by Frank Perdue
He had little chance to savor the moment, for he exploded into her with a delicious tingling sensation. She stopped her undulations as he kissed her, thankfully. It was not an urgent kiss as before, but a tender one; a grateful one. He would never forget her, or her contribution to his manhood. He never saw her again.
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A few nights later, his dream took him into a courthouse. He was led there by uniformed policemen, one on each side. The contingent was met at a pair of wide double doors by another man in uniform who led him to a seat near the front of the spacious room. He sat on a dark wooden bench with no cushion. In front of him was a brown-stained flat table, which was also constructed of wood. The two guards who had accompanied him from his jail cell took seats to the right of his position and across an aisle. They too were fronted by a large table on which was placed one legal-sized notepad.
Shortly, the uniformed man who had seated him announced loudly “All rise.”
A rather tall man, wearing a maroon-colored robe, entered the room through a door near the front right corner of the courtroom. He seated himself at a huge desk in the very front of the room. He shifted around until he seemed comfortable, pulled a microphone attached to a small desk stand toward him until it was just inches from his lips, cleared his throat, and announced gruffly “Be seated!” He then nodded at the uniformed man, who must have been a Marshal.
The Marshal announced to all within earshot, of which there were few, “The District Court of Ketchikan, State of Alaska, is now in session. The Honorable Judge Phillip Osborne presiding”.
Ted looked around the courtroom. Except for the Judge and the three uniformed men, there were only two other individuals in attendance; a short man, dressed in a blue gabardine suit, and a large man in a brown suit. They both sat at another desk behind the two policemen who had brought Ted to that place.
The imposing man in the robe again cleared his throat. “This is an arraignment, not a trial. In the case of the State of Alaska versus United States Marine Private First Class Jake Gentry, the charges are Breaking and Entering with intent to commit a crime. How do you plead?” The Judge looked directly at Ted!
PART TWO
THE ACCIDENT
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“This has got to change” he muttered.
“What did you say?” She hadn’t heard the words, but she knew that this might be the time she had dreaded all along.
“It’s just not right” he said, bolder now.
“I give up. What are you talking about?” She didn’t want to make it easy on him. They had been living together for nearly six years now. She had fallen hard for him early on, and nothing had changed. She tried to hide it, playing the game that men and women have played forever. Don’t let your partner know how dependent you’ve become; how much you treasure that little time you spend together; how much you admire them; how handsome or beautiful they are to you. All right just admit it. It all adds up to love.
For God’s sake, she thought to herself. It’s 1970. It’s the age of free love. She already knew everything about him, and she didn’t care. They were in each other’s soul. Weren’t they? When it came right down to it, she didn’t know what he was thinking or feeling. It would probably be much less complicated if she was a girl of the seventies instead of a throwback to the fifties. It seemed as if half of her age group fell into the openness routine of the beatnik generation that spilled out of the sixties, and the other half was locked into the staid teachings of their parents, and church. She felt guilty enough because they were living together. But she couldn’t let him go either. So it was a standoff - until now.
“Look”, he said. “I need to get out of here for awhile”.
“Where are you going?” she asked plaintively.
“I have a few errands to run, but I’ll be back by noon.” She looked at the clock above their sofa, which was centered on the wall opposite the front door. Was it only ten? By now she was sure this would be the longest day of her life, and January boasted some of the shorter days. She moved quickly to the door to kiss him goodbye. He seemed preoccupied, but he kissed her dutifully on the lips. Then he was gone.
His first stop was at a jeweler. He asked the manager to help him select an engagement ring. He told the man behind the counter that he didn’t have a lot of money, which was true. The clerk brought out a tray of rings in a modest price range. The one he picked had a very small diamond, but it looked fine to him. He paid for the ring, declining to have it wrapped. He did accept the little box that came with it. He put it in the left pocket of his brown suede jacket, making sure it was deep enough not to fall out. Then he was out the door, headed for his next destination. He looked at his watch. It was ten-thirty.
The red sixty-four chevy made its way easily through the mid-morning downtown traffic. The next stop was the local florist. In only a few minutes he was back in the car with two dozen long-stemmed roses. A dozen wasn’t enough to convey all the things he wanted to say to Joanna.
As he made his way back to their apartment he tried to frame the words to tell her how he felt. He knew what he wanted to say. He just didn’t know how to go about it. How would he tell the most beautiful woman in the world that she’s even more lovely than that to him; that she is the most caring individual he’s ever met, and the most loving. They fit like a glove, even though in some ways they were complete opposites, and he didn’t deserve her. She was a bleeding heart liberal, and quietly religious. His politics matched hers, but religion was something he’d never had time for. There had been no guiding hand in his life, though he’d needed one more than once. He had already sown his wild oats, and was more than ready to settle down, but he didn’t know it until he met her. Sure they fought. Who didn’t? In almost every case it was because she cared about him, and worried about his welfare. The arguments invariably led to an emotional begging for forgiveness (almost always on his part). The lovemaking that followed was spectacular. He was still dragging himself out of the hell that was his past. She knew about it. He had told her almost from the beginning. He’d been honest about everything except his feelings for her. It was time to make that very clear.
