In a very short time, almost within minutes of my search, I noticed another normal name; it was JoAnn and Jessica Elms. I felt this might just be a mother and daughter looking to chat to other people from around the world, and according to her profile she was a ‘domestic engineer’. I figured she fixed washing machines, such was my ignorance of the net. Her profile also showed that she came from a small town in Missouri in the Mid West flanked by Huck Finn’s Mississippi. This had to be a good sign, so I sent her a chat request. Nothing happened, so I did it again, as it was her or the Cyber Kittens, and I was wary of that lot after the Florida woman. About to give up, I sent her one last request figuring that three requests were enough.
Ping went the little sound and her screen comes alive with the words “Hi” and a smiley symbol. Immediately I felt some kind of an affinity with this person. I did not know why, at the time. We began to chat and laugh, and talk about our towns and our lives, our kids and partners, and hours went by in a flash. Before we said good bye, I asked if she would chat again tomorrow because I liked her so much, and I felt she was very normal and friendly. By then I had wormed out of her what a domestic engineer was, and it was her term for a housewife. She said it entailed mending socks not washing machines. She agreed to chat again, and over many months we began to develop a strong bond of friendship and only friendship at that stage.
Neither of us had still seen a picture of the other, both being too shy for it, but in the end we e-mailed a scanned photo to each other. I got such a shock when I saw her that I thought it was her daughter’s photo she had sent to me by accident. But when she sent me another one, a distant shot by a swimming pool, I realized that she was a very beautiful woman indeed. Still I had no close up of her and the curiosity was beginning to kill me.
As months went by we chatted away, each of us getting closer in spirit though never admitting it, nor daring to even think that we might be falling in love, as both of us seemed to be happily married at that time.
After seeing her pictures I did feel that she seemed familiar somehow, but I could not place it. I found her very attractive and it turned out that she was part Native American. I had made no connection to my castle vision until one day she sent me a black and white photo of herself as a young girl, and there before my very eyes was the girl from my apparition. She was identical to the girl I saw in Buttevant all those years before, who had vanished before my eyes. I was in a state of shock and didn’t know whether to tell her or not. That day I clearly remember staring at her photo in disbelief for a long time. Finally I asked her what age she was in the picture, and she was about seventeen years old. I then told her about my strange experience, but she did not seem a bit surprised. She told me of her lifetime longing for Ireland and an Irishman that she too was searching for all her life. She said that she knew what the Irish mist felt like, how she would sit in a tree as a young girl wondering about it, and how it felt so familiar to her. Later I told her about my recurring dream of the rock pool and the Indian girl, and almost on cue she told me that she knew exactly where that pool was, as she knew it well. It was located in the woods just behind her grandmother’s house, and finally as if to complete the circle, she said that both her grandmothers had Native American blood in their veins and that they lived very near the famous Cherokee Trail of Tears. It was no wonder that all of my life I was fascinated by Native Americans, and the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
How could all this be? No one would believe it, yet it was all completely true. That single incident of my vision, and the photograph associated with it, started me on a quest which is still ongoing. I began to question life; what it is, and who I am. I think sooner or later we all ask these questions, but for me, a person who loved science above all else, they were very challenging indeed as I had no concept of metaphysics then. However I was sure of one thing; JoAnn was the cause of it all, and to make sure she never vanished again, I still keep that picture in my wallet, and give a sneak look at it now and again just to remind me that miracles can and do happen.
Over the next year or so it dawned on me slowly that this person whom I chatted to almost every night was beginning to mean more to me than just a very good friend. Of course my wife Etta was aware that we were very close, and I’m sure JoAnn’s husband John also knew that we were real good friends, and that was the truth of it. We had never met, we almost never spoke on the phone due to the cost, and yet I believe we were both falling in love with each other without ever admitting it.
