waiting for me so I better go.”
    With that she turned and walked toward the edge of the field where her brother was waiting and as she hurried off she looked back over her shoulder with the damnedest smile and yelled, “Jimmy Holloren, I hope you keep doing as good as you did today.”
    Jimmy stood there looking after her trying to figure what had just happened. He knew that something had taken place yet it was so undefined and beyond his normal interactions that he was at a loss to know just what it was. Slowly he walked off the field, climbed on his motorcycle and headed home, stopping off at the liquor store on the way for a bottle of tequila to sit at his kitchen table with and replay the moments when he had met a really beautiful woman who seemed to like him.
    A little later in his kitchen under the glow of the tequila he began to figure that maybe the simple but hard way he had come along would bring about those beautiful things of life that he desired after all. For a change he actually felt a little pleased with himself and experienced the hope that came from realizing that his bad marriage could pass. Life went on and new relationships seemed possible.

    Although a few years younger than Jimmy, Mandy had not spent those years locked away in the military performing to the rigid standards of a group that was not known for it’s social acuity nor it‘s humanity. Mandy had been growing, developing, and learning about the turning of the times that had overtaken the country and with interest she saw it all as the artist’s palette of human diversity and the key to greater expression.
    She attended art classes part time at a local community college near the Wayland home of her parents and worked most week-ends pumping gas at the shore north of Boston in a place called Marble Head. Marble Head was exactly the kind of place you would expect to find lots of artists, very picturesque and well known for it’s beauty.
    She definitely had the artist’s way about her and that made her a shoe-in for Jimmy because he yearned for those things that he had been previously drilled to degrade. However Mandy, not being ignorant of the power of her beauty, was also an adventurer when it came to meeting and getting to know different kinds of men and that certainly put Jimmy, with his Southern Appalachian lilted speech and reluctant delivery, in an interesting spot for her among the New England population.
    Recently she had broken up with her boyfriend, who was also a Vietnam Vet and ex-army green beret, and moved out of the house she had shared with him. She had learned from Kevin about Jimmy’s marine service and perhaps that was why she was drawn to him. Whatever the reason, it was of no consequence to him and the next day at work when Kevin stopped by his work shop and told him that Mandy had been asking a lot of questions about him he was delighted. After he got her phone number and Kevin left he called her and told her what Kevin had said and added that he had some questions that he would like to ask her, would she come over to his place for dinner that evening? She laughed and said that would be fine, she would bring some artichokes to cook and make some hollandaise sauce, her specialty.
     That evening Mandy bustled into Jimmy’s kitchen and showed as much command of its instruments as she seemed to have for all things except perhaps softball. They ate baked cod and potato with artichokes dipped in the hollandaise sauce. It was the first time Jimmy had ever had artichokes that way and Mandy seemed to take particular enjoyment in his initiation which made the meal really good and kept the air light.
    After dinner they had a couple of beers and chatted a while trying to get to know one another. It was the first time since he had been there that Jimmy had sat at the kitchen table with a woman and the time flew by until it was late and time for her to go.
    Mandy was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and when they stood to leave the table and silently looked at each other Jimmy moved closer, kissed her, and let his hand explore her breast through the heavy shirt. The heavy firm globe of flesh he caressed and gently lifted surprised him and was the kind that any pinup would have coveted. He could only wonder at his luck and hope to more fully enjoy the pleasures of this beautiful woman another time.
    While they were walking to her car she told him how to get to her house and to stop by anytime he wanted—her parents were traveling and she would be around there for the next few days. Jimmy said that he would see her soon as he closed her car door then leaned down and kissed her again.
    As he watched her drive away he knew that it would not be long before he would get to know her better. They were beginning the weekend and he knew Mandy would not be at the shore for the next few days so, with his head in the clouds, Jimmy slowly returned to his house as he looked forward to the morning and the ride to Wayland.

    The next day, through the morning fog, Jimmy could barely read the Wayland exit sign on Rt. 128, the beltway that surrounded Boston. The motorcycle and it’s low hum of kinetic power felt good as he geared down and took the exit toward the address that Mandy had given him. It was only about 9 AM but he just couldn’t wait to see her again and she had said anytime so why not.
    When he pulled into the driveway of the three story shake shingle house he noticed the pond beyond the backyard and figured that it probably had some fish in it.
    It was quite and natural out there among all the green and away from the city.
