For Thursday, January 26, 2006 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 743 words



Beauty and the Beast


Let me tell you a story about my old girlfriend, Janet. I mentioned her briefly in a recent column, stating that I wouldn’t invite her to visit my Pennsylvania hometown because she was (is?) an outspoken feminist and I feared for her safety in my backwater hometown of traditional chauvinists and lumbering woodsmen. Let me share the experience that convinced me Janet needed to stay out of Ridgway, PA.
I met Janet shortly after moving to California, Modesto, 1978. Fresh out of Penn State with a BA in English, I landed a job as an O operator with AT&T. My shift consisted of three guys and 90 women, so it was easy to be eligible. I fell hard for Janet on first sight. She was beautiful and delicate and bright.
Wanting to do things right, I asked her out to a Saturday Disney matinee. I wanted our first date to be friendly, harmless, and non-threatening. It was. We began dating. I waited a good month before inviting her to my tiny studio apartment for consummation.
My studio with its Murphy bed was one of eight in the J Street building, all identical, all inhabited by single, lonely, misfit guys like myself. Over my many months there, we all had become friends, meeting in the halls, stopping by each others’ apartments for coffee or beer. One guy in particular, Mark, on the first floor, was a huge dude, a wild haired, long-bearded, bug-eyed biker with leather jacket, a bullet hole in his chest the size of a dime and an exit wound on his back the size of a dinner plate. He liked to steal tombstones and had several in his apartment serving as end tables.
Down the hall from me on the second floor was another guy, Allen, a decent chap with a great stereo system. When we partied, we usually did so at Allen’s.
The day before I decided to invite Janet to my apartment, I cooked up a huge batch of chili. Single guys do that – make five gallons of chili and eat it for a week.
So, the big romantic Saturday was a successful episode of afternoon delight. Janet and I spent the day in the Murphy bed, talking and not talking. All was right with the world. I warmed my chili and we ate and ate.
Late that afternoon I heard music pulsating through the rear wall. Oh, that’s right! Allen was having a party. I asked Janet if she would like to go next door. “No,” she said. She was comfortable. Did she mind if I went for an hour or so? “No,” she didn’t mind.
I fixed myself another bowl of chili and walked down to Allen’s. We all hung out, talking, sipping beers, listening to tunes. Mad Mark showed up and the party’s pace picked up considerably. Then he said to me, “Man, where’d you get the chili?”
I said, “I just made five gallons of it.” He nodded. My attention shifted to something else. I didn’t think about it anymore. About fifteen minutes later, Mark stepped up to me with a bowl of chili in his hand and said, “Man. You better check on your old lady. She’s freakin’ out.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Got me. I just went in and helped myself to some chili.”
I dropped my bowl and raced down the hall. I burst into the room to find Janet wrapped in a sheet, sitting on the edge of the bed, trembling, on the phone saying, “Get me the police!”
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! What are you doing? You can’t call the police on Mark. Come on. I live with the guy. Hang up. Tell me what happened.”
I quickly helped her press down the receiver.
Here’s what happened. Mark threw my door open and waltzed in without knocking, expecting an empty apartment. He saw Janet under the covers and said, “Hey, chickie!” That’s not something one says to an outspoken feminist. Then he did the unthinkable. He grabbed the lower hem of the sheet and flapped it like he was trying to lift it for a quick peek.
Janet screamed at him. “Get out of here. Go away. Leave me alone.”
Mark said, “Ah, relax, chickie. I’m just here for some chili.” He then went into my kitchen.
Janet kept screaming at him to “Get out. Get out or I’ll call the police.”
Mark, the lumbering beast that he is, ignored her. And so.

To be continued…