Cathy

 

March 16, 1989

Garrett sees her for the first time. She looks like a little Puritan girl from the 1600s, but unbelievably sexy. Straight dark brown, almost black, hair, cut short.

 

“Ye Olde Salem Witch” he thinks

 

It turns out she is the sister of a new friend, Bob, so he can be around her if he visits Bob at his house, instead of them hanging around town together.

 

By August 16, Garrett and Cathy are going steady and spend every afternoon smoldering in bed together. Bob does his school work in the den, where he can spot the parents returning from Boston, and give the young couple a yell. Garrett is happy about the future. Marriage to Cathy with Bob as the world’s finest brother-in-law. Not bad.

   

 

Black Mountain NH

 

January 1990

Garrett skis for the first time and finds he has a natural ability for it.

 

  

Applications

 

June 11, 1990

 

Yesterday evening Garrett graduated from the eleventh grade. Today he lays abed an extra hour thinking to himself about the future.

 

“First I’ll write a really good short story and spend days proofing it to perfection. Then I’ll apply to the five or ten best American colleges for writers, and submit the story as a writing sample. A little voice inside tells me to keep all this to myself, by way of preserving options. The minute I get accepted, I’ll give Raitz a chance to buy his favorite items of mine, since I want to travel and need the money. As time draws near, I’ll ask Pa about who to consign or sell my furniture to, or maybe ask him do the whole thing himself for 5% commission.

  

 

Cathy’s Parents

 

July 8, 1990

 

Garrett’s phone rings. It’s Cathy.

 

“Garrett, you can’t ever call here from now on. My parents found out about everything”

 

“How in Hell did that happen?”

 

“My cousin Susan told my mother.”

 

“How did she find out?”

 

“I told her. You know, girl talk.”

 

“Yah, foolish girl talk.”

 

“I was wrong, and I shouldn’t have trusted her. She even squealed on Bob for helping us. Now, he and I are both grounded forever, and I’m never to speak to you again. We have to figure out ways to meet in secret from now on.”

 

From Garrett’s kitchen, “Dee-nah!”

 

It’s dinner time. Let me sleep on what to do, and I’ll tell Bob in school when you can call me. Do it collect from a pay-phone.”

 

Garrett thinks to himself about all the stuff that’s been happening with Cathy,

“She’s duplicitous and manipulative. She gets really hot with me sexually, but never wants to do anything else, as though she really doesn’t like me all that much. I think it may be just raging hormones for her.”

 

Garrett speaks to Bob, and t=e days later Cathy calls from a pay-phone at her school.

 

“Garrett, I miss you already.”

 

“Cathy, listen to what I have to say. Please reserve judgement, take a few days to think it over, and I’m sure you’ll see that it’s the right thing to do”

 

“Okay, tell me”

 

“What we are facing with your parents is having our entire teen years ruined. Here’s what I suggest. First, we break up.”

 

”No!” She starts to sob.

 

“Let me finish. We break up, and go on with our lives, date other people. No contact with each other, No phone calls, but… the first Sunday morning after your eightieth birthday we meet at 9:00 A.M. on the front steps of the Boston Public Library.”

 

“No!”

 

“Cathy, I love you. If what we have is real, it will stand the test of time, and in the meantime we’ll still get to live like normal teenagers. No matter what else happens, even if we find someone else…”

 

“No!”

 

“Listen! For the sake of what we’ve had together, we meet again when you turn eighteen, just you and I, even if it’s only to hug each other, say goodbye, and part as friends. We owe it to the love we’ve shared. It’s almost like a child between us. Whatever happens, and whatever we decide, at least it will be our idea, and not your mother’s.”

 

Cathy is silent. Garrett continues,

 

“I think it’s very romantic, what Romeo and Juliet should have done, or I suppose if you prefer, we could jump off a cliff together.”

 

“Fuck you!”

 

“Oh, yes, Little One, but in four years.”

 

Cathy is still sobbing, but smiles through her tears and says.

 

“Okay. I’ll think about it.”

 

 

“Good, and don’t tell anybody about this unless you want to end up having your mother sit you down for a long brainwashing once a week for the next four years.”

 

Cathy calls again in three days.

 

“How can I go four years without even seeing you? I love you so much. I’ve been crying every night, but I do think you’re right, and who knows, maybe in the meantime I’ll meet a nicer guy with a bigger dick.”

 

“Or in my case, a prettier girl with bigger tits.”

 

“Fuck you!”

 

“Of course, like a rabbit, but in four years.”

 

“One thing though, Garrett, can we make it 10:00 A.M. at the BPL?”