    Mandy must of heard him pull in for she came out the side door with a big smile and a warm greeting before he had time to dismount and began admiring his bike as she joked that he would have to let her do some wheelies on it. As she poked around the bike, just a common but speedy 750 Honda, she again made him feel special by playing on their differences in a way that complimented him. Maybe it was the artist’s way of capturing her subject but whatever the reason he was unused to such things and appreciated her subtle social grace.
    When she invited him inside they settled in the kitchen to drink some tea and make a little small talk.
    Jimmy felt relaxed in the little kitchen—just like the experts recommended it faced south and through the windows he could see the fog lift and the sun break through as they drank their tea. By the time they finished the tea the fog was gone and the sun filtering through the kitchen curtains created a homey, warm, and bright atmosphere that seemed to call for movement.
    Mandy took his hand and led him on a little tour of the place while she explained that she didn’t live there, she was just staying there until she found her own place. In fact she hadn’t even bothered to unload her things that were still stuffed into her Subaru station wagon parked outside. When they got back to the living room where they had first come in she commented on the open and unmade hide-a-bed and indicated that it was where she slept. Jimmy already knew that and as the birds sang just outside the door and the new sun dried the dew from all the green, he kissed this charming and lovely young woman and took her to that unmade bed. After a little first time awkwardness and in the absence of any stoked passion Mandy accepted Jimmy in simple missionary fashion. Then they napped in the natural warmth.
    When Jimmy stirred Mandy continued to nap so he wrote a note with his phone number saying that any time she wanted to see him just call.
    Before he closed the door on his way out he paused to gather in the sight of her sleeping there on the hide-a-bed, like a naked nymph caught unawares in the late spring sun, a sight he would never forget.

    Jimmy had been home no more than a couple of hours when Mandy called and asked if she could bring over some leftovers to warm up in the microwave and share with him. He gladly accepted and then while he waited he drank a beer and considered their relationship. Happy that she had called, he figured that meant he could risk some involvement and that his lovemaking had been at least adequate. He knew the earth had not moved or anything like that for either of them and he pretty well knew that Mandy had enough experience to know about such things. Those things were important to him since he didn’t get around a lot in that way.
    Mandy arrived quickly and they hungrily ate the leftovers not saying too much, just looking at each other and smiling as they went through the leftovers.
    After they finished eating, as new lovers so often do when there is no agenda, they ended up in Jimmy’s bedroom where he had a king size mattress and box springs that lay directly on the floor and a couple of pieces of old furniture and not much else. This time when they took to bed it was definitely not in the missionary fashion. While they were kissing and fondling each other and removing their clothes Mandy intimated things to Jimmy that helped create a union that ranged far a field in their intense enjoyment of each other.
    In the after aura of their sex they talked. Real and candid talk that, like a picture, was worth a thousand times more than usual conversation. .
    “That took me places I never thought possible,” Jimmy said, “did you get as blown away as I did?”
    “You mean did I come,” replied Mandy.
    Jimmy studied her for a moment. “Yeah, that’s what I meant.”
    “It was very nice and felt really good,” Mandy tentatively said, “but I didn’t have an orgasm like you. I never do. Probably I just can’t.”
    Feeling a little crestfallen Jimmy thought about that for a while then said, “What makes you think that you can’t?”
    With a hint of exasperation Mandy answered, “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve had men tell me that they could fix that but they never could. Why is it so important? It was good enough that you didn’t really know the difference anyway until you ask.”
    Sorry that he had brought it up and feeling a little hurt Jimmy tried to objectify the subject and get it away from the emotional realm.
    “Mandy, I’ve had a few women too and I guess your brother has told you that I have an ex- wife who’s no longer around but none of them were as beautiful as you. You seem so special to me that I just don’t think I will be able to hold you without the sexual connection.”
    Mandy pressed tighter against him and nuzzled the hollow of his neck as she softly said, “You can hold me Jimmy, never fear. Just don’t squeeze.”
    Again they came together until more talk was all that was left.
    She told Jimmy about her first time.
    At 16 and still in high school she one day simply decided that she didn’t want to be a virgin anymore so she went to a concert and picked up a heroin junkie.
    They went to his room where she watched him shoot up before giving herself to him, never telling him it was her first time nor ever seeing him again afterward.
    Then when she got older and more mature she got into long haul truck drivers while they rested from the road. One married driver had wanted to rent her an apartment and keep her just so she would be available when he was not on the road. She mentioned that he was very large sexually and when he was about to come it would hurt her because of his size—she had not loved any of them nor stayed with them for very long before she was off to get a taste of other kinds of men.
