Squirrel Cage (40 page)

“
5
”

Oh, would this elevator hurry up.
Two hours have passed here seemingly and we are still lumbering up.
What had given me away?
I would never know.
I was just starting to socialize.
All in all, I didn’t do all that well I concluded.

“
6
”

I wonder what he would do if I struck up a conversation with him. Now that would really be embarrassing with my voice.

“
7
”

Finally, my floor.
The doors opened and I walked briskly to my room.
I quickly opened the door and closed it quickly behind me as I passed through. I pushed the door closed. He said not a word and intently assured himself that I was secured for the evening.
I anticipated a phone call but none came from the front desk.
I had thought that I would receive a personal request to never come back.
Nothing was said when I checked out. Before I went out publicly again, I would completely redo my hair.
I would need to get a good hairpiece.
I would learn to deeply shave my face. I would learn to use less makeup.
And I would find more stylish clothing to wear, something that fit me well, and fit the environment and mood.

I would finally come back to the Red Lion with Matty and Andi.
We would share many great nights there over the years, listening to the music, talking and laughing.
We would dance and have a good time.
They were innocent times.
They were fun.

*****

So here we were, sitting at a familiar table.
The room had changed significantly.
It no longer resembled a fancy Las Vegas lounge.
It had
been changed to reflect
a sports bar ambiance.
The music seemed different as well.
The hotel lounge was no longer crowded as it had once been.

As the waitress approached our table, I recognized her. She had been working here for years.

“Andi! Matty!” she said as here eyes flashed instant recognition. “How have you been?
I haven’t seen you for years!”
Matty beamed and acknowledged her in his gentile way.
Andi turned to look at her as she went on.

“What ever happened to that David Steele?
I remember the first night that he came in here. I felt so sorry for him sitting over in the corner, so timid and shy,” she said.

Her eyes passed around the table until they met mine.
“Here I am”, I said.

“Oh my God, OH MY GOD!
You are David?” she questioned incredulously. “I don’t believe it.
I do not believe my own eyes!”

“The omelet has been cracked, whipped, cooked and served I replied.
I’ve completed my change.”

“Oh my God! I don’t believe it,” she said yet again in amazement.

We spent the rest of the evening reminiscing.
There wasn’t much dancing. The waitress spent a lot of time at our table getting to know us again.
I enjoyed the night. It wasn’t long
enough
.
Matty paid the bill and left a twenty dollar tip as he always had done. I gave Andi a big hug and left with Matty.
I would never see Andi again. We lost touch.

The event marked a new chapter in my life. I was now living a normal role in a normal world.
My biggest worries now were just paying the bills.
I had managed to retire my credit card debt.
I could now pay my bills. Charlene worked with me to reduce child support payments that I could afford.
For the first time in many years I had a little spending money.

I had been investing a lot of time reacquiring my old interests.
I hadn’t devoted much time to them during the years of transition. The drive and ambitions pushed me only in one direction.
I needed money, I had to work, and I had to improve the craft of change.
I was now interested in the great outdoors again. I purchased some backpacking gear and began to enjoy the local redwood parks in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

I invite
d
online acquaintances in the on-line back packing news group to accompany me.
I preferred to have at least three or four hikers in a group.
The risks seemed minimal at the time but I was never one to take many chances.
However, there were times when I would go along with a single woman or man just to get out to the forests.

It was on such a trip that I
met
someone who would become very special.
I was accompanied by a younger kid in his twenties.
He was interested in comic books.
He smelled bad.
We had never met before in person and I had wondered if he had ever been
backpacking
before. I also wondered when he had taken his last shower. For the one night out, he had brought a full bag of groceries.
He had no tent.

I sorted through his grocery bag.
I took everything non perishable out.
You don’t need all of this I explained.
We aren’t going far, we are only going for one night, and you’ll be carrying all the weight for nothing.
“Thanks,” he said.

We did one of my favorite hikes in a redwoods park.
The climb to the backpacking
campsite
was a very slight incline.
The trail was well worn and maintained.
It was also covered with shade nearly the entire distance.
I stayed well in front of “the kid” trying to avoid the backwash of his extreme body odor.
He was laboring up the trail as I leisurely walked enjoying the sights and sounds of nature.

The hike in was only three miles and it was not long before we reached the camp.
I set up my tent and he had none.
“Can I sleep in the tent?” he asked.
I had not learned yet to say no.
I was too polite. The day was fresh and clear and the temperatures were mild.
There were no bugs about to worry
about
.
“Sure,” I replied. “You can take the tent if you carry it back out.
I’ll just sleep out here under the stars.” He was grateful and promised to carry the tent back down the hill in the morning.

