Chapter 8: The Time Bomb Explodes

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Time Bomb Explodes


The first few weeks of 1967 found me plugging away at my second quarter of M.E., knowing from the outset that these grades would be worse than the first ones, because my heart wasn't in it, and my mind wasn't on it. (At least the tuition wasn't coming out of MY pocket. Dad was paying for that.) Both mind and heart were now with Linda 24 hours a day. And I wasn't about to change that.
Also in those early weeks, Linda and I, through "the proper communications channels", decided to resume the lunchtime phone calls, still at 11:33 A.M. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She apologized for the heartache she felt she put me through when she broke down at the Formal. But I knew there was no reason she should. I knew she felt better, though, so I let her do it anyway.
About the same time, I realized a way we could actually have a few minutes to-gether every day unknown to my parents. And I found myself at a loss to explain why I hadn't thought of it last quarter. I immediately began driving her to Anderson in the morning before going to U.C. The timing was perfect. I didn't have to leave any earlier, and my parents left at the same time. Due to traffic I occasionally missed the first few minutes of an early class, but by that time I didn't care. Again, she was far more impor-tant.
This added 15 minutes each day gave us the chance to talk about many things. One of her more important topics was a driver's license. (Now that we had daily time together, she found herself able to relax a little, and think of other things besides FINDING time together).
But I worried about that one. What if she had a seizure while she was driving? I didn't say anything for a long time because I knew how much it meant to her, and I wanted to word my reservations to her carefully. When I did mention it, it was in one of our note exchanges. Only this time when I got her note in response it had more in it than I bargained for:

“Don’t worry about my getting my driver’s license. Mom won’t let me drive much anyhow. I won’t be getting the license for a while so don’t worry.”

That note continued: “Honey, I do want to see you more than 15 minutes in the morning. That isn't enough. I'm not going to break up with you if you don't do something about it, but again if you really love me and want to see me, then you shouldn't be satisfied with just the morning. I don't care what you do about school; that's up to you. I just can't take not going out anymore and not seeing you much. Please, honey, I'm pleading with you... But remember: I'll always love you."

More frustration. I decided I had to come up with something she'd never in the world expect. A couple days later I had an idea. Linda's favorite local Rock and Roll radio station, WSAI, then at 1360 on the AM dial, had an ongoing promotion where they recognized local citizens for contributions to the community, civic groups, charitable organization work, and other endeavors. I summoned the nerve and wrote them a letter outlining, among other things, Linda's willingness to help others (whenever they gave her the chance), as well as her devotion to family and friends, the courage she'd shown in the face of what's happened to her in the past, and how she'd made a point of learning from those experiences. And those weren't just empty words. I'd seen all of those things come out in her at various times when we were together. It probably didn't sound like much compared to their other candidates. And, admittedly, I probably told them the kind of difference it could make in her life. Anyhow, all I could do was hope and pray. A few days later, having told her only to be sure to listen to the radio every day, I got a note from her. It began:

“Dear Jim, Honey, I want to thank you for that sweet thing you did for me. It was the last thing in the world that I had expected. I thought that your surprise would be a song dedicated to me or having the DJ’s say hello to me from you. I felt so happy when I heard them announce me as ‘Good Gal of the Day’.”

Well, all I could say after reading that note was... MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! She told me in a later conversation that the certificate was presented to her at school, during one of her classes. That had to be a big morale booster for her to receive that kind of recognition in front of all the other students.

