Settling Old Scores: BWWM Second Chance Romance

by Sposs, Mike

  Settling Old Scores

  by Mike Sposs

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including scanning, photocopying, or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder. Copyright © 2014

  Table of Contents

  1. Aboard the S.S. Diane

  2. The Avenue

  3. Pat Washington

  4. The Riots

  5. Mr. Sharpe

  6. Foxholes

  7. A Chance Encounter

  8. First Moves

  9. The Math Club

  10. Marginal Costs

  11. German North Dakota

  12. Matt Tunnel Rat

  13. Spending the Night

  14. Rachmaninoff

  15. The Terrier

  16. Sister Janet

  17. Finding Matt

  18. The Revelation

  19. Finally

  20. Mixed Up Mix

  21. What Pat Thought

  22. Willie and Kevin

  23. Seeking Approval

  24 At the VA

  25. Matt Avenue

  26. English Avenue

  27. Greek Breakfast

  28. Found

  29. Matt turns Comic

  30. The Funeral Home

  31. Where We Goin?

  32. Saturday Night

  33. Dwayne Washington

  34. Andre McCann

  35. Donny Dies

  36. The Proposal

  1. Aboard the S.S. Diane

  Second Mate Kevin Kenneth Kelly woke up for the fourth or fifth time that night. The alarm clock radio went off, it was 3 AM, and he was still exhausted. The old rust bucket he had signed on to as second mate the day before, rolled and groaned fearfully. Kevin had sailed on plenty of old ships before. As a lowly cadet in the early 70s, he had made several voyages to Vietnam in old Liberty Ships laden with explosives & munitions. They creaked and groaned, and sometimes scared the hell out of him, but nothing like this.

  This trip was to be this ship's penultimate voyage; it was an old 1945-built Victory Ship. Whoever determined that this boat was on its last legs knew exactly what they were doing. This one had been ridden hard and put away wet several thousand times. To add further drama, Kevin reminded himself that the great circle route he had laid out the day before included a stint across the north edge of the Bermuda Triangle, not that he believed any of that stuff.

  The S.S. Diane, aka five or six other previous names, had set sail out of Savannah the night before. The weather was miserable. From listening and feel, Kevin knew it hadn't improved. A Second Mate is the navigation officer on merchant ships. During his watch Kevin, would chart the ship's course, and try to fix its position using the hopelessly outdated electronics on the ship. Kevin was able to sign on to this old tub precisely because no one else wanted to. It was loaded for a shit voyage with Algiers as the first stop. From there, the ports of call went downhill.

  It was December 20, 1977. Kevin was twenty-six years old and going to spend Christmas at sea. By choice, not for the first time. His alarm clock radio with the flip digits clicked the minutes off as he got dressed. A very static Bob Seger came on playing Night Moves It gave Kevin a morose pause.

  "I wish I had a silver bullet. Then again what would I do with it? Shoot myself? How the hell did I get here; where the hell am I going?" he wondered to himself.

  He had been ashore the last four months. A girl he had first met when he was eleven in 1962, Pat Washington, had come into his life for a second time in those four months. He had just tried to give her an engagement ring two days earlier while sitting on the beach in front of Shipyard Plantation on Hilton Head Island. She had turned him down without good explanation.

  A second girl he knew from that era, Sylvia Greenberg, had also been a recent issue. Kevin had spent the last four months revisiting his past. He found out he wasn't nearly as street smart as he prided himself to be. He had missed the obvious so many times of late that he didn't trust too much about himself anymore.

  Oh, there was one more thing. Let's just say someone Kevin knew died during a jail break attempt a mere three weeks ago. Given all the havoc Kevin had been near and caused. Given how clueless he was. He felt it was a good time to run away to sea, again.

  Kevin had become Sylvia's Greenberg's paperboy in 1966. Kevin was learning the paper route from his slightly older friend that recruited him to take over this route. The friend's name was Willie Smith. Willie and Kevin were both little ninth graders. Willie was black, and Kevin was white. They were a ragtag couple of boys, pretty much totally unsupervised in their adventures on the Avenue. They were old enough to start noticing girls, and still young enough to be totally color blind. The Avenue was the main commercial artery of the Midwest inner city the boys lived in before the neighborhoods started getting carved up and divided by freeways.

  The first time Kevin met Sylvia, Kevin and Willie were out collecting money for the paper route. It was about seven o'clock at night and they were cold and tired. The only way to stay warm in the bitter night air was to dart into the various stores on the street as they made their collection rounds. They hung out in the grocery store below Sylvia's apartment to warm up for a few minutes. As they stood there, Willie said to Kevin: "This next customer is a blond white lady that's mighty fine. I'll do the talking; you just stand back and check her out." So up the inside stairs of the building they went to the apartment above the grocery store.

  Willie wasn't kidding! When Sylvia opened the door to their hurried knock, Kevin sucked in his breath. She was in a filmy nightgown! She probably didn't know that the light coming from behind her showed through the gown. Kevin could see her gorgeous body through it. She might have been all of nineteen years old. Willie kept her engaged and talking for as long as he could. He was enjoying the show she put on as much as Kevin did. He had a little smirk on his face because he knew exactly what he was doing. As they wrapped up, Kevin started to edge back a bit.

