“How old you suppose she is, Doc?”
“Well, Kelli is twenty-two, and they went to school together, so I’m going to say twenty-two or so,” I responded.
“Sounds good to me. I will be good to her, Doc. I ain’t looking to fuck her over, if that’s what you mean. I will be good to her, as long as fucking her good and hard is what she likes,” he laughed as he spoke, rocking his bar stool back on the rear legs.
As soon as Teddy was done laughing, Heather walked out with a beer in one hand, and a pitcher of ice water in the other. She walked up to the end of our table, handed Teddy his beer, and filled my glass of water, smiling at me as she did.
“I can’t believe as long as you and Kelli have been seeing each other, this is how we finally met,” Heather said as she sat the pitcher down.
“I know. I’m going to say something to her tonight about it,” I said, smiling back at her.
“Is your beer always this cold?” Teddy asked as he took a drink of his beer. His stool was still on the rear legs, leaning back.
“Coldest beer in town, it’s 28 degrees right now. We have a thermometer on the wall,” she responded, pointing to a huge digital thermometer on the wall inside the bar.
“Well, I like it,” Teddy said, smiling back at Heather.
“Hey, Blondie. Why don’t you and those big titties come over here and take our order?” said a voice from across the patio.
I turned and looked in the direction of the voice. There were two tables in the patio that had people at them. One was two elderly gentlemen, eating a late lunch. The other table was a table with six fairly large twenty-something year old guys, all drinking beer. At the same time, I stood from my chair, Teddy stood from his, and Heather spoke.
“Let me go help those guys,” Heather said.
“No, you stand right here,” I said. Heather looked back at me puzzled.
“I got this, Brother,” Teddy said as he took a drink of his beer.
“Which one was it?” he asked as he walked around the end of our table.
“Not sure, I think the one in the wife beater,” I responded.
“What’s going on?” Heather asked.
There was one empty table that separated us. “Teddy’s going to have a talk with those gentlemen,” I paused as I watched Teddy approach the table. “And teach them a little bit about being respectful.”
“Oh my God, I don’t want to get in trouble,” Heather said.
“You’re not, don’t worry,” I assured her.
“I could lose my job,” she said, looking at me worriedly.
“Don’t worry, we know the owner. You’re not going to lose your job over whatever happens here. I don’t care where you are working, never let anyone treat you with disrespect, Heather, do you understand me?” I asked her, realizing that I was talking to her as if she were Kelli.
“Okay,” she said, nodding.
Teddy walked toward the table as if he was going to walk right past it. I noticed that he was looking all of the guys over at the table, kind of sizing them up. They were all sitting down, and not paying attention. As he got close to the end of the table, he turned and grabbed a bar
stool from the adjoining table, placed it at the end of their table, and sat down. As soon as he sat, the guy wearing the wife beater stood up.
“How are you fella’s doing?” Teddy asked.
The entire table stopped talking and looked at him. A few of them answered, “Good.”
“I’m Teddy. I’m going to talk, and none of you are going to interrupt me while I am talking, because that’s disrespectful. Understood?”
Everyone nodded, except for the guy in the wife beater. He was clearly the largest one of the group, and was about six foot two, and probably 200 pounds. He was no match for Teddy, but was clearly under the false impression that he was the biggest and toughest one at the table.
“Who the fuck are you?” The guy wearing the wife beater asked Teddy.
“I already told you, you disrespectful little prick. Now we can do this one of two ways. Either I’m just going to start beating on you until the cops come - or your boys here get me off of you, or you can shut the fuck up and listen to what I have to say. Which one you want?” Teddy asked, still sitting down on his stool, focused on the guy standing up. No one responded.
At this point, the entire patio was paying attention to the table where Teddy sat. People were walking across the patio to enter the bar, and there was the other table of older gentlemen eating, who were also watching. All eyes were on Teddy. Heather stood beside me with her mouth open, watching as if she were in shock.
“Okay, listen, this is simple. That girl over there standing behind me is a waitress here. She needs to be treated with respect. Always. It don’t matter where you little fucktards are, if you have a waitress, you need to always treat her no differently than you’d treat a waitress if you were at dinner with your mother. Remember that. The place where you’re eating or who’s waiting on you doesn’t change how you treat a waitress. She’s a woman, and she’s a human being, treat her like it. Now, which one of you made the titty remark?” Teddy asked as he looked at each individual at the table.
Everyone at the table looked toward the guy wearing the wife beater. Still standing, he looked down at Teddy, and responded.
“I was, I mean I did,” he said.
“Tell me that isn’t going to happen again, here or anywhere else,” Teddy demanded.
“It won’t,” he responded.
“Okay, now. I ain’t looking to embarrass you anymore than you already are. So I ain’t gonna make you walk over there in front of all of these people. But, look over at her direction, and tell her you’re sorry,” Teddy said as he turned to look at Heather.
The guy in the wife beater stood erect, looked directly at Heather, and spoke quietly, “I’m sorry,” he mouthed in her direction.
Heather continued to stand beside me, mouth agape, clearly amazed at what was happening. I put my arm around her to comfort her. She leaned into my shoulder as I placed my arm around her.
“Well, that ought to do it. Again, so there’s no confusion, I’m Teddy. That’s Doc. Well, to you guy’s, he’s Erik,” Teddy said, pointing in my direction.
I nodded. They all nodded back in my direction. One waved.
Teddy stood up, grabbed the bar stool, and as he walked away, said, “Nice talking to you fellas.”
