Sergeant Clare (A Short Story of an Odd Romance)

Sergeant Clare (A Short Story of an Odd Romance)



Sergeant Clare met Hilleary Trenton, just before Easter at a house party in Huntsville, Alabama. He had stopped there on his way home to Minnesota to oblige the brother of friend he had met at Troy State University, in Troy Alabama; he was stationed at Fort Rucker, (1977); the brother of a classmate to be exact. So he confided in himself, and believed, this would be a simple task, why not do it, plus have some fun. He had planned to stop off in Huntsville for a day only, and he stayed three full days, then headed on to St. Paul, Minnesota, to spend time with his mother on a Easter day, then return, ‘play around a little more with my southern bell,’ so he told himself; he thought about her a lot on his return—on a plane, a shapely, calm, lean, bronze girl. ‘For her to come out of Alabama,’ he said, talking to himself on the plane, ‘she’s sharp looking, bred in just a fine southern tradition, polite and all,’ with just the right amount of sex appeal. He didn’t say that part out loud, he just thought it. That alone was not the drawing force, he had been at Fort Rucker going on two years, belonging to the University staff, and in touch with a few of the highly respected professors, Officers on the military base and the mayor of the city, and had money enough to spend, being single and all, and from a family of an upper middle class Midwestern merchant. And apart from that, Hilleary was lovely, but a tinge lacking vigor and strength. I think what he was really feeling, pulling at him, but not knowing, was she possessed something magnetic (that made him come back), like Marylyn Monroe, who was beautiful, and kind of, almost kind of awkward, in a alluring way, and sumptuous beyond his understanding, perhaps smarter than he first gave her credit for. What he said to her when they first met, was simple, and to the point, he was passing through, and was looking her up, to see if all was fine, because he was asked to, by his friend’s, brother, this was all he commented at first, and she for her own reasons took to him right away.


He had been told to go to this house, and she was pointed out to him during the party, they spoke to each other but for a few minutes, and she left out the back door, he followed her to a taxi, and having rented a car, asked if she wanted a ride, and she accepted, leaving the taxi go his own way.
This all took place so fast, when in essence, he was just going to meet her, give her a message from his friend’s brother, and here he was driving her someplace, it did dawn on him, this was perhaps meant to be (at first), you know, one of them flukes in life, you meant someone and you click, and the next minute you fall in love and get married and tell the world how magical it was. But she hardly looked at him in the car, hardly at all, she was too busy looking in the mirror putting on lipstick, and tidying her hair up, primping you could say for someone, and it wasn’t him. They really had had not given each other a very good introduction, of one anther.
She was sitting beside him, in the car, silent, her breath exhaling quicker and quicker, trying to prepare herself or whatever. “Where we headed?” Sergeant Clare asked with his Class A, uniform on, some Vietnam ribbons mounted on his upper chest.
She answered, without looking at him, rolling down the window to light up a cigarette. “To a boyfriend’s house, I mean apartment?” She hesitated, “…it’s kind of rude of me to say so I suppose, but you asked me, and I can save the Taxi fare.”
“I guess I don’t mind, having nothing else to do anyhow,” said the Sergeant.
“Sure, thanks!” she said, flicking the rest of her cigarette out the window and watching the red furnace tip fly and bounce off the dark road behind them.
“If you wish, you can come in and say hello, to my friend, when we get there.” She announced.
“That sounds dangerous.” He said, eyebrows hitting his brow.
“He needs to see other folks are interested in me, and then perhaps he’ll place a higher value on me.”
He now was afraid to look at her, she was staring at him, was this a joke or for real. “I’ll just wait in the car for you, and take you home afterwards, how is that?” he asked.
“You don’t mind,” she said.
“Before tonight, you were simply nonexistent, and all of a sudden you’re real, I’m just here to look you up, see how you’re doing.”
“But do you know what you’re doing, looking me up?” she asked.
“Not really.”
“I think when you get back to Fort Rucker, your friend’s brother will ask you, want you to be accountable to him, to let him know, what I was doing, well, I’m doing, so what will you tell him if he asks?” .
“What should I tell him?”
“Someone else has taken his place!”
“Who?”
“You, on your return!”
“But you have a boyfriend, and are using me, and for some reason, keeping another in the dark in another place in Alabama.”


That night, he sat in his car, until early morning, looking at the stars and the apartment window he saw her shape through the shades, and the man’s shape she was with, not studying them, just looking now and then, in lack of having nothing else to do. Then he got thinking about how people get emotionally hooked, blinded, that was it, blinded. A girl he had never seen, never heard of before a few days ago, now in this apartment with another guy, and another guy wasting for her at Troy, Alabama. And me, here fretfully here, waiting like everyone else for her, and getting hungry; then she appeared at the door way…!

