The Hollow Men - Episode 2
This week is all about Drew. In a hungover state of mind Drew learns something about his Business Law course and Drew goes on not just one date, not just two, but more with the same person.
Last week in Episode 1 of The Hollow Men, we provided some context for this new collection of not quite true tales of Texas, Drew realizes people believe what they sort of want to believe, Drew lines up some career insurance and some of the gang drives north and east to new horizons while Drew, Art, Rick and Jack drive west with some cold beer.
College
To be honest, by the end of the first month of college I was convinced that college was easier than high school, despite the moans and complaints from pretty much everyone else. After all, I was out of class for the day by 12:00 noon save for Wednesdays and so far the work load didn't seem that difficult.
Inorganic Chemistry was the most challenging course, but after that I had it pretty easy. I knew enough Spanish to coast through a lot of Spanish II, my biggest challenge would be on the formal parts of the language, particularly grammar and conjugation, but I could converse and read Spanish better than anyone in the class, save for the instructor. Golf, as I guessed, was an easy A as long as I showed up for class. Algebra was a cinch A, the only real challenge was to actually show for class.
Business Law was another matter. To say the class was boring was being nice, I was stunned by how boring the material was. However, the instructor, Mr. Kline, kept us busy, lecturing the entire 90 minutes from his notes that he kept in a three-ring binder. On the first day he said the entire content of every exam would be based off the lecture notes. That sort of bummed Rick and me out because we had bought the text book and it sounded like we wouldn't need that at all. All you could hear in his class was him reading his notes and everyone else desperately writing down what he said. Every Tuesday and Thursday morningI walked out of that class with my left hand all cramped up from writing. The other rough part of Business Law was showing up on Thursdays at 8:00 am after a productive quarter beer night at The Place. There were several painful Thursday mornings. The last Thursday morning in September was particularly painful. So painful that after a couple of attempts to write down the lecture notes I gave up. At first I just stared into space, but that hurt more than trying to write down notes. I had to do something else so I picked up the Business Law textbook I had bought for the class but that Mr. Kline had yet to refer to and began leafing through it. That morning the lecture was on Liability, there was a chapter in the book on Liability so I flipped to that chapter and began skimming the pages while I listened to Mr. Kline. After a few minutes I noticed something strange. The words I was reading were starting to converge with the words I was hearing. I stopped for a moment, not sure of what was happening, then started skimming while I listened to the words. There, it happened again! The words I was reading were the same words I was hearing. I looked around and people were feverishly writing down what Mr. Kline was reading from his hand compiled notes. I tried it again, I skimmed while I listened and once again I was suddenly reading the words I was hearing. The son-of-a-bitch was reading directly from the textbook but was fooling everyone by making it look like he was reading from his personally prepared notes. Three more times I ran my test, three more times I read what I heard. I was convinced that all he was doing was reading notes he had directly compiled from the textbook. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that his notes, so neatly bound in his three-ring binder were nothing more than photocopied pages from the textbook.
During the break I told Rick my discovery.
“No way, no way that he's reading from the book. Why would he do something like that and not tell us?”
“I don't know, but I'm telling you he is. Look, just see for yourself. Have your textbook out and see for yourself.”
Rick agreed to see for himself and as the second half of the class started up he had his textbook open on his desk but the pull of everyone else writing notes overwhelmed him and before he or I knew it he was writing down notes as fast and furious as anyone else. I watched him as he fell into temptation, looked back at my book to see where Mr. Kline was reading from. I then leaned over and whispered to Rick.
“Page 113, second paragraph.”
“What?” That was all Rick could say as he came out of the daze of writing his notes.
“Page 113, second paragraph... and, now... fourth paragraph.”
Rick understood what I meant that time and turned to page 113. I watched as his finger ran down the page, then slowed down and began to run underneath the words as Mr. Kline said them.
“Son-of-a-bitch!”
Rick said that a little louder than he intended to do and all went quiet in the classroom. Pencils and pens stopped writing and Mr. Kline stopped talking.
“Mr. Anders, is there something you wish to share with the rest of the class?”
“No sir, sorry for that, sir. My hand slipped while I was taking notes and I poked my finger with my pencil. I'm fine, sir.”
Rick's reply seemed to satisfy Mr. Kline, who took a deep breath and began lecturing again. This time everyone feverishly wrote down every word, everyone save for Rick and me.
After class we walked over to the bookstore and each bought a yellow highlighter. No more notes for us. On the next Tuesday we sat down confidently and while everyone else was poised with their notebooks, pens and pencils we had our books open and highlighters ready. Twenty minutes into the class a couple of the people around us noticed we weren't taking notes but were instead highlighting our texts as Mr. Kline lectured. Jackson Lee paid particular attention to us. He pulled his textbook out, turned to the page we are on and caught on very quickly.
“Son-of-a-bitch!”
Again, the class grew quiet.
“Mr. Lee?”
“Sorry, sir, my hand cramped up and it is tingling like mad. Sorry, sir.” Mr. Kline seemed satisfied but that was the last note Jackson took in Mr. Kline's class. Within a week and a half everyone had highlighters and no one was taking notes. The days of hands cramped from furiously writing notes were gone.