We would chat for hours about all kinds of events of the day, music, my work in radio, as well as the many inventions I would be attempting to make or build. Early on, during one of these chats, JoAnn persuaded me to begin writing a book about my life, saying she would act as my editor and critic. She felt that I had a way of writing that made her ‘see the scenes’ and she said that I had led a very interesting life, especially in my youth. She became fascinated with how we grew up in a small town, how we managed the poverty, and how good my mother was to us. We used to compare our individual lives growing up just for the fun of it, as she came from a small town too, but while she was not rich she was not poor like us ever, her dad being a Deputy Sheriff.
So I did begin the book, and this version is my fifth and last go at it being ten years in the making. Unknown to me at the time, the genius Frank McCourt from Limerick, just thirty miles away, had written his masterpiece Angela’s Ashes, and by a strange twist of fate, I got to know of it while standing inside a building he was well familiar with; his school I believe.
I was at that time project managing the setting up a new radio station for Limerick city, and our auctioneer and I were scouring the inner city for a suitable building to house the new studios. The auctioneer took me to see a building on the Crescent, or near it, that was up for rent or sale, and it was owned by a religious order in Limerick. We were ushered into a large, beautifully decorated room to await the arrival of a senior Brother who would ‘discuss the lease’ with us. As we stood in the room the auctioneer said to me, “John, I bet you don’t know that you are standing on very hallowed ground”. “No,” I said, “I didn’t know, how come?” “Well, a Limerick man who emigrated to America has written a book which looks like it’s going to be a huge success, and he is talking about this very room that you are now standing in”. As I was weighing up this tidbit of information against the room’s use technically as a radio studio, the senior Brother arrived. I never forgot what happened next.
His manner was obviously unfriendly, and we were never even asked to sit down to discuss the details. The meeting lasted less than ten minutes, with the three of us standing in the middle of the room. The minute we told him why we wanted the building, his answer was, “No, no, that would not be appropriate…. good day,” end of conversation, and he left us to find our own way out. I never forgot that incident, but I did forget about the book until months later when my brother Kyrle rang me from Dublin, and he was genuinely all excited. “John, you just have to buy a book called Angela’s Ashes. It’s all about growing up in Limerick, but it’s just like it’s our story too”. He said he was laughing constantly as he read it, and while the boys in it were not inventors like us, the rest of the story was very similar and I had to buy the book. I still did not buy the book though, and I think it became a world famous movie before I finally got my own copy. Then like Kyrle, I too laughed constantly as I read it. Later the film came out, and the moment I saw it I immediately saw the similarities between their story and ours, especially the father’s plight in it, and the long-suffering poor mother. By then JoAnn had also read the McCourt classic and immediately saw the similarities too. She again began encouraging me to continue with my book of my life in Buttevant.
Unfortunately I’m no Frank McCourt, and over the next twelve years I would write and re-write this book with JoAnn criticizing it so much that in the end I gave up out of sheer frustration, and the years went by. Still I could never fully shake the feeling inside of me to give it
one more go.
So once again I decided to write it just for me, and for better or worse, you are now reading our story and I hope you are really enjoying it.
Though JoAnn will dispute this, I think it is possible to love two people at the same time. Then over time, as one love grows stronger, the other weakens. I think this was happening to myself and Etta, and I still had not met my American, though I chatted to her online each night.
Fate stepped in though, and by a minor miracle I was provided with the money to fly Etta and me to America to meet JoAnn and her husband.
We had never been to America before and I was really looking forward to seeing a country I had loved all my life, but I was also incredibly nervous at meeting these Americans, and Etta felt exactly the same way.
We were going to be staying with them for two weeks as their guests. I had never been on a two-week vacation in my whole life, let alone be living with people from a different culture. I was quite terrified at the prospect, but equally so I wanted to meet my American in person.
Before we met we had agreed that no matter what we thought about each other physically, we would remain true friends forever. We hoped everyone would all get along very well and there would be no ‘funny business’ between us.
