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TRAVELS WITH LESLIE (4)
  by Leslie Meek
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Adventure Continues, 
Part 2
August 11, 1993
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       **(Editor Note: Leslie's adventures will be 
         (serialized in future issues of DREAM FORGE.)
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     TYBEE ISLAND, GEORGIA -- Why watch fish when you can
watch people for less?

     Lots of people spend lots of money to buy fancy
aquariums and brightly colored tropical fish from other
lands.  It makes them feel at home to sit and watch the
creatures.

     As tiny as it may be, Tybee Island harbors an abundance
of the best people-watching aquariums in existence --
laundromats and bars.  The dynamics of a laundromat involve
a thankless task and an arena that pits man against machine. 
People walk into bars to do battle with one another.  Nobody
ever gets their quarters back from either place, but it
costs nothing to watch them lose.

     I started watching Janice and her friend early this
evening when they walked into this local bar.  The night was
young and so were they, holding hands and singing silent
songs together.  They sat at a booth, ordered a pitcher of
beer, and began sharing whispers and smiles across the
table.

     A small highway winds east from Savannah through a vast
marsh-like sea to the beach.  You become aware that you are
on the "island" only when the highway makes an abrupt turn
to run south along the sandy shores.

     "Main street" runs one block from the highway to the
sea.  Although miniaturized, it is cluttered with businesses
like any other main street.  On this street is one gift
shop, one laundromat, one real estate office, one arcade and
five bars.

     The mere ratio of bars to regular businesses may be
unique but it is not the whole story.  Typical tourists
abandoned Tybee Island in favor of nearby Hilton Head Island
years ago.  People know each other here.  It is a community. 
If there is a bar fight here, odds are somebody has hit a
friend.

     I am no stranger here.  Two years ago I came here with
a dear friend and, together, we decided to spend a lot of
time in the bars on main street.  We were lovers who trusted
each other with the other's kingdom, so we thought we were
ready to make a very important decision regarding our lives
together.  We had spent six months holding back from doing
something we both wanted to do.  Our relationship had grown
and flourished since then so we thought we were finally
ready.

     We all have turning points in our lives; times and
places where we chose our route among many paths.  Tybee
Island is my place.

     Everybody knew Janice, just as everybody knows
everybody on Tybee Island.  She is the daughter of a local
fisherman who spends his days on a boat, working the ocean
for shrimp.  It's hard work.  Janice, they say, has chosen
an easier, softer way.  She is a law student and pays her
way through school by working at a day care center on one of
what locals would term "the other" islands.

     Of course, Bill helps out a lot too.  He does the
chores--sometimes even the dishes--at the apartment he
shares with Janice.  Some say he is the brightest star in
Janice's promising future.  As they sat at the booth in
front of me sharing the first pitcher you see how much they
supported each other.  Neither one laughed or smiled alone
and I assumed, in trying times, it was the same with crying.

     Tonight I could afford the luxury of observing.  I was
no longer a participant so I could concentrate on people
watching.  Bars and Laundromats are the places to go to
watch people and I arrived here alone this morning with a
suitcase of clean clothes.

     The months that followed my visit here two years ago
were filled with agony.  It turns out that the decision we
made here wasn't such a good one for us.  Since then, I have
done a lot of crying alone.  First as he was sleeping then
when he was gone.

     But life goes on and so did the evening.  Janice was
still laughing when they ordered the second pitcher.  I
overheard pieces of Bill's soothing words to her across the
table--something about how well she was doing in school and
how special that was to him.  ". .  . Beautiful and smart,
now that's a rare package," he said.

     Janice is beautiful.  Long dark hair, splendid figure
and eyes that glistened even the dim light of the bar.  She
is no more than twenty-two years old, the point in life
where the tomorrow's are so much more important than the
yesterdays.

     The second pitcher was shared a lot faster than the
first.  After they ordered their third, the conversation got
much more intense.  I could only overhear portions of the
discussion.  Something about Bill doing a little better with
the dishes and her bad habit of hanging around the care
center after work.

     I wasn't interrupted much.  I was careful slip a ring
onto the middle finger of my left hand before I came to the
bar.  It works with most guys.  But then again it's the ones
that it doesn't work with that you have to worry about. 
Warren happened to be one of those.  "You sure I can't buy
you a drink," he slobbered.  I assured him that I was.  I
had made that decision long ago as well, right here on Tybee
Island.

     It wasn't difficult at all to hear the couple I was
watching after they got halfway through the third pitcher. 
Bill was telling her that things were going to have to
change . . .  and change quickly.  She needed to come home
right away from work.  Janice wasn't smiling anymore.

     "You get all prettied up just to tantalize these guys
in here," Bill said when they started on their fourth.  "You
would just love to sleep with the whole bunch of them,
wouldn't you."