  You know what happened next? Kevin backed off the landing and right down the stairs. He went ass over teakettle most of the way down the steep straight shot stairs. The only thing that saved him from injury was all the heavy winter clothes he was wearing. Sylvia was down the stairs in a flash helping Kevin up, and making sure he was okay. Willie looked down at Kevin from the top of the stairs with the biggest shit eating grin on his face. Kevin was more embarrassed than hurt, and he had to do all he could not to break out laughing at himself too.

  Kevin assured Sylvia he was okay, and got an eyeful of her cleavage as she bent over him. Then he and Willie trudged off into the night. When they got outside, they laughed themselves silly. They were classic hormonally imbalanced ninth grade boys.

  2. The Avenue

  Once Kevin took the route over from Willie, his relationship with Sylvia became more mature. She was just so naturally friendly that she would chat with him whenever and wherever she saw him. She became almost a surrogate big sister to him in that she constantly got after him about the importance of school, and surrounding himself with people that were a good influence. She would always punctuate the little lectures with the line, "You don't want to end up like me." Kevin couldn't help but like her, and worry about her, too. Here he was a ninth grader, and he thought he was more streetwise than she was.

  He thought she had no idea how much she stood out like a sore thumb walking down the Avenue with little Marcy, her three year old daughter in tow. Blonder than blond in a mostly black neighborhood. Her blond ponytail and shapely butt were gorgeous swinging from side to side as she walked. She got noticed plenty and got plenty of catcalls.
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  Kevin was taking ninth grade algebra, and discovered that he was pretty good at it. Sylvia was studying for her GED. Kevin helped her once or twice with some algebra problems. He especially loved the Taboo perfume she wore. He could smell it when he got close to her while doing a math problem. To this day the scent of Taboo on any woman from nineteen to fortynine got him excited.

  Kevin spent enough time up there with Sylvia that Marcy knew him on sight too. Marcy was as naturally friendly as her mom. She would run to the door when Kevin showed up, and greet him warmly with a big smile and a wave. Kevin felt so welcome around her; it was incredible. If there was an Olympic event for being a hostess, Marcy would've been a gold-medal winner. Serious competition for Marcy would have had to turn in "the performance of a lifetime," to beat her.

  Somewhere, Kevin had a cigar box with old pictures in it. It contained among other things, an old somewhat curled black and white Polaroid with Sylvia, Marcy, and Kevin standing on the sidewalk in front of the old Grocery store that Sylvia and Marcy lived above. Marcy had her big smile going on, and was holding hands with her mom. She had her little hip cocked and her other small hand resting on her hip in a free-spirited way that only very little girls can manage. Kevin hadn't given the picture a thought in years, until the last four months. Then, he had studied it closely more than once.

  Sylvia herself never talked down to Kevin, despite the big age difference. Well, at that age it was a big difference. In retrospect you could say, Kevin had a big-time crush on Sylvia Greenberg. The story was that she had become pregnant when she was 15. She had tried living at home with the baby. Sylvia’s father had run off and disappeared. Sylvia eventually was kicked out of the house, because she couldn't get along with her father and his rules.

  Sylvia was on AFDC and rented the little apartment from the kindly old Jewish couple that owned the grocery store below it. Sylvia's father virtually disowned her. Sylvia's mother helped Sylvia and Marcy whenever she could by babysitting and discreetly providing clothes and money for Marcy.

  Kevin's paper route was the beginning of a process that made him into a street smart little urchin. He was rough on the one hand and stupid on the other. Every inner city back then had a commercial zone; an Avenue that was to become the focus of racial unrest, and riots as the 60s wore on.

  Kevin's route was right on that Avenue. Kids in those days had a special dispensation from adult issues, regardless of race. He could go and come as he pleased anywhere in the area, and people paid him no heed. The old Jewish store owners, the moms, dads, grandmas, and grandpas, regardless of race or anything else, were protective of all children. At least until age 15 or 16, all of the street kids were color blind. They played together, gave each other shit, fought, made up and played together again without any seeming awareness of the stewing cauldron around them.

  One of Kevin's route customers was an old barber shop for black men. Kevin could go in there, drop the paper off and listen to the old guys talk about sports. Cassius Clay had just become the heavyweight champion. Kevin heard a lot about him. Every black kid in the neighborhood wanted to be a bad man like him. White boy Kevin wanted to be to be like him, too.

  Farther down the street, there was a boxing gym that trained local golden gloves fighters. In 1963, several of the local and regional golden gloves winners were fighters from that gym. When they stepped out on the street and strutted along in their athletic jackets with the big golden glove on the back, the kids followed them down the street like they were pied pipers. The kids would be walking, shucking, dancing, and jabbing at each other as they followed these guys around. Could Clay beat Liston again? Who was the better fighter: Marciano or Clay? The local fighters ate up the adoration they got. The boys, Kevin included, swooned when the fighters paid attention to them. Stuff like "Good Jab!" made them double down in their efforts to get noticed. It was little boy heaven and bad boy island all rolled into one growing up around all these cool, young guys.