Toward the third week of January I was fresh out of ideas on how to get free of my parents. I also realized that I didn't really know if I had any legal avenues open to me, but I didn't know a lawyer I could trust; one I knew wouldn't immediately blab to my par-ents. Then I remembered that "Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor" fiasco last fall. The next day was Tuesday. The time: 11:33 A.M.:
"Linda?"
"Hi, honey."
"Hi, sweetheart. I sure miss you."
"Bet I miss you more."
"Honey, I've got a question to ask you.”
"What is it, love?"
"Do you think that lawyer your folks talked to last year about that delinquency charge would be willing to talk to me a little? I'd like to find out what legal options I have."
“Yes, he would, Jim!"
"Why so excited about it all of a sudden?" I thought to myself, a touch puzzled. "I like to see her happy, but where'd this come from?" While I was thinking, she was talking:
"Dad's already asked him about that, and he said he'd be glad to! I've got his number here with me. Do you want it now?"
“What kind of a question is that?" I laughed.
"Sorry about that, chief!"
The sense of joy and relief she felt was openly obvious in her voice. She read me the number. I wrote it on a piece of paper and stuck it in my pocket.
"I'll call him just as soon as we get through," I promised. Then it hit me. "Why didn't you tell me you had his number? I could have called him a long time ago."
"I'm sorry, darling. I wanted to, but dad said you had to make the first move. Please don't be mad at me for not telling you. It wasn't my idea. Honest."
"I'm not mad, honey. Your dad's right. It's better that I did ask. It had to be when I was ready and not before. And don't be mad at your father, sweetheart. He's always helped us this far. He's really thinking about us when he says these things, you know."
"I know, darling. It's just that I was so impatient to get something done about all this, that's all. You're not mad at me are you honey?"
"No, love, I'm not mad. In fact, in a way it's nice to know the whole thing bothered you enough that you didn’t want to wait around and do nothing, just waiting on me to get my head together. I love you for it."
That hour, as with all of them, was over in a hurry. But these conversations were always long enough to satisfy her and let her feel we got something accomplished.
I had another hour before my next class. Only now it was noon. “No lawyer would be in his office at noon," I thought. That subtle touch of humor seemed to lift my spirits a little. And it helped. "But I'll try anyway. Maybe I'll be able to at least set something up." I dialed. He was out to lunch. He'd be back around two. I decided I'd call between my afternoon classes. That would give me an hour to talk to him.
When I finally reached him he was more than helpful. I discovered it was easier than I ever thought it could be. All I really had to do was become self-supporting. Get a job, and mom and dad couldn't touch me. Only hitch was I had to make certain that they no longer provided 50% or more of my support, and I had to be living in a place of my own, not at home. I went to work on it the next day. I called Linda that Thursday, told her what I'd found out, and that I wouldn't be calling for a few days if it was okay; that way I could cover more territory in my job hunting.
"Sure! I don't mind. You kidding? I'm elated that you're finally doing something about all this!"
So, the following day I started cutting the "hopeless" classes - the ones I knew wouldn't work out grade wise, and using the time for job hunting. As the days went by and I found myself doing a lot of walking without much success, I thought, "Boy! If I'm having this much trouble, I hate to think how long it must take a high school dropout to find work. The ones who are interested, that is." I found myself cutting more and more classes. But I no longer cared. Except for mechanical drawing, and math. I sincerely missed those. "Maybe someday," I thought silently, "but..." This was far more important. Besides, away from her I couldn't study anyway. Then I got my break.
I got a job the first week in February. With the Collier Publishing Company. You guessed it: encyclopedia sales. I was really too shy to do that well at it, but it gave me the legal independence that I needed and I could still look for another job at the same time. Working full time meant an end to college, at least for now, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t concentrate on the books without being with her, and my folks weren’t willing to let me have both, at least as long as they were paying my way. Intentionally or not, they forced me to make a choice, and I did, without the slightest regret. Funny – the idea that moving out of the house automatically meant and end to college was never mentioned, by either me or my parents, let alone discussed. I think it was just something we all assumed was part of the deal. Then again, it also meant their hard-line approach to running my life to make sure I got through college backfired on them. Maybe THAT'S why they never brought it up...
O.K. Got the job. Now for part two. Where do I live? Another 11:33 phone call.
"Lin?"
"Hi."
"Hey, baby. Now that I've got the job, we're halfway there. But I still need a place to live. And, just to be sure there aren't any complications, it should be a place of my own. Mr. Moore didn't say if paying your folks room and board would qualify, but I'd rather not take a chance. Not now. We're too close."
"How'd you know I was going to suggest that you stay with us for a while?"
"Don't you think I know you well enough by now?"
"Well..."
"Aw, c'mon. I know girls are supposed to be hard to figure out, but I'm no dummy, you know."
"Well..."
"Thanks a lot," I laughed.
"Sorry about that, chief!"
"Sure you are."
"Oh I aaaam...I aaaam..." she said chuckling. "Seriously, Jim. I've got an idea, and I've already started on it. You remember Judy, don't you?"
Judy was Judy Kayata, Lin's best friend. Yes, she'd found a friend who, like me, could care about her for the person she was, the way it should be. They’ve known each other a year or so now. "Sure I do. Why?"
"She's gonna ask her folks if you could rent the second floor of their home. They're not using it, and she thinks they might do it to help their income a little. These days every little bit helps...you know. It would only be a place to sleep, but that would qualify, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah, I think it would," I said. "Be sure and let me know what she says. And the cost if her folks go for the idea. Okay?"
"Don't worry. I want you here with me. I'll let you know right away. And remember: I love you. Gotta run. Bye, sweetheart."
"Goodbye, honey."