     It got worse. Much worse.  Soon, Janet's glistening
eyes were glaring through a haze of held back tears.  Bill's
slurred words were ugly--although Janice held her own,
slashing back her own comments.  It's pretty damn hard to
share hate and anger, so each of them tried his or her best
to stand up for themselves.

     "You slut," Bill yelled.  "Go ahead and screw them all,
I don't care."  He gulped down the remainder of their fourth
pitcher and stomped out of the bar.

     Janice stayed behind and called over the waitress. 
This time ordered a single glass of beer.

     I joined the rest of the people in the bar in staring
down at my hands in front of me.  There is something
painfully embarrassing and belittling about witnessing the
anger of lovers.   A collective shame seems to cloak the
audience.  The turn of events did not come as a surprise to
me.  Like I said, I have been here before.

     The night went on and soon the other patrons became
busily engaged in what they were doing before the fight. 
Warren was no exception.  He walked past me and up to
Janice.

     "Wanna a ride somewhere," he said.

     Janice brushed back a lock of dark hair that had matted
on her forehead and looked up.  "Sure.  Sure, why the hell
not?" She said.

     Like I say, for people-watching, you just can't beat
laundromats and bars.

(NOTE:  "Janice's" father's occupation was changed.  The
names of the couple were altered out of respect for their
privacy.  As mentioned, everybody knows everybody on Tybee
Island.)  

                               *  *  *

Travels with Leslie (5)
August 14, 1993
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     TYBEE ISLAND, GEORGIA -- Some Chinese philosopher dude
once said that crises is "opportunity riding the dangerous
wind."

     I have considered that thought with some misgivings
over the last few years.  I have a tendency to doubt the
messenger of meaningful news and it seems to me that the
Chinese are falsely credited with too many novel inventions. 
I was told they developed Pizza -- yet everybody knows that
Pizza is Italian, right?

     I thought about such things today as I walked along the
compacted sand of the beach here, preparing for tomorrow. 
My mind wandered to the phase uttered by some American pipe-
smoker:  "Fear" is short for "False Education Appearing
Real."  Now, that hit home.

     If philosophy is anything like the old Certs commercial
and they are both right, it means I've been battered around
in an artificial hurricane most of my life.

     Where is the solution?  If "the calm always precedes
the storm," how the hell am I supposed to enjoy a cloudless
day?

     And so it goes with me.  I am plagued with such
thoughts. Conventional wisdom, scrawled in stone by those
who are supposed to know about such things, just makes my
emotional situation worse.  I started out on this trip to
get away from the misery of home and find the tools to get
better.    I cannot think my way to health because, in a
very real and honest way, my best thinking got me to where I
was.

     To get better, I must grow.  To grow, I must act.

     I do not believe that people can deal effectively with
emotions using intellect.  It's kind of like pitting David
against Goliath in this internal, grueling battle I am
fighting.  Emotions are gonna' win every time.  I have to do
something that spurs within in me all the dreaded emotions I
want so desperately to conquer.

     So tomorrow I am going to enter a bikini contest.

     Now, before you get to laughing too hard at the picture
you have created of this twenty-five-year old blonde think
of your own fears.  Chances are I may find a few of them a
little silly, too.  To you, these fears are very serious and
very real -- they hurt.  So do mine.

     I just broke up with a man I adored.  We lived together
four years.  I cannot cope with the desperate loneliness I
feel by watching other couples walk along the beach, hand in
hand.  When I watch them I think of how very perfect their
relationship must be; I am convinced that he must do the
dishes and she never has any headaches.  I compare how I
feel deep down inside with how they act together in public. 
This is the kind of thinking that gets me into trouble.

     I've learned that when I feel really lonely I should
find instead someone who also walks alone on the beach.  I
try to be the best company I can be for a few minutes.  It's
a small thing, I know, but the harder I try to help them
feel better the less lonely I am.  Little actions, rather
than big thoughts, seem to do the trick.

     So this morning I bought one of those "g" string
bikini's at a little store on the highway and spent the rest
of the day trying to work up the nerve to wear it.

     Little things.

     It is not immodest of me to tell you that I am very
pretty and that I have the body to wear one.  Throughout my
life my looks have worked against me.  When I attract other
men's attention, the one I love holds it against me.  My
lover would call me a slut because a stranger would smile at
me.  If a guy would actually approach me and ask to buy me a
drink or something, my boyfriend was convinced forever and
absolutely that I had slept with the stranger.  No, saying
that I am physically attractive is not an act of conceit --
it is a confession.

     "Blonde jokes" have become very popular lately.  No one
laughed at them more robustly than my ex-boyfriend who, by
sharing both my body and my soul, knew intimately how truly
unfair they really are.  This man who would tell me he loved
me for my wit and my ambition would parade me in front of
friends and strangers with the unspoken demand that I keep
my mouth shut.  He would dangle me in front of them as bait
and, when they finally nibbled, he'd take a bite out of me.

     Angry?  Yes, a little.  More than that, I am ashamed.

