THE FIFTH IN A SERIES OF SEVEN STORIES.
Channing passed through Canyon, where he’d stayed with his aunt and uncle during that summer before he went off to Nebraska to college. He didn’t stop. His uncle had long since passed away and he’d seen his aunt at his own father’s funeral two days earlier. He’d have to explain what he was doing in Canyon if he stopped at her house. He wasn’t sure himself, he darn sure couldn’t explain it to his aunt.
He pulled over to the side of the road at an old worn out Skelly station and called his wife. “I’ll be stuck in Texas another day or two.” She was surprised, knowing his desire was to get out of the Lone Star State as quickly as he could. “You know how these things go sometimes.” She didn’t, really. But knew better than to argue or ask too many questions. She took it for granted that her husband would be home as soon as he could.
Channing took a little comfort in the fact that he hadn’t actually lied as he got back into the LeBaron. It’s not like he was going to say, “I’m behind the wheel of a cheap piece of shit convertible heading south to a town I’ve never been to before to see if I can locate a woman who stole my virginity one summer, and my heart for a long time after that. I’ll be home when I get there.” Nothing he told her wasn’t true. Parts were just left out.
He was sunburned by the time he got to Midland, and cursed the fact that he’d been seduced enough by the rare mild Texas weather to lower the top. “I should have known better,” he said to himself. “Texas whispers in your ear that she just wants to nuzzle, but what she really wants to do is fry your forehead like a two dollar steak.” In Odessa he put the top up.
By the time he got to Monahans his mind had wandered back to the True Rest Motel. He tried to calculate the number of times he and Virginia Giddings did The Nasty that summer, back in 1972. The number was fleeting. Some of the details were not. They were burned into his memory like scenes from a favorite movie. He could still pull up specific scenes like there was a VCR buried somewhere deep in his cranium and hit PLAY and PAUSE and REWIND at will. Favorites included her specific instructions on how and where she wanted to be pleased.
By the end of the summer the roles had reversed somewhat. No longer the shy teenage boy from Shamrock who was embarrassed to be seen naked by the older woman, Channing confidently strode from the bed to the bathroom, or the bed to the cheap Formica-topped desk in the corner of the room to fix them a drink. The way she had favorably compared him to her less than adequate older husband gave him a confidence that he was more than willing to display and show off. He developed a strut in the way he walked in the True Rest Motel that he carried with him to Nebraska. And in the way he wrote for long after that.
He remembered enough of the details of her body that he’d worked several of them into that first book, and then subsequently into others that followed.
He wondered what it said about each of them that they never felt guilt. After all, he was one of her students for god sakes. And she was married. And yet, the only thing each was sure of is that they didn’t want to get caught. They wanted it to last until the end of the summer. Neither had any illusions about what would take place after that. He may have only been 19, but he wasn’t naive enough to think she would leave her husband, they’d run off together, and live happily ever after. That ending to the story never even entered his mind. Not at the time, anyway. He was sure she was just as realistic.
He hit the town of Imperial, Texas and instantly recalled the big yellow new Imperial that Jenny drove. How ill suited the car was for her, just like the man who’d bought it for her. But then he remembered the plush, comfortable seats and how they enveloped their occupant. He realized she may have had more in common with the car than he thought. He was less than a half hour from Fort Stockton.
He wished he was in the old Dodge Dart Phoenix D-500 hardtop coupe he had when he attended those British Lit classes that Jenny taught. Like Jenny’s Imperial, Channing’s Dart stuck in his mind as a metaphor for that summer. That car represented the beginning of a journey. The car of his youth. The car that hauled him and his meger worldly possessions to the heartland of America for his degree in journalism. The car that delivered him to the True Rest Motel most weekends in the summer of 1972, or down the street behind the Whataburger, anyway. Close enough.
The Dodge D-500 indeed lasted longer than the romance in the True Rest Motel, but Channing’s relationship with it was nearly as fraught. Various ill-timed and expensive repairs seemed to occur one after the other in Lincoln. Over time, Channing pondered the idea of parting ways with the long black beast. “I love ya, ol’ girl,” he said to her after getting her back from a mechanic that had to agree to weekly payments in order to recoup his costs. “But if you’re going to suck me dry, you’re going to have to at least teach me something about British Literature to even compete.”
Fate solved the problem when a fraternity brother borrowed the Dodge Dart Pioneer D-500 hardtop one night, got drunk, and wrapped the woebegone face of the old black coupe all the way around a blue spruce tree three blocks from campus. The insurance company would have totaled the car. That is if Channing had paid the renewal premium whe he should have. He walked to class after that, got rides from friends, and saved every spare dime he could working at a local Runza fast food restaurant till he could afford to buy another car.
Again, it was a college professor that proved to be an asset. Not to the degree that Virginia Giddings had, to be sure. But Professor Mills, his Composition and Rhetoric teacher caught wind of Channing’s automotive plight and offered a solution. “My mother is no longer able to drive. She’s got a low mileage, ten year old Plymouth Valiant with only 21,000 miles on it,” he said. “It’s a great car. Like new, really. I need to get $700 out of the car. It all goes to putting her in a retirement home. But, I’d let you pay it out if you have any interest in it.”
Of course, the minute Channing saw the Valiant he loved it. The boy had been hooked on Exner-era midcentury masterpieces his entire life. The Valiant, complete with its sharp edged vertical lines fore and aft, massive greenhouse and grill, and nearly flawless red interior captured his heart like a summer school class in Amarillo. The 170 cubic inch inline six was a far cry from the 318 of the Dodge D-500, but a small sacrifice to make in order to not have to walk to class in the snow. And it made gas almost affordable.
“I won’t charge you interest on the $700,” Professor Mills said. “But the title stays with me till it’s paid for. And you pay the insurance on it along with the monthly payment.” Apparently the professor had heard the whole story of the demise of the D-500. “I’m sure you understand.”
Channing jumped on the deal like a sailor jumps on a hooker after six months at sea. He eventually took the Valiant to a gas station near campus and had the wide whitewalls turned to the inside so it didn’t look quite so much like a grandmother’s car. He drove it for years after that, till Mother Earth slowly reclaimed it in the snow and salt of the northern states he lived in during college and after graduation.
He was still thinking about the Valiant and the Dodge Dart when the sign flashed by him that said FORT STOCKTON NEXT EXIT. Channing moved over to the right in order to exit and looked at the cabin of the LeBaron, and compared it to the Dodge Dart and Valiant Signet. “How far the mighty have fallen,” he thought to himself.
Then he wondered just how to go about trying to find someone in a small Southwest Texas town.
4 responses to “TIS NONE MORE VALIANT”
gonna be an interesting finale . . . .
“The Nasty…”
One of my favorite authors is W.E.B. Griffin. His novels were mostly about the WWII era, and when his young officers of the Army talked about “these private things,” they referred to it as “The Beast with Two Backs!”
Back then, the local phone book and the town register at the library were the easiest resource for finding folks – easily by last name. His former teacher/lover might even be a youngish widow by that time, and surely, very visiting past teachers is acceptable – especially those who had influenced our liv s and careers.
Great story,Captain.