When Carol Ann returned to Samsford to introduce her new husband, Kenney Jones, to her parents, they were anything but happy. With her relatives and friends, the reaction was even colder. When they attended services at her church, the church where she’d been christened and confirmed, the whispers and looks were like a cold November breeze. After the service as they passed out of the church, Pastor Heuchler had almost managed to avoid shaking Kenney’s hand. Carol Ann couldn’t miss the cold look that this man of God had given the husband she loved. At that point she finally realized how much the open culture in the Air Force had changed her. But that wasn’t all that crossed her mind. She finally realized what her hometown Samsford really was and she remarked to Kenney, “I’m sorry to have brought you here but maybe it’s better you see it too. See what a shithole Samsford really is – full of hypocrites like Pastor Heuchler.”
Having seen her husband crapped on by her parents, church members and friends, Carol Ann was only too glad to accept when Cora called her at her parents’ home and suggested they meet for coffee. After the obligatory exchange about living conditions, health and work, Cora more or less invited Carol Ann to let off steam about how her husband was being received by family and friends and neighbors.
Cora: “Must be kinda tough. You got a wonderful husband and he gets snubbed.”
Carol Ann: “I don’t know what makes me madder, the phony Christians or the phony patriots. These phony Christians with all their platitudes. I get so sick of hearing stuff like: ‘God bless you,’ ‘It’s God’s will’ and all that goody-goody shit. They substitute that shit for real Christian love. Then you got these phony patriots like Kurt Grossmaul. He thinks planting a flag in front of his house makes him a real American patriot. Kurt was really crude, one of the worst. But they’re all snubbing Kenney. Goddamn it, when you think of all he and other service people go through and the risks they take. After Kenney graduated from the Air Force’s Chinese language school, they sent him to Okinawa to crew in an RB-50. You know what those air crews did? They flew up and down the Formosa Strait listening in on Chinese Communist communications. There they were in a 4-engine WW2 vintage airplane, top speed not even 300 mph, and they’re getting buzzed by Chinese supersonic Mig 19’s. All one of those Chinese pilots had to do was touch the fire button and 30mm cannon rounds woulda made that old RB-50 look like Swiss cheese or worse. My Kenney woulda been shark shit.
“And that fucking pastor, that Heuchler asshole, didn’t even want to shake his hand. Well maybe that’s understandable, the goddamn churches been misusing Christianity to fuck over people of color for centuries. What I really can’t see though is those phony patriots with flags in front of their houses — when they snub Kenney, that’s really rock bottom. And the dumb shits, they still hate Charlie Dalman cause they think he’s a Communist. Yeah he’s a Commie alright, that’s why he’s out in Nam risking his ass to fight the Commies. You know what, people oughta have to pass a test to vote. Well then again, maybe not. That’s how the crackers in Barber County, Alabama kept Kenney’s dad from voting. You know Kenney’s dad was hurt real bad in WW2? In the 1321st Engineers, they were trying to save the Remagen bridge. It went down. He wasn’t hurt all that bad, but he lost a lot a blood and it took too long to get a transfusion in him. You know why? They didn’t have any black blood in that field aid station. They only had white blood. By the time they got the right type black blood, the damage was done.”
Cora didn’t want Carol Ann to get too wound up. “He’s working in Washington, in an office now, isn’t he?”
Carol Ann: “Yes he is. At least I don’t have to wonder every day if he’s gonna be back in our bed that night. He can’t tell me a thing about what he does though, my clearance isn’t anywhere near high enough. Hardly anybody’s is. It’s pretty well known that the real big shots in the Pentagon are scared shitless that the Chicoms are gonna get fed up with a half million GI’s so close to their front door and decide to do what they did in Korea. Kenney’s a specialist in Chinese language so it’s not too hard to guess what he might be doing.”
Cora thought she should try to steer the conversation more toward how smart Kenney must be. “Chinese must be really hard to learn. Did Kenney study it in college?”
“College? Kenney? Are you kidding? His family was way too poor for that. And anyway, Kenney went to one of those separate-but-equal high schools. You know, the ones on the wrong side of the tracks? They don’t send many graduates to college. Get a scholarship, no chance. Kenney saw only one chance to get out from under — the military. He thought the Air Force was the best way up.”
Once Cora sensed that Carol Ann had gotten all the frustration with the Samsford population off her chest, she turned the chat in the direction she wanted with: “I guess we got more in common than going to the same church and the same high school.”
“You mean having a thing with Charlie? Yeah in a way but I only went with him for a few months. You went with him for what, way over a year, not?”
