Abio Episode 9: Cheri Comes and She Goes - February 11 2024

For Sunday, February 11, 2024 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 1,089 words

Abio episode 9: descent into the maelstrom

My lovely joyous Jane had been gone for too many days. I was sitting in Romey’s Bar late trying to be convivial. Romey let people 18 and up come in for food, but no booze until 21, which I was not. Many friends were there, but I barely spoke.

It was late Friday night, after work and a shower.

A few words about that shower. Carbon is so dirty, that after each shift, all workers were required to shower together in a large basement facility. Yes, about two dozen guys showered elbow to elbow after their shift, all lathered up. It was weird, but we got used to it.

My friend Gretchen was shooting against Cheri, a new girl in town from Brockport, 14 miles southwest. Cheri was a good shot and winning soundly. She was on the 8 ball while Gretchen’s balls were scattered about. She sank the 8 and Gretchen had to pay for the next game. Cheri won again. She was experienced and over 21.

I was willing to watch one more game, and then I’d go up to my room where I had just started reading Edgar Allan Poe’s “Descent into the Maelstrom.”

However, Gretchen had had enough and hung up her stick. Cheri motioned to me to play with her, and I agreed. I wasn’t such a bad shot myself, being a regular at Gigolo’s pool hall.

We talked as we played and made each other laugh. At one point, Cheri sank a long shot and vamped me with a bare shoulder. I won the game, but barely, and offered to pay for the next one.

Gretchen walked over to tell Cheri it was time to go, but Cheri declined. She wanted to play the freshly racked game.

“Suit yourself,” said Gretchen. They left Cheri behind and drove home to Portland Mills, nine miles away, southwest.

Cheri and I played the next game, and I won easily. Her aim seemed off, perhaps from her third beer. We put our sticks away. Time for me to go to Poe. Cheri told me she had no place to stay for the night and asked me where I lived. I pointed to the ceiling. My apartment was directly over the pool table.

“Gretchen ditched me,” she said, with a pretty pout. “Can I sleep at your place?”

It was an irresistible offer, and I was a kind and lonely soul, so I agreed.

I didn’t get in any reading that night. She said she was on the pill. We slept in the next morning and talked some more. She laughed a lot. Everything I said seemed brilliant and funny to her. She was a great audience.

After a trip to the bathroom in a towel for a bath, she hopped back onto the bed and said, “I’d love to meet your mother. I bet she’s fantastic. Can we go visit her?”

Why? I wondered. Such an odd request, but it sounded innocent enough. “My mom’s pretty nice,” I replied.

My mother still lived in town at that time. She hadn’t yet gone off to live in exile in a trailer on Boone’s Mountain with Bulk the wonder slug.

I missed my mother, too, about then, and agreed. We walked the few blocks to her place. On the way, I told Cheri, “My mother’s name is Beulah, but everyone calls her Boots.”

When my mother was 14 in rural Oklahoma a man in his 30s came to the door and asked if he could take her as his wife. My grandfather agreed. “Can’t afford to feed her anyhow,” she said he said. She left with a small sack of clothing and her big red boots.

Cheri thought that story was charming. I introduced Cheri to Boots, and, man, did they hit it off, gabbing away. Cheri told my mother how beautiful she was and what a handsome man she had raised, patting my thigh. “What was Steve like as a little boy? I bet he was adorable.” Cheri was pouring on the charm.

My mother got out a photo album, and they flipped through pictures of me. Cheri loved every picture in the book. “Oh, he’s so cute.” There I was, a nude infant, lying on my belly on a wooly blanket. Another picture had me as a toddler dressed as a cowboy with shirt snaps, a brimmed hat, and tin six-guns at my side, sitting on a black and white pony. “So handsome,” she said. She followed that up with a question. “Do you have any grandchildren?”

My mother replied that she did have four granddaughters, my sister Carol’s girls.

“Oh,” said Cheri. “No grandsons?” She looked straight at me. Her eyes went through my brain and bounced off the back of my skull.

“Not yet,” said mom. Well, well.

It then dawned on me. Cheri was out husband hunting and probably willing to make a baby if need be. I’d already been down that road. I was in her sights.

“Time to go,” I said to end that conversation.

We left and walked around town. We had lunch at the Pennsy Restaurant along Elk Creek. “So, how are you getting home to Brockport?” I asked.

Cheri called Gretchen from the outside pay phone. Back in the booth, she said, “Gretchen is going to pick me up tomorrow morning. Can I stay with you another night?”

That’s when another horrible thought hit me. What if I got her pregnant last night? Maybe she was lying about the pill. My heart was in my throat. And now she wanted another go around? A second try at planting the seed? What to do?

An idea hit me.

“You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” I asked. “I’ve always wanted to fool around while drunk. That would be wild.”

“Whatever,” she said. “If you have money, I’ll buy the whiskey. She was 21.

We walked to the State Store and bought a bottle of Seagram’s VO. Visions of Cheryl, the clinic, the hollow faces, and the smashed window flashed in my head.

We stopped in for burgers and billiards at Romeys after sundown. Then we retired to my room. I put Poe on the shelf and drank whiskey like a sailor until I was too plastered to perform and passed out. She tried to wake me, but I resisted.

The next morning, Gretchen came to my door and drove Cheri out of my life.

RIP Jane Gallagher 2017, RIP Cheryl Mitchelltree 2022. The ring I retrieved from Cheryl went on Susan’s finger when we got married, and when our son Adam got married, that ring when to his wife. When I moved to California, I lived with Alan and Cheryl for the first month.