    One time her butterfly-like movement among men helped cause considerable damage to her family.
    She told of an older sister just as beautiful as she was whom Jimmy had never seen nor met and, according to Mandy, had brought home a lover some years before who couldn’t keep his hands off the other two women in the family and had three affairs going by pretending to be exclusively in love with Mandy and her mother as well as her older sister. It almost destroyed the family and the way it was described to Jimmy he didn’t wonder why. But he remained cool while he listened to the story and kept his astonishment at the behavior of this proper New England family hidden. It was a tragic tale and he wondered how anyone caught in such a duplicitous sexual quadrangle could ever fully get over it. Yet now it seemed that she had moved through those times and paired with her picks quite naturally.
    The green beret she had just rebounded from had sent her packing because he wanted freedom more than he wanted her and she told Jimmy that the soft ball game and the throw that he had made from center field was what had opened the window for her to emotionally break from that relationship. Jimmy didn’t care about her past nor did he consider himself as any part of a pattern. She was just too loving, intelligent, and beautiful for him to care about what might lay ahead.
    He loved her that quick and couldn’t get enough of her.
    Mandy never really left Jimmy’s house after that day and a couple of days later he helped her store her things in his garage, taking from them only what she needed to live comfortably. Without a hitch their lives went on as before, only now Jimmy had someone to come home to and Mandy would not be alone.
    However they were not always the only ones living in that part of the two family home. Jimmy shared the lower part of the up and down house with another guy named Ted who was gone most of the time on business involving computer programming. It was beginning to break big at that time. So Ted was not actually there when Mandy moved in but when he did arrive from one of his business ventures he was warm and friendly toward her and totally accepted her as Jimmy’s roommate and lover. Although Ted said that it wasn’t necessary Jimmy did some calculations and paid a larger proportion of the rent. Ted accepted this in a manner of goodwill and with that everyone got covered and accounted for.
    Theirs was a nice neighborhood in a close in suburb of the city and the rather odd threesome lived quietly and comfortably within that residential middle class township where most people kept to their own business. However the mix got even a little more unorthodox when Ted also met a woman. So when he was in from business the four of them would keep the bathrooms, bedrooms, and kitchen busy. It was a real change of atmosphere for the house and everyone got along in fine fashion. It seemed then that Jimmy and Ted had found real lives for one thing and the presence of women seemed to elevate their standing in the neighborhood as well. The owner and his family who lived above never said anything or intruded in any way. They obviously knew what was going on yet when Jimmy would occasionally pass them on the front porch they seemed friendlier and closer than before. It seemed that they liked the new large “family” on the first level that somewhat matched their large Jewish family above. It was a happy situation with Ted still being gone a lot and his girl only staying there when he was around, giving Jimmy and Mandy the best of both worlds.
    Ted’s relationship didn’t last long though. He was the oldest by a few years and, like Jimmy, he had been married before but now he appeared to be gun shy about commitment and his girl couldn’t handle that. So pretty soon Jimmy and Mandy were again the only couple downstairs as Ted continued to travel extensively.
    Spring turned to summer and Mandy and Jimmy would take long rides on the motorcycle, mostly up and down the coast or they would just hang around Boston with Mandy showing Jimmy the things only a native would know plus they enjoyed the beautiful gardens and the summer concerts that often played there. Once they rode up to Marble head where Mandy introduced Jimmy to the young men she worked with at the gas station. They were several years younger and seemed like ok guys, perhaps just out of high school or starting collage. There was one little thing however, more like a feeling, that Jimmy noticed when he met them. After they were introduced and had chatted a little, with Mandy kind of steering the conversation, he noticed a little look in one of the guys eyes like he was experiencing something that was not normal for him and he wanted to disguise his feelings. Jimmy was sensitive and took his intuitions seriously but he just let it pass at the time. Looking back on it later though, he suspected that his mountain manner and speech had generated an inherent contempt in the young well bred boy of the affluent Marblehead community. Because of the way Mandy behaved he believed that she had seen it as well and also tried to keep it disguised. Or perhaps she observed it because she was looking for it and used it as some sort of measure of him. Mandy was interested in character, perhaps to a fault, and she would sometimes create situations to indulge that interest.
    The meeting quickly passed however and just being with someone he was in love with filled Jimmy up enough that he gave it no real consideration. Being with her it all seemed perfect in a world that was developing exactly as it should.
    He was beginning to free himself of many of the things that had plagued him in the past.
    Life was good.
