My Fall and Rise Ch. 09

Over the River and Through the Woods

I understand why employers are hesitant to hire ex-convicts, particularly in rural areas where even minor crimes become the talk of the town. Of course, the felon is expected to turn themselves around and behave as, if not actually become, a part of the community again. If they can not, the stigma placed on them only increases.

After the blueberry harvest ended, I managed to finally land a regular job, at the local redemption center. People would bring in trash bags filled with their returnable bottles and cans and I would count them, sort them and pay out their five cent deposits. It was boring work and I went home every night smelling like stale beer, but at least it was a job. I lasted almost a month before a customer complained to the boss that they were afraid I would sell drugs to their kids, and I was let go.

As summer turned to autumn I got a job at a seafood wholesaler shucking oysters. I wanted to quit after the first few days, because my hands would cramp so badly after a day of that work. But whenever I complained, my mother's admonishing expression sent me back for another day. When oyster season had peaked I was laid off, but immediately got hired at a Christmas tree farm weaving garlands from the trimmed branches.

After the holiday season passed, I could not find any work. One afternoon I drove to the Cheetah Lounge to see if I could dance there again. Jordy was sitting where she always sat at the end of the bar.

I approached her tentatively. "Hi Jordy? Do you remember me?"

She looks me up and down. "Chablis, right?"

"Chardonnay."

"Right. The dick puncher. Some of the girls still talk about that," she laughed.

"Yeah, that was me. So, I was wondering, you said I should come back when I was clean."

"How long, honey?"

"Almost two years."

"Well, you were in jail most of that time, weren't you?"

I shrugged. "It still counts, right?"

"I suppose. Well, good for you, honey. What's your status now? Still on paper?"

She was asking me if I was on parole. I nodded. I didn't think that should matter. Dancing wasn't illegal.

"I'm sorry, dearie," she frowned, "but we don't use girls that are on paper. So you got clean, that's great, but you and I both know half the girls here are using. We can't risk your PO coming in here to check on you and maybe he sees something he shouldn't. Understand?"

I did understand. I thanked her and she told me I should come back once my probationary period ended.

As I was walking back to the car I passed the Goodwill store. There was a help wanted sign in the window. I went inside, and two days later I was sorting and handling the used clothing donations. It was dull work and after the first week, I was telling my mother over dinner that I was bored and feeling restless.

"Getting bored easy was always your problem," she said. "You would get bored at school and act out and get in trouble. You don't write stories anymore, do you? That was Mrs. Anderson's idea, when you were in fourth grade, getting you to write stories when you were bored. You used to write stories all the time."

"No, Mama, I haven't done that in years. I kept a journal for a while in prison, but that's not the same. That was not interesting to anyone else."

"Do you remember when we lived next door to the horse farm?"

"Of course I do."

"You wrote stories about the horses, As if the horses were telling them. And the people would do some ordinary thing, like just ride into town to get ice cream, but to the horses it was a big adventure. You ought to write stories again. Maybe tell people your story."

I shrugged off her suggestion, but the next day I bought a notebook and began writing down some of my memories. It did help me get through the tedium of daily routine.

My other therapy was walking. When I wasn't working, I would sometimes walk for hours, down country roads and across fields and meadows. I avoided town, because I did not want to talk to people, I just wanted to be in motion.

One early evening, I walked my favorite route, one that took me along the river and through the community park.

As I rounded the bend in the path where the woods thinned to the lawn of the park, I saw a man leaning against a tree by the river bank. He was looking intensively at something, and when he heard my approach, he turned to me and raised a finger to his lips, cautioning me to silence. I stepped gingerly over to where he was standing. A great blue heron was stalking through the shallow water near the bank. We watched as the heron froze, then plunged his long sharp beak into the water and came up with a small frog. He swallowed the frog, then flew off.

"Wow, how often do you see something like that!" the man exclaimed.

He must be a city boy, I thought, because I had seen things like that many times.

"Hi, I'm Ken," he said. He gestured to a nearby picnic table. "I was having my lunch when I caught sight of that stork."

"Heron," I corrected him, "It was a heron."