As he walked back toward our table, Teddy placed the barstool at the table he had taken it from. As he approached our table, Heather broke my grasp, and walked toward Teddy, arms open. Teddy turned and looked at her as she hugged him. He hugged her back and whispered something in her ear.
“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” she said, smiling from ear to ear.
“Being disrespectful to women is something Doc and I won’t stand for,” he responded, as he took a drink of his beer.
“Well, that was nice. And it was hot. You still want my number?” she asked.
“Well, hell yes. We gotta go on that ride, remember?”
Heather pulled a pen from her apron. As she pulled out the pen, she grabbed Teddy’s wrist, and turned his hand over, palm up. She scribbled her number on the palm of his hand and drew a heart around it. As she was writing, the six gentlemen placed money on the table under a beer mug, and left.
“Thank you for saying I was pretty, for asking me to go on a ride, and for talking to those guys. You’re sweet. Text me. I have to run inside, I have tables in there too. You guys alright?” she asked.
“We’re good, bring us the tab when you come back out,” I said.
“I’m staying,” Teddy said.
“Heather, I’m leaving and Teddy’s staying.” Turning her direction, I continued, “It was a pleasure meeting you.”
“Pleasure meeting you, Erik,” she said as she walked through the door into the bar.
“You staying?” I asked Teddy.
“Yeah, I’m gonna stay here and talk to her for a bit, holler at me later,” Teddy said as he stood.
We embraced in what had become a typical biker hug, patting each other on the back.
“Love ya, brother,” he said.
“Love you too, Teddy.”
Walking out to my bike, I wondered about Teddy and Heather; how and if that might work out. Although Kelli had mentioned Heather several times, and suggested that we all get together, we had never done so. I wondered if there was a reason for that.
I got my phone out of my pocket, and sent Kelli a text.
Baby Girl:
I’m headed home. Text me when you get a minute. Met Heather today at Twin Peaks.
If there was a reason for her not having Heather meet me, this would give her time to think about it.
I placed the phone back into my pocket and got on my bike. It felt different riding it without Kelli.
Lonely.
KELLI.
Since I was a little girl, I have kept souvenirs as some form of proof or confirmation of things that have happened in my life that I felt were unbelievable at the time. I always wanted proof that the event itself had happened. It was a way for me later to look at a material object as a reminder of the event that I associated with the object itself.
When I was about six, we went to California to the ocean on vacation. I picked up shells from the beach, and made sure that the ones that I had chosen to keep were the most perfect ones that I could find. When we got home, I placed the shells in a box, and kept the box in the closet in my bedroom. Whenever I thought about the ocean, and our trip, I would wonder if it really happened. The more time that had passed since the trip, the more difficult I found it to believe. I would sit and try to remember the scenery, where we went, and what we had done.
As soon as I pulled the box from my closet, and removed the shells, I remembered each shell, and where I had obtained it. I remembered picking each one up, and how I had decided which ones, of all of the shells, to keep.
This same pattern of obtaining some form of souvenir from a memorable event continued throughout my life. Boys in middle school would give me a note telling me they liked me, and if I wanted to remember it, I would keep the note, and place it in my box. If I got a birthday card from my father on a birthday that I wanted to remember, I would place the card in the box. Over the years, the box ended up with of some form of souvenir from almost each year of my life.
Today, I still have that box, and I still add objects to it as time passes, and unbelievable events happen in my life. If the event is one that is unbelievable, and I want it to be memorable, I save an object I would associate with the event. Something that would jog my memory many years in the future. This box of souvenirs allows me to look back at my life with vivid memories. Memories that will remain undeniable. Memories that cannot be questioned by me or anyone else. Memories with proof.
As we grow older we change. Our lives change. Patterns of living, what we deem to be important, and sometimes our beliefs even change. I imagine, with me, this collecting of souvenirs from my life will never change. When something is or seems to be too good to be true, I want proof of the fact that it ever existed.
As a child, I made up memories of my mother. My mother left when I was one year old. I had no memories of my mother, because I had no mother. I was raised by my father, and my mother, to me, never existed.
Yet.
When I was in early grades in school, kindergarten, first grade – roughly that age, I made up memories in my head of things that had happened when I was younger. Memories that included my mother. My mother that never existed. I told myself the stories long enough, and repeated them in my mind enough, that I began to believe them.
I believe the collecting of souvenirs was a way for me to
know
that the memory was real. That this memory was not like my memories of my mother, fabricated false hope. We, as people, are no more than a mentally advanced animal. Naturally we take whatever steps we have to that will support our survival. Feeling loved is a large part of what we, as humans, need to survive.
We yearn to be loved. The perfect love. Women dream of being swept off of our feet by the knight in shining armor - off to a castle in the distance - to live a life happily ever after. We wait, and we make decisions, and we live with the decisions we make. Sometimes those decisions prove to be good ones, and sometimes they prove to be poor ones. Inevitably, decisions that we make when we are young, regarding relationships, prove to be bad decisions.
No one meets the person that they are going to marry when they are 14 years old. Yet, when we are 14, we are certain that the boy we fell in love with in school is the person that we are incapable of living a life without. We are in a relationship with that person until we are 15, and we break up. Our heart is broken, and three months later, we have another boyfriend. One that we cannot live without. One that is perfect.
The one.
Survival.
When a woman gets pregnant, she commits to be in a relationship. Generally, women find someone to marry when they are completed with college. Or high school. When the time has come that she looks around her and sees that things are stable or still in her life. From what I have seen, this has nothing to do with stability in a relationship, but a perceived stability in her life. The still, stale, stable life causes her to look around for stability in a relationship, and she attaches herself to the first person that comes along and makes her feel as if she is being loved.