A first date and the rare second date
First dates have historically not gone well for me, and that is one reason why I’ve not had that many first dates. Seconds dates are even rarer. Things rarely worked out as I had planned, but on that rare occasion, they do. This is one of those times.
I had known Andrea from a distance all the way through high school. She had attended Nimitz Junior High so I didn’t know she existed until about halfway through our sophomore year at Permian. She was walking down the hall and I was walking in the opposite direction. It was a usual day at Permian for me, I was either dreaming I wasn’t there, or trying to think of a scheme so I wouldn’t have to be there when I saw her. I usually don’t make much eye contact walking down the hall, my eyes are usually cast down while I’m lost in thought. I’ve walked past good friends and never saw them so why I saw Andrea that day I don’t know, but I did.
There was nothing outwardly fancy about her, but she caught my eye. It was the gentle smile, just tugging at the corner of her lips that reeled me in. Combine that with how her eyes sparkled with her smile, how they danced with the light, and I was hooked. I looked at her eyes, lost in what to say or do as we passed each other. At the last second, she glanced down, broke eye contact as her smile broadened and she said quietly “Hi.”
Being cool as I ever am I somehow managed to nod my head, but no sound escaped from my mouth. We passed and I didn’t see her again that day. I didn’t know her name, all I knew was she existed in this world.
For the next two weeks I tweaked my timing until I could consistently see her for a second or two every day as we walked the hall in between fifth and sixth period, each going our separate ways. My style improved as well, and the by the end of two weeks we had graduated to broad smiles and a “Hey, how are you doing?” Still, I didn’t know her name. When the annuals were handed out in May I poured over mine, hoping I could could find her face and thereby learn her name. I was successful. Her name was Andrea Keller.
That next day I saw her in the hallway. With great confidence I said “Andrea, how are you today?” She stopped for a moment, laughed and said “What took you so long, Drew?” My confidence faded away and I said nothing. She smiled again, turned and walked away while saying “See you tomorrow?” I watched her walk away without saying anything else, all the while cursing myself in my mind.
In high school my confidence and timing was never good. About the time I gathered enough confidence to take the next step she would be dating someone, and for some damn reason I was too much of a gentleman to ever try to break things up.
We had one class together in three years at Permian, and that was only for a couple of months as juniors, until I was moved to another session of American History in order to more properly balance class loads. By then we talked when the opportunity arose at school. I knew she played saxophone in the band and she knew I avoided doing as much as was humanly possibly. We called each other Andy, sort of a joke between the two of us.
When she were seniors she dated James Daniels, who sometimes hung out with our group. That was good, it made it easier to see her more often. I don’t think James understood our “Andy” joke, and he may have even been a little jealous as to how well Andrea and I got along. Still, I was a gentleman, and made no further moves.
Then we graduated from Permian. James and Andrea were almost on the outs, and his going to Baylor sealed it. Andrea’s family didn’t have enough money for her to go away immediately to college so she was at Odessa College for awhile. That summer after high school we talked on the phone a couple of times, and then finally, in September of 1976, our first semester at Odessa College, my courage and my timing finally synched together.
A musical documentary about the Beatles was showing over the weekend at the Ector theatre downtown. It seemed like something enough out of the ordinary to be a good first date, but something that would still be entertaining. I steeled myself for the call, managed to stumble my way through it, and she said yes.
Saturday evening I pulled up to her house around 7:00 pm and walked up to the front door. A little guy, around ten years old, opened the door and let me in. As I walked in he leaned back and yelled up the stairs “Andrea, that guy is here!”
His name was Dale and he was Andrea’s younger brother. I walked into the living room where their father and mother were waiting for me. Her father spoke first. “Andrea will be down in a few minutes. Why don’t you sit down so we can get to know each other?”
I knew I should have arrived later. I never cared for these moments, seems like I was never good enough for any man’s daughter and all these moments of extreme discomfort did was confirm that fact and convince me that dating was not that good of an idea, or at least dating girls whose fathers still lived with them.
Andrea’s mother and father were sitting on the couch together. Across from them was a high backed chair and a recliner. Dale ran and immediately jumped in the recliner and leaned back, looking like he had enjoyed many a spectacle such as this before.
Sitting on the ground next to Andrea’s father was a large white Labrador. She barked and growled at me, clearly letting me know that I was not welcome in her home.
Andrea’s father said in a soft voice “Daisy, that’s enough. No need to bark, I don’t think he’s here to cause any harm, are you?”
Daisy stopped making noise and looked up at Andrea’s father with a look of love, her tail swishing at the sound of his voice.
“No, sir, I’m not.” I walked over to the couch, stuck out my hand and said “My name’s Drew Remington. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
Mr. Keller rose to his feet and shook my hand firmly. “I’m Mr. Keller.” Pointing first to his wife and then his son he said “That’s my wife, and that’s our youngest, Dale.”
I then heard a little whimper. Daisy was looking up at me and at Mr. Keller, who laughed.