"Oh." He looked a little deflated, but smiled. "Say, would you like a snack? Come on, join me."

We sat across from each other at the picnic table. He fished a bottle of water out of a small cooler and handed it to me. There was a open package of Oreo cookies on the table, and he pushed it towards me.

"They are my one vice," he said. I couldn't help grinning at that. What a bad boy, I thought.

We made small talk as we munched on the cookies. My intuition was correct, he was from Boston. He had recently moved to the area to take a job as a supervisor at a near by call center.

The sun was getting low so I told him I would have to get started towards home. He asked me for my phone number and I gave it to him. On the walk home I thought about why I had done so. He was not the type of man I went out with. He was a nice looking guy, but in a wholesome clean cut way that had always seemed boring to me. On the other hand, how had the type of guys I liked worked out for me? When he called the next day and asked me if I would go out to dinner with him, I said that I would.

That first date was nice. Not great, not exciting, nice. He took me to a new Italian restaurant. The food was good and the conversation was pleasant. He asked me a lot of questions about the area, what sort of things there were to do, interesting places to go. I didn't mention anything he would not have found in any tourist guide, but he seemed please to get my thoughts. After dinner, we strolled a while on the harborwalk. I keep waiting for him to kiss me, but he did not. We walked back to his car, and he took me home. He did kiss me goodnight when he walked me to the door.

He had indicated that he would like to go out together again, and I told him I would. He had seemed tentative and nervous on our dinner date, and I hoped that on a second date, he might loosen up.

I was right, and the next date went much better. He wanted to see some of the tourist towns up and down the coast, and we spent a lovely day checking them out. We held hands as we went in and out of the little shops, and he kissed me as we sat at a seaside table eating lobster rolls. When he dropped me off at home, he said to me, "Well, didn't we have a nice joy ride?" It sent a shiver down by spine, but I smiled and kissed him goodnight.

I found myself eagerly anticipating seeing Ken again, and that third date was wonderful. We saw a movie, then stopped at a sports bar and had nachos and a couple of beers. The Red Sox were beating the Yankees, and that put Ken in high spirits. As we stepped out of the bar I leaned against the wall, took his hand and pulled him to me. After a long kiss I looked into his eyes and asked if he would take me home with him.

"Are you sure?" He asked, looking a little bit astonished.

I wondered if he might be a virgin. "Yes, I'm sure," I told him.

He had a rather plain one bedroom apartment. There were still some unpacked boxes in the corners. I could not help but imagine myself decorating the rooms.

We sat on the couch and kissed. His bashfulness melted away as our kisses grew more passionate, and soon he was squeezing and caressing my breasts. I ran my hand down between his legs and felt his hard cock through the fabric of his slacks. When he moaned with pleasure, I slipped off the couch and knelt between his legs. I looked into his eyes while I unbuckled his belt and pulled down his zipper. His excited expression made me smile.

I kissed the tip of his cock, then wrapped my lips around the shaft. I sucked gently, afraid that I might arouse him to a climax too quickly.

"Do you know that you have a really nice cock?" I asked him.

"Do I?" He asked.

"Oh yes," I replied, putting it back in my mouth. That had been a mistake. As soon as I began to suck again, he came.

He apologized profusely for coming so soon, and for not warning me that he was about to put his load in my mouth. I assured him that everything was fine.

I excused myself to the bathroom to clean myself up. I took off my blouse and skirt and came back to the couch in bra and panties.

"Lie down," I told him. He lay back on the couch and I squeezed in alongside him.

"You don't have a lot of experience with women, do you?" I asked him.

"Well, I have some experience. My first girlfriend and I, we did it a few times. But then, with my fiancé, my ex-fiancé, well, she was religious and wanted to wait. That's not why we broke up, but, you know, it didn't help matters any."

I stroked his hair and kissed him. I found his vulnerability touching. Such a contrast from men I had known before. I liked the idea of being the assertive one, of taking the lead in the relationship. I took his hand and guided it between my legs. He began stroking my pussy.

"Put your hand inside my panties, honey," I told him.

He did so, and soon he had a finger inside me. I found his half hard cock and began to fondle it.

