CHAPTER 15 - CONFESSIONS

            We rode back to his house, and Michael ushered me into his inner sanctum. Dropping his keys and sunglasses on a small lamp table beside the front door, he pulled off the bandanna and ran his hands through his tousled, brown locks. I caught my breath as I gazed in awe. Scruffy was definitely a look that Michael wore well. "Make yourself at home," he directed, unaware of my appreciation. "It'll only take a few minutes," he assured me as he disappeared into the kitchen to brew the tea. I didn't realize it at the time, but he'd left the front door discreetly open in deference to his innate sense of propriety. He did not consider it seemly for a man of his years to be alone behind closed doors with a girl of mine.

            I wandered around the living room, unapologetically nosey as I examined the objects I found there, happily gaining a deeper insight into the personality of one Mr. Michael Donovan. The house was compact and decorated in a style most aptly described as early thrift store. Though the furnishings might be shabby, the house was compulsively neat. It didn't fit the stereotype of a bachelor-pad, but it did fit Michael. I had gotten the distinct impression that Michael prized order in all things, and one look around the room confirmed those suspicions.

            The first thing I noticed was Michael's collection of books. I couldn't even hazard a guess as to how many there were. Half of an entire living room wall was taken up by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Sharing space equally with the books was a very impressive collection of record albums. Yes, albums, as in those big black vinyl things with the little hole in the middle. Not to be confused with 45's, those little black vinyl things with the big hole in the middle, and Michael seemed to have an impressive collection of those, too. This was 1974, after all, and the eight-track tape was still considered to be on the cutting edge of technology.

            Michael's passion for reading obviously equaled his passion for music, something else we had in common. I glanced at the titles: fiction and non-fiction, hardcover and paperback, best sellers, classics and even college texts, all alphabetized and categorized, neat and tidy. There were books about history, books about science, anthologies of poetry, drama, and prose, biography, philosophy, and on and on. He seemed to be interested in everything. "Have you read all these books?" I called to him in the kitchen.

            He stuck his head through the arched doorway, "Now, what's the point of havin' a bunch of books you've already read?" He was clearly teasing. "Yeah," he admitted, "I've read most of ‘em. If you see somethin' you like, you're welcome to borrow it."

            "Gee, thanks," I replied as I continued my explorations. Michael's record collection was as varied and extensive as his library. I flipped through some of the album covers: rock, pop, folk, big bands, country, bluegrass, jazz, R&B, you name it and he had it. As far as Michael was concerned, there were only three kinds of music: what he liked, what he didn't like, and what he hadn't heard.

            Michael's eclectic taste in music was not really unheard of, though. Radio was only just then beginning to fragment into the various formats of today. Now, if you want to hear a certain kind of music, you have to tune in to a specific station. But back then, people were still mainly listening to AM radio, and one of the most popular stations, KLIF - the mighty 1190, played the popular Top 40, so the country music of Buck Owens and Waylon Jennings coexisted peacefully with the folk of Simon and Garfunkel, the soul of Aretha Franklin, and the Rolling Stones' rock and roll. The music that Michael embraced was the music that resonated in his soul.

            After the books and records, the next thing that caught my eye was Michael's collection of guitars. I counted at least four. I recognized the Martin's case, but there was also a 12-string Guild, and a Ramirez classical guitar resting on stands next to a Les Paul Black Beauty. This last instrument was leaning against a formidable-looking Vox amplifier. Michael must be getting quite an employee discount at the music store where he'd mentioned that he worked as manager because I knew just enough about guitars to know that none of these instruments were cheap. I could only guess that some of them had also been pawn-shop rescues like the Martin.

            Sitting on a shelf, next to the record player, I found the picture. It was a small black and white photograph in a metal dime-store frame, probably taken sometime around the mid-1950's. It showed a woman sitting on a stone wall with her arm around a slender straight-haired boy of maybe six or seven years old. I knew immediately that it had to be Michael and his mom. She was beautiful, probably in her middle twenties, and though she was seated I could tell that she was tall and willowy. She was wearing a short-sleeved peasant blouse and a dirndl skirt. Her light hair was swept up in a chignon, accentuating the swan-like neck around which she wore a single strand of beads. The resemblance between the woman and the apple-cheeked child beside her was quite pronounced.

            At that moment, Michael emerged from the kitchen carrying two pint Mason jars full of iced tea. "Here ya go, Magnolia," he said handing one to me. "I hope you like your tea sweet."

            "Thanks." I took a sip. There was an extra flavor that I didn't immediately recognize. "Ummm, that's good. What's in there?"

            He smiled. "That's my own secret recipe. It's cinnamon."

