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