 

“Yes, Lazy Bones. Remember, I love you. Work hard in school, so you can get a scholarship, just in case your parents decide to withhold tuition as a disincentive for resuming a relationship with me.”

 

 

Acceptances

 

September 8, 1990

Garret has been accepted by all five colleges. For many reasons, especially climate, he chooses Hamilton in Clinton NY, and plans to ski once weekly at Labrador Mountain, a small nearby resort where the Hamilton ski team trains. He thinks to himself’,

 

“I’m already a good writer, so I’ll major in European and American history, with just a minor in creative writing, but heavy on practical workshop courses. The electives will expand my general knowledge for deeper content: anthropology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, and science for the future. Also, just for me, general martial arts, even if I have to get it privately for no credit.

 

September 11. 1990

Garrett invites Bicky Raitz over and sells him a total of $86,400 worth of stuff: the Scrimshaw fish, carved wooden skull with snake, cast metal devil, cat, and monkey orchestras, inlaid wooden box, Amon Ra tablet, Druid spear point, Viking crescent knife, Peruvian shrunken head, German hand-of-glory, even the priceless uninscribed duplicate of Heinrich Himmler’s SS skull beer stein, made in case he were to break the original, this last with a lifetime buy-back option of ten percent. Garrett demands market prices, but Raitz is still tickled to get these items he has admired for so long.

 

October 19, 1990

Garrett and Bicky are sitting in the conference suite. Bicky seems dismayed and says.

 

“I had a nasty experience in school today. People are so totally conformist. At lunch everybody was talking about where they’re going to college. When they got to me, I told them I’m not going to college, and there was this long embarrassed silence.”

 

“Of course, a smart guy like you? They feel sorry for you. Nonconformity has utility only when it helps you, not when it holds you back. Remember, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

 

Bicky looks annoyed that Garrett doesn’t embrace the unspoken law of devil-may-care greater coolness through proactive non achievement.

 

 

Breakdown

 

December 6, 1990

 

Bicky and Garret are in the conference suite. Bicky looks worried and depressed,

 

“I quit school last week,”

 

“Why?”

 

“I had a nervous breakdown.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

Why does Garrett not believe this?

 

“You don’t remember?”

 

“No, but when I got home, I started climbing the walls.”

 

“Literally?

 

“Yes.”

 

Garrett raises an eyebrow,

 

“What are going to do now?”

 

”I can’t go back there. I’m going to finish school with one of those at-home courses you see on match book covers.”

 

 Garrett looks skeptical.

 

“My parents checked it out. It’s accredited and fully recognized.”

 

“Well, that part is good, at least, in case you ever change your mind about college. Are you going to see a shrink?”

 

“I already am. This is my second breakdown. I’ve been seeing the shrink for three months.”

 

“Good. Please don’t make me your confidant in this. I don’t want to hear anything more about it from now on, until the shrink says you’re okay.

 

Getting really emotional and raising his voice with a pleading tone, Bicky asks,

 

“Why, don’t you care anything about me?”

 

“Bick, I got my own life to live. I know a few things, but I’m not a psychiatrist. You already have one. That’s his job, not mine, plus there’s that little problem of transference.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“As the patient approaches catharsis, he projects everything onto the shrink, making it all his fault, trying to reverse the patent-doctor role. This could happen with me as well, even though, as a layman, I would only be able to use a Rogerian parrot-back approach. It would destroy our friendship. The shrink is cold and objective. He won’t mind any of it, because he’s a professional, not your friend, and gets well paid for the abuse you’ll dish out.”

 

“I would never do that with you.”

 

“Oh yes you would. These are powerful forces, not kids’ stuff. Do not confide these problems in me. Are we clear about that?

 

Bicky looks hurt and almost embarrassed, but replies with a resentful tone, but timidly,

 

“Okay!”

 

Again, why does Garret not believe him?

 

Later Garrett feels a foreboding about all this.

 

“Just what I need my first year at college, a stay-at-home nutcase vampire for a friend.”

  

 

Cathy’s Letter

 

December 14, 1990

Garrett is reading a letter from Cathy.

 

“I’ve been thinking it over and realize now that I don’t love you. I never loved you. My mother says it was only an infatuation. You swept me off my feet. I wish you were dead. Why don’t you kill yourself? ~ Bon Jour, Monsieur”

 

Garret truly loves Cathy, and cries for the next three nights at bedtime, but finally stops because he knows he has to let her go,

 

“Was it what I said about her tits? Nah!”

 

The months pass. Wisely, Garrett parties with a great many girls. It helps a good deal.