Then the plane landed, and he went right to a telephone to call Hilleary.


3/3/2007

Return to Day (A Short Story on Sexuality)

Return to Day




Chapter One


She sat back, Louise Fleming, staring into the nothingness of the night from the hospital window, central London, thought about her life up to this point, it was 1945, she was shocked by her own feelings but she had finally put it together, with a bit of embarrassment. Now she’d have to tell her father.

(Louise was born 1911, but life really didn’t catch up with her until 1933, when she had finished college, became a registered nurse (RN), an occupation her father chose for her, Dr. Bruce Fleming, yet he would have preferred she become a doctor like him. She had worked on her internship at two London hospitals, and , even though she liked her work, and was good at it, she was not fully comfortable with it, I mean, it is not really what she would have chosen had she disregarded her father’s influence. That of course, was one of two contentions, or issues between her and her father, an internal struggle for her, for she adored him dearly, and deeply, whom was rooted in old Victorian traditions, and her somewhat a liberated woman of the 1920s, the new era, what F. Scott Fitzgerald dubbed it, ‘The Jazz Age’.

It was in 1945, WWII had ended, and still anything less than Doctor Fleming’s opinion, and position on how things are suppose to be, were taboo with him ((he had not changed)), and when he was with his daughter, the struggle seemed to emanated through his flesh to the marrow of his bones, and to think of changing them would be horrible, unthinkable, disrespectful.
Louise had one affair with Dr. David Marshal, in 1937, before the war, only to find out he was married, and would go back to his wife, somehow it was a relief for her, so she concluded shortly after the fact. That is when she had met Lisa Morgan, some time in the early months of 1938, she was learning a woman friend was much more pleasing for her, yes, learned, odd as it seemed, it seemed right, in that she had a friend, one she could talk to, when she felt dry and dull, and without words, talk to and not expect nothing in return; a man would never consider that, she finalized. That is when she started to write her first book, well, a little before that, but when she put more effort into that is, yet, it would not be finished until 1939. Her father told her she was killing her time on such matters, that she should go back to school, find a husband, have children, so he could have grandchildren, for she was the only girl in the family, and become a doctor, it would suite her better. Her thoughts of course were that her sister could do all those things for him; he didn’t need to have two daughters accommodating his will.
But as time went on, she was on her second book; she used the pen name, Rose Christianson. In 1942, the second book was finished, and yet her father didn’t know; only that she was writing, as he put it so plainly, for what reason he didn’t know, or care. In a way, Louise was dumfounded she got two books published, but then it was what she liked to do, and that was really when she started to question her sexuality.
But during her vacation in spring, of 1938, when Lisa and her went to England’s coast, rented a room in a guesthouse, climbed the nearby mountain, together, went skinny dipping in a nearby lake, together, talked for hours on end during the fourteen-night stay, talking and drinking and smoking cigarettes, listening to the piano, and being warmed by the fireplace, things changed, and everything become questionable, but changed nonetheless.
During the war years of 1944 to 1945, they both worked at the General Hospital together, she was the head nurse, young as she was, and there were nuns, sisters working. And this day, she stood at the window of the hospital, she had come now to the conclusion after her third and now working on her forth book, all in a heterosexual themes and plots, come to the finality, and reality of her fifth book would tip the scales of the times, like it or not, towards her preference. She felt liberated to do so, yes, a tinge confused yet, but she acknowledged now she was a lesbian, and somehow would have to face up to it, right or wrong to her father it didn’t matter anymore, she was what she wanted to be, or what she felt she had to be, not fully understanding the why of it, or caring, it just was.)



Chapter Two

[1946] Louise left the hospital to meet Lisa at the pub, near Trafalgar Square, it was 10:00 PM, she was working on her fifth book (as I have mentioned), “All Her Young Lovers” it was 1946, she and Lisa had purchased a houseboat from some of the money advanced to her on her forth coming book. It would entail an affair in the hospital, one with a slant to it, a slight shift to two women falling in love, yes, kind of a takeoff from her own life. If she done it wisely, the public would accept it she knew, if not, she’d be branded as one kind of a writer, and a narrow readership, or limited one with the public, and centered toward lesbianism only. This was her thorn in the side, how could she satisfy her, and her public at the same time, and be true to herself and her readers, and how would her father take it, if she was successful, surely he would find out.
And so Lisa and Louise moved in together on the Tames River, facing south, and fishing off the boat, and living in its cramped quarters like two sardines, but liking it. She was pretty sure at this point, she would not return to a heterosexual relationship, yet she questioned herself on this, was she bisexual? She had not ruled it completely out, not until Lisa found a boyfriend that happened to stop by one day when she was at work, and here they were drinking beer on the upper deck, part of the boat, laughing. He was perhaps several years older than she, and they seemed to know each other quite well, for only meeting once: perhaps they were old friends from the hospital, someone that she didn’t tell her about, oh well, it was cramps in the stomah when she saw them together. And jealousy prevailed, but it was only wise thinking, she could not control Lisa, not like her father wanted to do to her, so Louise had to allow this, and she found a doctor friend to sleep with.
It was perhaps on the sixth date, the older lover of Lisa’s tried to force himself on her, and she pushed him off the boat into the river nonetheless, soaked to the brim he was; this all happened when Louise came home, he was finding his way back onto the boat, and cursing Lisa as he walked along side the boat to the dock area, and past Louise, they had at that moment, made up their minds not to test themselves anymore, it was enough, they were who they were, and didn’t want to lose one another over short term pleasures.
But still the father needed to know, and it was in that very year, Louise confronted him.

