TMO: Time Marching On # 4

Westlake Village, California

May 14, 2021

9:18 AM

Yesterday night

11:05 PM

Amazing how easy it was to induce them to come aboard for a cruise around the lake, and a martini or two.

Old ladies almost always will not turn down a martini, or two. Then, of course, reluctant to let them drive home under the influence, ask if they’d like to come home with us until they sobered up when we’d drive them back to The Landing parking lot. Or…”

Amazing how many old ladies looked forward to the ‘Or’ factor that were more than willing to come home with us two good looking older gentlemen.”

“Yeah, Ron! Of course we did.”

1105 PM

“See you checking your watch. If you want to leave, it’s okay.

May 14, 2021

9:18 AM

Me to you…

Who’s ‘you’? You might ask. ‘You’! You’re who’s ‘you’, and you’re about to pick me up and you and me are going to go to Dennys for breakfast.

9:20 AM

Hearing the ‘beep’ of your horn. “ ‘Morning!” Calling out the front door. Hold on a second, want to tell Marcie we’re leaving.”

Knocking on the bathroom door.

The door opening a crack. “Yeah, Mitch?”

“Just wanted to to let you know we’re leaving.”

Due to failing eyesight along with the fact that I almost hit a motorcycle cop last February — which is never a good thing, I gave Marcie my car keys and we cancelled my drovers insurance.

“Who’s picking you up?”

“Ronald.”

“Where you going?”

“I’d guess probably just to Dennys.”

Opening the door wider. “Okay. Say ‘hi’ to him for me.”

Knowing what she was doing, opening the bathroom door wide enough for me to see her nude body, which even now, after sixty-six years... my wife still knows how to get to me.

Leaning forward, kissing Marsha lightly on the lips; while really wanting to misjudge enough to get to her tits. “I will, baby.”

“Have a good breakfast.”

At this age, boners not as sprightly as even a couple of years back. “Always do, baby.”

9:23 AM

“Marcie says ‘hi’!”

“Yeah, I’ll tell her when we get back.”

Sitting, pulling the door shut.

“Where was I last night?... Oh, yeah. Should I just go on?”

“Yeah, I know you’ve heard most of this stuff before, but I still fell in a kind of a, uh, nostalgic, reflective mood.”

A lovely Southern California spring morning, opening the window mid-way, slouching on the seat so the warm breeze, ruffling my hair, would get to me.

“Where was I last night? Yeah. Well, when a guy’s younger, why would he even think of it. And as he gets older, ‘what the hell does it even matter’?

But now, at our age, surprisingly — at least as far as Milt and I were concerned, most of the old ladies we picked up at ‘The Landing’...Or maybe some times it was of the old ladies that picked Milt and me up — and then we’d take them for a boat ride around the lake, along, of course, with a martini or two and sometimes even three and by then most of those old ladies couldn’t wait to wrap their hands and mouths around our cocks.

So back then… In the twenty-four years during the time of my divorce, things for me weren't exactly sexless. And because I was never hard up for money, life was pretty good during those twenty-four years.”

Waiting until a break in traffic allowing us onto U.S. 101 North.

“And then I did something that I’d never do now…”

Speeding up a bit, then melding into the west bound morning traffic.

“What did I do? Well, let me tell you, Ron, I’d never do it now because whatever goes onto the internet stays on the internet but… I guess it started sometime in 2008. Her name was Barbara and I met her online in an authors website…”

“Why?... Oh, guess I never told you, but back then I had an idea for a book and joined this authors website thinking I could get some ideas, and actually did write and submit a few short stories and that’s how I met her.”

Slowing for a line of slow moving traffic, giving me time  to pull my thoughts together.

“Barbara was… I’d never been into poetry, but after she posted a fantastic review for one of my stories, I went to her page and began to read her poetry and…” stopping, remembering “...some of it… Don’t know what to say, but some of what she had written was so beautiful I just had to send… I guess some of my reviews were kind of poetic in themselves, and pretty soon we began an ongoing Email — that eventually turned into Email and telephone conversations that were well, friendly/formal at first, going to what might be referred to as minimally flirtatious, then soon went beyond ‘minimally’, as in some of our spoken and written conversations — I know that I did, and I think she had also skirted the word ‘honey’.Then, in a short time, more than a few times the word ‘love’ slipped into our ongoing day and night conversations, which should not have been spoken or written and absolutely should have deleted, but wasn’t.”

Picking up speed. Matching the sixty-five mile per hour speed of the vehicles in the lanes to our right and left.

“What’s this have to do with me and Marsha getting kicked off the lake?”

“Yeah, I’ll get to it, Ron! But give this old man a chance to relive his misspent youth…

Youth? Hell! I was seventy-four at the time and Barbara was fifty — twenty-four years my junior. And besides — strange thing was, I still had no idea what she looked like.”

Slowing… moving into the lane to our left, then speeding up again.

“You know, all the subscribers to the authors website were asked to submit a picture of themselves that would then appear with their written submissions, but Barbara wouldn’t do it, so there was no picture of Barbara, so I had no idea what the hell she looked like.”

