The Inventor and Harriet drove across Shelby from their little house on Gold Street to the Cleveland County Country Club for his 30th high school reunion. This is what he wrote. He also wrote about his 40th and 50th reunions.
It was the fall of 1987. The Inventor was 48; Harriet was 47.
He sometimes seemed old to himself.
In the winter going to work in Charlotte he had chest pains that he could no longer ignore and he came back home. She drove him to the hospital while he chain smoked knowing that one way or another he would quit. Doctor Gold did an angioplasty to open up two blocked arteries and he did quit smoking. That weekend he had stood with other post-operative patients in the vanishingly long hall of the coronary unit of Carolinas Medical, everybody with arms crossed over vulnerable chests. He tried to be empathetic, sympathetic – but all he felt was his own discomfort and fear. (Was it hell or heaven at the other end of the hall – or no place?)
They rode in “Big Guy”, the electric blue Land Cruiser. (Vehicles that she liked got names.)
He was surprised that she was going. Normally she hated this kind of thing. But they did look good. Since the procedure he had lost 40 pounds and he walked 30 miles a week. She was always striking. She never seemed old.
In high school she dyed her hair platinum blond, cut it short, and wore a black windbreaker with the collar turned up. She walked across campus , without speaking, without looking at anybody.
Once somebody accidentally pushed her and she fell down the concrete stairwell at the end of the school. He did not know whether he saw it because he lived in West Palm Beach one year but he had an image of her blond head bathed in a crown of blood as she left without telling anybody walking several blocks downtown to her father’s business where they took her to the hospital to get stitches.
Several times when she was walking home in the rain bold guys stopped and asked her if she wanted a ride. One was a dark saturnine fellow who drove a black 50 Mercury coupe, like the one James Dean had in Rebel Without A Cause. She secretly liked the dark guy’s looks and got into the car with him, sitting in the corner, not saying anything.
The Inventor looked like James Dean, which attracted a number of girls and perhaps a few boys.
Jon Faye asked him to go with her on a picnic to North Palm Beach. Her mother packed a basket and he drove the old Ford. No one else was around. He thought Jon Faye was cute in her one piece swim suit but he couldn’t think of anything to say and ended up saying bizarre things which is what he tended to do under such circumstances. He might have told her about how he no longer believed in God and how he wanted to run guns to Castro who was at that time still in the Cuban hills. She seemed disappointed and they ended up staring across sand scattered with seaweed like clumps of tangled olive drab hair.
This was the same area where he had come with friends the night of the high school junior senior party when he had been chased by a band of marauding lower classmen. He had run through the jungle not feeling the tugging leaves and vines. He jumped a 10 foot drainage ditch which his pursuers had been afraid to cross. It was a fine moment.
It was about 7:00 when they got to the country club. They parked in the lower lot and walked up to the front door. A man was getting out of a white Lincoln Towne Car parked nearby. The man had a full blond toupee and wore a lime green jacket. The Inventor wondered if it was a classmate but he didn’t like the guy’s standoffish manner and decided not to speak. A professional looking sign mounted on an easel in the entrance announced that the 30th reunion of the Shelby High class of 1957 was being held in the ballroom to the right.
Harriet smiled a little and didn’t say anything. But she seemed alert, aware of the place and of him, ready to stick an elbow in his side if he did something outrageous.
They walked down a long empty hall. He had been in the country club only once before, when a girl named Frankie had asked him to a party. He didn’t remember anything about that night 31 years before except that he had missed the turn into the property and driven across a corner of the lawn. Also his friend Larry as a joke had hidden in the back seat, leaving a note to be found when Tommy and Frankie came back out. Other friends had followed, picking Larry up after the dating couple had gone inside.
Harriet walked with long easy strides like a model.
They found the ball room. A woman gave them name tags, his with a picture from 30 years ago. (Actually it was 31 years ago. Although he had attended Shelby High for two years, he had graduated – just barely – from Palm Beach High in West Palm Beach. But since he had lived in Shelby most of the following years it was decided that he should celebrate reunions with the class from Shelby High.)
People gathered in small groups. Grinning like a crazy man he greeted people that he knew. If left to his own devices he would have moved around the room, like a politician (or mortician) on the make. He would have done this until became aware of himself then he would have gone to a corner or he would have left. However, when he started these social forays Harriet stayed put so he remained with her hiding in the corner where he would have ended up anyway.
But, other people were making the circuit so they got to see everyone anyway.
(looking down at a name tag and picture)
Hello, You’re Tommy. You look good.”
“I’ve been sick but I am better now.”
“What was wrong with you?”
“I had a coronary blockage. They did an angioplasty.”
“Wow. Harriet you are as beautiful as always.”
“Thanks.”
“What do you do now?”
“I work for the Department of Transportation.”
“What do you do Tommy?”
“I write technical books.”
“Ah.”
Bill and Loretta asked the Inventor and Harriet to join them at the long table in the dining room. They were old friends, getting together three or four times a year, usually to eat out. They were among the few people that Harriet felt comfortable with.
Harriet had not yet entered her vegetarian period so she selected ham which she loved, (even after becoming a vegetarian she still talked about bacon, ham and sausage). The Inventor ordered roast beef, the other choice available for the twenty five dollar check he had written to the SHS 1957 Reunion Committee. Everybody got small whole potatoes, green beans, and rolls.
As was his custom, especially when he was nervous Tommy gobbled his fare. He was unaware of eating. He could have picked up the roast beef with his hands and would not have known it. Harriet barely touched her food, even the ham. She elbowed the Inventor in his side, saying “Slow down.”
He laughed and did as she instructed.
Throughout the dinner people were up and about visiting other tables, chatting.
Four members of the class of 1957 had become security operatives, one for the CIA, one for the Army, one for the Navy and one for the US congress. All stopped by to say hello. He could have been one of them.
Eddie asked, “What are you doing these days?”
“I write technical books.”
Eddie laughed, “Well somebody has got to do it.”
After a while things got weird for the Inventor. He became aware of his own performance, grinning, laughing. He felt that others could see through his act to his uneasy core. He leaned over to Harriet, “I expect you are ready to go.”
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