Chapter One Hundred-Eleven

Here is the next Chapter of my Memoir/Novel, Lost and Found.
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I put my arm around Sally’s shoulder and she snuggled her head against the front of my chest. “I can hear your heart beating,” she murmured.

I kissed the top of Sally’s head and whispered, “I wish I could sprinkle some sort of magic powder on you so you could fit into my pocket. Then we would be able to be together all the time.”

Sally giggled and said, “I was thinking the other day about how young we were when we first began to really notice each other. You were about twelve or thirteen and I was fourteen or fifteen. We were just kids.”

I nodded as I rubbed Sally’s shoulder. “It’s true, we were still in the process of growing up, but we had both done a lot more growing up than most kids our age.”

“Yeah. Now I’m nineteen and you’re seventeen going off to war. It doesn’t seem that much time has passed, does it?”

“Yeah. I’m just recalling the night we were checking out the school for my first rumble. That’s when I first started to really notice you.”

“I was noticing you before that,” Sally said with a chuckle. “After you fought Jimmy and Bobby the word was out about how good a fighter you were. Sometime after that you came into the Sugar Bowl and I was sitting with a couple of the girls, we were all checking you out. I had no idea you were younger than me. You looked older. Plus you were good-looking.”

“And here we are – and I’m still younger than you!”

Sally pulled her head up as she laughed. She looked into my eyes, put her arms around me and we kissed and kissed some more. We caressed each other and soon made love – a more passionate lovemaking than we had ever experienced before. There was a certain desperation which seemed to pour out of us as we melted into each other.

Later, Sally sat up on the bed and asked, “What actually happened the night you guys got arrested. We don’t know hardly anything here. We know there was a murder. It was in the paper. But, that’s about it. All we know about you guys is that none of you ever came back. Nobody hangs around the Sugar Bowl anymore. The Dukes are gone. But we’ve never heard anything about the details. There wasn’t any more stuff in the papers about it.”

I told Sally everything that happened. She had lots of questions, and I answered all of them.

Sally finally seemed to run out of questions and said, “You sure are one lucky son of a bitch in that you were only sixteen when all this happened. But I still don’t think it’s right that you have to go through this much of a punishment. You didn’t kill the guy – all you did was try to stop it.”

We sat together quietly for a few minutes holding each other.

“Rollo, I love you so much. I also know you love me. I hope you understand this, but I have to say what’s on my mind. Okay?”

I nodded as I held her.

“I don’t think we should make any promises about our future. You’re going away for a long time. We’re both going to change a lot during those years. Right now I want to spend the rest of my life with you. My Mom and I talked a lot about this over the past few months. She has become so fond of you and I think she sees you as the son she never had. Her advice is for us to take it a day at a time and not make commitments we may not be able to keep. I’ll be twenty-three by the time you get out of the Navy. You’ll be twenty-one. It would be easy for me to say to you right now that I will wait for you. But with the changes I know we’ll be going through, deep inside me I don’t know if that’s something I can honestly say. Maybe my Mom is right. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I knew from the last few times Sally had come to visit me in the Center how my bad decisions had caused some changes in our relationship. I knew, in our own way, we still loved each other as much as ever. But our future had become unpredictable. I did understand what she was saying but I felt as though my insides were turning upside down. I knew she was right but I didn’t want to accept it. Despite my own agony I nodded my head in agreement and held Sally even closer to me.

At that moment Sally’s mother called down the stairs, “The police are back to pick you up, Roland.”

Sally and I kissed again. As she started to cry and I was choking back the tears I picked up my stuff and headed up the stairs.

The rest of that day and the next went by rapidly. My father spent most of his time out of the house and my mother rarely spoke to me except to tell me when she had food ready to eat.

Both Rev. Schutter and Miss Thomas called to wish me luck. Neither of them stayed on the phone for very long. Miss Thomas did tell me to try to keep up with my piano as much as I could and I should come to see her when I got out.
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