Kim departs

Gomez moves in.

Kim. Short-Haircut.com

Gomez stayed at Jean’s and Kim went back to her place, but now there were three surfers there besides herself, a little uncomfortable as the bedroom was two bunk beds. I sat in my cottage and sulked, with nothing to do but think of Sanita and Will all day, drinking to excess, sitting by the telephone waiting for a call from Florida which day after day never happened. Gomez would drop by every few evenings and drink with me, as he had few other acquaintances in Rincon and nothing else to do, being broke. I still had a little money tucked away, enough for meals and a bottle of rum each evening.

One night, about a week after our return, another sad scene occurred, and my absence in it changed my life. It was a proposal, too late by an hour, from Kim who came to talk to me, a final plea ready in her head regarding our future together. But I was passed out completely, unable to be roused, as embarrassing as any black-out can be. And it was only eight p.m.

Fate seemed to be looking down from the skies and toying with me again. There were too many coincidences. Gomez came by one early afternoon and we walked into town and bought two bottles of Bacardi by some fluke, the only day we didn’t buy just one. There was no reason for it, as it was just like any other day. But it was my undoing. We sat at my kitchen table around three in the afternoon and hit it hard. I was despondent because Sanita hadn’t called that whole week. I’d been there almost constantly, awaiting the call.

Now I was losing hope, my mind, everything. By eight p.m. I was ready to pass out. I stumbled to my bed and did so, fully clothed. Fifteen minutes later Kim came by. Gomez was still sitting on my deck. She wanted to see me and talk to me. It was urgent she said. She went to my bed, shook me violently over and over again but I wouldn’t wake up.

She’d brought her own bottle of rum over, to share with me. Gomez suggested she wait awhile, try again and I’d wake up. She did, every half hour, to no avail, swigging on her bottle in frustration. She told him she had to talk to me that night. She didn’t say why but that it was extremely important. After the third or fourth try at waking me up she started crying. By then she was getting so drunk she started sharing the bottle with him.

They ended up sitting on the hillside in the grass fifteen feet above my house. She told Gomez she hated him, detested him. Then she stumbled in one last time to try to wake me up, probably crying tears upon my face, once again in vain. She went back to sit beside Gomez and finish off the bottle. When it was empty she flung it against my house, angrily, breaking it against the wall. Then, in a huge flow of tears, she walked up the hill and down the road and disappeared, forever.

Gomez told me all this the next morning, as he crashed at my place, in the loft. I saw the broken glass and believed him. I even saw the flattened grass where they’d been sitting. He said she told him her boyfriend had reconciled with her and begged her to come back to Maryland, had arranged a taxi for her early the next morning and a flight out of San Juan, but that she wanted to talk to me first. That’s all he knew.

I believed what he said, every word of it. He was always totally honest with me. After a little thinking I realized what an important event I’d missed. I knew she had a counteroffer in mind, more than that, a proposal, to ask if I would take care of her.

That was the only explanation to account for all her tears and anger on that evening of her visit. If I hadn’t got so drunk that afternoon, or if she’d come by a half-hour earlier, my whole life might have taken a very different course. We would have talked intimately, sent Gomez away, kissed, made promises and ended up in bed, with her old on and off boyfriend now out of the picture, because I would have said ‘yes’. I needed the change, her support and love, because Sanita was now MIA and out of the picture.

So much in life rests on the slightest discrepancies of timing, and the smallest details of circumstance. I’m sure many a marriage was ruined by one misplaced word in a sentence or a text typed and left on a table. And many other marriages that would have ended were saved, preserved by a second, by a lucky knock on the door or a telephone call just missed, the tape run out on the recorder.

Some unions are missed by a slight hesitancy, the proposal on the tip of one’s tongue and not spoken, as some waiter or passing acquaintance interrupts, and the moment and the courage and that future is lost . This was just such a moment for me, missed by fifteen minutes, for better or for worse.

Any intelligent reader of this account should clearly see that I’m sorry I missed her that night and deeply regret it. Some might think that she just came by to say goodbye and ‘thanks’. But we had too many deep feelings between us and I know that with that first kiss, even a half-drunken one, (that’s why she brought the bottle) the whole lay of the land would have instantly changed, along with all our plans. Together we would have gravitated back to the States, on money I could easily borrow from family, settle down and finally get my share of Will. And she would have made an excellent surrogate mother. She loved Willy. Kim, wherever you are, I hope you’re happy. You certainly deserve it.