Joanna had decided she would fight this. She wouldn’t let him end it without explaining how she felt, once and for all. She couldn’t just take it, without telling him how deep her love was. She was proud of how far he’d come. She knew that part of the credit belonged to her. It was never just a physical thing. Although they were very good in bed together. They seemed to anticipate each other’s needs, and neither of them was selfish. The attraction had survived, and for her it was still strong. They had both kept their bodies desirable to the other. It wasn’t easy at times. She had a tendency to be broad at the hips, if she let it go. She had to exercise diligently.
Joanna Thomas was the gem of the family, at least from the perspective of beauty, charm, and grace. She was tall; taller than most of the kids in her class by the time she reached the sixth grade. At maturity she stood five feet eight inches. The boys had inched a little taller by the time she graduated high school. Only a handful of girls could look her straight in the eyes. Her skin was about one shade lighter than bronze with a few blemishes. She had a couple of wrinkles in her face because her family life was not ideal, and she suffered much in silence. The telltale lines did nothing to hide her sheer beauty. Her face was framed by jet black wavy hair that fell to, and slightly over, her shoulders. It had been described by an admirer as “like waves cascading to shore on a moonlit night”. Her cheekbones were high, and her brown eyes had a slightly Asian slant. Both features were inherited from her maternal grandmother who had been Chinese. Her breasts were small but obvious because of the perfect shape of them, and later, also because of her skill in dressing. Her African heritage gave her slim, well turned legs which molded upward into a tight, well rounded buttocks. She had a waistline that varied from twenty-three to twenty-five inches, depending on her training regimen, or lack of it.
She wa
s a runner. She had made all state in the eight hundred meters in high school. The scholarship to San Francisco State was a dream come true. She would never have made it to college without her talent in track. Her grades were so-so. She was good in Math and History, but English and Science pulled her GPA down. Had she been interested in engineering or architecture she would have needed to be a better student than her work habits had equipped her to be.
Like many pretty faces of the late fifties, it was hard to concentrate on books and tests in high school, with all the good looking boys and the attention they showered on her. Some of the white boys were even interested in her, but she was not attracted to them at all. A couple of them were verbally abusive. But that was true of the blacks she spurned too. It seemed the boys were even more childish than the girls at that age. Had she been more mature, she would have realized the consideration was fleeting, but a good education, or the lack of it, could affect the rest of her life. If she’d been unattractive, many of the distractions would have been non-existent. It’s a sad commentary on the human condition. At any rate, she made it out of high school still a virgin.
She took general education courses in her freshman and sophomore years at San Francisco State. Then, still unable to see a clear choice for a major, she decided to pursue a physical education degree. She graduated in five and a half years, including a year of student teaching at a San Francisco junior high school. She was now a woman of the world. Which was a polite way of saying she had, in the language of the day, finally lost her cherry.
He was a black runner on the track team. His name doesn’t matter. The attraction was purely physical. He was tall and lean. He always won his races. Maybe that was part of it. Or perhaps she was just ready to experience something that was supposed to be a plateau in every girl’s life; preparing her for the important task of finding a suitable husband. Luckily for Joanna he was gentle, and the encounter left no harmful memories. They parted friends after that first and only time.
Joanna’s family was, to say the least, dysfunctional. Her father was in prison in Washington State. Child support for the family was non-existent. Her mother tried hard, but there just weren’t many jobs available to women in a wheel chair. She had multiple sclerosis. She had been on welfare since the disease progressed to the point where she could no longer pull herself up on crutches. That was during Joanna’s final year of college. Joanna had offered to quit school and help with family obligations but her mother emphatically refused. It would have been such a waste for Joanna to give up the degree for which she had worked so hard. Beulah Thomas was proud of her daughter.
Joanna didn’t have the success in track that she had enjoyed in high school. San Francisco State recruited the top high school middle distance runner in the country at the end of Joanna’s freshman year. They wouldn’t have had a chance of landing her, except the girl’s boyfriend from her home town in Ohio opted to go to Berkeley. Anna Heis was in love, but her grades fell short of University of California requirements. So, even though UC wanted her for her jackrabbit legs, the academic council would not relax their requirements. San Francisco State benefitted, and Joanna became number two on the depth chart. The school cut back on her scholarship, but she still received books and tuition. The stipend for living expenses was deleted from her contract, forcing her to take a part time job.
