Venus Of The Delta With A Chicken Foot On The Rear-View

Back in 1991, right after the Soviet Union collapsed, save for its Dallas, Texas, outpost, which remains Soviet to this day, only under a different name, I had almost too much time on my hands.  The winter of 1990 had to have been one of the most fraught seasons of my entire life.  In many ways, all through the summer months and into the following spring, I was trying hard to get sober in an AA group, I'd learned, that was considered renegade by the AA national office--all for reasons I did not understand.  

As I've briefly mentioned before, the Dallas Central AA group was more a networking cell of high-rollers-to-be and a miasma of assorted high-roller wannabes than it was a relatively equitable place for anyone anywhere to simply sit in a circle with others and blow off steam, ask questions, share conventional and unconventional wisdom, and basically help one another.  Certainly, there was a great deal of that, but for those of us who seemed to be ill-fitted for that group, the options for relation to others were often bleak ones.  

This is not to say I couldn't relate to anyone.  Hard though it was at that time, due to all sorts of circumstances I had yet to begin to dig into, I did meet a few kindred souls, typically a few artists, one a Grammy-winning jazz guitarist, and another, a lovely Delta girl with the kind of blue eyes one sees only in animations.  Colette, however, was much more than merely pretty.  She was accessible, kindly, approachable, and like I was, ready to have a few laughs, and to resoundingly celebrate being a little different from the usual cut.  

Was she the target?  For some kind of "heat seeking missile"?  Not really.  Only relatable.  I like relatable women.  

Right at the outset of my attempt at using AA as a tool to help me to address the jittery anxiety, the depressions, the fits as I called them, and the bouts of binge drinking that had plagued me for years, I'd been fired from my job.  There's really no reason to look back in any ridiculous anguish of being cut down just as I was trying to scrape myself together, a typical occurrence for some reason, the point of losing financial security at an important turning point in my life left me with enough unemployment to pay my then low rent of $350.mo, a telephone bill of around $13, and some food.  Not awesome food.  Not delicacies.  Beans.  And rice.  And rice.  And frozen veggies.  And cans of tuna.  I had a lot of time.  In the hot afternoons, I'd ride my bicycle--race it, really--sometimes riding more than my typical 21 miles around White Rock Lake and back.  

If I rode in the mornings, I could make it to the three p.m. meeting at Central--a building only around a block away.  Kismet, right?  Not so fast.  Many of the denizens of that group were awfully harsh towards those they found problematic.  And since I was fairly eloquent, and also because I already knew the 12 steps forward and backward due to a stretch in the Seventies when I was a successful member of a drug abuse program, for some reason, I was seen by the big shots as some kind of troublemaker.  Not humble enough.  Not groveling enough.  Whatever.  I was there, more than anything, to find community, likeminded people, people who could positively support me socially as I made a sincere bid to shift away from a psychological dependence on alcohol.  

At the three p.m. meetings, I met Colette.  Those meetings, sparsely attended, and mostly attended by people who worked nights--often at local clubs and elsewhere--I'd met a few likeminded people.  I liked those meetings.  And I'd sit with Colette.  And giggle, cut up and then get serious about the reasons we both were there.  What I liked most about her is that I could be friends with her.  I had no ulterior motives.  I don't think she did either, really.  We just liked each other's company.  Sometimes, after the meetings, small groups of us would go to a local deli--where I'd get an all-you-can-eat salad and a glass of tea for under six dollars.  And of course, I'd joke with Colette.  

Colette was an artist.  She was between semesters at Southern Methodist University, close to getting her MFA.  Gosh she was nice.  She struck me as guileless.  And funny.  We definitely hit it off, and that's when I asked her out.  By the time I did casually put her up for a movie, we already knew a little about one another.  Her story of self-financing her way through SMU, an expensive school, fascinated me because of her wit.  

"Where did you get this nice car?" I asked her.  

"I bought it.  I worked for a year as a dancer at Casino Royale.  I made enough money there to get a year of school and a car."  

Wow.  I complimented her.  "What was that like?" I also asked.  

"It was OK.  That place is a little more sophisticated than average topless bars.  I knew enough to keep from getting pawed at so much.  And besides, if you've got it, flaunt it."  

I couldn't help but laugh.  "You don't seem like the kind of woman who'd be a topless dancer..."

"You'd be surprised at the women who are like me.  I wanted to get through art school.  That was an easy, and fun, job.  I could make a heck of a lot of money without even trying."  

How do you marvel at someone like that without either rolling your eyes or standing awestruck?  Sure.  There might have been more to her story (I never asked), but to be honest, I suspect Colette was being honest.  She struck me as far too unassuming to be anything other than a young and pretty lady who found a quick way to work her way through art school.  

Mind you, in 1991, after all that working out, I wasn't having too much trouble with women.  I liked that.  I'd spent a long time so withdrawn (and suicidal) that it had been awfully difficult to relate even to myself.  Colette was a true breath.  A wonderful inhale.  

"I'll have to ask my sponsor," she told me when I asked her out for a date.  Her sponsor?  A nice military wife.  One time, as I walked Colette to her car, her sponsor, having given her blessing to a date or two, murmured to me, "Get behind them and put 'em in the middle."  Great crack, really.  Her sponsor had seen what a hard time the big shots in that group had given me.  What are you supposed to do when you're basically a nice (but troubled) man who simply happens to get into people's way?  I've always been in that predicament.  I don't politic so much as tell the truth.  I've always valued authenticity or "getting real".  Perhaps that's the old hippie in me still shining through.  

The afternoon before our big date, after I'd walked Colette to her car, as I typically did, careful to walk around, open her the driver's side door for her, well, I still laugh at Colette looking me straight in the eye as I mentioned when we'd get together later in the evening.  