            "I like," I said, nodding approval, and taking another appreciative sip. Indicating the picture I asked, "You and your mom?"

            "Yeah." He looked wistfully at the pair in the photograph.

            "You were adorable!" I gushed.

            He pretended to pout. "Whaddaya mean, ‘were'?"

            "Okay, you still have your moments," I allowed with feigned reluctance. In the back of my mind, I was amazed at my ability to stand there bantering playfully with such an attractive man as though we were equals, but I felt completely at ease with Michael. I looked at the picture again. "She's beautiful."

            "Yes, she was," he agreed. There was a pause, and Michael grew pensive as he studied the picture. "She died just before I started high school." He had a far-away look in his eyes and his voice got softer. The more deeply Michael felt something, the quieter he became.

            "Tell me about her," I urged.

            He took the picture and sat down on the couch, patting the cushion beside him. I joined him there. "She was my best friend," he began. "It was us against the world." The depth of love I heard in that simple statement revealed more to me about Michael and his mother than if he'd spoken at great length.

            "What about your dad?" I asked, and immediately regretted it when I saw his expression darken.

            He bowed his head and stared at the picture, but not before I saw a quick flash of anger in his blue eyes. "I guess this is a day for confessions." His tone of voice was sardonic. Then, he took a deep breath. "My father and I never met," he said matter-of-factly as he looked into my eyes. "My folks weren't married." He made the statement flatly and unemotionally, but he was watching me as though to gauge my reaction, a habit that had probably been born of a lifetime of enduring other peoples' censure.

            I kept my expression carefully neutral, but my heart went out to him. It wasn't so much what he'd said, but the way he'd said it. Outwardly, it had been a statement of simple fact, but I had detected the faintest suggestion of shame in his admission. It doesn't make much difference in the present day, and it mattered a lot less in 1974 than it had just ten years prior, but Michael was a child of the 50's. When he'd been growing up, there was quite a stigma associated with being born out of wedlock, for the child as well as the mother. And, it has always struck me as consummately unfair that a child should be condemned for anything his parents had - or hadn't - done.

            "She was a good woman," he said, vaguely defensive. It seemed important to him that I believe it. I nodded my assent, and he continued. "She made one bad choice, and she had to pay for it for the rest of her life." He looked away, remembering. "We both did," he added in a near whisper.

            He bowed his head for a moment, looking at the picture as though considering how much more of the story to tell. He must have deemed me worthy of his confidence because he continued, "When she told my father she was pregnant, he split." He snapped his fingers. "Disappeared! He abandoned her. Abandoned us. We didn't find out until later that he'd gotten killed in Korea. When my mom's parents, self-righteous hypocrites," he muttered under his breath, "found out about her condition they abandoned her too, just turned her out of their house. She didn't have any family or anywhere else to go until her best friend's family offered to take her in. Seems like they understood a little bit more about Christian charity that my mother's family. Anyway, they helped her find a job and a place to live, and took care of her when I came along."

            I couldn't help noticing the way he'd disavowed any relationship with his maternal grandparents. I had the feeling that Michael did not easily forgive nor readily forget sins against the people he loved.

            "She worked herself to death, literally, just to support the two of us. She never asked for anything from anyone, but everybody in the neighborhood looked down on her. They looked down on both of us. We didn't have anybody but each other." He sighed and looked away, remembering.

            After a moment, he continued, "I was still a minor when she died, so they stuck me in the Lena Pope Home. Don't get me wrong. It was better'n a whole lotta other places I could've ended up. Private institution or state-run, though, an orphanage is still an orphanage. When I started high school in the fall, of course, I went to Arlington Heights just across the road. Tryin' to get along at a new school is rough enough, and bein' one of those kids sure didn't help. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out that I didn't exactly fit in. So y'see, Magnolia, I know a little bit about bein' an outsider," he said as he covered my hand with his and gave it a quick squeeze in an acknowledgement of our kinship.

            "It was tough after my mom died," he went on with his narrative, "I was pretty lost and mad at the world. But I really did my best to get along. At first. I went to class, an' I went through the motions, but my heart wasn't in it. My heart wasn't really in anything. I didn't have any real friends to speak of, so it wasn't long before I started gettin' into trouble. Now, I could say that I fell in with a bad crowd, that they led me astray. But the truth is nobody led me anywhere I wasn't ready to go. And after a while, I was the one doin' most of the leadin'."

            Michael shook his head as he remembered. "There was a coach, Mr. Shepherd, who tried to steer me in the right direction. He got me into athletics. I played basketball and ran track. He kept me busy trainin' so I was too tired to get into much trouble. An' that constant activity gave me something to do with all the aggression that kept gettin' me into scrapes."