  3. Pat Washington

  Pat and Kevin had known each other since 1962, a year before Kennedy was assassinated. They started junior high school together. Later, they went to High School together. Kevin was never an academic match for Pat. In senior high school, she was a National Merit Scholarship winner. She loved music of all kinds and could play saxophone and violin well enough to give Kevin goose bumps when she really got to playing them. Patrica and Kevin used to have some long serious discussions every day in a study hall they shared. They also took classes together. Kevin was always impressed with her sensibility and was frankly flattered, that she would even talk to him.

  Kevin used to visit her every day because he delivered the paper to her house. They loved to talk about music. There was no physical attraction between them then; they were still kids. Pat's mom liked Kevin too, and he became almost a part of their family. She seemed to think that he was a good influence on her daughter. The family consisted of just Pat and her mom. Kevin never really gave the single parent thing a thought; in that neighborhood, there were more AFDC families than intact families.

  In the late 60s, Vietnam was going on strong, and there was a draft. The burden of staffing that event fell mostly on small-town and inner city kids. The local old, inner city high school provided plenty of draftees, and volunteers for the effort. About half the kids that didn't go to college were volunteers, the other half were draftees. Every kid that had a brush with the law, eventually, had a judge order him to incarceration or the Army. Kevin joined the Navy when he graduated in 1969. Eventually, after five years he ended up with a Merchant Officers License, and a four-year degree. But that was a whole different journey.

  For three of those five years, Pat and Kevin were pen pals. Kevin never could define their relationship. When Kevin was home on leave, he tried a couple of times to get her to go to the next level with him. She had blossomed into a gorgeous woman; she had gone seemingly overnight from a tall, very skinny girl, to a well-built woman. Her body was starting to drive Kevin crazy. She avoided commitment and affection with him when he was home. She was suddenly much friendlier when they were thousands of miles apart. Several times, Kevin would just give up, and quit writing to her. She would beseech him to write back to her. So, Kevin would resume the pen pal relationship.

  Kevin never once heard her say a thing about her dad. He never saw a picture of him anywhere in the house, either. She had a certain vulnerability about her and a big chip on her shoulder, too. Kevin understood the chip part completely; a lot of kids from the old neighborhood had it. There was the "inferiority chip" and the "I don't fit in or belong chip." Sometimes you believed it, and sometimes you raged against it.

  Kevin always thought the tension between the insecurity and the feeling of being different was more of an affliction of the ass than a chip on the shoulder. Kevin's mom always drilled him about being the first generation off the cotton plantation. She was from South Carolina. Kevin's grandfather had actually run a plantation for an insurance company that came to own it during the depression. Kevin's mom always told him he was exceptional, and told him he needed to prove that people from the South were not the ignorant slugs people thought. Other overachievers like the Jewish kids in the neighborhood got drilled the same way, being second generation in the country. They were instructed that it was almost a matter of survival to never rest on their accomplishments. Pat got it from being the first generation off the farm in left armpit North Dakota somewhere. That tension made all those groups overachieve,and yet resent the feelings they could never fully escape.

  There was no way Kevin could ever be anything but patient with Pat; already confused and disappointed as he was with their relationship, or lack of it. They were both trying to make their way as best as they could, and they found a certain solace and comfort in each other’s letters.

  Kevin always thought that with time Pat would one day come to view him differently. Her vulnerability made him refuse to press her for answers to questions that were devouring him. He peppered h
imself with the questions. Had she been abused as a child? Did she just want a dad, not a boyfriend? His worst fear was that she had someone else, or would find someone else that was more than good enough; in fact, just plain better than he was. Probably, some fellow musician or academic. One that could read music, play it, and discuss it far more intelligently than Kevin.

  Was she only seasoning her life with his vicarious experiences? Kevin wondered all the time. He had a lot of rough edges; maybe he just frightened her. The bad boy reputation he picked up in high school didn't help either. Maybe she was one of those that liked the idea of a bad boy, but had too much sense to get involved with one. Kevin could hang around with and mix with bad boys, honor roll students, and jocks with ease, all through high school, but he never quite fit in with any of them much as Pat didn't fit entirely either.

  Mother-daughter relationships are beyond what any man can understand too. Pat's mother actually seemed to like Kevin. Sometimes, that is the kiss of death for a relationship. Kevin tormented himself trying to figure out why Pat Washington seemed to love him on the one hand, and keep him at a distance on the other. She cried when he shipped out to Vietnam, and wrote to him faithfully. He could stop over at her house when he was home, talk with her for hours, but he couldn't lay a finger on her beyond a sisterly hug or gesture of affection.

  Kevin tried everything, except a direct approach. He simply resolved to stay the course with her without confrontation. He knew deep down that she would be gone in a heartbeat if he pressed her for answers or affection. His life after high school was as full as could be anyway. Always working and studying, trying to achieve the goal he wanted. His big deal was to sail long enough to get his Captain's License. He wanted an MBA so that he could come ashore at some point. Then maybe work on becoming a ship's pilot for a specific port area. A very specialized & well paying position guiding merchant vessels to a safe berth from the open sea through changing tides & currents.