The next phone call did the trick.
"Squeek?"
"Yep."
"Any word from Judy?"
"Yep. It's all set. How's $50 a month strike you?"
"A little steep for my current budget, but I'll get the money somewhere. Tell her it's a deal."
"Terrific!"
"Easy, girl. I still have to get moved in before it has legal value, you know."
"Yeah, I know. But that's the easy part."
"Knowing my folks it will be a strain. They'll pull out all the stops to get me to change my mind, but you're right. Even that will be a piece of cake compared to our past experiences."
"Right! Oh, Jim, I feel so good now! I love you!"
"Can you calm down long enough to find out how soon I can move in?"
"Oh! Yeah! I'll call her tonight."
Taking the last minutes of her available time for a few "more intimate" remarks to each other, we ended the conversation, reluctantly, at 12:30. Eagerly, I awaited the answer.
In our next conversation, I got the word. I could move in that weekend. Judy's parents were willing to wait a week or so for the first month's rent. "Beautiful! Thank you, Lord! Thank you for getting me out of that house!”
Moving day came.
“Are you sure I can’t change your mind about this, Jim?” dad asked as I packed my clothes. His tone was completely different now that I was in control of my life. I think he was finally beginning to realize what mom’s controlling attitude had done to us, and what he was losing. At least I wanted to believe that.
“No, dad, you can’t. I can’t stay one more night here. As long as I do I don’t have the legal freedom I need to be able to make my own choices. I’m sorry. You and mom just wouldn’t believe that Linda and I knew this was real. That we could be the one couple in 20 or whatever that finds the right person the first time. And you didn’t seem to care much about my feelings through this whole thing either.” He got real quiet after that one. Then it was:
"Jim, if you have to do it, at least let me help."
"Uh...sure, dad. But… why the offer?"
"I'm not too fond of your moving out, but I can't stop you, so I might as well. Do you mind?"
I thought, "I should, but it does make the whole thing a lot simpler. And quicker. I'll have to be on my guard, though, that he doesn't start in trying to get me to change my mind." "No, I don't mind. Thanks," I said aloud.

Well, I finally got moved in and settled.
Like I said, the place wasn’t much. Basically an unfinished second floor in the house where Judy Kayata’s parents lived. The floor was heavy plywood. I had an old army cot for a bed, an old bookshelf to sit my clock radio on, an old chest of drawers to put my clothes in and a small closet to hang my shirts and suits in.
On the other side of that big room was an old overstuffed couch that I could sit on to stretch my legs a little, or someone could sit on if they stopped to visit.
Judy’s mother made it clear she didn’t want any hanky panky between Linda and I up here, and I quickly assured her it was not a problem. I wasn’t about to jeopardize my opportunity for freedom, control of my own life, and the right to be with Linda whenever we wanted to be together.
Dad looked pretty dismayed at my new home and its condition. That was fine by me. Maybe it will make him think about how serious I am about this and where my priorities are. Where I slept and what my lodgings looked like weren’t the big issues. My personal freedom and control of my own life were the issues. Now he saw that for himself as he looked around my two huge, unfinished rooms. Only two “luxuries” I had, if you could call them that, were my own bathroom, rough as it was, and a separate entrance to my floor from the outside. Evidently the place had been built as a two-family but the second floor had never been completed. It had been that way when Judy’s parents bought it years before.
But I didn’t care. About that, OR the fact that I was only making $50 a week. I’d be eating out a lot because I couldn’t cook up here, but I had control of my life, and Linda and I were finally free to be together. It’s no wonder I started sleeping like a rock at night, even on that old army cot.

The following week I started a new job. Already. This time it was with the American Book Company. "Light factory work" they called it. In the page folding department. Salary was better at $65 a week. The hours were a little odd, though: first shift was from 7:00 A.M. to 3:30 P.M. and second shift was from 3:00 P.M. to 11:30 P.M. The car I’d had was in dad’s name because I was not yet 21. They couldn’t keep me from moving out, but they kept the car. Now what?
First shift was great timing. Had an express bus ride both ways and Linda and I had as many evenings together as we wanted. But the shifts swapped every month, and second shift brought that transportation problem. Getting to work was fine. Getting home I had to take a taxi because the last bus on my route left town at 10:20 P.M.
Within a few days, Dennis started working at the Book Company too. In our department, yet! Only his job was just for the break from college. But at least I had a temporary answer to the transportation problem. Those cab fares home at night were break-ing me.

The new freedom I now had felt great! No more hassles! "Only one little prob-lem," I thought to myself. "We still don't have that much time together. At least not like we figured we would. The only time we have during the weeks I’m on second shift is when I walk her home from school at 2:45, or spend lunch hour with her there. Then I go to work and don't get off till 11:30. All we really have are the weekends."
Still, we didn’t let my second shift hours get us down. We had our freedom and that was what was important. And, we didn’t let the time apart keep us from communicating. We went back to the note writing. Only this time they were pleasant little love notes (?) we could look forward to. We each left notes on that old army cot for the other to find. She'd stop by “the apartment”, as we called it, after I left for work, make the bed, clean up the place a little, and take the dirty clothes over to her house (Mom was nice enough to do my laundry for me. Quite a money-saver on my budget). And she'd always leave me a little note before she left:

To my Honey,
I found your note. I’m glad you’re missing me. I miss you. Don’t go away without flushing the toilet. You never know who may drop by (me). Make your bed completely. Put some clothes away in the closet. Your jeans are in there now. There’s a box beside the couch; use it
for dirty clothes. Do not, I repeat DO NOT close the door into the big bedroom. It shuts off all the heat. Fold up your towel and wash cloth. It looks better. The bag is for trash if you have any. DO NOT put the key in the mailbox; give
it to Mrs. Kayata. We don’t want the mailman to go take it. The light by your briefcase, in case you haven’t found out, turns on by the switch above the couch. The preceeding remarks are just a few instructions from your darling.”