With her big blue eyes widening, she smiled and breathily exclaimed, "Gordon! My head's gonna explode!"  

Mine too.  

Just before dark, Colette showed.  She had black tights and a tight Batman tee shirt.  Hint?  You bet!  

"It's Bat-girl!"  A big hug. A body hug.  Were we getting ahead of ourselves?  Perhaps.  But hey.  I liked her enough I'd be willing to wait a little.  Why not?  Life is fun, and is best taken slowly, even if the action plan seems to tell us otherwise.  Colette was the kind of person I'd like to have seen long-term.  

Inside her car, which was a mess, a backseat so overloaded with art supplies it seemed like a comedy episode, I noticed the chicken bone foot dangling from her rearview.  

"It's for good luck!"  She hooted.  "We do this in Mississippi."

"What else do they do in Mississippi?"  

"That has yet to be determined," she grinned with the characteristic side-eye.  I took her hand.  We held hands the entire date.  At a bookstore, we wound around like a couple of cats, perusing all the books.  We stopped at an ice cream shop for ice cream.  Then, in the movies, Gerard Depardieu in "Green Card", I remember I had some trouble following the plot, mainly because the main interest entailed holding hands with Colette.  I felt like a high school boy.  

"He's an odd looking guy," I told Colette.  

"I think he's French." 

"Maybe that's the Gallic look."  

She smiled.  

"Do you like Gallic salt?"  

"On pizza." 

A couple of airheads in the dark, two cooing friends in the act of falling for one another perhaps.  Sometimes someone is so easy to get to know that the effortless is refreshing--no games, no suspense, simply two people who seem to know they like one another and are both willing to dispense with the formalities.  Once out of the movies, we wandered around the luxuriant shopping center known as Highland Park Village.  Lots of the finest shops in town.  A haven for the wealthy.  

"You should paint me!"  Yeah.  Why not flirt a little?  At the end of the date, as Colette pulled into the parking lot outside my apartment, we chatted awhile, and then I reached in to hug her.  That's when she planted by far the best kiss on me I think I have ever experienced in my life.  Seriously, she took the breath right out of my mouth.  

"Wanna come up?" 

"I'd like to but I have to be at work tomorrow morning."  

She worked at Toys R Us.  "I like all the gadgets and talking to the kids."  What?  I felt the feather of some intrigue in all that.  But nah.  Colette was so unassuming that I simply took her at face value.  She was too groovy to be up to anything.  

We continued to flirt after that.  Around that time, I remember, I came down with an ear infection.  I'd gone to the doctor, and had been prescribed some powerful antibiotics.  My doctor had warned me: These antibiotics might be really strong.  If you feel really agitated, eat some yogurt.  Yogurt has probiotics that will dampen the power of the pills.  

Which is what happened.  I got pretty hyper.  But I was also a little ill.  Not too bad.  But I didn't have much money, and indeed, when I ran into the anxiety, it was odd, but Colette called.  

"How you feeling?"  

"Hyper."  

I told her the story, what the doctor had advised.  "Mind if I come over?" she asked.  Of course, any time, any time she wanted to come to see me would be welcomed.  

In only 20 or so minutes, Colette arrived with a large tub of yogurt.  "Here.  You need this," she said.  I began to take the tub from her, but she pulled it back, pulled out a plastic spoon and fed me yogurt.  Exactly what I'd needed: someone to simply be kind to me.  Wow.  I was about to get all woo woo.  

I was in good hands with Colette.  And my cat, Loopy, adored her.  A good sign.  When Loopy liked a lady, I knew the lady had passed the kitty inspection.  

Nice to have a little good luck with a Lady Luck Cajun Delta Queen.  No pressure seemed necessary.  We just were what we were.  

Colette and I saw each other a few more times--then, per her sponsor, she began attending a group far to the north.  This is not to say she didn't want to see me.  I think she knew that, were we to continue, that we'd move too quickly.  We really did like one another.  Could we pull of the long distance thing?  Sure.  We met at the deli with various groups.  And then, the Bipolar pulled me away from her.  I began rapid cycling,  

In those troubled times for me, I could rapid cycle, serious mood swings unrelated to any reality-based stimuli.  I could go absolutely bat-shit crazy in a matter of hours, and then be like that for days.  After a series of those, the rapid cycling had literally eroded what trust that Dallas Central group had for me.  I was so overwhelmed at the time, that any thought of Colette seemed too distant, too far away, too out of the way.  Consumed by illness, I finally left Dallas Central in a series of sarcastically dramatic events I'd designed to show those high-rollers exactly what it feels like to be treated with complete neglect and disregard.  I doubt if any of those people have forgotten my editorial comments.  

I never did see Colette again.  I really don't know what was wrong with me.  I spun out of control for at least a year.  She may have called.  I don't remember.  Riding the proverbial tilt-a-whirl seemed like a second job for me.  

Colette was good juju.  She had the mojo.  A kind woman.  I sometimes think of her.  Years and years later, when a faraway friend in St. Louis published her second book of poetry, "Imagine Not Drowning", I thought of Colette and how I drowned, not over her, but over a serious illness that was like a hurricane that didn't stop blowing down every shelter I could erect for another three years.  

That chicken foot.  On her rearview.  For some reason, that's a memory totem to me.  Yes, she was definitely good luck for me during a desperate time.  While the fireworks were slow and unassuming, sometimes those kinds of fireworks are the very best.  Why is it so many people go for the real stadium-sized rocketry only to come to the sad realization as a relationship mellows that, no, big fireworks do not mean big love.  

The best love always starts slow--and with the kindness of a friend.