Gliding into the far right-hand lane, angling onto the ‘Wendy’ freeway exit.

“But what, I thought at that time, did it really matter because she lived someplace in Long Island, New York and me here, three thousand miles away in Southern California and the odds of us ever personally meeting were Zero...”

Exiting the 101, onto the busy street that would shortly bring us to the Dennys parking lot.

“...So I supposed — using my imagination, I could imagine Barbara looking any way I wanted her to look — you know, big tits, small tits, blonde, brunette, and…”

Pulling into the lot and parking in a spot directly before the entrance to Dennys.

“Hold on a second!”

Hesitating before leaving the car.

“Never told anyone this! But it was so long ago, guess it doesn’t really matter now, but, ‘yeah’. Strictly between you and me! Guy to guy! We ‘did’. Barbara and me… one night when her husband was out — my imagination in overdrive, we did have telephone sex…”

“Yeah, it’s true ! I was horny as hell and didn’t know if she really came, but by the way I heard her breathing, it sure as hell sounded like she did. And me? Between you and me, yeah, I sure as hell did.”

Exiting the car and going into Dennys, escorted to a booth overlooking the parking lot.

“Yes, coffee, please,” I said when asked. Then, within a minute, after both cups were fulled and the server turned away...

“Remember, nothing that Barbara or me said, or did over the computer or phone from then on — and we did fuck again — from over three thousand miles apart mattered because there was never a chance that we would really meet. And. as she’d told me, her husband was completely unfeeling and no longer even seems to notice her. And, as I was so far away and by myself, so…. So why not enjoy this sexual fantasy with a blonde or brunette woman with large or small tits of whatever appearance and proportions I could and did imagine…

But then.”

A waitress standing alongside the booth.

“Eggs over medium, hash browns crispy and sausage, please, and… Uh — Dennys having no bagels — sourdough toast.

Strange, that even now...

U.S Coast Guard

Third District Headquarters:

New York, N.Y.

July 30, 1956

Surprising Mitchell, not so much for the beyond-regulation length as its color, the man had tightly  curled, platinum colored hair, and was loudly…

“Ba-ba-ba-bummm!Ba-ba-ba-ummm!”…ba-ba-bumming along with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which roared over the radio in ear-piercing competition with the clacking and grinding of the Addressograph plate-making machine.

“Hey!”

The man did not hear over the noise of the radio and machine.

Coming further into the room, tapping him on his broad, muscular shoulder. “Hey!”

Startled. Jerking upward, the regulation white seaman’ cap falling off his head, “Yeah!” the clacking stopped as, lifting his fingers from the keyboard, the man swivelled on the chair, and…

Holy shit! He thought because…

About Mitchell’s age, between twenty and twenty-three, in addition to platinum coloured hair, the young man had a strange, albeit handsome face with startling light-green eyes, a wide flaring Negroid nose, Caucasian lips and, if not pure white, than certainly the lightest complexion he’d ever seen.

“Hey, man,” he said good-naturedly, “I was wondering when they were going to send me a replacement.” Holding his hand forward, “I’m Ruby… Rubidoux Meyers.”

Mitchell did not know word ‘mulatto’ and thought of Ruby in the old west term of ‘half-breed’. As shocked as he had been when he’d first met him that morning; forty minute later, over breakfast looking at Ruby, he was surprised because Mitchell no longer saw Ruby as a white, Jewish ‘shvartzer’ but as a friend.

Strange, that even now, sixty-five years later, ordering the same breakfast Mitchell Lipensky had always ordered.

Remembering…

“I mean I’m not a ‘Kosher’ fanatic…” Ruby had said “... but stuff like that!” Pointing at Mitchell’s dish. “You know what they fry that stuff in? Jewish or not, you shouldn’t be eating that shit anyway.”

Looking from his dish to Ruby’s, Mitchell suddenly felt guilty.

Thousand Oaks, California

Dennys Restaurant

May 14, 2021

10:12 AM

A different waitress standing alongside the booth.

“Eggs over medium, hash browns crispy and sausage, please, and… Uh — Dennys having no bagels — sourdough, toasted.”

Remembering, feeling guilty, and sad…

Remembering the last time he and Marsha— living in Peoria, Illinois at that time, had seen, or thought they’d seen Ruby on television, on February 21, 1965 when ‘Malcom X’ and his albino bodyguard had been assassinated.

The waitress taking both orders, turned away and when out of hearing range...

“Remember, nothing that Barbara or me said, or did over the phone from three thousand miles apart mattered because there was never a chance that we would really meet.”

Glancing out the window. “Bu then, when our authors web site began looking for three of our most widely followed commercially unpublished poets, Barbara’s name came up, and our three local winners would be invited to a poetry competition in Chicago, the prize being the hard back publishing of the winners first book of poetry along with a guaranteed placement in at least one major book marketing chain.”

Looking up, nodding “thanks.” As a server refilled both cups.

Next: Time matching on #5