Walking Backwards - Episode 7
Jack passes on Mr. Blessing' wisdom to Drew, Drew returns to the land of bent trees, rushes Ann a bit and things get a little testy.
Welcome to the seventh episode of Walking Backwards, the third collection of not quite true tales of Texas. Previous collections are:
The Cold Days of Summer - If you are new to these tales and the type who likes to know how things started I would recommend starting here.
The Hollow Men - the second collection of not quite true tales of Texas.
New episodes are posted (almost) every Sunday. You can move easily between episodes via links to the previous and next episode.
If you are new to these not quite true tales of Texas but are the type who likes to dive right in I suggest you look at the prologue to Walking Backwards. The prologue provides a summary of the first two collections and descriptions of the major characters you will be reading about in Walking backwards.
In our last episode, episode 6 of Walking Backwards, Drew, Mike and Rick have a deeper conversation, and Buster, Sam, Ann and Drew travel to Odessa, a land of sand but no water. Even after traveling to Odessa, and despite seeing beaches with no sea in sight, Ann still sees enough in Drew to keep the relationship going. Ann and Buster have returned to Houston while Drew is in Austin.
Mr. Blessing’s wisdom
Shortly after getting back from Odessa I met with Shannon, Jack and Kate at Jack's and Shannon's house for dinner. I told them about the upcoming nuptials, both mine and Garrett's. They already knew about Garret's as Mike had called Jack the week before with that piece of news. They were excited about my news, maybe a little surprised but it was a little hard to tell. Before I left that night Jack got me in a corner to himself.
“Drew, one thing you need to understand. This wedding isn't about you, it isn't about Ann and you, it is about Ann. Don't make any decisions, don't try to force your will on her. Just go along with the flow, do what you're asked. This wedding is all about Ann. If you just go along for the ride and do what needs to be done, it will all go very pleasantly.”
“I'm guessing you learned this lesson the hard way?”
“Nope, my Dad passed this wisdom on when Shannon and I told him and my Mom that we were engaged. Just like me with you tonight, he caught me off to the side and told me what I told you. Said he had learned this from his own wedding when he insisted they get married in a certain church and there was hell to pay. He said he's seen other guys make the same mistake, thinking that they were part of the decision process and that their opinion mattered when it came to the wedding. Every time, every time they learned they were wrong. I wasn't much used to fatherly advice from him, but I took it, let Shannon and her mother do all of the planning and I did the doing they asked me to do. About the only decisions I made was who were the groomsmen and where the rehearsal dinner would be and even there I made sure Shannon knew she had an opinion. Not a single hitch in the whole extravaganza. Best advice I ever got. I may listen to my old man more often.”
Living apart made the wedding planning a little challenging for Ann, Mrs. Torrance and me. What it really meant was that I wasn't involved in much of the planning. Ann and her mother decided the wedding would be on the second Saturday of June. Ann, Elizabeth and Sue would be finished with school and wouldn't have to miss any class time for the wedding. The second Saturday of June was fine with me. My schedule was flexible.
I lived by Mr. Blessing's rules. I didn't make any decisions beyond my groomsmen: Rick as best man, Mark, Jack and Jason as my groomsmen, Art and J.T. as ushers. I even left the choice of where to hold the rehearsal dinner up to Ann and her mother as they knew the restaurants in the area far better than I did. They chose Red Snapper, a Greek seafood restaurant in Surfside.
Our wedding would be at St. Mary, Star of the Sea in Freeport, the Catholic church where Ann was baptized, had first communion and was confirmed. The first Saturday in February we met with Father Pat and I learned of the preparation to come: four sessions with a married couple from the parish, a weekend long marriage seminar in Houston, and the expectations, no, demands, that the Catholic Church placed on Ann and me when it came to our marriage and our children. This was a very strange experience for a heathen like me, but I quickly found the whole approach to be rational and logical, the Church was going to do everything it possibly could to make us realize the responsibility of marriage.
We met with Father Pat several times over the next few months but after that first meeting Ann referred to me jokingly as “my little heathen.” I had to find a nickname for Ann.
With all the wedding planning and preparation I was in Houston or Freeport every weekend. The weekends I was in Freeport I brought Sam. If I was meeting Ann in Houston I let Sam stay in Austin where Billy kept an eye on her. On one of those weekends in Freeport I learned something about Ann I did not know, her full name. It was a Saturday morning, Mrs. Torrance was fixing breakfast. I was up and had taken Sam and Buster out into the back yard. Ann was still sleeping in her bedroom when Mrs. Torrance said “Annabelle Ruth Torrance, time to get up. You're going to sleep the day away.” It was 7:00 so it wasn't like the day was wasting too much yet, but the important thing is I now knew Ann's full name. Annabelle Ruth? That was useful information.
