GROWING WILD: PART TWO OF CHAPTER 25 OF UNDERCOVER

WILDFLOWERS AND WEEDS

GROWING WILD PART TWO

Another time Hunter protested the conditions of my relationship with Joe was on Joe’s birthday. It had come to my attention that Joe’s birthday was approaching when a number of his friends were chiding him at the pub.

“What do you want for your birthday?” a friend harassed, slapping Joe on the back, next to the stool where I was seated. “What do you say, old man?”

“Not a damn thing from you, Mac,” Joe shot back. “You don’t have a damn thing I want.”

“How about this young lady right here?” Mac continued, putting his hand on my shoulder.

“She comes a damn sight closer than you do,” Joe yelled back. Then he was silent, as if in deep thought.

“I didn’t know it was your birthday,” I said, hoping to strike up a conversation.

“It’s not,” another friend responded, “but we’re getting started early. Hey, everybody,” he yelled to anyone who would listen. “Joe Turner gets a year older this Saturday, and we’re going to get him shit faced drunk. Any ladies who are interested, better step up before he gets too old to accommodate.”

“All I need from you is a damn drink, Buddy,” Joe yells through the laughter. “I can find my own women.”

“Okay, girls,” Buddy continues. “We’re looking for an 18-year old brick house who can lay one on, and never get as old as Joe, here. What do you say? Whose up to it?”

I felt like a wilted flower. I was a good bit younger than Joe Turner, but had passed 18 a good many years ago. I was also quite sure everyone in the bar knew Joe and I were casual lovers. I suddenly wanted to escape the bar without being noticed. I wanted to leave but did not want to call attention to my doing so. If only I could shrink down to nothing and disappear, that would have been fine with me. I don’t know how long I would have sat there frozen if Hunter had not suddenly appeared.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked me, as if he thought I had known of his presence.

“Yeah,” I managed. “I think so.”

“Then lets get the hell out of this dive,” he said, grinning. “and leave these old guys to get drunk alone, and wonder whether or not they can still accommodate.”

Joe turned all the way around to look at Hunter.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked, eyeing Hunter with curiosity.

“That’s not your problem,” Hunter retorted.

“He’s my roommate,” I corrected. “We live together. It’s a three is company arrangement. We aren’t lovers.”

“What the hell,” Joe is saying as we depart. I couldn’t hear anything else, because his friends were laughing so loudly the rest was not audible.

Hunter took the brotherly stance, insisting that I allow him to drive me home, and pick up my car later. He also lectured me all the way back to our apartment.

“Are you going to keep kissing his ass?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I insisted, still drinking what was left of my beer from a plastic cup. “I wasn’t kissing anybody’s ass. I was just sitting in a bar drinking.”

“Yeah, and I am interested in buying swampland in Florida, too,” Hunter stated. “You were sitting there like a slut waiting for Joe to ask you to leave with him. Do you think I’m stupid? I was there. I saw the whole thing. Why do you mess with him? He likes younger women, anyway.”

“How would you know what he likes?” I ask, finishing up what was left of the beer. “You don’t even know the guy.”

“Neither do you,” Hunter is insisting as he drives up to our apartment parking space. “Do you think having sex with someone is knowing them?”

He doesn’t wait for my answer.

“Well, its not,” he says, opening the door of his car, and waiting for me to get out on the passenger’s side. “I can’t believe you’re over 30 years old, and don’t even know what a real relationship is.”

“I know what a real relationship is,” I argue back. “I don’t need a 20-year old to tell me.”

“You know what one is,” Hunter continues, skipping every other step as he climbs the stairway leading to our apartment. “You just don’t ever have one.”

“I do so,” I defend myself.

“When?” he is insistent. “When have you ever had a real relationship where the guy takes you out on dates and treats you special?”

This was cutting below the belt and I wished he would stop. I was silent. I had only gone out on blind dates with people to whom I was not attracted. Most of my encounters with men were similar to the one I was having with Joe Turner, and it had been that way since my first lover, Robert Anderson, at sixteen years old. I didn’t know how to change this, but I certainly didn’t need a twenty year old guy preaching at me as if he were my father.

“So,” Hunter continues. “I’m right. You don’t know how to have a real relationship. You need to ditch that dude. He’s a loser, and you’re acting like a slut.”

I’m silent.

“Has he ever called you? Does he ever call you?”

Hunter unlocks the door to our apartment, and we walk into the lobby. Denise is nowhere in sight.

“Do you want to get high,” he asks me.

“No,” I respond. “I just want to be alone.”

“Have it your way,” he remarks. Suddenly, his brown eyes look sad.

“Did I make you feel bad?” he is asking me. “Was I too mean?”

“What do you think, you asshole,” I respond. “Everyone loves being told how stupid they are, and that they act like a slut. It’s the kind of thing that makes you feel real good about yourself.”

“I’m sorry,” he says in earnest. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” I state coldly. “It’s not the way to win friends and influence people.”

“Listen,” Hunter says, rolling a reefer in papers purchased from the local convenience store. “I care about you. I think you’re better than that. I don’t like watching you let that guy treat you like you’re just another piece of ass.”

Hunter inhales the reefer deeply and holds his breath.

“Okay, Okay,” I say, embarrassed. I am feeling degraded and want to end the discussion. “Lets not talk about it any more. I just want to be alone right now. Okay?”

Hunter exhales. He lays the reefer on a nearby ashtray.

“Sure, have it your way.”

“I will.” I turn to approach the stairway leading to my room.

“You need to find someone who treats you like a lady,” Hunter says before closing the door of his bedroom.

Finally, in my bed alone, I ponder the night’s events. It wasn’t as bad as Hunter made it feel, I tell myself. Joe did take notice of me leaving the pub with Hunter. Perhaps, my leaving with a younger man made Joe feel jealous. I drift off to sleep, telling myself that Hunter had over dramatized my image as being that of a slut. I was not the only woman who had ever left that bar with a man. Hunter was still young, and a little bit self-righteous. He would mellow with age.

GROWING WILD PART TWO IS THE SECOND PART OF CHAPTER 25 OF UNDERCOVER; TO READ PREVIOUS CHAPTERS CLICK LINK BELOW:

http://hubpages.com/_2pvzhao591xs4/hub/UNDERCOVER-SYNOPSIS-OF-MY-FIRST-NOVAL