That note continued:
“Are you ever going to get your clock radio? What about your tape recorder? If you ever have a blank tape on it I will record my little(?) note to you.
I can't wait 'til Saturday. I want to see you so badly. If your mother and dad say anything about wanting to see me, tell them for me that I won't talk to them until they apologize to my face. Good luck this Saturday.
Tell your parents to go back and get MY ring. You know, that crazy diamond that you paid $65.00 for. I want it!! Hey!! Maybe they'll sign for you(?).
Well, good night and sleep tight. I love you and I always will.
Your loving fiancée,
Me

"'Just a FEW instructions' indeed!" I laughed. "And she needs to learn how to be a housewife? I know we 'don't have a worry in the world' (compared to what we've been through this is easy street), but I think it's gone to her head! It's great that she asserts herself more, but brrrrothherrr!" I chuckled as I read that note. "Sure is nice that we can now be free enough to see each other when we please, and that we're free to enjoy all the fun, humor, and simple pleasures of life as we choose. Lord, I thank You for this freedom, and for the fact that we can see the true enjoyment in many facets of our life that countless others may overlook or take for granted. Simply because they always had them. I thank You that we can get such great fun, and meaning, out of something as simple as that note she left me, and that it serves only to deepen our relationship and our appreciation of each other. In Jesus' name, Amen."

The job itself was fun. It was blue collar, naturally, but that never bothered me. Without the people we call “blue collar workers” our entire country and its economy would come to a screeching halt. And now that I was working among some of them I quickly realized that these folks often had better ideas for running the government that our politicians. Because they aren’t caught up in the “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” mentality of poli-tics. Political parties? Bull. These people are only concerned about what’s best for the country. No law degrees, many without a full high school education. But they have a common sense attitude that politicians seem to lose once they’re elected. If they ever had it to begin with.
The machines that ran behind me were mechanical marvels, folding the book pages that I would bundle and send down a conveyor to the binding department. The operators would use forklifts to place huge pallets of printed sheets at the back of the things, set their cutting and creasing knives to the specifications written on the top sheets of the piles, and crank ‘em up.
These huge, flat sheets would run through that series of rollers and knives and come out at my end of the machine I was working with that day as neatly folded, consecutively numbered book pages. Depending on how the sheets were printed each machine would crank out up to four stacks at one time, each stack being a different group of pages from the same book. The stacks were horizontal, two stacks one above the other on each side of the machine’s front. My job was to start grabbing handfuls off a particular stack and place them in the single rack of a machine nearby, squeezing as many as I could into the rack using air pressure to compress them, then placing a wooden block on each end and binding it all together with a spot-welded metal strip, then dropping the whole bundle on a conveyor belt that took it to the binding department. Then, I’d move to the next of the stacks on the front of the machine and do the same thing. Repetitive, yes, but for me it had a couple built in challenges – how many sheets could I get in one bundle, and could I get to the point where I was waiting on the machine rather than having it stay ahead of me. Sometimes I managed to do just that, but the respite didn’t last for long.
(Ralph, the grizzled old gentleman I usually worked with on machine number 13 looked like he’d been there forever. He had to be seventy. But age didn’t stop him. He’d climb up on that thing (it was at least 10 feet tall) and oil it between runs, clear paper jams, and anything else that needed to be done to keep his pride and joy running like clockwork. Including that forklift. He had a work ethic today’s kids would never understand, much less use for themselves. And it was openly obvious that Ralph loved that job, and old #13, the oldest folding machine in the place. JAW 7/2/99)

As the remaining weeks of February went by, this new-found freedom that Linda and I had brought with it the ability to freely dream and plan for our future. And the peace of mind we both had was just fantastic. Lots of little things came to mind. Things others wouldn't think twice about, but that had such great meaning for us. Like the kind of freedom even a $50- or $65-a-week job can give. And how my changes from day shift to nights and back just happened to be working on a four-week rotation that SHOULD have me on day shift for HER Prom and Theatre Party. Not to mention how good it felt to know my folks couldn't interfere with the biggest dance of her senior year.
Little did I know what feelings and desires that same peace of mind and freedom to be together were beginning to release from deep within her.


This work is taken from "A Once In A Lifetime Love: An Autobiography of Two High School Sweethearts", copyright 2000, as yet unpublished, by the same author.