    When the summer turned to fall they loaded Mandy’s station wagon with a little road gear and headed up to Maine and parts thereof to meet her parents near Portland and go sailing. Jimmy had never been sailing before and, while anything he did with Mandy was fun, he was particularly looking forward to it although it did cross his mind that Mandy had an inordinate amount of tug on the reins of their experiences together.
    On the way up they spent the night just across the border of Maine and New Hampshire in a little pull off area by a river, comfortably sleeping in the back part of the station wagon. In the morning they continued on up to the Portland area where they located Mandy’s parents at the home of the family friend who owned the sail boat.
    Their house was situated in a pretty place right on the marina and cove where the sailboat was anchored. Several other people were gathered there for the occasion and the group standing around on the lawn reminded Jimmy of the movie scenes he had seen about high society people and their little lawn parties by the sea. He and Mandy were introduced around by her parents and found that most of the guests seemed so interested in their particular conversations that they paused only long enough to smile and shake hands or nod, then returned to their conversations. There was not much interest in the new young couple in simple dress. That was fine with Jimmy, he was there for the boat and the sea and Mandy was not really the society type either so it didn‘t matter to her. She stayed near Jimmy’s side which alone would have enabled him to confront and overcome any uncomfortable situation. Her parents, whom Jimmy barely knew, seemed of a different ilk than the society crowd as well. They were more down to earth as they helped the busy owners with the preparations around the house before shoving off. In the brief time they spent with Jimmy and their daughter they were courteous and respectful without being parental in those ways that aggravate young adults. Jimmy appreciated that and was grateful for the absence of any fuss over them. He could easily see where Mandy got her poise from.
    The gathering on the lawn did not last long after the owners, Joe and his wife, Sally, appeared. Strikingly different from most of the others in his manner, Joe gruffly acknowledged his guest as he trudged through the gathering toward the water’s edge and the little dinghy tied up there. Joe was a short powerfully built man in his late fifties with short cropped hair and a curt way about him. He exhibited the minimum rote social stuff just enough to pass and still remain self contained. Jimmy liked him immediately and felt good about temporarily being under such a skipper.
    Sally, Joe’s other half, started rounding everybody up and shooing them down to the water, occasionally yelling something to Joe. The couple and their interactions while managing the crowd of landlubbers and later with the boat itself reminded Jimmy of Bogart and Hepburn in The African Queen.
    Gathered by the water they could clearly see the wooden friendship resting at anchor about 50 yards out. It was a beautiful 35 foot sloop with a large mainsail and a smaller jib forward. Highly polished so that the sun made little sparkles along her wooden hull as she gently rocked in the swells, her open deck was benched on both sides and ran aft to the stern area and forward until it descended into a small cabin and sleeping quarters.
    Since the dinghy was too small to fit everyone in Joe made a few trips out and back using a short chopping rowing motion to move them through the water which Jimmy noticed as different from the way he rowed but failed to recognize why. He just chalked it up to style.
    After Joe had ferried all aboard and motored the sloop out of the cove a ways Sally told him to stop using the motor and set sail. So he turned her into the wind and popped the main sail, then had Sally go forward and set the jib. When someone made a joke about how Joe would die if he ever got trapped in the mountains Mandy and Jimmy looked at each other and smiled. The benches on either side of the deck were full of passengers as the sloop cut through the water with the tack lowering one side of the sloop to just above the surface of the water. While everyone else white knuckled the benches Jimmy, unable to just sit there, got up and swung back to the stern beside Joe, grabbed a spar and hung out over the sea as a counterweight to lessen the hull draft and increase their speed. Joe just looked over at him but didn’t say anything.
    It was a fine day with brilliant sun and sea as they lightly bounced and sped through the white tops. Once when Joe changed the tack and the boom came around he tossed a small rope to Jimmy and told him to belay it to a small davit that was near his perch. Jimmy didn’t know what the rope was for or anything about knots but he’d seen enough Popeye stories to know what Joe wanted, so he wound the rope around the davit several times and tied a granny knot. For the first time since they had met Joe became animated as he said, “Good Lord, man, how is anyone going to quickly get that rope free?”
    Then he untied it and in two quick reverse moves belayed it properly.
    Mandy laughed and yelled above the wind, “Yeah, but Jimmy gets an A for his enthusiasm, doesn’t he?”
    Joe just frowned and gave no indication of what he might be thinking while some of the other men aboard looked like they were tasting sour grapes.