I still wear glasses, and the morning we drove to Shannon Airport, I was so nervous that I kept fidgeting with the leg of my glasses on the journey. In typical form, as I drove into the airport, the leg broke off and my glasses fell right onto my lap. This was a real disaster, as I could not see much without them and I was then going to America for two weeks.
There was nothing for it but to go back to my old school days with Pad and solder the leg onto the frame, which I did, with Etta holding a magnifying glass so that I could see what I was doing. All this was taking place in the parking lot of Shannon Airport. I was very glad that I had brought my tool case with the gas soldering iron in the car that day.
This was the start of a long trip that got more and more nerve wracking as we got closer to St Louis in Missouri. On the way into Newark the pilot announced the time change, and as I reset my watch to American time I determined there and then that if I liked America, I would never reset my watch again, nor have I. To this day it’s always on American time.
The US Customs official asked me why I had put down on my customs card ‘goods to the value of two thousand dollars.’ I told him that it was for my laptop and camera as well as gifts and cash. He asked if I was writing a book (a sign in itself) and I told him maybe. Then he put out his hand, shook mine and said, “Welcome to America, enjoy your stay”. That handshake and those wonderful words confirmed for me what I had always suspected about the country, it would be a great place to live and work.
However, we were still going on to St Louis and the nerves were getting even worse for both of us by then. It did not help when I spilled coffee all over Etta’s cream-coloured jacket, and the fact that she had not smoked for hours was driving her mad as well. The tension between us was really rising.
The muggy heat was also getting to me and my new shoes were literally cutting into my leg. In Newark Airport I spent my first US dollar buying sticky plasters for my heel, which was bleeding by then. I did a job on it in the men’s restroom, much to the surprise and astonishment of the cleaners. I stood with one bare foot raised backwards on the washstand and laid on my plaster. I bet they never saw that done before.
We had a long stopover in Newark and my nerves were growing worse. It was a combination of butterflies that JoAnn might not like me, mixed with the sheer amazement at all that I had seen so far of America. After landing at midday, we eventually took off around ten pm on our last leg of that fateful journey. I was within three hours of seeing my apparition in the flesh.
As the jet began its decent into Lambert Airport, I looked like a tramp. My hair was all matted, my shirt was all open and wrinkled, my tie was loose and over to one side, and my glasses were barely hanging on by the bent leg. I looked so bad that even Etta was demanding that I fix myself up before we were met by our hosts. I told her that I planned ‘a complete overhaul’ in the restroom in the airport before we met them, and that she should do the same as she looked no better. The butterflies were now wildly dancing around inside of me as I knew I was just minutes away from meeting JoAnn for the very first time.
Then the plane landed. The two ‘tramps’ from Ireland walked up the connecting ramp, and as we came through the security door, there stood JoAnn and John Elms. I nearly died of embarrassment at the state of us meeting our hosts. I will never forget her amazing shy smile, and I could feel a gentleness coming off her that felt very familiar to me. I knew immediately that this girl was the one I had seen in my vision and she was the one I had been waiting for all my life. With that knowledge I realized immediately that I was in a real fix, secretly hoping that JoAnn felt the same about me, and if so, what was going to happen to us all in the future. In that moment I put all thoughts of a future aside and decided to try and flow with the situation as best I could and all I could do was hope for a miracle.
That same night, my first impression of John Elms was that he seemed like a very hard working, good-looking man with bright, sparkling, blue eyes and a warm, friendly manner. I liked him immediately, which made it all the more difficult later for me and him as the inevitable happened, especially when he and JoAnn bitterly arrived in a divorce courtroom. Etta on the other hand, having the benefit of a woman’s intuition, told me much later that she knew the moment I saw JoAnn that night that our time together had ended. While she resented it, she said there was no point in making life miserable for either of us, and subsequently she was as good as her word and did not contest our divorce.