The way that he came so fast when I talked about his cock made me think that more such talk would turn him on, so I I raised my mouth to his ear and whispered, "I want you to fuck me." He immediately grew stiff in my hand. "I want your big cock in my pussy."

I slipped my panties down my legs as he put on a condom. I pulled him on top of me and his cock slipped easily inside. He may not have had much experience, but he knew what to do. He began fucking me with long slow strokes, obviously relishing each one. He had a delightful grin on his face.

I wrapped my legs around his waist as he increased his tempo. He found a nice rhythm and I moved along with him. Already having cum once, he kept it up for a long time. I didn't think I was going to cum, but I was enjoying myself and I didn't mind. I did not want him to feel he needed to apologize anymore, so I pretended to have an orgasm.

"Did you cum?" He panted.

"Yes, honey, you made me cum real good."

That sent him into a frenzy and he began pounding into me hard. When he did so, I felt my own arousal peak, and in a few minutes, I came for real. That put him over the edge and he had his second orgasm of the night.

I had to work in the morning, so I needed to go home. After cuddling for a little while, I got off the couch and began to dress.

"I've got an idea for Sunday," he said, "If you want to do something."

"I'd love to do something Sunday," I replied.

"Have you ever been whale watching?"

"No, I never have."

"You lived your whole live by the ocean and you never went on the whale watching boat?"

"Nope."

"Well, let's go then. We have to leave early. I will have to pick you up by six in the morning."

"I'm used to getting up early," I said.

I got up plenty early on Sunday. I was dressed and ready by five thirty. I was sitting on the front porch at six. At twenty after six I called him and got no answer. I got no answer again at six thirty, nor at seven. At eight o'clock I drove to his apartment. His car was there but he did not answer when I knocked on his door.

I was sure that he was there. I sat on the hood on my car and waited about ten minutes, then I went to the door and knocked again. I waited a minute, then knocked again, harder.

I sat back down on the car. A few minutes later, Ken opened the door and took a single step outside.

"Melissa, you need to..."

I cut him off, marching forward to confront him face to face. "What's the deal with standing me up?"

"I can't do this, just go," he said, putting his hands in the air.

"I'm not fucking going anywhere until you explain to me why you left me hanging this morning." I was starting to get loud.

"Keep your voice down, Melissa. I'm sorry, I don't want to see you anymore."

"Why not?" I demanded, although I had a pretty good idea why not.

"Some people at work know you, and they told me some things."

"And?"

"And I can't date a dope addict. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."

"I've been clean for going on two and a half fucking years, Ken."

He shrugged. That didn't matter. "They said you had been in jail. That you helped plan a drug murder."

"That's not what happened!" I was shouting now.

"Just go, Melissa. Don't make me call the police."

I stomped back to the car. As I opened the door I turned back to him. He was standing in the doorway, his arms crossed.

"Can I tell you one thing?" I asked him.

"What is it?"

"You need to get checked for STDs. For all of them. You know how us dope addicts spread them."

He looked like he had been punched in the stomach. I took some pleasure in that.

I slammed the car door and drove off. Don't scream, I told myself, just don't scream. I drove about four blocks, then pulled over and screamed. When I got home I threw myself on my bed and cried myself to sleep. When my mother came in from work, I got up and told her what had happened. She listened sympathetically, but seemed more distanced than usual. I went back to bed after supper, wallowing in self pity. But, in a small but, to me, significant victory, I got up in the morning and went to work.

When I came home in the afternoon, my mother was waiting for me at the kitchen table.

"Come here and sit down, baby," she said. "We need to talk."

I sat across from her. "What's up, Mom?"

Her hands were clasped together on the table, and she stared at them for a minute. "I wasn't a very good mother to you," she began.

"That's not true."

"You need to let me talk, okay? Hear me out."

"Okay, Mom."

"I was not a good mother. I was better with your brother, but boys are easier. But you, you were my baby. I love you, Melissa, with all my heart. I am sorry, so sorry, that I didn't keep you from having so much trouble in your life."

"Mom..."