“How was it with your father?” asked Lisa.
“As expected, not good, not good at all, he yelled and called me a fag, and shook his head, and stomped his feet, and told me I was going to hell, and that he did not want me to be part of his life anymore, not that we are much to each other now.”
There really wasn’t much more to say, the father had said his peace, and so did Louise, yet it broke her heart that they could not have a daughter and father relationship like she had always hopped for, saw that, so many of her friends had.
And that 1947 came, a bad and good year indeed for Louise, bad in that her father took ill and died; She was called to his bed side, and for what it was worth, made their peace, but still they were uncomfortable with each other, even then.
It was this year her new book, became an award winning book, and she received $100,000-dollars for the rights to make it into a movie, even though it would never go past the thinking stages, she received the check. After the taxes, of 40% (some kind of war recovery tax) she was left with $60,000-dollars, still a large sum for the times. It was a break for her and Lisa, they could now move to wherever they wanted to, and Louise could write until her heart was content.



Chapter Three

[1948] Louise and Lisa sold their houseboat, almost having to give the big tank away, or pay to have it moved and hauled and scrapped at the junkyard, but at the last moment, a decent offer came in, about $1000-dollars was fine, and they grabbed it, it really was the last and only decent offer, and they caught a boat, suite cases only, a few boxes of books, and headed for South Africa, Cape Town, outside along the coast, this is where they would live. There they purchased a piece of land, 8000-square meters, and built three houses on it, sold two, and with what they had left over, build an extension on theirs.
There was a problem though, the two men they went into business with who helped build the homes for and with them, but did not invest money, only time and effort, Tom Gerard, and his brother, Hank, resold the houses, thus, two owners per house. The mistake was that they had written power from Louise’s attorney, she had given it during the building stages and forgotten to have a nullified. There was a court battle, and Louise ended up being responsible, I suppose someone had to be, and she was the only one available, sad but true, people and judges go after those they can catch, who have money, who have no place to run to. It would take a few years to straighten out. And Tom and Hank were no where to be found. And so again, she was robbed legally, once by the government through taxes, and now by the courts, saying she would have to make good, the money put down on purchasing the house by the second owners, while another party was legally owning it. Had she not agreed to the settlement, she was looking at jail time for fraud, but it would be the last time she ever heard of the two boys, a deep scratch indeed.
It was 1950, when all was settled and over, and she had figured out what to do with her writings. I mean, she needed to release her soul into the books, her way of life, without isolating her public to a corner, as if to say: take it or leave it. She knew her lifestyle was not all that acceptable in Europe, especially England, and America in particular. And so she chose to write about the Greeks.
This was her release; she would become the Greek hero, where homosexuality was accepted, as was Plato, and all the great Greeks heroes. She could reverse the role, her being the male, and incorporate the lifestyle from book to book, just slightly, until she hit Alexander the Great, there she would prevail with his bisexual life, for all mankind loved Alexander, how could they not know he was who he was.
And as the years passed she wrote nine books, one after the other, with three tours of Greece, and studying the vases in the museums to figure out their life styles, on a daily basis. She was so good at it, most readers thought she to be a man writing of the old ancient Greeks, to their dismay, they would find out, she was a woman. And so the task went one, and seldom did she travel, except for getting involved slightly with the issues of South Africa, and a few isolated ones in her preference of sex, she did not make waves, plus, she lived so far away from humanity’s cosmopolitan’s who would ever think of visiting her: she would not have to fight for her lifestyle, just don’t be overbearing with it in her writings. And it worked.
She died in 1989; one visit from BBC for an interview, one from a magazine about her life, and that was that.




http://dennissiluk.tripod.com

Poeta Laureado De San Jerónimo de Tunan, Perú

Awarded the Grand Cross of the City

Awarded the National Prize of Peru, "Antena Regional": The best of 2006 for promoting culture

Los Andes University (Peru): Recognition given to Dennis Siluk for his poetic and cultural contribution





Return to Day ©2007 by D.L. Siluk