Bettersweet, Were her Kisses! (Chapter #9)) Sandy, the Stripper))

Sandy, the Stripper (1982) 9



Lee said to himself, ‘I should have suspected as much,’ in him, was a mentality, constituting a wind of sinister interest in Sandy again, not in the same way as it had been, different this time, an element of curiosity.
He had gone to San Francisco, in 1968-69, and got drafted into the Army in October of 1969 ((in-between: he went to North Dakota for a few weeks)), and ended up in Vietnam, in 1971. When he got out he did some traveling, and now it was 1982, he had spent several years in the Army (he had went back in a second time, after 30-months out), and a year in Erie, Pennsylvania. He was in Europe for four of those years, between 1969-1980; now he was back in Minnesota; he had forgotten about Sandy for the most apart, and on his way back from California (where he got drafted through), to Minnesota (where he would be inducted into the Army), when he got drafted in ’69, he stopped off to talk to Ms Lopez, told her he was sorry for taking off somewhat abruptly, and she of course had wondered way (for at the time she said: she wondered if something bad had happened to him), I mean, one day he was there, and then the next he wasn’t; but he had been in a war and all, so he told her, and didn’t want to drop a sad story on her, and she accepted that, with even a little undue respect for Lee, undue respect, I should say, for it was out of rudeness he did not inform her of his ventures to be.
She was happy though to see him, but things had changed, and now he was at the Clover Leaf, night club with several of the neighborhood fellow’s, and there was Sandy, yes, his old girlfriend, Sandy, it had been somewhere around twelve or thirteen years since he has seen her.
“I should have suspected…” that is what he said out loud, as she stood on the small stage, men all around her (she was always comfortable with men around her), Lee with three guy friends, “I know her,” he told his buddies, and they replied, “Everyone knows her…”
Lee was still a big drinker in ’82, he gave the stuff up, in ’84, along with bar life and smoking, gambling, all his bad habits went in one month, he had been a roaring legend in his younger days in St. Paul, but this was then, and it was now, he was slowing up, going out with the guys, and drinking sole mostly now. He thought in his mind, ‘when she was seventeen, what a doll, and now, what a slob’ I mean, she still had what she used to have, but it was all a mad, unrefined mix-up, eyes looking everywhere, almost dreamy, he didn’t want to relive those days, patsies days for her he felt, perhaps some of those days she even felt dutiful to lay with him. It was a sad moment for him, then all of sudden, almost hysterically, she stopped dancing, looked at Lee, “Is that really you?” she bellowed…above all the chatter. I think Lee felt like jumping into Dante’s infernal, he smiled, he really wanted to say hi, and she moved quickly off stage, admiring Lee’s intelligent, or worldly look, said, “I can’t believe it, I heard you were off traveling around the world, when did you got back?” And before he could say a word she kissed him, and gave him a big bear hug. She was still a halfway good looker, and dancing toned her body somewhat, but weight had also done its duty with age, and drinking and so forth and on, you could see that, and her brain was communicating well but a tinge off tone it seemed, eyes closed he kissed her back on the cheek, she on his lips. “Unbelievable,” she sighed.
Again, she was impressed, but perhaps for the first time, self-consciousness crept in; Lee produced an angelical smile, it was too profound perhaps, and they closed with some distance, they both had been through much, no longer entwined, but still old friend. And Lee, leaving his friends behind, had to leave the bar, the friends, seemed to be, as always, interested in Sandy.