I haven't talked much about the field, the voices or the dreams. I've been blocking them out for nearly two years. I've gotten good enough at the blocking that I really don't think about it much anymore. Part of the blocking was due to me drinking more, but I also believe Ann was a cause as well.
I haven't conversed with Stan the Skeleton Man in a long time. He's around, I just haven't been listening to him. I'm spending more time in the real world and I really don't think Ann needs to know about Stan, my dreams or the voices.
A return to the land of bent trees
One thing I learned early on about wedding planning and preparation is that I wasn’t necessary. Most of the time Ann and her mother were able to take care of things. The only times I was needed was when the situation required a man's presence, which usually meant some kind of physical labor. The net of it is I had a lot of free time when I was in Freeport on the weekends. The first weekend or two I went along with Ann and her mother to visit caterers, floral shops, to look at invitations and other such things, but my presence wasn't needed or necessarily wanted. Soon enough they went on their own to take care of things, leaving me, Sam and Buster with time on our paws. We could stay in the house, watch TV and wait for the ladies to come back and tell us of their decisions but that made for boring days. Instead, we drove around the county.
One Saturday the three of us drove over to West Columbia and Columbia Lakes, the land of bent trees. Development of Columbia Lakes began in the mid to late '70s by Tenneco as sort of a resort community for its employees. The golf course and clubhouse were built, lots were marked off and sold and people built houses for their retirement or as a weekend getaway place. In addition to Tenneco employees building quite a few local people bought land and build houses in Columbia Lakes. Some Tenneco employees even built their primary residence in Columbia lakes and made the daily 50+ mile one way drive to Tenneco headquarters in Houston. Gasoline was cheap at the time, well below 50 cents a gallon. Then things changed. The oil bust of the 1980's, the same bust that brought an end to VP Tanks, hit Columbia Lakes hard and brought development to a crawl. At the time maybe 30% of the lots had been built and developed. Not much had changed since. There were a few houses for sale, and a large number of open lots for sale. For a Saturday, it was quiet. There were people on the golf course, but it wasn't crowded. It looked like one could walk up to the first tee and start playing with no delay.
Most of the homes had been built in the heyday, the late 70's but Sam, Buster and I did come across one home that was brand new and for sale. I stopped and the three of us walked around the lot and the house. Sam and Buster seemed more interested in the scents that had been left behind by neighborhood dogs and other animals. I was more interested in the house. It was a single story ranch like layout. Not all that big, my guess was around 1600-1700 square feet. Looking through the windows I could see the kitchen, living room and one of the bedrooms. There was no sign I could see of anyone ever having lived there. I liked what I saw and wrote down the house address and the phone number of the realtor, Columbia Lakes Realty. As I was leaving Columbia Lakes I saw the realtor's office and on a whim decided to drop in. The realtor was in and took us back to the house for a walk through. Three bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, 2 1/2 car garage (the half was for a golf cart), good layout inside and on the lot. Maybe it was time to think about a move? Ann and I hadn't talked too much about where we were going to live, but this seemed as good a place as any. The realtor admitted there hadn't been much action on the house, for that matter in the neighborhood, but stressed that I shouldn't let this chance slip.
Ann and her mother wrapped up their wedding chores by early afternoon and were back home when we got back. I told them that we had just been driving around seeing the sights and they both laughed saying that shouldn't have taken long.
That evening Ann and I went out to dinner and I told her about the house. We had three fairly obvious choices, live in Austin, in Katy/Houston or in southern Brazoria County. Each choice required a change on someone's part. We did know that we needed a place with a yard. While Buster could survive as an indoor dog, Sam needed a place to patrol and sun. This was not the kind of thing you decide in a day but we now had something to think about.
My work wasn't a problem, I had built a decent backlog of work in both Austin and Houston and I could work remotely for much of what I had to do. Ann planned to keep teaching after our wedding so she had the hardest decision: stay in Katy or find a new gig in Houston, Austin or southern Brazoria county.
The next weekend Ann and I toured the house in Columbia Lakes. Afterwards we ate lunch at Lucy's, a local Mexican restaurant. Damn hot salsa, good chips and tacos, one could do worse.
“Can we afford this? A house so soon?” Ann asked.
I hadn't told Ann much about the money I had made with VP Tanks. She knew I was doing all right with the contract technical writing but was concerned that it was contract, not permanent.
“Yeah, we can afford it.”
“What would you do with your house in Austin?”
“Probably rent it. I like the house and I like keeping my options open.” That was not the right thing to say, or at least the not right way to say it.
“What do you mean by that? You need an escape plan in case we don't work out?”
Definitely not the right thing to say. I had raised her ire.
“No, no, not what I meant at all. I meant our options. In case we decide to live in Austin some day it would be good to have a place to go. The Austin house is paid for, no mortgage, so any rent we get from it is money in our pocket. I can pay Jack or someone to act as local landlord so there won't be any effort on our part.”