 

 

Black Mountain

 

January 1991
Garrett hits ninety mph shushing the face. It’s very difficult to slow down in time for a stream at the bottom, but he manages.

 

  

Carolyn

 

She is a big witchy aristocratic looking girl who expressed interest in Garrett way back in eighth grade. He hadn’t reached puberty yet, and wasn’t ready for her then, but he is now.

 

February 22, 1991 

Carolyn’s parents own a small vacation house near Littleton New Hampshire, right in the middle of the ski country. They are in Florida for two weeks, so she and Garrett decide to go skiing. They drive up Friday night, get groceries, and retire early. 

 

 

The bedroom is over the garage and is just a big empty floor with an extra-firm king size mattress and feather comforters. When they wake up, it’s snowing, a good precondition for skiing, but not good when doing so.

Now they have a chance to make up for lost time.  After a hearty breakfast, they smolder all day in passion, enjoying every technique and position known to mankind. Until now, Garrett never realized how many different smells can be produced by one woman. Luckily he has mature self-control and manages to time his climaxes, limiting them to just two, one before lunch, and one before dinner. Carolyn is deeply satisfied, and so is Garrett. After a hearty dinner, they retire immediately and sleep soundly all night.

 

The next morning the sun is out. Garrett clears the driveway and they ski all day at Attitash, very nice conditions with this new snow over packed powder.

 

  

Jetsam

 

Bicky

 

March 16, 1991

 

Garrett has lately been perplexed by much of Bicky’s tricky disrespectful behavior.

 

The two of them are in the conference suite.

 

Garrett asks, “Are you planning to get a job once you pass the high school equivalency?”

 

“No, my shrink says I have a phobia about work.”

 

“Too sensitive to earn your own living, I guess. Not very sensitive about other people’s feelings though, I’ve noticed. Phobia! That’s just euphemistic terminology for being a lazy bum.”

 

Bicky scowls.

 

Garrett replies, “It’s true. With the exception of somatically rooted disorders, like brain lesions, nerve damage, etc., most so-called mental aberrations are just a catalog of the different types of bad moral character, limp-wristed evil, we might say.” 

 

Bicky looks wounded, but composes himself, then starts in on one of his periodic pink team recruitment spiels. Garrett interrupts,

 

“Listen Bick, can that bullshit. I think you and I have come to a parting of the ways, and I can’t see any viability in hanging around with you any longer.”

 

Bicky at first tries to pretend Garrett is kidding, but then looks stunned,

 

“But, I’m your friend…”

 

“Bicky, for the sake of when we were kids in the neighborhood, we’ll always be friends, but from now on we’re just old friends. I wish you a long happy life, but I think you’re riding a fast train to Hell, and I don’t want to keep company with someone who thinks the way you do. I’m trying to do something with my life, and I simply can’t afford encumbrances.

 

“What I do won’t affect what you do.”

 

“Not true. Whatever a person knows intellectually, the people he associates with become his subconscious frame of reference for emotional normalcy. Think back. The old sitcoms were filled with gadfly losers who provide set-up to make the hero laughable for putting up with it. There are many examples: Miss Brooks, Maynard G Krebs, Eddie Haskell, Fred Rutherford, and especially that really peculiar chap Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited. You even look like him”

 

“I’m not that bad.”

 

“Some might say that you’re worse, because at least he was working to get an education. Listen, I have to get up early, so I’m going to kick you out now.”

 

Garrett walks Bicky down, and hands him two temporary loan items, the Norwegian troll and the carved head Bicky did himself.

 

Garrett hefts the carving and says,

 

“You know, Bick, this is a very good piece of work, and also that cane you did with the face. You could probably gain considerable notoriety as a wood carver. Think about it. You remain at home, but as a self-employed artist, instead of a parasitic bullshit artist.”

 

Even this splendid suggestion elicits a pained look from Bicky. Garrett says,

 

“We’ll run into each other once in a while, unless, of course, I see you first.” 

 

At this, Bicky scowls, trying as always, to look very arresting, with that higher morality which accrues to the Puritanical Sex Police.

 

 

Cathy

 

August 8, 1991

Cathy calls, this time not collect. Garrett asks,

 

“Why are you calling?”

 

“Just to say hello.”

 

“No other reason?”

 

“No, just to say hello.”

 

Garrett can scarcely believe that after what Cathy said in her last letter that she wouldn’t know that she needs to address that before any further conversation can be possible. Suddenly Garrett finds himself reminded of Patty McCormack in “The Bad Seed.”

 

“Cathy. I feel the same about you, but I’m starting school soon, so I really don’t need this. Please don’t call again.”