     During the final year of our relationship it got so I
would tie my hair up and wear the most unattractive clothing
I could buy.  I did everything in my power not to be
noticed.  This obsessive practice of trying to look ugly
started out like a flimsy cobweb at first and then, like all
bad habits, grew into a chain that shackled me . . . holding
me back from myself.

     Shame is a big time inner agony.  It takes lots of work
to bust it up into pieces small enough to throw away.  No
amount of thinking is going to make it anything but worse. 
I need to do something.

     So, tomorrow I am going to enter a bikini contest.

                               *  *  *
                               
Travels With Leslie (6)
August 18, 1993
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS -- When you run up to a wall that
stands between you and your emotions, you can't go around it
to find yourself.  You can't dig a tunnel under it without
continuing on your path in darkness.  You can only tear it
down from the other side, so you gotta' climb over it to
grow and get better.
     
     So I ran like hell. 

     I jumped in my van very early in the morning, before
sleep had a chance to make it seem better, and left my wall
standing in tact behind me.  When the sunrise crept up on
Tybee Island and neighboring Hilton Head, I was gone.

     At first, I figured I knew where I was headed.  Running
seems more explainable when you've got a destination and
this one was only 700 miles away.  So I sold myself on the
idea I was going somewhere instead of leaving somewhere as I
passed through Georgia and Mississippi.  Then I stopped,
changed by mind in a phone booth, and drove another 500
miles knowing I was running.  

     Some would say that I am wrong to run from my problems
but I will not plead "guilty" to the charge.  It was either
this or the bars that line Main street in Tybee Island --
and this kind of escape is easier on my liver and those who
love me.

     So, my friends, I will enter my plea as "No Contest"
and accept the sentence you and my conscience impose upon
me.  I just wasn't strong enough to face the reality behind
the nightmares.  I was ready to climb but I was unprepared
to face what I might find on the other side of the wall. 
This time it was just too much for me.  I feel very small
and very weak and very beaten.  Perhaps it is a small sign
of personal growth to understand how really small we are
when pitted against the jackals that rip at our heart and
bite into our soul.

     All I know for sure is that I am here and the wall is
back there.  

     I remember, as a little girl, sitting in the kitchen
and hearing a word or two float out of the other room along
with the cigar smoke.  It was my task back then to wait
unnoticed for my father or one of his quests to yell out an
order for another beer, but I stole what wisdom a little
girl can understand from the muffled conversation I
overheard.  "Life is just like poker . . . poker is life."

     Maybe I just didn't have a good enough hand to place an
emotional bet  this time around.  If you lived the terror of
those nightmares maybe you would be looking over my shoulder
and shaking your head.  It may take a full house to win this
one.   Maybe, when the stakes are so very high, it is best
to fold and wait for another deal.  Maybe life's inner war
is a cycle of battles you win, battles you lose and times
you must surrender before the showdown.


     All I know for sure is that I am here and the wall will
always be back there, waiting for me.

     Maybe there was something to the advice the old guy on
the train gave in exchange for a sip of whiskey and a
cigarette:  "You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when
to fold 'em, know when to walk away -- know when to run."  

     I played Kenny Rogers a lot as I continued on
Interstate 10 through Texas.  I began to think that maybe I
was being a bit premature to judge myself a coward right
then.  It made me feel better to hear, "you never count your
money while you're sitting at the table, there'll be time
enough for countin' when the dealin's done." 

     The night was young, I figured as I drove . . . I'm
young.  There's lots of cards left in the deck and time
enough for a few more hands.  I thought about the lessons
learned in my childhood.

     There was one of my dad's friends who sat in that room
and played out every hand.  I remember his voice to this day
because he's the one who sent me to the ice box the most. 
Everybody was glad to see him show up for the Wednesday
night poker games but after he left I would hear laughter. 
Even as a little girl I knew it was the bad kind.

     I pulled into the parking lot here on the beach of an
island two miles from Downtown Corpus Christi exactly twenty
four hours and eleven minutes after I left my wall.  I sat
in my van and waited.  When the sun came up I knew that, for
me, I had made the right decision.

     I can't come home until I knock down that wall.  But a
sunrise can promise you a tomorrow.  The wall will be there
when I'm prepared to win.  
     
     You see, the guy who played out every hand in my
father's den always left a loser.

                     {The DREAM Continues}
                               
Copyright 1994 Leslie Meek, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.[0;40;33m
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Leslie has been searching and in her travels relates to us what she 
has found so far. Warrensburg, Missouri is where the travels have 
begun and there is no telling where her search will end -- if ever. 
Perhaps leaving was her fist step to realizing -- she was *there* and 
already knew. She's eager to hear from her readers and can be reached 
via: U'NI-net's Writer's Conference and regularly logs onto  Crackpot 
Connection (816-747-2525). She likes to chat, if you catch her online 
-- tell her Rick said, "Hi!"[0;40;33m
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