Scattershooting while thinking what ever happened to Chuck

By A. Daniel Bodine

desertmountaintimes.com 

Thought of Chuck the other night. Probably the craziest roommate I ever had in my college years. When I met him he'd spent three years in the Army; four in the Marine Corps; and 2 ½ more hiding in Arlington, TX, from his ex-wife, who lived in Virginia. She had three of his kids and had sicced the law on him for failure to make child support payments. Dum-de-Dum-dum... Hee, hee. Get to that later.

What is more significant, I suppose, is how his name is (was?) recorded in that Big Book in the Sky. We're all predestined at birth, let's say, to a positioned seat (or randomly placed in one, just as many will argue now) aboard a constantly swirling/hovering, often darting back-and-forth spacecraft--a spiritual time machine on a voyage, if you will--that's called Life.

One microsecond of an instant before we're born, a seat becomes vacant in this divine Voyager; and then poof! there we are, in it, ready or not. Delivered by Who? Or by what?

A cosmos heartbeat later, we're dared and sometimes double and even triple dared (by whoever or whatever, thru the same imprint a simple mustard seed carries), to not only live out our inherent destiny, to manifest that position given us, but to grow beyond it also—Yo, Bud, to move civilization up a notch!--before our time on the magic time machine is just as magically snuffed out.

To essentially manifest the Great Spirit's vision, is our goal; to work off indebtedness from the opportunity to be placed in one of Life's seat in the first place; and, furthermore, to prove our worthiness for a more honored seat in the future. Should that occasion come up. Isn't that what the Big Book is for?

Now, Chuck, he was always ready to scratch, to get on with it, to prove his worthiness for a better seat. He was so itchy sometimes I became afraid he was risking slipping down a rung or two on that ladder, the one to the Big Book. But I never once said a prayer for him about it, I did. Ashamed, I should be. I guess. Life is hope, right?

Why did I think of Chuck last week? Guilt, maybe. It's the Southwest summer skies. Heavens are full of stars now. The way the various galaxies will swirl off toward the horizons...Whooo! Sitting out back a couple nights ago, the stars—backfilled as they were with the lights of El Paso-- were so close, some of 'em you wanted to reach out and grab and just eat it as a snow cone. Really heady stuff, these Texas summer skies.

But it reminded me, it did, of nights spent on the campus benches at UT Arlington in the summer of '64, when the school was still Arlington State College, I think; and Chuck was my roommate. Those concrete rounders beneath the huge oak trees 2-3 blocks east of the SUB? Those are the ones. View of the skies from beneath those trees late at night, with a little breeze blowing the branches, is awesome.

Spent hours laying on 'em late some nights, whenever Chuck would strike it lucky at barhoppin' and bring some woman home with him, that is. Hee, hee. That was the deal; it was his apartment. I was kind of desperate when he allowed me to move in with him. And I readily agreed to hightail it on notice. Usually a phone call. The benches were cheaper than a motel room.

The management had advised me at my previous apartment I was no longer welcomed, you see. Vacate pronto! I was told. Kinda snotty of the manager. Everyone gets a little raucous with his drinks sometimes. So, lucky I was to've found Chuck at the time, yes. And he knew it.

But the time I spent with him was a real adventure, too. I was enrolled in summer classes at ASC to get my grades up for that fall term (trying to stay out of Vietnam, is what I was really doing); working long hours every evening in the shipping department at Mrs. Baird's Bakery in Fort Worth, to earn a sustainable living.

While pretending all the while--to high heaven, sometime--that I wasn't really madly in love with Ginger; and thus in no way would ever want to do something stupid like get married, settle down and have a family.

Vigilant, I was, fighting that constant, mimicking refrain that some idiot places in the head of the young and the restless at Life's Crossroads; that rhythmic, drumbeat siren of the entrenched los miserables--Society's responsible class—to essentially go throw your private life off a cliff somewhere; and Lend us a hand here, son; will 'ya? We need your help.

You kidding? Look what happened to Chuck? I could easily tell Ginger.

She was too much class for me, anyway. I knew that. A drama student enrolled at SMU, she was going to be an actress. I was going to be a writer. You do a lot of pretending when young. Naive of barriers later on.

She ended up running away years later with some damn hippy with size 13 1 /2 shoes, to hike mountains for a couple of years in Europe. And he wouldn't even buy her hiking shoes. Or couldn't. Last I heard she was squeezing out a living in New York making public radio documentaries.