We all hugged, or shook hands, and we were made feel so welcome immediately by both of our hosts. That night, virtually straight off the plane, we were taken to a wedding. Then, later still, we went on to have breakfast in a truck stop. After travelling and visiting for about twenty four hours, I was still full of energy, and I had fallen totally in love with America.
From that moment on, we began a whistle stop tour of beautiful Missouri. We were introduced to JoAnn’s family; Jessica, Justin, Julie and Johnnie. We met her parents and sister, Wanda, and numerous other family and friends.
Our hosts treated us so well, I have to say. They took us all over Missouri. I got to go to a place called Six Flags, which is a huge theme park outside St Louis. There I was persuaded to ride my first roller coaster. To say that I nearly died is an understatement. When I staggered off of it I went into shock, getting pale, shivering and feeling deathly cold despite the summer heat. I was afraid I would ruin everyone’s night, so I asked to be allowed to lie down on a bench and try and sleep it off for an hour. I believe I was feeling better after half an hour when once again I felt the motion under me and began to get queasy all over again. When I opened my eyes I discovered that John and Etta had been lifting the bench and swaying it from side to side. They collapsed laughing and I think they were both getting revenge on me for the future ahead. Then on another special day they took us to my most favourite place in all of Missouri, the Lakes of the Ozarks. Here we got to go for a trip on a paddle steamer called ‘Tom Sawyer’ and another childhood dream was lived out by me as we sailed across the lakes just like Mark Twain had described on the great Mississippi in my youthful readings.
The longer I was there the happier I felt, and I never wanted our trip to end. In contrast, Etta became more and more unhappy, probably picking up on my longing to be in America with JoAnn, and she could not wait to get home. In hindsight, while it probably was one of the best times of my life, it was probably one of the worst times for her and I’m sorry for that.
During a shopping spree in JoAnn’s town, I ventured into a place selling Indian bows. Within minutes I was captivated by a most beautiful five-foot handmade hunting bow. I pulled its string back and could feel the power of this amazing weapon. I became an Indian for a few minutes and just had to have t
hat bow. I was going to buy it, but JoAnn put me off it saying it was way too expensive. Her vehemence surprised me at the time. Later on she would secretly buy it and present it to me on the day we were leaving, as a parting gift. I just did not know what to say to her. Full of emotion, I decided there and then that on Christmas day from that day on I would take it to a mountain and shoot it in memory of her and our time in America. Every year since then I have taken my bow to Mount Hillary just outside Mallow, and shot it on Christmas day just before dinner as promised. It’s a tradition that started with my children, and now continues with my JoAnn. We shoot it together in thanks for all that we have been given, for what we mean to each other, and every year I lose an arrow. We laugh and say the year we lose the last arrow is the year I go to America for good. As of last year I’m down to one arrow.
The holiday did finally come to an end, and at the airport JoAnn and I agreed at a minimum to remain friends forever, but hoped for a lot more when the time was right. So the die was cast, and we would do our best to hurt least our children, and those we had once loved in the past.
There is no doubt in my mind that over the next number of years, our falling in love did cause great hurt. We severely hurt our partners and our children, especially JoAnn’s younger children, who were not even teenagers. Mine were a little older, but completely unprepared for a divorce and a huge upheaval to the crazy lifestyle they knew as home. Obviously, hurting all those people was never our intention, but I honestly believe that we were powerless to change what I’m sure was our destiny. Over the coming years, in the eyes of the world, we began having an affair, but that was actually not true at all. I hate the term ‘affair’. It always smacks of torrid, illicit sex coupled with secret meetings and a lot of lies. In our case we never had sex, both believing that if we did, then we would have to immediately leave our partners and start a new life together because we both believed that the act of sex would seal our love, and we just could not do it at that time. It was patently impossible anyway, as even though JoAnn could divorce her husband, I could not divorce my wife because we had no divorce laws in Ireland. Concern for our children was also a huge factor in any future we might have.
Two Walls and a Roof Page 36
