The Road to Rochelle

I remember that I came to your parents’ house in Blue Heron Lake, but I don’t remember much detail, except meeting Mark. What year was it? My memories of TR’s wedding include the swimming pool also. I, too, am pretty sure that I had too much to drink that night. Maybe that explains my exit out of the bathroom in the nude! I will try to call you soon. I want it to be a time when I have nothing else going on. I have to be at a meeting at 11:30 today, and won’t be home till later. I look forward to talking to you. GV Eddie held back from replying within the hour. ----- Original Message ----- From: Edward Hughes To: GV Date: 4/21/2011 11:47:12 a.m. Subject: RE: Hello again Dear GV, I will be available this afternoon until about three. Tomorrow is also good until about 2 p.m. My father-in-law is better. I’ll tell you all about it. Attached please see a photo of the first page of about twenty-five that you gave me for my twenty-first birthday. This booklet triggered my search for you. I will eventually e-mail all pages to you. Regards, Eddie It was Good Friday, April 22, 2011. He was on the edge of his seat. GV was a month from converting to an iPhone and texted the top of the hour in which she would call. Eddie preferred she call him on his landline. He answered on the speakerphone and said, “Hello, GV.” In the same alto and coarse, sexy voice of her collegiate years, GV stumbled and mumbled through the reintroducing herself to her “dear old friend.” They were both nervous as hell. After a minute of casual talk, Eddie got right into it. He told of an evening in ’68 when she had acted aggressively on him; GV was not shocked by Eddie’s accurate recollection. She whispered to Eddie in an affirmative yet suggestively questionable tone, “Yeah?” After forty years he hadn’t been able to dismiss the question from his memory. Eddie told GV he had asked her that evening in 1968, “What did you do that for?” He didn’t allow her a moment to respond but lost his own breath attempting to get the words out. The “hot topic” reference dropped all rules for the call. He began to tell GV he had been sexually molested as a child and had feared sexual contact all the way through his first marriage. GV’s motherly and caring, responsive tone within her moan of regret triggered an emotional breakdown for Eddie. With GV on the other end of the line, he finally felt as though he were properly “tattling” to his mother about the scoutmaster. The barrier of “We don’t talk about those things” had been breached. With Eddie in and out of tears, the two former college friends talked as adults for an hour. GV told Eddie she thought he had wanted to have an affair but hadn’t claimed it as a factor in her reluctance. With GV once again leading the way, they each added memories of humorous embarrassment from their 1968 intimacies. He didn’t know what GV’s thoughts were exactly, but Eddie knew he was leading himself into temptation and not being delivered from evil. He offered a suggestion he later regretted. “We’d better not see each other” came out of his mouth and bounced off GV; she agreed. Her remaining hormones were also flowing. They added descriptions of the contemporary “good life” in their senior years and shut it off in total cordiality after about an hour. Eddie was a happy dude. Despite having mentioned not seeing GV, he figured she would play a further role in his life. He was right, but the bottom line of the phone conversation had been Eddie’s disclosure to GV about his childhood and how it was linked to her. The List of Goals was in the final stretch, but it had taken Eddie into PTSD, though not yet medically diagnosed. Eddie spent that Good Friday evening writing another e-mail to GV, an e-mail that contained remnants of their phone conversation of that day. From: Edward Hughes To: GV Date: 4/25/2011 10:02:25 a.m. Subject: Fwd: RE: Hello again Dear GV, Please see attached some photos of my family from a gathering on Saturday evening. Our boys were born in 1980, 1982, 1984. They are left to right in the photos, all twenty-seven months apart. If your boys were born in the same years, I am going to call this entire reacquaintance a total freak show! The other photos are of the boys with Lizzie’s father, a photo of my brother Lloyd and his wife, and a photo of the lovely Elizabeth and some goon. My brother and his wife were over here for the weekend from their home in Wayzata, Minnesota (western suburb of Minneapolis). My brother has one daughter from his first marriage and three grandsons. His daughter, son-in-law, and grandsons live in Vail, Colorado. He has been married to his second wife since 1975. They are happy. He is retired; she is younger and has a good job, with plans to work a few more years. As usual, my brother and I did not talk much this weekend, but all was very cordial and pleasant. I would like to open the door with my brother, but it’s a very difficult barrier and a long story. Later I will try to fill you in on the beginning of his and my troubles. Our phone conversation was splendid. I am very appreciative of your reception of me. There were several moments of anguish during my search for you in which I sincerely felt I was raising the bar too high and moving into territory beyond the limits of dignity. The reward of written correspondence and a telephone conversation with you has extinguished those previous anxieties. It was difficult for me. I didn’t know if I would be able to verbally communicate my early life trauma to you. You have a good ear, as I had thought and hoped. You mentioned one word that directly hit the target: “confidante.” Could you have told a priest what I told you? We are both fortunate to be solid into granite marriages and families. You were most definitely a key to the development of my very successful life, and through our conversation I am convinced I played a significant role in yours. I was amazed at your memory of some of the details of the relatively brief period in which we frequented each other’s company. I had forgotten the session in which you mentioned, “I hit the lamp.” I may have hit the lamp, but I think I hit your eye. For weeks after that particular episode, I recall a common phrase, you saying, “Oh, Eddie” as you rubbed your eye. This was usually in front of TR and a few others in our inner circle, and we all had a great laugh. Up until you mentioned it on the phone, I had completely forgotten about it. For sure you taught me so much and were the first of nearly everything for me. I forgot to tell you on the phone that around the time of the lamp/eye incident, you told me that when we initially dated, I would take you to the Beta Zeta door and offer a peck on the cheek, then maybe a week later the lips, and eventually French. I would always hold my rear end back so you would never feel how erect I was at the moment. Do you remember telling me that? Like I said, you were the first woman to arouse me. Before you, and partially through our relationship, I was in total resistance as earlier erections were forced upon me through digital and oral manipulation by that man. I wanted to mention to you that the man who molested me in my prepubescent life was not gay. He had few adult friends and was later married. He is now dead. He was the ultimate pedophile. I strongly suspect he molested other young boys. Later, I will convey how he lured me toward him. I think it is a mental disease. The victims are helpless. I will take more photos of your booklet and send them in subsequent e-mails. Kindest regards, Eddie