And Chuck (and those concrete benches on the ASC campus) was how I escaped it all; or delayed it—Life, that is. Maybe it's just my philosophy. But if Life is following a burning fuse—that goes to a powder keg we call God—and the ashes behind you are history, the knowledge you've gained in following the string, then why not go slowly? And experience more of it?

Chuck worked at some firm in Arlington's large industrial district, manufacturing those clear jet aircraft canopies. He'd brought one home with him before I moved in; sealed up the ends with plexiglass or whatever it was; and hung it upside down from the living-room ceiling.

He then filled it with water; put a couple of large, constantly nervous goldfish in it; placed this huge brown bear rug underneath it, as a shine-on-silver-moon lover's do-it-all mat; and then mounted a strobe light on the ceiling in front of the picture window, to make sure you had the feeling this love trip was really going to take you out of the world. Sheesh! Might as well have gone and purchased a lottery ticket.

Walking by and seeing the scene from the outside at night, that strobe light made you feel like someone had slipped LSD into your drink at the last hitching post. 'Course he'd only pull the curtain when he had a strike. Those in neighboring apartments sometimes would ask him later, Chuck, how do you find a woman in her right mind to even think about crawling up underneath that thing with you, huh?

He didn't. I saw a lot more stars looking through the oak tree branches at night on the campus across the street at ASC, than he could ever conjure up with his lighted-up, jet-canopied imitation of a meaningful relationship. Still, I was always a bit wary returning home 4-5 hours later. Afraid I'd find two homicides on the floor. Death by goldfish assault. Oh, so many stories on Chuck.

This was the time, too, when he'd gotten his student pilot's license, and scrounged up an old, vintage, 2-seated Aeronca Champ airplane somewhere. I have no idea why I'd ever agreed to fly with him in that thing. But (isn't this what we always say?), It just seemed like a good idea.

Because it was a student license, Chuck was not allowed to carry a passenger. So I'd drop him off at the Arlington Airport, where the plane was hangered, and then drive over to the Grand Prairie Airport, where he'd fly over to and get me.

He'd learned to fly well, I'll say that for him. Even though both of us were crazy. His thrill was rolling the plane, or flipping it in midair; and the Aeroncas are good for that. The passenger seat was behind the pilot's seat. Chuck would hear me screaming all kinds of obscenities at him for the danger he was putting us in, then turn around to look at me and laugh the laugh of the devil. That was how he had his fun.

In August he wasn't laughing though. Undercover officers executed the Virginia arrest warrant on him then. Came in and awakened us; I think it was late on a Sunday night. His hiding from his ex-wife was over. He was taken to jail. To await what is usually a transfer back to the court of original jurisdiction in lieu of a bond.

I went back to bed, but not before a decision. It was one of those devil/and/a/woman-made-me-do-it things. Since it was the first part of August, his share of the rent was already paid. I didn't have to worry about it for almost a month. And I sure didn't have money to get him out on bond.

But Chuck had left two payroll checks on his bedroom dresser. I want to say each was for six hundred and something. More than enough to make a bond probably. What should I do tomorrow? I thought.

Like any good man in a relationship, I called and asked the better half—Ginger. Don't do anything, stupid!August of '64, indeed, was special. And never once did we have to turn on that damn strobe light.

Toward the end of the last week, on one of the mornings, I went to the Tarrant County Jail over in Fort Worth. Carried the two checks with me. Met an assistant prosecutor in a hallway. I had the feeling the State of Virginia had forgotten they even had issued the arrest warrant.

The attorney seemed glad to see me. I was the only inquiry they'd had on Chuck. He eagerly took the two checks; told me he'd get my roommate bonded out that afternoon. I left.

When Chuck arrived back at the apartment several hours later, I'd never seen him happier. He'd been back out to his workplace, and everything was OK. Some of the guys already had nicknamed him Jailbird. And the arrangement the attorney had fixed for him was to start making sizable payments every month. No problem, Chuck said.

Everything OK with you? he asked.

It was very difficult to make a straight face, but I did it.

Oh, yes. Working and going to school, 'bout all. Got good grades in both my courses. Means I'm eligible to return this fall.

Good, he said.

Yes, life was good then. Made for the stars. Swirls at a time.

--30--