    That was one of the things that made Jimmy feel that Mandy was special. She could jump in to rescue her man with a humor that cut any ugliness out of the moment. Plain in her attitude but beautiful and intelligent in her performance, Jimmy could think of no other woman he had ever known who could match her in such a situation.
    After sailing for a while Joe dropped the sail and anchored just off the back side of Peak’s Island where an old World War Two gun battery was located. Again Joe had to ferry the passengers ashore but this time Jimmy insisted upon helping him. He had rowed many a boat and was sure that it would not be a problem despite Joe’s reluctance to turn the dinghy over to him. So finally Joe relented and Jimmy rowed one load to shore accidentally splashing some of the passengers who acted like he had done it on purpose and, with their snoots in the air, hurried away without a word.
    On the return trip to the sloop Jimmy began to see that the dinghy amid the ocean current was very different from a rowboat. Using his long strokes to move the dinghy he couldn’t stay on course and ended up no where near the boat and was unable to correct for it. Soon Joe yelled that he would lift the anchor and come to him. “Just hold it there,” he instructed. Trying not to act embarrassed Jimmy yelled back, “How convenient!”
    Mandy, who was still on the sloop, laughed.
    After the sloop came to him Jimmy turned the dinghy back over to Joe who, stone faced and without a word, accepted it and took them to shore.
    They spent about a hour there visiting the relics of the last great war and imagining what it must have been like during that time. Then they all ferried back to the sloop where they had a couple of drinks or beer, depending on your pleasure. Joe and most of the others had drinks while Jimmy had a couple of beers. Mandy had a beer as well.
    When the sun got further west over the mainland they weighed anchor and sailed home.
    It was a very nice experience for Jimmy. He got a chance to see and experience a little of the old true Yankee spirit as it was contrasted with the modern Yankee crowd. Joe, his wife and Mandy’s parents taught him a thing or two about the Yankee people. Foremost being that they should not be taken lightly. Perhaps it was then that Jimmy became a little more aware of the baggage that he carried and how it affected his life in New England. The sailing experience as well as a few other things shifted his perspective a little. He knew that Mandy had engineered their invitation for him and, although he only slightly knew the parents of the woman he loved, he felt that maybe they were far more involved in his life than he knew. For some reason this made him a little uneasy. Maybe he wasn’t cut out for it.
    He and Mandy left as soon as they got ashore and headed for the Green Mountains of Vermont. After their many philosophical discussions about the mountains and the sea this trip involving both was like a spiritual God send to Jimmy—Mandy seemed uplifted as well. Similar in their propensity for the melancholia that the city could foster, they just enjoyed being together in a natural environment free of the distractions that often hurt them.
    Not a long drive to the northern reaches of the Appalachians from the shores of Maine, they reached the Green Mountains in the late afternoon and located a private campground along the rural highway. It was run by an old man who told them where to camp plus loaned them an axe to cut firewood with.
    Solitude and quietness were plentiful as they were the only campers on the grounds located among a quite evergreen forest.
    Jimmy used the sharp axe to send chips flying as he cut up a small log while Mandy watched. She commented on the beauty of his fluid swing, adding that it was not hard to see where he belonged when it came to the mountains and the sea. That surprised Jimmy some, her tendency to take a small fragment of something and from that come to a larger conclusion, but he loved her and anything that looked good to her he considered valuable.
    They ate some canned food and a few slices of bread then sat by the fire drinking beer and talking about how nature could influence people’s lives if they only gave it a chance.
    Eventually the fire started to die down and darkness settled over the little campsite at about the same time as the old manager stopped by just long enough to tell them that it was going to be a cold night. Since they were sleeping in the back of the station wagon they didn’t have to bother with a tent so they promptly turned in when it became too dark to see and the temperature plunged.
    Somewhat to his frustration the cold kept Jimmy’s affectionate advances toward Mandy from going anywhere but once he accepted her declination they slept warm and sound through the night, having adjusted well to their bedroom on wheels.
    Snugly spooned together under several blankets, they woke up at first light to frost on everything. Neither was in a hurry to leave their warm nest which led to them joining together by lowering their clothes just enough to do it. Afterwards Mandy wondered aloud why they hadn’t thought of that last night. But Jimmy knew that the reason was mostly because his ardor had not been shared by Mandy. To him it mattered not. To have her with him and in harmony trumped all that. Waiting for the right time for her to join him in love making was small potatoes to him. Now fully awake and in key they hopped up and hustled around in the cold, gathering up their gear while they fired up the car and it’s heater.
