A couple of weeks after I became the Chief of Staff for the Mayan Theatre, Assistant Manager Lerd posted a schedule and gave me three days off in a row. My first thought was that I could drive down to Artesia and see my parents. This would be my first time to see both of them since they had separated. (My father actually came and saw me a couple of weeks after Mom broke the news to me.) I invited Rid to go along. He said he would see about getting off of work. He was working overnight shifts at a Circle K at the time and didn't see it as a problem.
He told me to come by and pick him up around 6am, which is what time he was supposed to get off his shift. I came by a little early and filled up on gas. His boss had come in and started working the morning shift. I paid with a credit card. She asked me if I wanted the carbons from the credit card receipt. I told her yes and she handed me the carbons. Then Rid came out of the back and told his boss that he'd cut himself loading some stock. He had this large gash on his forearm. He said he was cut by a piece of plastic on the Coke cans. He asked me to take him to the emergency room so he could get it fixed up.
We were there for about 2 1/2 hours before he was seen by a doctor. The staff at the ER put a butterfly bandage on the wound. They also gave him a tetanus booster since he wasn't certain when his last immunization was. He asked for a doctor's note that would state he couldn't go to work for the next two days. The doctor said he was fine and could return to work the next day. Rid received the middle sheet from a triplicate note that explained why he was at the emergency room. As soon as we got out to the car, he asked for the carbons from my credit card receipt. He then put the carbon on top of the doctor's note, got a pen and wrote in the space that indicated when the doctor recommended he could return to work. He actually forged a doctor's note that stated he couldn't work for two days.
At no point prior to my arrival at Circle K did Rid tell me he wasn't going to be able to get off work to come on the trip with me. Nor did he tell me that he was going to injure himself on purpose in order to get out of work. The whole time, Rid claimed it was an accident, even to me. When we went back to the Circle K, he showed his boss the note. She was upset because that was going to really mess things up for the schedule. I know she thought that Rid had deliberately cut himself, but I'm surprised that she didn't notice how different the handwriting was from everything else on the note. Otherwise, she would have called him on his BS and ordered him to come back to work that night. But if she had done that, I'm pretty certain he would have just found another way to injure himself. He was going to get out of work whether she liked it or not. I guess I should be impressed that my friend was willing to go through all that to go on a road trip with me, but it was to adjust to the fact he would deliberately to himself.
So I thought, "Okay, that's settled. We can go now." Actually, we couldn't. Rid hadn't packed yet. We had to go to his house, which was a 30 minute drive. Both his parents were there. Rid told them about the accident at work. They accused him of cutting himself. His father took a close look at the doctor's note and commented on how the writing on the note that excused him from work was different from the writing on the rest of the form. Rid responded by saying, "It's carbonated!" He kept repeating that as his parents kept questioning him about the note. One of the things we had to do before we left was give Rid's mother the phone number to my Mom's house, in case of an emergency.
We wound up leaving about five hours after I thought we were going to go. I was hoping we'd make it to Artesia before it got dark, but that just didn't happen. We stopped and got something to eat in Raton after we passed the state line. We then continued driving. We took turns at the wheel. When we were driving through Roswell around 8pm, Rid woke up and looked around. "Are we in Lakewood?" he asked. I guess he thought I had turned around and gone back while he was sleeping. I'd never considered that before, but Roswell did look a little bit like Lakewood at night.
Even though I had several reasons for this trip, i.e.: seeing my parents, showing Rid where I grew up, my main reason was to re-connect with Chez. I hadn't talked to her since I hung up the phone on her when she called on her 18th birthday. I'd done a lot of soul-searching and decided that I wanted her in my life. After the fiasco with the personal ad, I figured I was tired of playing head games and wanted to settle down with someone who would love me no matter what.
I knew that she might not want to have anything to do with me after that. But I figured that once I showed her I was now willing to commit, she would continue to care about me as she had done for the last two years. Rid was aware of my drama involving Chez, but he didn't know beforehand that I was going to try to get in contact with her on this trip.
The place where Chez' family lived was at the old Air Force Base that was on the south side of town. Just a couple of blocks away was an Allsup's convenience store. I pulled into a parking space next to the pay phone. I put in a quarter and called her house. Her father answered. I altered my voice to a higher pitch so he wouldn't recognize me. I asked if Chez was there. He said, "No, Chez doesn't live here anymore. She moved in with some guy!" I said thanks and hung up the phone.
I was stunned. I clearly was not expecting this turn of events. My first thought was that she finally got the message that I didn't want to have anything to do with her and then she went and did something drastic. I felt like this was all my fault. If I had just showed her a little courtesy and been honest with her, she wouldn't have just run out on her family like this. I went back to the car and drove to Artesia.
We got to my Mom's house around 9:30pm. This was the first time I had been to this house. My parents had moved out of that large house and into this smaller one. Fairly soon after that move, Dad left Mom. That meant she was living in the house all by herself. Rid and I arrived and visited with her for awhile. She had been enjoyed the CD player I had gotten her and Dad for their anniversary, but she was having a problem playing some of the CDs because they kept skipping. Rid and I examined the CDs and found that they were smudged with dirt. We were able to clean them and they played fine after that.
We were both beat and went to bed. One thing I hadn't planned on beforehand was that we would return to Roswell the next day. I'll continue this story tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment