by Sam Lollar
“Oh, sure, I see that. But I also see a predator, a man who won’t be satisfied with only one man in his life. Thanks for all the exciting and wonderful things you showed me, Rick. I really had a swell time. Maybe I’ll see you around sometime. Please, don’t call me anymore.”
I hung up. I made one phone call afterward to my roommate. I let him know to expect me within the hour. I began packing up my clothes into the suitcases that Ruby had gotten for me in Los Angeles. With all the new things she and LuLu had gotten me, plus the stuff that Scott had given me, I had quite a load of clothes and things to cart back to the apartment. While I was packing, I realized I really didn’t need to continue working anymore.
I thought about quitting the university, but I knew if I did that, I’d be ripe for the draft. I didn’t want to find my newly liberated wealthy self on the beaches of Vietnam, so I wondered for a time what I should do. I decided to finish out the term at the local college and see if my coach could get me a scholarship at one of the Dallas schools. Even if I couldn’t get a scholarship, I was going to move at the end of the semester.
I went outside and pulled my Falcon up to the door to my room and began loading suitcases. As I did so, Scott walked up with Mrs. Schuster.
“Aaron. What’s going on?” she asked.
“Hi, Mrs. S. I’ve decided to move back in with my roommate, so I’m loading up my car with my suitcases.”
“What about the Mercedes?” Scott asked. “That’s your car, too.”
“Scott, I’ll sign the title back to you. I just don’t want the car, not now.”
“Aaron, walk me to my suite,” Mrs. Schuster said.
I threw the last of my things in the Falcon, though “struggled to get them in” is probably more accurate with my arm in the sling. I shut the trunk lid and the doors, stuffing everything into the small car. I walked Mrs. S up to her suite.
“Come in, Aaron,” she said.
I went in with her, and she turned to Scott, who had accompanied us. “Scott, let me have a few minutes with Aaron, please.” And she shut the door behind us.
“Okay, son, out with it. What’s going on? Why have you suddenly decided to leave? Were you even going to tell us you were going?”
“Yes, ma’am, I was going to come to the office after I loaded up the car. I’m taking a page out of LuLu’s book. Leave quick, no good-byes, no regrets.”
“Why are you leaving? Has Scott done something else to upset you?”
“No, ma’am. Scott has been a solid friend these past many months. I’ve been talking a lot with my other friends and my family, and they have begun to question my sincerity in pursuing an education. My mom has really sacrificed a lot to get me into college, and she thinks I’m letting her down. I don’t want to screw up my efforts there. I’m at risk of losing my track and field scholarship, something I’m very proud of having, and I’m doing so poorly in my classes in general that I’ll never get into graduate school at this rate.”
“What is it you want to do with yourself, Aaron?”
“You know, that’s the first time anyone around here has ever asked me that question. I want to be a desert ecologist specializing in botany, Mrs. Schuster. I want to be a scientist. But making mediocre grades and messing around with all these men and girls is not going to help me reach my goals. If I don’t straighten up, I’m afraid I’ll end up like…”
“Like Scott, you mean? If I didn’t have the motel business, I suppose you’re right. He’d never be doing much with his life.”
“Yes, ma’am. I mean, no, ma’am. Not Scott. I was actually thinking of all the men I’ve met through Rick. They’re so beautiful, but they have no goals beyond maintaining a tan and bedding the next beautiful trick to come along. I don’t want that. I want to be someone, someone I can be proud of.”
She stood and embraced me for several moments. “Aaron, I couldn’t be more proud of you if you were my own flesh and blood. You will make something of yourself. Any eighteen-year-old boy with such a level head on his shoulders can’t be anything but successful. As fond of you as I am, I really do want what’s best for you. What are your plans?”
“After all the craziness of the past several months since I’ve been at the Rancho, I’ve finally been able to get things in perspective. If I am going to succeed at school, I must focus on it. I can’t be running around with Scott and whoever else comes along. I’ve got to focus on track. I’ve got to focus on coursework. And I can’t do that at the Rancho. There’s just too many temptations.”
“So, you’re leaving us, then?”
“Yes, ma’am. I told my roommate I’d be moving back.”
“When were you going to do that?”
“Tonight. Right now.”
“Isn’t this sudden? Why so fast?”
“Scott can probably tell you this as well, but we ran into Rick tonight at the bar. He was pawing some young man who looked an awful lot like me. I realized he wasn’t interested in me. He’s just hungry for young slender men, and I fit his preferred type. That right there put everything in perspective. If you’ll pardon my coarse language, I don’t want to continue to be a fuckbag.”
“Well put, Aaron. I’m delighted to hear you say that. You are where Scott was when he was your age. He was young and beautiful, still is as far as I’m concerned.”
“I agree. He’s a very good-looking man.”
“Well, he was the hot young thing when he was your age. And he eventually made the rounds, going from man to man to man. Sadly, it took him a long time to figure out these men didn’t care anything about Scott. When he turned thirty, he slowly began to unravel.