    On the way out they thanked the old man as they dropped off the axe.
    He had seen them coming and was standing by the road when they approached. After he had the axe and before they could hurry off he leaned down to look at both of them through the car window and asked if they had stayed warm enough last night. When they assured him that it had been no problem he chuckled from down deep and told them to remember the place if they ever came back, said that he liked the young people best because they never made a fuss. Then after shaking hands all around Jimmy and Mandy drove off and shortly picked up the interstate southeast into Boston.
    Once back home their lives picked up pretty much where they had been with work, school, and the domestic trivia of living together. It never seemed trivial to Jimmy however, he had pretty much all he wanted with Mandy and that was enough to always be excited about.
    As the autumn grew more chilled they would sometimes sit out on the back porch balcony just off of the kitchen. They could see the trees in the park changing colors and get high while they talked about their days. Mandy would drink a little beer and sometimes share a joint if Jimmy had found some at work but not as much as him. His use of those things was much less than it had once been so he was a little surprised when Mandy voiced her frustration with what she considered his frequent use. Jimmy, until then, had felt that the things he brought to their relationship were valuable enough to compensate for his pot and alcohol use. Alcohol and pot were a part of his cultural identity and the semi-outlaw attitude he held toward American society. They were things rooted in very personal parts of him, half born of his Vietnam experience, and he wouldn’t consider changing that. Maybe he couldn’t change that. They never argued about it. In fact they had no real fights at all. After the wars with his ex-wife Jimmy was more the peacemaker than Mandy when they encountered rough spots. He had never lost his temper with her, not even close. Once she had become so upset and frustrated about something to do with him that she kicked a hole in the wall but he only cared about calming her down and making her feel better. It caused no anger in him, only hurt that she felt so bad. In less than hour it was over and she apologized, no big deal. He would repair the busted sheetrock himself and it would be good as new. But under the surface Mandy had something going on and it was about their relationship and Jimmy was in so deep he was blind to the gravity of it. Besides she seemed to come out of her funk when they decided to go to Martha’s Vineyard for a night and a day to explore the island.
    Martha’s Vineyard was an island about seven miles off the shore of Cape Cod just south of Boston and it could only be reached by plane or boat so Jimmy and Mandy made their plans and drove down to Woods Hole, parked the car, and caught the ferry over to a little place on the island called Vineyard Haven.
    All the places on Martha’s Vineyard were small because the year round population was small. However during the warm months the population swelled with tourists but because it was then well into autumn the tourists were mostly gone and the young pair were able to find a place quickly at a reduced rate when they came ashore in the mid-afternoon.
    After they ate at a nearby restaurant they returned to their room, a very nice place right on the harbor at ground level where they could lay in bed and watch the bobbing sailboats and diving gulls on the bay through the large sliding glass doors. Relaxed after the nice seafood meal it wasn’t long however before Mandy got up and closed the curtains over the doors. And there amid the clean nautical décor with the sound of sea birds and an occasional distant boat horn for background music, they enjoyed each other until the lapping water against the nearby piers lulled them to sleep. If one word could be used to describe their relationship during times like that it would be harmony. They were complete and attuned to the time and each other. At least that was certainly the only way Jimmy could see it.
    The next morning after coffee, toast, and chowder they rented bicycles and set off across the island to visit Gay Head and it’s famous white clay cliffs, a good twenty miles away. At first they made good time along the little paved road that had little traffic and the morning air was clean, crisp and cool. However as it began to warm up Mandy started to flag and Jimmy had to encourage and push her. By then they were in the middle of nowhere and there was no alternative form of travel to the one they had chosen.
    Finally they arrived at the cliffs which Jimmy could see were magnificent but Mandy, red faced both from the sun and the exertion and wet with sweat, was not so enthralled. Jimmy was sweaty as well but he was more than used to such things. He had spent parts of his life drenched in it but Mandy was the cool New England beauty who had never learned the ins and outs of real physical exertion. And she was not nor had she ever been an athlete. That was the gulf between them that Jimmy should have been sensitive to but it escaped him. He knew something was wrong when she failed to deliver up the artist’s eye at the clay cliffs but he was the kind that liked to keep moving when going somewhere, something he had picked up under the marine pack and radio and something that was now ingrained. Consequently his insensitivity to her condition as a result of the road trip killed all the previous harmony that they had established.
