Silent Hero - Alphabet Affair: Available Click The Books for Status of Others
Break-thru Creative storytelling Project
Crazy Carlos and Me, Circa 2003
This is the short-story project that inspired a university professor to assure me that I had imagination and talent competitive in the big time.. There is an interesting parallel between Carlos' emergence and my author's journey!
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By any logic, this craziness should not have happened. I had been in complete and comfortable control since college days when Carlos argued for joining Alpha Tau Omega. Fortunately, I correctly sensed the sin oozing from every pore of that place. At the time, Carlos felt that a bit of sinning wouldn’t hurt. “For God’s sake, Carl,” he whined, “we’re nineteen years old. We know neither the taste of strong drink nor the touch of a wayward woman.” I reminded him that we were in college for our mind not our willy. He relented. We graduated from the School of Finance with a focus in accounting, and life began to flow smoothly, something like fine wine carefully aged, in my opinion anyway.
Of course, Carlos didn’t submit completely. He groused and grumbled when we picked Maudie to marry. My God, man, he said, she’s a virgin, we’re a virgin, no one will know what the hell they’re doing....and I don’t think she cares. Over the years, Carlos inspired us to pick up an occasional Penthouse. He came up with the fantasy themes for our frequent solo flights as he called them. It was surely Carlos who inspired us to slink into Victoria’s Secret and buy the red camisole that turned Maudie’s face redder than the camisole. I had warned Carlos she’ would never wear it. She never wore it. Over the years, Carlos grew silent and sullen. Decades slipped by, quietly, smoothly. Then Maudie died.
We were sitting in our vintage leather Barca-Lounger, sipping tea, reading Time magazine. Life was lonesome, of course, but not intolerable. We volunteered at church, played an occasional chess tournament, smoked a pipe with our tea. It was comfortable. But there it was: a Harley-Davidson ad, in Time magazine for crying out loud, just to the right of an article about political campaign reform I had been perusing. Carlos emerged from slumber, on fire. Damn, he exclaimed, look at that cherry red hog.
I didn’t know we even knew the word hog as it applied to an oversized machine being ridden by a hunky model that looked like Marlon Brando. I said, Get a grip, Carlos; reminding us that we’re fifty-four years old. If you recall, as a kid we were nervous about the safety of English bicycles and those thin tires. We don’t need a hog in our life.
But something had happened; something profound. He said, Kiss my half of our ass, Carl. You and your conservative bullshit have put us on a comfortable but cracked Barca-Lounger, drinking sweet tea, puffing a goddam exotic pipe, reading a Time magazine that—thank God, or Satan, or somebody— has a life-altering ad in it. And we are going to, by God, alter this miserable frigging life.
So before I could help us regain our senses, we had gone hog shopping and were riding around—scared witless in my case—on an outlandishly red chrome-encrusted monster. I just couldn’t make it seem right, not to mention safe. We had lost our hair by then, except for a carefully trimmed gray fringe. Our cheeks were pink and soft. Our body was pink and soft. I never dreamed that our pink and soft body would know the feeling of leather riding pants, a matching studded jacket, and (I’m almost embarrassed to admit this) a bright red bandana rakishly tied around our balded pate.
All of which brings us to the present time. We’re at the Brown County State Park where, annually, aging Harley-Davidson aficionados gather to rumble and grunt greetings to each other, and attempt to whip aging hormones into some semblance of manly activity. And relevant to this story there are a surprising number of women! So with Carlos firmly in control and me watching fearfully, we rumble up to a pack of young lady-bikers gathered in front of a green-shingled shelter house, kick stands down, just lounging.
We scan the group, our expression as cool and casual as we can make it. But I’m not cool or casual worth a damn. The oldest among them is twenty-five tops, and black or blond or auburn curls are falling toward tube-topped cleavage that would have been inspiring on a movie screen but is terrifying to me from five feet away. I try shutting our eyes, but Carlos is clearly in charge. He nods cooly toward the group, “There’s enough food and wine in my saddlebag for a picnic for two. Anyone interested?”
So I scream at Carlos. You are crazy; they’re going to laugh out loud and call us an old fart if not a dirty old man and –
But before I can say another word, a raven-haired young thing looks at us with twinkling blue eyes and says, “I’m kind of hungry, Honey.” Then she cranks up her Harley, revs it three times, and says, “Lead on.”
So Carlos has us rev three times, turn sharply and roar down this dirt lane at about fifty miles per hour. Raven hair and her red tube top and her oh-my-God cleavage are close behind, and I’m screaming at Carlos again. Forget about it, you idiot, she’s going to eat our food and hit us with a pipe wrench and steal our money or something horrible.
But Carlos just says, Shut the hell up, Carl. You pitiful son of a bitch.
We find an isolated spot beside a small pond. We spread a tan blanket emblazoned with a brilliant red H-D logo, and we spread a pretty damn good spread. I had noticed we were food packing heavily this morning, but hadn’t even wondered why. Now I knew why.
Her name turns out to be Heather. She’s sweet in a life-hardened way so I quit worrying about her robbing us. Truthfully, I thoroughly enjoy the picnic part. She seems interested in us. We talk about all kinds of things. She knows more than I thought a girl so young would know about life and the times. We laugh easily and often.
Then Carlos speaks directly to me. Carl, we’re going for it. I don’t expect you to approve of this decision, but I’m requesting that you you just shut up while we try. We argue briefly. I tell him we’re going to be hurt again, like in high school. He says he doesn’t care. Life is going by. He wants to live some of it. I agree to shut up.
So Carlos has us whisper a sweet nothing into Heather’s ear and, to my amazement, she giggles and says we’re cute and fun. Then in a moment that was beyond miraculous to me, she says, A kiss would be nice. And a few miracle-filled minutes later, a red tube top is beside an empty wine bottle and shortly after that black leather riding pants and red bikini panties are beside the tube top and Carlos is going to town and Heather is moaning and I’m screaming, Carlos, Carlos…I love you, man. You are a genius. Lead on!
