To call Deirdre Robinson beautiful would have been to come as close as one could to understatement as was possible without actually committing the crime. I sat, looking at the image of her on my monitor just shaking my head. Not a man on this earth could look at this woman and fail to experience that desire that rose above the profane. There was in her eyes a life, an excitement that made you wish to be a part of whatever she was about. She was possessed of pure, absolute, unbridled enthusiasm. It was in the picture of her as it was in the things she said. She was thrilled to be alive, involved in the passage of life and as proud of her heritage as she was distressed at the unfairness that heritage had been subjected to. Her eyes were gentle and had a suggestion of honesty that would see lies. Deirdre's features had that regal elegance so prevalent in the Masai; high cheeks, a wide sensuous mouth and a lighter skin, the color of cappuccino.
We had met just an hour earlier on the internet and because she typed so quickly, I knew much more of her than she of I. She was a nineteen-year-old honors student at Columbia, came from Atlanta and Chicago, and planned on doing a tour in the Peace Corps after she became a physician; a practitioner of internal medicine. She was angered by the Rodney King verdict and pleased that O. J. had gotten off, jury nullification being completely acceptable so long as the black experience was an ongoing event. Already, I knew these things and so many more about her and all she knew of me so far was that I was nearly three times her age. I am not the fastest of typists.
Abruptly, she wanted to know of my worst encounter with prejudice. Was it with the police? White adults? Peers? Could I recall it? Could I relate it? Did I remember it?
As it was, I could remember it all to well. I asked if I might take half an hour to compose the story properly and e-mail it to her. That would be wonderful. She had things to research on the net and would still be on line.
I took her at her word and signed off. Forty minutes later I found her, still there, truly anxious to read. I sent her the following; a true story that shaped my life the way a falling stone shapes the surface of a pond.
It happened in the summer of 1961. That was the year I'd spent in Denver at Lowry Air Force Base, going through technical school, which in my career field was nearly a year long.
Sometime in those first few weeks of being thrown together as a group, I'd met Samual Hess and we had become friends. It was a kinship borne of suffering shared. He struggled through each block of school just as I, and both of us seemed to have to study much harder than the rest of the class to get through the endless tests. Because we spent the same hours in the technical library at the school and ate and slept at the same times, our friendship seemed nearly forced upon us, even though we lived in different barracks and were from different parts of the country. In fact, we really did get along well.
Then there came a weekend when we transitioned from one block to the next and there were no studies either required or available. Samual's home was about eight hours away and he suggested that I go home with him. His family was dying to meet me. It was a great idea. We got the necessary approval easily and arrived at his house in the dead of night. Still, everyone was up waiting for us and they greeted me with that kind of familiarity I thought was reserved for close family members.
Saturday was possibly the nicest day I had ever had. Sam's parents were wonderful hard working farm people who took great pride in working the land. His two sisters were simply breath taking. Nina was a year older than I, and Lynn, a year younger, and both of them seemed to be in an undeclared contest to see who could command the most of my attention. For my part, above and beyond the flattery of having two beautiful ladies vying for my interest, I felt reluctant to 'make a choice.' Having to do so would mean, it seemed, losing something rather than gaining. Instead, I chose to be the object of both of their efforts.
Sam's father did his best to lighten my load. He asked me to help with the Saturday chores, which were plentiful. He had just mowed and crimped a field of hay and so I was on the hay wagon, grabbing the blocks as they came out of the baler and hoisting them up to Samual who knew how to stack. It was hard work, even for the young me, who was in fair condition then. Lunch, and the ladies, came to us; slices of ham from their own pigs, lettuce grown in the field behind the house and lemonade. The lemons came from the general store, but it was home made.
When it was time to unload the wagon, Sam's sisters were there in the loft, tossing the bales with enthusiasm. As she worked with her husband at putting bales onto the conveyer, Sam's mom remarked that she had never seen her daughters so anxious to help. Sam and his dad laughed at this and Nina stuck her tongue out at her mom. I smiled and did my best to make the work look easy, though every muscle of my body was begging God for this to end, and quickly.
By the end of dinner it had been decided, somewhere a bit removed from my presence, that I was Nina's. She took me out to the barn and showed me how to saddle a horse. Actually, I was a fair rider, but having her help me was, well, rewarding. We went for a ride, leaving the family and farm behind, but not before her father gave me one of those don't-you-dare looks that strike fear in the hearts of young men. I didn't dare, though I was falling into infatuation full speed.
I learned the next morning that even Sunday comes early to farm people. It was August and the sun could not have completely cleared the horizon when Mrs. Hess began clanging on a cowbell with a spoon down in the kitchen. I staggered down the stairs to find a kitchen table set with every breakfast food I'd ever seen. There were slices of bacon, sausages, hash browns, scrambled eggs, sweet rolls, stacks of pancakes, real maple syrup from Vermont, home made butter, things called hush-puppies, and coffee; wonderful rich drip-brewed coffee. Because it was Sunday, there was a sense of expedience to this meal. Services were waiting. After the dishes were done, we took turns showering and were soon in our Sunday best, ready to be made a bit holier.
In town, the places of worship sat on opposite ends of the green. There was a huge Baptist Church and to get to that we had to pass the comparatively diminutive Roman Catholic chapel. In the church's parking lot, I said that I would see them after their services were over and walked down the green to the chapel.
The priest and the dozen or so parishioners greeted me with enthusiasm and he offered to hear my confession before mass. I could think of no offences since my previous confession, so I thanked him and said that it would not be necessary; I was ready for communion. He asked if I had ever been an altar boy, and in fact, I had. He then asked if I remembered enough of the Mass to assist him. His regular altar boy was away for the week at an uncle's farm. So, on top of being mentioned in the homily, I also got to follow him and hold the patten while he placed the communion wafers on the parishioners' tongues. It was a wonderful little service in a chapel made beautiful by its absolute simplicity.
I was surprised to find Sam, my belongings, and his car outside waiting for me as I walked out of the chapel. I was even more surprised that he refused to say a single word to me beyond, "We have to get back to Lowry." That was it. We rode in silence for most of the day, Sam steadfastly refusing to answer a single question or say another syllable. I was left to watching the Kansas countryside glide past as we sped along route 36.
When we pulled up in front of my barracks, Sam opened the trunk to get my gear and I took it out and tossed it on the stairs. Then I told him flat out that if I didn't get some kind of explanation, we were going to fight, right then and right there. What he said took me by complete surprise.