Chapter 4
Fall Session 1965
Royce did return to New Paltz twice that fall, during Charles’s student teaching; then she disappeared, again.
It was October of 1965 when Royce first came up to visit Charles. She said she missed him. She asked him if it would be okay, and of course he said yes. He admitted he missed her, too. He was student teaching in a town, Walden New York, that was 30 miles from New Paltz. It was an extended holiday weekend, Columbus Day, and a quick ride to New Paltz to see her again would be awesome. It would be a welcomed reprieve from a long weekend of nothing to do in a small upstate New York town, just waiting for his Tuesday’s 9th grade science classes.
Charles’s father had loaned him a car to use while he was student teaching; it was only to take him back and forth from the High School where he student taught to his apartment that he rented. Trips to New Paltz were not allowed. No rides to New Paltz to hang out with his friends
There was one ride to New Paltz, however, that would be okayed by his father; it was to meet his parents there as they traveled back from Montreal, in October; Columbus Day weekend. They went to Montreal to celebrate their wedding anniversary. All these plans with his parents were made a month ago through letters; phone calls were on an emergency basis only, since the rental didn’t offer a private phone. It was a plan well mapped out by his father; drive to New Paltz from Walden to be there by 4 pm on Sunday. Dad and Mom would meet him at the college snack bar. Don’t be late, this was to be a quick stop to say hello before they completed their travels home; there was work the next day, he had to work on Monday even though it was a holiday.
These plans to meet his parents were followed, a few days later, by a letter from Royce announcing her arrival in New Paltz on Friday night of the Columbus Day extended weekend. Yes!!! His mind got consumed and owned by Royce’s image.
New Paltz from Walden was a quick easy 30 minute ride through the rural country of New York State’s apple orchid region. Royce arrived on time. The naturally logical and most definitely mutual agreement that was agreed upon at the New Paltz bus stop was simple. Let’s drive to Walden to stay together this weekend in Charles’s rental apartment. Oh, dear lord!!! Yes!!!! Charles shouted loudly in his head.
She did visit two times that fall while he was student teaching. This first visit, being apart for about a month, had made the feelings they had for each other so much more sensitive to the touch. The visit allowed them to reawaken their touch, their affectionate whispers that gave them new heightened emotions. They were silent most of the first night, resting in each other’s arms, feeling a new type of warmth from each other’s bodies. But by the second night, their love and adoration had no boundaries. They never left the room, never left the bed. It was suddenly Sunday. It was a perfect casual day, with breakfast and lunch at a local diner, a couple of showers; one to clean each other, and the other because the first one was so magical. 4 pm Sunday, it was time to drive Royce back to New Paltz so she could catch a bus home. Like a couple of newlyweds, they carelessly got into the car his father had loaned him. “OH SHIT!!!!” Charles screamed as he pounded the steering wheel. Royce almost exited the car for fear that Charles saw something on the floor board that she needed to immediately avoid.
He was very late. Horribly late. His father was a prompt man, something Charles inherited that would haunt him later in life. But right now, visions of a pissed off dad and a worried sick mom, as they sat at the college snack bar staring at the clock which clearly read 4:30 pm. It was almost 4:45 pm when Charles finally walked into the building with Royce besides him. No cell phone, no text, no email to soften the news, and now to quickly practice, in his mind, the workable lie, created on the way over, rehearsed and memorized, before he was to be face to face with people he couldn’t lie to face to face. His parents met Royce for the first time; this was definitely not how he envisioned this event. ‘What a screw up!’ Charles proclaimed. He felt Royce jolt in agreement as if she heard him. They were all tired from their stressful ride and his parent’s dreadful thoughts of an accident. Surprisingly, everyone was polite. And as promised, his parent’s stay on campus was short before they headed back to Long Island. Everybody said good-bye warmly and maybe with a future. Royce left shortly after; she caught the last bus to leave the terminal. The kiss at the terminal was warm, sweet and healing. Charles drove back to Walden; alone. Charles knew he was going to have a sleepless night, with no way to call and speak to either parent, or to Royce. Branded in his memory will be how he left his parents sitting in the Campus snack bar; loving, caring, and disappointed. And how a wonderfully affectionate, sexy, loving weekend just evaporated before his eyes.
Meeting Charles’s parents was at best less than a perfect event. Not Royce’s fault at all; Charles just forgot his parents were coming to New Paltz. A simple mistake, he thought. Bringing his girlfriend was a bit more than his parents wanted at that moment, however; old world, they expected a more planned visit, something more like his visit to Royce’s grandparent’s home. Charles did feel badly, but not to a point of distraction. It was guaranteed that this weekend with Royce all to himself did become the subject of many wonderful dreams since.