“You don’t know this,” she continued, “and please don’t tell him I told you about it, but he was institutionalized for more than a year. He tried to kill himself. Would have, too, if Otto hadn’t found him unconscious on my bathroom floor. You wonder why we left Chicago? That’s it. Oh, Scott had some troubles when he was caught spying on a young boy at one of our properties, but that was a couple of years before we actually left. His psychiatrist told me that if I didn’t get him away from Chicago and its many temptations, I would lose him. He had begun drinking heavily and, I fear, may have begun using drugs. I don’t think he does that anymore. Our move here has been a positive factor in his rehabilitation. At first I was scared you were going to be too much of a temptation for him, and his self-destructive patterns were going to be repeated. But you are so levelheaded that you forced him to keep his feet on the ground. He pursued you, of course, but not like he had done in Chicago.
“He raped a young man, Aaron. The only reason he didn’t go to prison was because the police wouldn’t believe that a man could be raped. What a crock of shit. And forgive my coarse language. I sent that young man to the best psychiatrist I could find and paid him handsomely for the grief he had suffered at Scott’s hands. Please, Aaron, please don’t let anyone know about this. It would really destroy Scott if those nightmares returned to haunt him. He’s doing so well now. I think you’ve been more of a positive influence than you realize. Did you know he’s talking about completing his degree in accounting? He wants to enroll at the college in the summer. I think he’s going to do it, too. I sure hope so.”
“Wow. Mrs. S, you are such a wonderful person. I’m terribly fond of Scott and hope that he does finish his school work and make something of himself. I don’t see him as a failure, though. I see him as a man who’s taken a different life path than I want to take, I guess. And as much as it pains me to say this, I can’t see any of you again when I leave. The life you all lead is so much more exciting than anything I’ve got going. It’s too great a temptation for me. I fear I’ll end up somewhat like your description of Scott in Chicago. But I’ll take away some absolutely great memories and an undying fondness for you, Scott, and Bob.”
“That hurts, Aaron, to just say good-bye and not see you again, but I do understand your concerns. I’m one of your biggest fans, Aaron. I want more than anything to see you succe
ed. Well, maybe I want to see Scott succeed more, but I really do hope you will be a great success in your life. I support you fully in your decision to leave.”
We cried a bit and hugged a bit before I finally left her. And within fifteen minutes, I was unloading my car at my old apartment.
To reward myself for my sudden uprooting of my life, I went to the Lincoln dealership a few days later and got a white over red Lincoln convertible. It was the last convertible on the lot. In fact, it was the last new Lincoln convertible ever sold in El Paso. I traded in the Falcon and paid cash for the difference. The salesman was stunned to see an eighteen-year-old kid count out seventy-nine one hundred dollar bills.
I finished out the term and gave my roommate enough money to pay my half of the apartment rent for the next year, packed up the Lincoln, and drove to Dallas in one day in early June. I was not able to get a track and field scholarship at the university, but I was able to focus enough to graduate with honors, and a bachelor’s degree in biology. I began my master’s in desert ecology at the university in Las Cruces, just up the road from the old Rancho. I never went back to see anyone there. Scott honored my requests and never tried to contact me again. My mom told me that Mrs. Schuster talked with her regularly and knew of my relocation to Las Cruces.
By that time, she had sold the Rancho to Bob and moved back to Chicago. I think Scott moved with her. My mom said he did indeed finish his accounting degree and thinks that Mrs. Schuster hired him to be her accountant. I like to think that’s what happened, anyway.
After LuLu left the Rancho, I never heard from her again. I wish I had asked my mom to ask Mrs. S about her, but I didn’t and will now never know what happened to her or even who she really was, for that matter. I know Tallulah Bankhead died the year I moved to Dallas, so I guess if LuLu had actually been Tallulah, then I would never have heard from her.
I watched Mark on television over the years. He never hit the big time but was a regular on various television shows throughout the intervening years. He came out of the closet about the time Rock Hudson died of AIDS, and he quickly disappeared from public view. I hope it wasn’t a result of his coming out, but it probably was.
I had checked on Isaac when I moved to Dallas, and learned that he had killed himself shortly after his return to the mental institution. I tried to feel sadness about the episode, but I was still glad he would no longer be after me. No matter how many years had elapsed, I still got scared when I was alone in a dark place.
*
The three of us got to El Paso late that night, after about fifteen hours of steady driving. We couldn’t stay at the Rancho because it had been razed. A strip mall was in its place. After a few days of running around, me introducing my grandson to the university faculty in Las Cruces, I gave Number Three the keys to the SUV, as he knew I would. He drove Junior and me to the airport in El Paso, and we flew back to Southern California—happy for the exciting career my grandson was entering and for reliving all those exciting memories of my fantastic summer of ’67.
About the Author
Sam Lollar has had many careers over the years: from working at a research farm hoeing weeds in a pecan orchard to teaching at various universities around the country. Currently he is a reference librarian in southern Louisiana.
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