Whatever happened to....

 I believe most of us wonder at times whatever happened to some thing or some one who spent time in our lives, perhaps even for the briefest of moments, and then were ushered out.  They leave an ache of longing, to know, to provide us with an answer.

I'm not talking about cosmic questions of why are we here and what ought we to accomplish with our time on Earth.

No, I just mean some thing or some one who impacted our lives with curiosity, and we'd really like to know what eventually happened.

Of course, when my dad told me that I could not take my cat, Tiger, with us when we moved in with my stepmother and her two children, he said he was going to be passing by some remote area where he could, essentially, dump Tiger out--to fend for himself.  I am almost certain that it was our looming and future stepmother who forced dad to bring about this change.  She would always be a bitch in the years ahead.  In fact, that demand should have informed him, and us (though I did not at the time figure out that she was probably the one who demanded he do something about Tiger before we all moved in together) about what kind of person she really was. 

Regardless, dad said that the following day he would be passing that blissful cat paradise and it would be best for Tiger if he were dumped there rather than some other, less hospitable, locale.  

Making that decision was almost akin to the one that dad presented me with a couple of years before when he asked, one afternoon out of the blue, "If you had to choose, would you want to live with your mother or with me."  What kind of a question, and dilemma, is that to put upon a kid who isn't even 10 years old? 

But now I was faced with losing my beloved cat for good.  I had no choice.  That morning dad took Tiger in his company car and I never saw him again.

Oh, dad claimed a week later that as he was driving by those same Elysian Fields, he saw Tiger with a mouse in his mouth, trotting blissfully along with his prize, looking as well fed as when he lived with us.  I was at the time too naive or stupid to know dad was lying to me--he never saw Tiger again either.  But still I hoped Tiger was OK.

But what I have always wanted to know was whatever befell Tiger eventually?  How long had he survived?  Did he ever try to make it back to our apartment building in Orange, long after we had moved?  How and when did he die?  Did he ever remember me in those final days or did he find some other loving family who took him in and cared for him as I, ultimately, could not?  It makes me teary eyed even today as I think of him, especially since I never even had a picture of Tiger, except in my unreliable mind and foggy memory of oh so long ago.

Once, when I was still at the Academy or having just left, I visited Dan Stratford and Dick Tuttle in Denver.  Dan and I hiked over to Cheesman Park where the gay guys hung out at the South end.  I saw a lanky, handsome man who drove one of those fancy van conversions that hardly anybody drives any more.  He had long, finely toned and tanned legs and brown hair.  I did not have the nerve to walk up and speak to him.  Eventually, Dan had to go back to their townhouse, so we ran those several blocks from Cheeman Park to Pennsylvania Street, along 9th.  I asked a few guys, and Dan also asked for me, who that might have been.  Did anyone know him?  As far as anyone else knew, he was someone just passing through Denver, never to be seen again.  This was 1980 or 1981.  Before the AIDS Pandemic would cut a deadly swath through so gay men all over the nation and the world.  I used to think about that guy over the succeeding years and wonder if he had survived or died.   Like so many men I saw in this bar or that, so many guys I was friends or acquaintances with at one time or another during that tragic decade and more who did not make it.

I do not know, and likely do not suspect, that the universe is so constructed that we get tidy answers to our simpler questions.   Those that we would not really be asking much to get the answers to.

Marine OCS Part 5

 The first few days of Marine OCS were a whirlwind of activity.  We had to get our green fatigue OCS uniforms fitted, as well as our boots.  I kept stumbling in front of Lt. Nichols as I tried to climb the three step stand so he could get a good look at the fit of the uniform.  (I was not used to wearing boots--my previous pair back in the mid-1950's caused me to trip and fall onto the corner of a coffee table in our living room on Foxley Drive in Whittier, requiring three stiches.  I still bear that scar though these days it's very faint at the left base of my nose.)  He asked me if I were unable to walk and chew gum at the same time?  I was not capable of that in boots, apparently.

BTW, I kept one pair of those two sets of boots we were issued that day.  The other pair I left out the day I departed OCS and someone that they fit in the platoon snapped them up.  I think we were required to turn in our fatigues.  

Once we got our three pairs of fatigue shirts and trousers, we were advised to allow the Platoon Sergeant's and Sergeant Instructor's wives to sew on our white cloth name plates on the back of the shirts and above one of the shirt pockets.  It earned them extra money and it kept us in the good graces of our platoon staff for a short time anyway.

We had ridden over to the uniform issue building and back in what was generously referred to as "cattle cars"--trucks that pulled enclosed trailers that looked very much like those you would see on any highway hauling cattle to market.  The metal benches were hard and uncomfortable, as well as difficult to stay atop.  We kept sliding off when the trucks turned.

On the second or third day, we each also had a one-on-one meeting with Lt. Nichols in his office off of the platoon bay.  I had already decided that Marine OCS was not for me even though we were required to remain there for 9 weeks and the 10th week of out processing.  I would be there for most of the 12-week duration, regardless of my imagining it a waste of tax-payer dollars and my time.  I sat in an overstuffed chair in his office and responded to questions as he asked them.  The chair sat at an angle, pointing slightly away from where he sat.  I did not know if I was supposed to look directly at him by turning my head when he or I spoke.  So I just sat there and stared straight ahead the whole time, never once looking in his direction.  He must have thought I was screwy.

We also had the first of our platoon runs.  While I had run often in the neighborhood, and up at Mark Lombardo's house in Palos Verdes, and was pretty much ready, these were interesting in that we ran sometimes as a platoon in formation, keeping the unit's pace.  Along one of the dirt paths were small rocks jutting up which a few of us confessed to hoping they would jump up, bite one of our feet and cause us to fall in a heap, letting everyone else to pass us by.  It almost never happened, but we kept hoping. 

We also had the first of our calisthenics exercises on the grass near the parade grounds.  Everything was fine except, at one point, one of the guys screamed out in pain.  Not sure if he pulled a muscle with sit ups or not but he appeared to be in some pain.  A few of the guys thought he might be faking.  He was also the one who joined because he wanted to be in the Marine band.  However, the band was made up entirely of Marine enlisted men, so nobody was quite sure why he thought he, as an new officer, would be able to join. I believe he was one of the few who left the program at the six-week point where you were essentially kicked out early.  That never happened to some of us because we were pulling our own weight and were not causing trouble, so they kept us for the full 9 weeks before we could officially resign.

Our first weekend, four of us drove into downtown DC and stayed in a high-rise hotel there.  Not sure which one at this point.  I believe John Robertson was one of the guys.  Later, Dennis Zito, John and I would become buddies and would either stay at the barracks as a trio or go to DC and stay instead at the Crystal City Marriott that had the best military rates.  Years later, Dennis told me that his first weekend with a few other guys was spent uncomfortably waiting in the hallway outside their hotel room.  The other 2-3 guys he was with had hired a couple of prostitutes, and he had no desire to join them.