Charles got a letter from his mom the following week. When he comes home for Thanksgiving in a couple of weeks, plan on leaving the car at home. She will pay for the bus ride back to Walden. The reasoning, dad had an anxious buyer looking for a second car, and he didn’t want to lose this opportunity to make good money on it. She was very confident that Charles will find a way, in the next couple of weeks, to grab a ride to the high school to teach. He did; on the school bus that picked up some of his students at the end of the block. Those harsh thoughts of his middle school math teacher, Miss Florey, kept repaying him karma.
A week before Thanksgiving was Royce’s second visit to Charles’s Walden rental. It was a bit more subdued, both in conversation and in bed. But for him, it was because he was distracted. He knew he was losing the car. It was also the fact that in a few weeks, student teaching will be over, and not only will he not have a car, but also the privacy that this rental gave him. It’s back to the dorms; her visits would definitely be strained and restricted. Add to that she just told him that it was decided that she would not come back to New Paltz, that her father wanted her to start school in Queens next Spring semester. Charles listened to her and tried to show that he understood what her father was trying to do for his daughter was the best for her. He tried to show maturity. But he also wondered if their bond could survive, at best, the trials experienced with a distant relationship? No privacy, parents overseeing all their relationship. She didn’t have all the particulars available for him that weekend, but it did appear that her father had other plans for her that extended beyond visiting a boy in an upstate college; a boy that apparently took it upon himself to visit his parents without his knowledge. A boy who just stepped into their lives without any introduction or handshake. Royce’s mother wasn’t too happy either; her coming up here to stay in his rental apartment was not one of her favorite stories. There were values in the 1960’s that seemed to be going awry, without her having any input with her daughter regarding this matter of their love; or as the mother saw it, their infidelity. Charles’s world was changing and he just didn’t know how to adapt; to slowly curve it back to his direction. His perfect world was not lasting, it was vaporizing slowly and systemically.
They allowed this to happen. Both Royce or Charles agreed that their relationship should end. Royce eventually left for home. Options just didn’t seem to exist for Charles. She never asked for her grandmother’s ring back; on the contrary, she asked that he keep it. He wanted to hope that was a symbol of possibilities, but he knew he didn’t know how to make that happen. He was heartbroken. He was granted an opportunity to peek at what beautiful things look like. And he approved at what he saw. He never thought he would ever experience its touch, its warm breath, its caress, its love that came so innocently. In his hand-me-down world, in a world where he owned nothing for himself, in a world that surrounded him with dysfunctional people, in a world that lacks any direction but only to survive one day at a time, he wanted to believe that his relationship with Royce was magical, and above all else eternal. You dream and then one day it disappears. You’re unprepared to handle its complexities when you have it in your grasp, then suddenly when you are no longer in control, than you no longer have it in your grip. Maybe you never had control. You believed one day that everything was real, alive; sensations were tingling like a 4th of July sparkler. Then the next day they were gone, instantly dismantled by other people. Pieces of the jigsaw puzzle not necessarily missing, but only missing its loops, its sockets, its knobs, and its slots that not only allowed the pieces to show the picture in its entirety, but more importantly also held the pieces together. Without those parts to connect and attach, any small amount of agitation and antagonistic pressure, the picture’s pieces will slip and become no longer recognizable.
She disappeared for decades. He had so many great pictures and letters as mementos of those special days with Royce; he devotedly packed them in a box and carried that box with him for each move he made since then.
We get so upset with ourselves when we lose something important; prescription eyeglasses falling out of your pocket in the Walmart parking lot, iPad left in the restaurant’s booth where you had lunch, or something stupid like misplacing your car keys in the very house you live in; putting the keys somewhere you were guaranteed you will never forget, is a sure guarantee you will. Maybe you just never thought it was important enough to really pay attention and remember. And there were those prayers, promises, commitments that follow to a higher power that you knew were damned lies; offered, pledged, and covenanted, if only those lost things would magically, spiritually reappear. Charles lost her, misplaced her. It wasn’t on purpose, maybe he just didn’t know how to hold on to anything that was his, to things that might have had value in his life. Maybe it was because he never had owned anything that was his from the beginning; being a product of hand me downs his entire life, nothing he had was really his to own, just his for that moment. He believed, unfortunately, what he sees at that moment, what he could reach for at that moment, was more important than believing, planning in possibilities of longevity, permanency.
It wasn’t until 50 years later that Charles learned that during that time, she attended Queens College in New York City she earned a degree in law, married twice as she traveled across the country. She eventually settled in California with her own law firm, as her anchor, now that she was divorced from her second husband. No children of which Charles was aware.