"Shh, let me say my piece. Whenever you needed a hug I was there to give you a hug. But when what you needed was for me to take a belt to your ass, I gave you a hug then, too. But what did I know? I wasn't much more than a kid myself. A baby raising babies. But it was my job to protect you. I was supposed to keep all that shit from happening to you."

She wiped her eyes with her hand and continued.

"And then, of course, your father left me to do it all alone. A mother has to take some responsibility for how her children turn out. It's the most important thing she ever does in her life, and if she screws it up, she deserves some of the blame for what the child does. And sometimes, she needs to make amends for that."

"No, Mama, stop. I will take responsibility for myself, it's not on you."

"I'm not talking about you and me now, baby."

"I don't understand."

"I'm talking about your grandmother, and how she raised your father."

"Grandma Bennett?"

She nodded. "I am talking about a woman who raised a boy who knocked up a girl in high school, and knocked her up again a couple of years later, and then ran off and left them on their own. She has always talked about how bad she felt about the way your father abandoned us. She's helped out a bit over the years, sending me cash to help pay for stuff during the holidays, things like that."

"I didn't know that."

I didn't really know much about my father's mother at all. She had divorced my grandfather and moved back to her native state of Michigan while I was still very young, not long after my father had left us. She had visited a few times, and every year I received birthday and christmas cards from her, always with a little cash in them. Cash I had used, on more than one occasion, to buy drugs.

My mother reached across the table and took my hands in hers. "Baby, I know how hard things have been since you came home. And now, this thing with this Ken. I am so afraid for you, baby. I don't know if you are going to make it."

I started to object, but she shook her head and shushed me. "Remember what that guy said to you in the store that time?"

I nodded and fought to keep from crying. I remembered. A friend of Nicky's had leaned over my shoulder in the checkout line and whispered in my ear that the next time he came up behind me, he would put a bullet in my brain.

"People here are never going to let you make it. If you are going to do anything with your life, you have to get out of here."

"I don't want to go away, Mama. I don't want to leave you."

"I know you don't, but listen to me. You are getting out of here, even if I have to throw you out. Now listen. Your grandmother feels like she owes you something for the way your father left us. She has offered to let you stay with her, and she has lined up a job for you where she used to work. She's still friends with the manager."

"Doing what?"

"Waiting tables. She said you can make pretty good money."

"I can't go to Michigan, Mama, I'm still on probation."

"You can apply to move out of state if you have a job to go to. I looked it up."

We sat in silence, each lost in our thoughts. As much as I hated the idea of moving hundreds of miles away, I knew it was a good plan. I wondered which woman had actually come up with it. After a few minutes, I stood and crossed to where my mother sat. I knelt next to her and wrapped my arms around her. She rested her head on top of mine.

"You have always been a wonderful mother."

"Thank you, baby."

"I will make you proud of me, Mama. I promise I will"

"I know you will. That's why you have to go."

Getting permission to leave the state was more complicated than we had thought it would be, and it took longer that we had hoped, but two months later, I said goodbye to my mother at the highway gas station that doubled as the bus stop. We were both in tears as I loaded my suitcases into the baggage compartment. She handed me a carry on bag she had stuffed with sandwiches and cookies.

As I was about to climb into the bus, I turned to her. "I love you, Mama."

"I love you too, baby. Be good."

"I will."

"You know what, baby? This time, I believe you."

She kissed me and I boarded the bus.

For most of the day, we hopped down the coast from town to town. The bus was half empty and I had a seat to myself. I read for a while, but mostly I looked out the window at the tall trees and the occasional sparkle of ocean. In the afternoon, we stopped at the town nearest the women's prison, and I wondered if any of the passengers who disembarked had ridden there to visit their loved ones. Just as the sun was setting, we rolled into the station in Portland, where I transferred to another bus that would take me to Boston. It was fully dark when we crossed the big metal bridge into New Hampshire. I looked back at the only place I had ever lived and saw only darkness. Ahead of us, the lights of Portsmouth shined brightly.

It was near midnight when we arrived in Boston, and my connection didn't leave until morning. I spend the night fitfully sleeping on a wooden bench in the station.