“And this is really the baby of the family, Daisy. She’s a little shy toward strangers, so don’t let it bother if you she isn’t friendly toward you.”
Introductions over I walked over to the high back chair and sat down. Then the interviewing began. This is what Dale had been waiting for, he crossed his legs and placed his hands behind his head as my past history and future expectations were put on display.
Time passed as I answered questions about what I was studying in school, if I had a job, how long I had known Andrea and on. I’m leaning slightly forward in the chair with my left arm resting lightly on my knee, my fist facing palm up and sticking out a few inches beyond me knee. In between answers, I make a light clucking sound with my tongue, quiet enough that only Daisy can hear. She listens, her head cocked to one side. After a few minutes Daisy grew tired of sitting by Mr. Keller and walked over to Dale, but along the way pausing just a bit to sniff the air around my hand.
The questions and answers keep coming, all the while my eyes scan from Mr. Keller to Mrs. Keller, to Dale and to Daisy. As the next question is posed to me, I listen and quietly cluck.
I don’t know how long this was going on, only that it was long enough for Mr. and Mrs. Keller to be my unofficial god-parents when Daisy took my invitation. She walked over to me and sniffed my hand for several seconds. I opened my hand and began to scratch her under her chin. She clearly liked that. In a couple of more minutes, she tired of standing, leaned against my leg and sat next to me. This worked for me too so I kept petting her.
From the questions it is clear that Mr. Keller is protective of Andrea. While I think I’m passing the test, my success with Daisy leads me to take a slightly different tack.
“Mr. Keller, may I say something?”
“Sure, Drew, go right ahead.”
“You and Daisy are a lot alike. I mean that in a very complementary way. She’s protective of this house and this family. So are you. There’s nothing wrong with that, because that desire to protect is not so strong that it’s harmful.” I paused for a second and then said “I don’t know if you’ve noticed what I’ve been doing for the last few minutes with Daisy?”
“I did notice she warmed up to you quicker than I ever seen her warm up to anyone.”
“A dog reflects its family. Daisy is very healthy, I sensed that from the moment I walked in the door. She barked at me, letting me know she had her eye on me, and I better not do anything to harm her family. Then you told her to be quiet, but you did so kindly and she responded, not out of fear, but out of love. There was no cringing when she heard her name, just a swish of her tale. Then she went over to Dale and sat by him. She’s the family dog, comfortable with everyone in the family. That tells me she is loved. She’s not afraid of people outside the family, just cautious, and that’s why it took her a few minutes to respond to my call.”
“Your call, what do you mean by that?”
“I’ve been around dogs a bit in my life and I’ve learned how through gentle noises and the way you hold yourself a dog can know whether to trust you or not. Daisy chose to trust me.”
At this point Daisy seemed to acknowledge this by resting her head on my knee while I stroked the inside of her ears.
“Daisy doesn’t know much about fear. From what I’ve seen she knows only love, and that tells me a lot about this family, it confirms my instincts about Andrea were right.”
Just then I felt a hand on my shoulder. It is Andrea’s.
I raised my left hand to my shoulder and placed it lightly on Andrea’s.
“Drew, don’t you think it is time to go? We don’t want to be late.”
I stood up, glancing at the clock on the wall and said “Yeah, I guess you’re right, I hadn’t noticed the time.”
Mr. Keller stood up and offered his hand while he said to Andrea “I don’t where you found this one, but he’s interesting, I’ll say that.” He shook my hand firmly “It was nice meeting you, Drew. Hope to see you again.”
It was good timing on Andrea’s part, I had run out of words to say. I mumbled my goodbyes as Andrea and I walked out the door.
That first date went well. You can’t go wrong on the Beatles. The next day I called her and we talked for a good thirty minutes. It all felt good, but I wasn’t ready to ask for the second date.
For the next couple of weeks Andrea and talked on the phone quite a bit. Finally, I was ready to ask for the second date, but my timing was wrong. Maybe I had waited too long to ask, maybe there was something else wrong, not matter what it was when I asked her for the second date she said no. That set me back a bit, but I was stubborn. I kept calling and three weeks later she said yes.
The second date was dinner and a movie and it all went well. Her parents were a little friendlier to me, Dale said hello and Daisy was glad to see me.
We fell into a pattern, or at least it was a pattern to me. We went out about once a month for the rest of the semester and into spring. To me, that was pretty serious, but to everyone else, even Rick, it wasn’t.
Author’s notes:
The story about the Business Law course is a true one. I was extremely hungover one Thursday morning, couldn’t take any coherent notes, and skimming through the up to that moment the completely useless text book when I realized that the instructor’s carefully prepared lecture notes were nothing more than quotes directly from the textbook.
During my days at Permian I was the target of class balancing efforts every year. My sole value to the counselors at school, from what I could tell, was they could always use me to help balance out class loads. I didn’t appreciate it, but it did provide me a built-in excuse to skip most of a class the three to four times it happened to me every year at Permian.
Next week in Episode 3 Drew takes another step up the ladder, and learns another lesson that things aren’t always what they seem after just a few too many beers.