    After resting a while and eating a packed lunch they headed back at a slower pace, stopping more often to rest. Now, with the objective accomplished, it was easier for Jimmy to lend more consideration to the gentler nature of his mate. But the damage had been done as the look of resentment remained on Mandy’s face until they finally got back and turned in their bicycles. Jimmy certainly saw this and knew how she valued women’s standing in American society and how she wanted it to improve. So did he and he also knew that Mandy did many things with that in mind. But wrongly, he believed that if she thought that a sheer principle was enough to close the athletic gap between a male ex-marine and former athlete in his prime and a young New England female art student, she was being foolish—she had no reason to feel resentful or defeated. As a result of that assumption he treated the issue insensitively. And if that was the straw that would bring the camel down, oh how he would pay for his ignorance of it. It had hurt her pride and caused more strain on a relationship that, unbeknownst to him, was already troubling her. It would have cost him nothing to have given her more consideration and set a slower pace though it probably wouldn’t have mattered in the long run.
    Jimmy was the fool that had been stamped “made in the USA” by the marines and he behaved poorly on that occasion in part because of that. Got to push on and all that bull.
    Jimmy and Mandy were good together but Mandy was in the bloom of full development while he had obviously become arrested in that far away American interest that had caused so much war and pain. And that difference between them was one that began to tell.
    When they settled back into their life in Boston Thanksgiving came and went and winter was fast approaching. The Garden of Eden that Mandy enabled Jimmy to enjoy began to crack and for the first time he had to admit to himself that she was not as much his as he had thought. To say that that scared him would have been an understatement.
    One day when she returned from school she told him that one of her professors had invited her to his place for dinner and Jimmy absolutely couldn’t handle it, further threatening her sense of independence and mucking up the situation even more. Later, through the years, Jimmy could imagine that she had concocted the dinner invitation as a test of his desire to control her. But right then, all of a sudden, it seemed things had terribly changed. It had been so nice and uncomplicated but now Mandy and the events surrounding her were pushing all the wrong buttons of Jimmy’s psyche and he was beginning to unravel. For a while he stomached it all as best he could knowing that to lose her would be the end for him. Even when she decided to move out and share an apartment with another woman that they knew he helped her move and get set up. It was while doing this one Saturday that his motorcycle was stolen while parked outside her apartment in broad daylight. He still owed a year of payments on it, which he paid, yet he never saw the bike again.
    The loss of the cycle meant nothing to him beside the breakup of his life with Mandy.
    Kevin, her brother, gave him a nice 10-speed bicycle and backpack to use and Jimmy never missed a beat on his transportation to work, finding a more direct and residential route to get him there and back.
    He only got to see her a couple of times after that and she still acted as if she enjoyed him but he was sorely wounded and having a hard time just functioning. His drinking once again began to get heavy and then Mandy wrecked and totaled her Subaru. Luckily she didn’t get hurt but Jimmy had always been scared of the way she drove sometimes and now she had almost been injured because of it, she could have been killed.
    What was she doing without him?
    Things had changed so hard and fast that the devastation he experienced finally caused him to sometimes miss work.
    He had been invited to a holiday Christmas party by her parents before the break up and had bought them a gift wrapped bottle of Chivas Regal but he couldn’t go because he and Mandy didn’t see each other any more. And the party, with her parents viewing his demise in their crusty New England way, would have just been too painful for him. Instead Jimmy took the gift down the hall at work to where Kevin worked and ask him to give it to his parents. After he handed over the scotch he was suddenly paralyzed by the feeling that his insides had been hallowed out and for a moment he just couldn’t move. Tears suddenly filled his eyes and he said the only thing he could think of as he dumbly stood there.
    “I don’t know what happened.”
    Kevin looked up from his desk where he had put the gift and simply said, “Jimmy, Mandy is an independent woman. No one has ever been able to tie her down. She will do as she chooses.”
    It was all Jimmy could do to nod, do an about face, and mechanically walk from the office, feeling broken beyond repair.
    Also before their split he and Mandy had planned a Christmas party at their house for the people he worked with. So Jimmy tried to busy himself with that. Not a lot of people came, mostly just the people he knew well and had some social contact with. They didn’t stay long but many people were still there when Mandy made an appearance. Everyone well knew what had happened with their relationship and kindly stayed in their little circles as she and Jimmy spent a few quite moments together in the entry hall way. As they knelt down against the wall and had a quite conversation about how they were doing, Mandy was sympathetic and attentive to Jimmy’s poorly disguised attempts to keep his chin up. She was doing good and back in full possession of herself and seemed sorry that he had been hurt but her demeanor said that she was sure of where she was and confident of the future. It was one of the hardest conversations Jimmy would ever have. Harder than anything he had ever known. When she left right after that he knew she was gone from him. Neither did he see nor hear from her again. Merry Christmas.