The day was early, the “kid” talked of nothing but comic books, and I soon became restless.
Searching for a way to separate myself from my hiking partner, I scanned the site for something to do.
We we
re the only ones there except
a couple of fellows set up
in a
distant
spot
.
They had a nice tent. They had lawn chairs out to sit in. I had a rock.
It smelled like they were cooking up some steaks.
And there was a little boy with them.
I decided to wander over and introduce myself.

The two guys were both extremely handsome.
One was “daddy” to the kid.
Now normally, upon finding two fellows camping together, especially with a son in tow, you think of a couple of friends sharing a camping trip.
It’s a chance to get the boy out and teach him about the great outdoors.
But both of these men were very handsome. They were too happy to be there.
I assumed that they were gay.

We introduced ourselves.
“Hi, I’m Cindi,” I announced as I approached their cooking stove.

“Hello there, I’m Brick and this is Brandon,” responded one of the two as he gestured toward his friend. We chatted for a while.
Brick offered up some of his steak if I cared for it.
I politely refused and returned to my camp to boil some water for my cup of noodles.

After supper, I needed to collect some water.
There was a stream down the trail about a half mile away.
I would collect the water, bring it back, and boil it to sterilize it.
Sometimes, I would forgo, boiling water and just use iodine tablets in a water bottle.
It was convenient but it didn’t taste very good.

I was bending over the stream trying to fill my container when Brick popped down from the trail with his gear.

“Hiya Cindi,” he said as he started setting up near me.
I filled my container and prepared to return to my camp.
I noticed that he was using a water filter.
I had seen them at the sporting goods stores but thought them too expensive for my needs.

I watched him as he filled a container with water and then using the pump on the water filter, transfer the clean water to its final vessel.

“Now that is way too cool,” I told him. I don’t think I ever told anyone just how romantic a water filter could be. This device hatched a relationship.

I sat down and we chatted for a while.
Brick had an ever so slight lisp.
He had fairly short curly hair.
He never stopped smiling. He reminded me of Peter Frampton.
Brick warmed up to me very quickly.
This guy was likable and funny.
Yea
h
.
A guy like this is too good to be true.
“Yup, h
e’s gay
,” I thought to myself
.

I had dated other men.
But it never lasted too long.
One fellow fell in love with me and wanted to get married. He worked for a little start up networking company
that starts with C and ends with O
. He was a VP.
I turned him down.
The company would later rise to be the dominant company in the business. The VP would have been wealthy beyond any of my expectations.
I did not care.
I could not return that love.
It didn’t click.

I had been open to striking up a relationship with a lesbian. I had gone to the lesbian hangouts and formed some brief friendships but nothing came of it.
I knew that I was not suited for a gay life style.
That sounds weird doesn’t it? I know. I still wonder about this roller coaster called life. My family asks me why I started dating guys when I never had any previous interest. “Because they asked?”
Seriously. That was my stock answer. There is also this odd thing that happens to us when we start getting hormones. I can’t explain it. It doesn’t make sense. Look, at that time, I was open. I did not know. In many ways, I was just a juvenile coming into puberty.

I had given up on finding that right someone for years. I was perfectly content to spend the rest of my life sharing good times with good friends.
I had Matty and a couple others. I was happy and comfortable with that.

Brick and I stayed in contact.
I was planning a big
back-packing
trip in the Sierra in a few months.
I had only done a long trip twice in my childhood and I had enjoyed it very much. Squirrel and I both agreed that hiking was the best thing in the world to do.

I had several short trips planned over the coming months to build my experience, strength, and stamina. Brick accompanied us on several of them.
We got to know each other fairly well.
I learned that he was not gay. His life had been one of ups and downs.
He had been married twice. His first wife left him to return to her mother. Brick and she had a son when they were only fifteen.
They had a shotgun wedding. The marriage was doomed from the beginning.
He walked in one day on his second wife making love to a stranger.
That ended quickly.

Brick had nothing. Neither did I.

He worked in construction as a union laborer.

I worked as an engineer.

We truly had little in common other than we both love
d the outdoors and hiking. W
e were both financially starting our lives anew.

I did not know it at the time but Brick came to love me. I considered our budding relationship as friendship.
He was a great guy to go back packing with.
We had some good times. That was all I saw in it.

He called one day and asked me to go out with him socially. I was reticent at first, but he convinced me that it was to discuss the big trip coming up.
I agreed to go.

I
wore
a nice turtleneck sweater and slacks. I wore very little makeup.
My hair was perfect. It truly was my greatest asset.
Brick arrived in his deep blue Pontiac Firebird. It was a great muscle car.
He had done little to it other than clean it up nice and maintain it.
It was several years old but ran beautifully.

We cruised over the mountain to Santa Cruz.
I hadn’t been to Santa Cruz much.
It was a bustling little city with unorganized streets over on the coast.
He drove straight to the pier and found a parking spot.