“I don't know, I don't know if I'm ready for this so fast.”
“Ann, we got to live somewhere. We just need to decide where. I have work in Austin and Houston and I can find more work with all of the industry in southern Brazoria county. I'll have to travel some no matter where we live so we just need to decide where we want to live and part of that decision is where you want to teach.”
We didn't make a decision that night or the next night. I was worried that we might not make a decision at all. Things were getting edgy and we were both close to saying the wrong things. It was a mutual decision that the next weekend we had things to take care of on our own. Ann wanted to get together with several of her friends. I stayed in Austin but I had a hard time focusing on work. Thursday afternoon I talked to Rick.
He was doing all right. He hadn't gone back to work but had bought several houses in Odessa. The bust had driven down home prices and he was confident there would be a turn around. It might be a few years but he was willing to wait. Rick had all but one of the houses rented out and was renovating the empty one.
“I spend a few hours there every day, tearing things up and putting them back together. It's good work, I break a sweat, I feel good about what I've done and I can see the results every day. Not a bad deal at all.”
“Yeah, sounds good, glad you're keeping busy.”
“My Dad feels the same way. Mom would be okay if I was home all day long but Dad likes I'm staying busy. He still worries about me, worries I'll slip away.”
“Will you?”
“No, no plans to do that. Of course, you never know what will happen.”
“I thought you were all knowing.”
“Not all of the time. Sometimes I know no more than anyone else. Then sometimes I'm enlightened. After all, you're the only one who knows about the enlightened side of me.”
“Your Dad suspects something, so does Robert.”
“Hmm, I've wondered about that. Sometimes the way they look at me. Makes me wonder. What makes you think they know?”
“Nothing firm. Nothing they've said, nothing I've said. It is the way they look at me and you. Like they're thinking something and they know I'm thinking it but they don't ever say a word.”
“Does Ann know any of this?”
“Not from me. She does think you're a little strange, smarter than you let on. That's about it.”
“Yeah, I talked to her when she was here. You haven't told her much about me, you or VP Tanks, have you?”
“No details, didn't think she needed to know.”
“Do you trust her?” asked Rick.
“Sure, but what she does she need to know? We ran a business. We made some money. We closed the business. What else? The details don't add anything, they just cause confusion.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Thanks for not telling her the whole story, particularly the lost part. People look at me strange if they know about that. I don't really mind it, it's just a lot easier to not have to deal with it.”
Rick paused for a moment before he spoke again.
“Change of subject, where are you two going to live?”
“We have no fucking idea. We could live in Austin, but Ann would have to change jobs. We could live in Houston or Katy, then Ann could keep teaching at Katy High School. We could live in West Columbia.”
“Ah, the land of bent trees.”
A little of the all knowing Rick came out with that because I had never told him about the bent, but not broken trees.
“Yes, the land of bent trees. A good golf course, lots of trees and green. Very soothing at the end of the day. Tons of stars, more than I've ever seen anywhere else save for Fort Davis.”
“Sounds like that's where you want to live. How about Ann?”
“I wouldn't mind it, not at all. Plenty of room for the dogs, quiet, near Ann's mother and a lot of Ann's friends, but far enough away that we can be alone when we want to be. Thing is Ann seems nervous, like the commitment of a house and a marriage is too much at once. I'm not sure.”
“Don't push it. Let the idea rest for a little awhile. Ann doesn't seem to be the type to push or rush.”
“You're right on that. She doesn't like to be rushed.'
“Are you following Jack's suggestions, you know, that the wedding is for her, not for you?”
“Damn, you got to quit that, just going all knowing on me in the middle of a conversation.”
Rick laughed and said “Jack was in town last week for a couple of days. He told me that he told you what his Dad told him. Wasn't all knowing this time, just talking to Jack. Oh, he did have a message for you. He said 'Tell Drew that if he messes up this thing with Ann that I'll have to kill him.'”
We both laughed. Damn, it was good to have Rick back. We talked for a few minutes about nothing in particular but it was good to talk to an old friend.
Author’s notes: Normally, I post a new episode every Sunday morning, but I missed last Sunday. We had just returned from a trip to Florida and I was exhausted and felt like absolute crap all day last Sunday. I tested positive for Covid Monday at a local health clinic, but it has been a minor case. I took it real easy this week and each day felt a little better. All in all, this bout was like a case of the flu, body aches, headaches and very tired. Think I’ll take a nap this afternoon.
Next week in episode 8 of Walking Backwards the voices and Stan the Skeleton Man return, Rick helps smooth things over, time passes quickly, Drew and Ann get hitched, Ann and Drew go to Odessa for Mike’s and Mary Ann’s wedding, Tommy warns Drew things might get strange and Drew notices a pattern with the voices.
the little details of relationships....enchanting reminders