I met Carol one Saturday or Sunday afternoon when I had first started going to Anna Bannana's, not too long after I got divorced. It was around 6 PM and Anna's was fairly deserted. King Kong was playing on the television and when I sat down beside this extremely pretty young woman, she started telling me something or other about Fay Wray. It was clear that she knew something about acting.
She seemed to remember me when I saw her next a week later and we had a friendly conversation about nothing in particular. There was a jar behind the bar collecting money for some worthy local charity and she said, ``I'd really like to give them something but I don't have any money with me right now.'' So I offered to lend her $15, which she accepted. I figured, ``Great! Now I'll have a good excuse to talk to her next time I see her.''
It turned out to be at least two or three weeks before I did see her again, this time on a fairly crowded evening. I knew that she probably wouldn't have the money to pay me back with her, so when she came in I said, ``Guess who owes me $15! And guess who can't pay me back right now!'' To which her response was not at all friendly. ``What are you talking about? Are you trying to con me out of money by claiming you lent it to me?''
``No, no, that's fine,'' I said. ``No big deal, you can have it as a gift.'' But then she wanted to know if I truly had lent her money, and I told her the details, and finally she said she remembered, but I was not really convinced that she did. Anyway, she promised to pay me back the next time she saw me. ``I'm sorry I didn't believe you at first but I have to be careful because people take advantage of me that way.''
Then I saw her several times and she didn't have the money but she did remember about it. Then there were a couple of weeks when I didn't see her at all and finally I came in one night and she was there said, ``Where have you been? I've been looking all over for you trying to pay your $15 back. And I called several times to see if you were here, but I couldn't remember your name and I tried describing you but the bartenders didn't know who I was talking about. I don't have the money with me tonight. I've already spent all my beer money and I'm not willing to spend my pot money. But call me tomorrow night at six when I get home from work and I'll meet you and we'll have a few drinks together and I'll pay you back your money.''
Well, that sounded great! For a mere $15 I was getting a date with what was probably the best looking woman who used to come into Anna's at that time and furthermore I was getting the money back! I explained that it might be a day or two before I could call her and she said, ``Fine. Just do it soon.''
I was sitting at the bar, and she left me to sit at a table with a bunch of friends. But several times during the evening she came back up to me, saying ``Be sure and call me!'' and even kissing me a few times.
Two days later I called her. ``Hi, this is Lee, and I wondered if tonight would be a good time for us to get together.''
``Who is this?''
``This is Lee. You said you'd like to get together some evening and I wondered if tonight would be a good time.''
``Well, where are you calling from?''
``Um, from my apartment.''
``Where is that?''
``In Makiki. You wouldn't know, you've never been here.'' I didn't understand what was going on.
Finally, after a long pause, she said, ``I'm sorry, I can't quite seem to place you.''
So I went through the explanation about Anna's and the $15 and she said, rather uncertainly, ``Oh yeah. Well right now I'm making dinner so I can't go out, but I'm sure I'll see you at Anna's sometime soon.''
I think she finally did pay me back. It seemed too awkward to explain after all that that I didn't really care about the money.
We never did go on a date, but after that we were great friends. She had that child's quality that Petra does, but unlike Petra there was no question at all that Carol was missing a few cents on the dollar. She liked to sit in guys' laps, although she never sat in mine. (She was attracted to much younger guys.) People's attitude toward her was somewhat like like the attitude of adults toward a four year old. I remember I was once engaged in a fairly serious conversation with my friend Bill and a couple other people when she came in. Everyone immediately dropped the subject of conversation and paid attention to what she wanted to talk about until she walked off again five minutes or so later, at which point we resumed our conversation.
I was sitting at the bar one night and she came in and said hello and I put my arm around her waist. Or so I thought, until she said, ``I think you'd better move your hand.'' She was fairly short and I was of course on a barstool, and my hand was in fact almost precisely over her breast. She was wearing a tube-top covered with spangles and I hadn't felt a thing. We joked about it for a few minutes, but I could see that she really didn't like it.
That was a Thursday night and so I was drinking tequilas (there actually is a logic to this) and after an hour or so I was quite a bit drunker than I now like to get. Carol was sitting at a table with a bunch of friends and I went past to go to the bathroom. I wanted to emphasize to her that I really hadn't known my hand had been on her breast. And so on my way back from the bathroom I stopped by her table and, in an drunken attempt at diplomacy, said, ``Either you're really flat chested or you're strapped down very tight tonight.''
Oddly enough, she didn't find this funny. :-) She glared at me for a minute and then reached up to her tube top and pulled down one side to expose a breast saying, ``You can judge for yourself.'' And then, of course, she *really* got mad at me, for having made her do such a stupid thing in front of her friends.
Carol was a woman that I definitely did think about rescuing. I knew that she didn't have much money and I thought about offering to let her live with me. But I didn't think she'd really be willing to and I was rather apprehensive as to what I might be getting myself into, taking some sort of responsibility for such a total space cadet.
A year or two later on, I regretted not having made the offer. I was then working as a volunteer at the Suicide & Crisis Center and she called one night. She didn't know it was me, of course, but I fairly quickly became sure it was her. I learned that she was now living with some older guy who had several children that he expected her to take care of and treated her fairly badly, at least according to her account.
I realized then that space cadets do know how to survive. They may spend a lot of their time out beyond Pluto, but they have learned certain basic survival skills to keep them going.
But then I also found out that Carol had put herself in the hospital by jumping off a porch roof because she was angry about something. I don't think she'd intended to kill herself, just to hurt herself badly enough to cause a lot of trouble.
I don't suppose I could really have coped with living with someone that crazy, when I think of the way I have my life organized rather meticulously and systematically, with lots of time available to devote to my own quiet introspective pursuits.
And I suppose the same applies to Petra. It was sure fun having her here for eleven days, though!
Love & roses,
--Lee
February 4, 1995