After that trauma I invited Gomez to stay at my place full time. It was much closer to Rincon than Jean’s, closer to rum. He was broke and I, nearly so. He accepted. At least we had another few weeks of drinking and eating and talking together. What more can any prospects in life promise?

It was just a few days later, as I was lamenting my forlorn situation over Sanita and my stolen and lost and only child, lost Kim, the bottle half finished, arms folded and my head deep inside them on the kitchen table, a picture of woe, that Craig, (Gomez) perked up and asked me: “Do you know any details about Mark’s history or family?”

I thought a bit and remembered one particular. He grew up in a very small town in Georgia near the border of Florida and that his mother still lived there. I also recalled the name of the town and his last name. I knew this because Sanita had told me this tidbit just days before she left, as some pseudo proof that she was being upfront with me.

Gomez said: “that’s all I need, problem solved.” He went to my phone and called information. I stared at him, baffled as to what he was doing. He got hold of an operator, sweet-talked her, named the town and state and asked how many ‘Dudley's’ were listed. There were three and he wrote down all three numbers.

He called the first. An older woman responded. In the politest tone of voice and professional diction he asks: “Are you by chance the mother of Mark Dudley?” She responds, to my amazement, in the affirmative. Then he proceeds: “This is the Orlando police department. My name is officer Travis. Now, first of all, let me assure you that your son is not in any way in trouble with the law. But we do need to contact him as he might be able to do us a great service. He knows someone we have under investigation and he might have some clues as to this person’s whereabouts. We’re only calling you to get his phone number and talk to him. I assure you again, he’s not in any trouble, but he may be able to help us in this case, which would be greatly appreciated. You’d be doing him and us a great favor if you could give us his number.”

I was standing over Craig’s shoulder listening to every word, amazed at his cool, professional imitation of a police officer, with pen and paper in hand. She gives out a phone number. He says: “thank you again Mrs. Dudley for your compliance. Have a nice evening” and hangs up.

I grabbed the phone, dialed the number and to my utter amazement my son answers: “Hey Dad, I missed you?” I talked to him for twenty minutes, asking him all sorts of questions, surprised nobody in the household noticed him talking away. I asked the crucial questions, ‘how’s he doing, what’s it like there, how’s school’? He told me he’s not happy at home or at the new school, that Mark and Sanita argue a lot and that they’re thinking of moving somewhere else. Then I said: “put Sanita on the line. I need to talk to her.” I hear him call loudly to another room, a bedroom.

Another twenty minute conversation ensues, not half as pleasant as the one with Will. She mildly excuses herself for not calling, as if it were no big deal, stealing my son from all contact with me and her family, promising it will never happen again. I remind her it’s not only me but her whole family that’s pissed off at her total disappearance. She has no excuse, only keeps reiterating this won’t happen again, gives me her address and says just before the end of our conversation that she’s glad I called. My final words to her are that I want to hear Will’s voice once a week, without fail, and be told immediately of any new number and address if she moves. She says she’ll comply.

First I turned to Craig and hugged him. He’d just changed my life. But it was so simple. Why didn’t I think of that? When you’re so emotionally hurt with a dilemma you can’t see or think straight at all. But a person standing beside you, not personally involved, can see the obvious solution, right away, which is exactly what happened that evening.

From that night on I had hope again, a sliver of it, much better than none, and I’d talked to both of them. I wasn’t sure at all that she’d call a week later. After so many lies and this hideous abduction on her part, she was no one to trust. But the fact that Will told me things weren’t going well between her and Mark and her own half-admission, when she said she was glad to hear my voice, gave me hope. If things melted down between them she’d need my support, and I’d see the both of them again.

Then again, this was all conjectural. She was in a far off place and anything could happen, another boyfriend, another flight and me once again totally left out of the picture. As I discussed this with Gomez, he mentioned I could just call the Orlando police, now that we had the number. She did commit a crime.

Gomez. Pinterest

But this opened up a whole new can of worms in my mind. Calling them almost always complicated matters in bad ways. Mark might get busted and want revenge. She could be incarcerated, my child stuck in some jungle of paperwork in State childcare. I didn’t want that. It was out of the question at this point. I told him so. He agreed, having had his own ugly run-ins with the law.

So the doubt and insecurity kept me drinking with Craig the next few weeks, every day to excess, as he loved to drink, and with nothing better to do, encouraged our binges to the point of me waking up with the shakes, which in turn led to my next job opportunity, my return to the United States, with other strange twists of fate and chance meetings.

last post ...

next post ...