    Life in Boston for Jimmy was again on the back side. As the winter blew by and the intense hurt subsided into a dull ache, ever present, he found that he could not use the tricks of the war to make it go away.
    He felt like he could never get back to being at home in New England.
    Uselessly he searched for an explanation. What was it that could bring on such destruction to the unsuspecting? Was it the Yankees and their absence of soul and depth or was it the naiveté of the dumb hillbilly who thought surviving a war and a bad marriage had made him immune to heartbreak. The answer to that question, asked by one who could not develop, would never be known—until he saw. Then it would be too late. Surviving was the best he could hope for and in order to do that he must know the lay of the land and be able to intuitively navigate it. He had nothing left inside himself to do it any other way and the hand he had been dealt didn’t come with a draw. For him it was not going to change and there was only one place where he had been able to develop before his path had taken him out of the known to that which must be learned or suffered. Suffering he had done enough of. But once upon a time he had learned the Southern Appalachians enough to know how to survive it‘s plain and loveless challenges. Getting there as soon as possible was the only way he felt that he could go on.
    From a friend he had known in college he learned that there was a job opening in the hospital psychiatric and alcoholism unit in their old hometown. Jimmy applied for it and then scheduled an interview when they seemed interested. Taking a day off from work at the research center he flew down and interviewed for the job and they offered it to him on the spot. He could start in a month which would give him enough time to give notice and get himself back down south.
    It was with a lot of mixed feelings that he was leaving Boston. He had gotten over his ex-wife and learned to love again there. And he had developed an appreciation for the people and the countryside but he was really scared that he would never get over Mandy if he stayed. Sorely crippled and feeling that he must leave in order to get better, Jimmy moved on. Facts would be that he never would get over Mandy, just as he would never get over other things in his life. Sadly Jimmy had never realized that some things just were and you couldn’t run from them.
    He purchased a little female beagle from a pet shop after Mandy left him, hoping the beagle would help some with his despair. He named her Jennie and she did help some as he became attached to her.
    Ted, his housemate, had a huge old Mercury that looked like a tank and he sold it to Jimmy for $50 so that he would have something to get him and his things down south. Also there was a black cat with twelve toes that he wanted Jimmy to take because he was never home to take care of it. So Jimmy loaded the animals and his stuff into the old car and headed out to the 128 beltway and from there picked up 95 south out of Massachusetts. Changing jobs and getting a place to live gave him a lot of things to do but the sense of loss over Mandy was still there in his gut. With her by his side he had danced with the Gods. Always he would love her.

    The shrieks of the arrogant jay again pierced the Sunday morning air calling up old Jimmy Holloren from his stupor. His back hurt and he thought at first that he must have fallen asleep and dreamed while sitting on that old stump hunched over the newspaper that lay at his feet. That was until he again saw her photograph looking up at him from the newsprint. For all this time she had been gone from him. Now she was just gone. Had he actually lived all this time without the known pain of her absence only to now feel that it was just yesterday that he loved her? Jimmy was old but he was not dumb and he knew that she had always been there in him, however silent and remote the relationship. Yet the knot in his gut and the intensity of the recall still somewhat surprised him. He had often wondered about where she might be and what she might be doing but only in flights of fancy or while nodding off by the wood stove after visiting the graveyard where his wife and child were buried. The separation from them had hurt fearsome but now they were only up on the ridge and easy to visit and stay in touch with. No surprises there. He expected that it would always be so. But Mandy was now also gone, like them, and he knew nothing of how it might be. Only that the love he once had with her could not grow cold and die. He might not have recognized it for many of these past decades but despite the ones he had buried and the revisits he had made, that old glowing ember where he and Mandy together had crossed proved that some things will be and damned be any attempts to pretend otherwise. Jimmy grabbed the section of the newspaper with Mandy’s picture in it, shuffled into his shack, and after setting down in an old rocker opened the glass door to his Buck stove. Deliberately he wadded up each sheet of newspaper except the one with her picture and mashed them low down in the stove. Then he neatly stacked the kindling over the pile of paper, closed the door and rolled the remaining sheet with her photograph tightly into a suitable starting torch which he gently laid atop the stove. That evening when the chill came and the jays had disappeared he and Mandy would set their evening fire.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...