She took the advice of Anna Heis, who had become her very good friend, and applied to a modeling agency. After being sent to a photographer to establish a portfolio at her own expense, the agency sent her out on fashion photo shoots for a local department store. The merchant was so impressed with her, and used her so often that, when Joanna suggested they hire her mother, they were happy to do so. Normally they wouldn’t have considered hiring a colored woman; especially one in a wheel chair. (This was before Affirmative Action.) But management considered it a sound investment since Joanna was the best looking model they ever had under contract.
Beulah felt good about her job as greeter with the department store. It allowed her to keep a little dignity; dignity that was eroded every time she had to use food stamps to feed her family. A family that, in addition to Joanna, who was the oldest, and still lived at home, also included a son, Jerrod Jr.
Jerrod was not proud that he had been named after his father, considering that Senior was a convicted armed robber; a vocation he had taken up originally to feed his family. Then the older man became a voracious heroin user. Soon, his father forgot about feeding them. It wasn’t long after that he was caught, thankfully before he harmed anyone.
Jerrod Senior was hauled off to prison in nineteen fifty-eight; the year Joanna graduated from high school. She was 18. Jerrod was 12, and another son, William, was only 10. Junior could have gone either way. He chose school and sports. He wanted to be the first black pro quarterback. But there weren’t even any black quarterbacks in high school. So he wisely decided to be a halfback. He was quick and fast. He had good hands so he rarely fumbled. He made all state, and was awarded a full ride scholarship to San Jose State, but he never played a down of college football. While running the high hurdles in a track meet his senior year he fell and twisted his right knee so badly that he was forced to give up his grandiose dreams. Because he had been a high school football hero he was able to get a job as a bag boy at a local grocery store. He eventually graduated to the stock room where he remained until nineteen sixty-eight when he was finally allowed to go to checker school.
William, the youngest son was another story. His love was music. Though his voice was untrained, it was very clear. He had a fair range for a ten year old soprano, who didn’t yet realize that his voice would soon change. Before that happened however, his mother began working a second job. She left the grammar school lunchroom at three after the dishes were all done, and she had swept and mopped the floor. She had a night job that required her to report in at eleven P.M. She belonged to a cleaning crew that worked all night in the Federal Building in downtown San Francisco. Of course all of this happened before
Beulah began to show the symptoms of her disease. Since the only time she could sleep was in the afternoon and early evening, William was left pretty much alone.
In 1958 there weren’t a lot of drugs on the street, mainly marijuana. The kids who used it were the toughs and the wannabes. William was an exception. One of his friends smoked the stuff, and hung around the streets a lot, breaking into cars. He took anything he thought he could resell to finance his burgeoning habit. It wasn’t that the weed was so addictive; it just made him feel good. He didn’t want to lose that feeling. So he smoked, and he stole, and he smoked, etc.
William had too much time on his hands. Singing lessons were only for an hour and a half each week, so he started hanging out with his friend. Then he began to emulate him. He stopped going to singing lessons, and soon he began to skip school. His mother would have found out eventually, but William was not lucky.
One Friday evening when he was already high, he and his friend decided to rob a store. They didn’t know about things like burglar alarms, because when the other kids were going to the movies and learning about cops and robbers, they were on the street getting high. William never saw his eleventh birthday. As he was climbing out a store window facing the alley, a security car pulled into the darkened roadway. The guard saw him just as he hit the ground. He yelled “Stop thief.” William straightened up, and, to regain his balance, took a step toward the guard. The alley exploded in light as the pistol in the uniformed man’s hand discharged. The sound was deafening, but William never heard it. What had once been a little boy with a beautiful voice, crumpled to the cold pavement without a sound.
When William died, Joanna had a very hard time accepting it. She naturally felt that she should have been there for her youngest brother; that she should have been able to recognize what was going on and stop it. She had a hard time sleeping at night with the enormous guilt she felt. Her mother, in her own grief, tried to help her daughter. They both began to go
to church together.
Beulah had been a regular member of a local non-denominational congregation for years, and Joanna had gone as a very young girl. As she became more headstrong in her teens she drifted away from the church. One of the things she could not reconcile was the racial prejudice all around her, which was often directed at her family. She felt she was God’s child. So why was she treated as anything less? The only time she felt she was being treated as an equal was when she represented her school as a runner.
Things were better this time around. The Pastor made a point of greeting each of his congregation before church, and again after the ceremonies, to accept their praise for a stirring service, or their criticism when the proceeding didn’t meet expectations. He was gracious in either case, and always promised to do better next week. It didn’t hurt either that, this time, the congregation was all black. There were still some petty comments, but at least they weren’t directed at Joanna or her family. She began to feel once again that God loved her. And Heaven needed a soprano of William’s caliber.
Joanna heard a car pull up out front of the apartment. Quickly she grabbed a magazine and jumped onto the couch, pretending to read. She didn’t even notice that it was a man’s magazine, and that it was upside down.
He opened the door, with the flowers in his right hand, and the ring still deep in his jacket pocket. He didn’t even look at the magazine in Joanna’s lap.