Cora: “Actually, almost two. Then my Mom heard some gossip about you and Charlie and Mary Ellen and Charlie. At first she just laughed it off, but it gnawed at her and Dad, so finally she approached your mom and Mary Ellen’s mom. Sure, they didn’t come right out and say that Charlie had done it with their daughters, but what they did say convinced her that he must have seduced both of you. Dad started adding things up and they confronted him. Say, you only went out with him for a couple months, but you did it with him, didn’t you?”
Carol Ann: “It didn’t take anywhere near a couple months for stuff to happen. I was really in love with him. That’s why it went so fast.”
Cora knew very well how fast Charlie worked, but she really wanted to hear how he worked his magic with Carol Ann. “Sounds familiar. Care to tell.”
Carol Ann: “You gonna tell me how it was with you?” Cora’s enthusiastic head nodding was all the encouragement she needed to tell some things she had never dared tell anyone else — least of all her husband. “Like I said, I loved him so much. First it was a crush, you know tingling nerves just from him looking my way. Then there’d be a few words exchanged and afterwards, the rest of the day trying to get some hidden meaning from what he’d said to me. When he finally asked me out — to go see that film ‘A Summer Place’ — I couldn’t say ‘yes’ quick enough. What a sexy film that was, you remember? And the theme song, I had the record. Used to play it long after we broke up — always with lots of tears. Well actually I still do sometimes, but only when Kenney’s gone on TDA’s.”
Cora: “My God, you still got the hots for him?”
Carol Ann: “You won’t tell anybody will you? Hots, I wouldn’t call it that, more like nostalgia for what wasn’t meant to be. In a way, I should thank Charlie. The thing I had with him and my parents making a big deal of it – I joined the Air Force to get away from all that. And it’s in the Air Force that I met Kenney. So it’s almost like because of Charlie, I got Kenney. Well, actually there’s more I got from Charlie — all he taught me, all the stuff we did. Just looking at you Cora, I bet you’re still hung up on him. Or not?”
Cora couldn’t begin to tell her friend all the situations where she dreamed Charlie was naked with her. Maybe she’d tell Carol Ann how she masturbated in the bathtub dreaming Charlie was putting it to her. “Hung up? Well yes, I guess that’s a pretty good way to describe it. Who could forget Charlie when you’ve known him like we have. But go ahead, you were saying your first date with Charlie was going to the movies.”
Carol Ann: “Yeah well, anyway, we go see ‘A Summer Place’ — you remember – with Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee. God was that hot stuff, all the romances and affairs. The kind a movie that makes the hot in you get hotter. Afterwards we had root beer at the A&W. Then he drives out to a spot in the South Fork bottoms. Like real quick, things get intense. Then all at once, he breaks off and gives me this look — a look that says ‘where is this going?’ I didn’t know what to say and I thought I had to say something. See Cora, going with a guy like Charlie, there’s always the fear that he dumps you for someone prettier, smarter or more willing.”
Cora had known this feeling very well. She nodded and gave Carol Ann an understanding smile.
Carol Ann: “Over root beers at the A&W, we’d talked about political stuff, like from history and civics classes. Religion, that came up too. Back then I thought our church was the only true religion and the only one where the members were real Christians. Remember how people said Charlie was a Communist and an atheist? I wanted so bad that he’d go with me to church and not be a Communist. It hit me that maybe I’d pushed too hard and now Charlie might dump me for it. I just wanted to let him know he wouldn’t have to change to have me.”
Cora: “So you told him you’d take him just the way he was?”
Carol Ann: “Not exactly. Maybe that’s how I should have put it. No, I told him I’d do anything for him. What I meant was that religion and politics didn’t matter, he could be himself. He took it differently. He looked at me with just the slightest grin and twinkling eyes and said ‘Anything?’ When I nodded a ‘yes’, he says, ‘okay Carol Ann, take off your panties.’ It was like I was under a spell as I reached under my dress with both hands and tugged my panties down to my knees.”
Cora: “So that’s when he groped you the first time?”
Carol Ann: “He was smoother than that, or more devious. Same look on his face, he says, ‘All the way Carol Ann, all the way off and give them to me.’ So I pull my panties down over my knees, kick off my shoes and then slide them all the way off. He put out his hand and I surrendered my panties to him. He sniffed them, especially the damp spot. Actually he sort of kissed the damp spot. I was like mesmerized, stunned. But he knew exactly what he wanted to do. Pushed my dress up out of the way, spread my legs and bent over and kissed me down there. It was like an electric shock and I think I lost consciousness when he ran his tongue over my clitoris. I didn’t resist a bit when he said we needed to get in the back seat. There he had a towel that he spread out for me to lay on. On his knees between my legs, he tore down his jeans and shorts and there it was, standing out with the red head glistening.”
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