            I had a brief mental picture of Michael in a track uniform, and it was a very nice picture. I'll bet he's got great-lookin' legs, I thought and I felt myself blush. Thankfully, he was busy with his reminiscences and didn't notice.

            "Toward the end of my senior year was when I really started gettin' into trouble. I was facin' graduation, and had no idea where to go from there. All of a sudden I was gonna be on my own, an' it scared the livin' daylights outa me."

            He looked a little embarrassed as he continued his confession. "I got to be quite a hell-raiser in those days. I used to hang out in these dives up and down Jacksboro Highway, the ones that didn't care about my age as long as I had money, an' I managed to get into lots of trouble. I started drinkin' pretty heavy, an' I can be a real belligerent drunk, so I got into quite a few fights." He looked away, his color deepening at the memory - I couldn't believe that Michael was actually the one blushing now - he looked back at me and continued, "That's one of the reasons I don't drink anything stronger than iced tea anymore. Then there was the other stuff, takin' chances like drag racin' at the old Eagle Mountain Guard Base and stupid stuff like skinny-dippin' in the Caravan Motel swimmin' pool at three o'clock in the mornin' after gettin' thrown out of one of the bars."

            I had another mental picture and did a little blushing myself, but Michael went on, unaware. "Basically, if it was self-destructive, I did it. I guess I was trying to find something to kill the pain or fill up that empty hole inside me. Finally, I ended up in front of a judge who gave me a choice: Join the Army or go to jail. Alternative Sentencing's what they called it. Potential Death Sentence is what it really was. Looking back, it seems like a pretty stiff penalty for a few Drunk-and-Disorderlies. Anyway, that's how I wound up in Vietnam. If it hadn't been for one of my buddies, I'd be dead now, an' nobody would be missin' me."

            From the expression on his face, I could tell that he was not speaking metaphorically. Someone else had actually prevented his death, and the memory still had the ability to rattle his composure. I looked back into those fathomless blue eyes and caught a glimpse of the lost little boy that he must have once been. There was something totally disarming about his willingness to display his own vulnerability to me. Thinking back on it now, I believe that was the moment my feelings for him began to blossom into something deeper and more mature than my initial teenage appreciation for a particularly fine example of the male gender. "I'd miss you," I assured him, putting my hand on his shoulder.

            The shadow of a smile touched his lips as he covered my hand with his, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Thanks, Maggie Mae, but you probably wouldn't say that if you'd known me then. I was a pretty ornery cuss."

            I thought for a moment. "Well, you wouldn't be who you are now if you hadn't been who you were then. The angry young man must've found redemption."

            "That angry young man still has to look for it every day," he said simply. He cocked his head and regarded me with a half smile, seeming to shake off the serious mood that had overtaken him. "I don't know about you, Magnolia, but I could use another glass of tea." He stood and gave me a quick wink. "Then, do ya feel like singin'?"

            While Michael busied himself in the kitchen again, I thought about him being alone in that orphanage and my eyes began to water. I blinked furiously to keep from crying again. Even though I manage to hide it pretty well most of the time, I've got a sentimental streak about two acres wide. I knew exactly how cruel kids could be from my own recent and personal experience, and it pained me to think of Michael having to endure similar treatment: the taunting, the ostracism, and worse.

            When he came back into the living room with the tea, I tried to lighten the conversation. "Y'know, my mom's always threatenin' to send me to Lena Pope whenever I get on her nerves. I guess she thinks she's bein' funny."

            Michael met my eyes. "Well, it's not funny. I can tell ya for a fact." He shook his head in utter disbelief. "I can't imagine anyone tellin' a kid somethin' like that. Even as a joke. Your mom oughta be ashamed of herself. An' you can tell ‘er I said so!"

            My eyes got wider. Wow, that definitely struck a nerve. I already knew that I could never tell my mother about this conversation, or deliver Michael's condemnation of her parental skills, but deep down it pleased me to know that he cared. Smiling as much as I dared, which wasn't much, I offered, "Well, then I guess I probably shouldn't tell you ‘bout all those times she told me to go play in traffic or threatened to break my arm."

            Michael was seriously concerned. "Did she ever do anything like that?"

            I did my best to placate him. "Aw, c'mon, Michael. I was raised on sarcasm, an' I've been able to recognize it ever since I was little bitty. Even when I was just three years old, I knew she didn't really want me to play in traffic." I shook my head at the very thought. "Good Lord, she'd've beaten the tar outta me!" I looked at Michael and added hastily, "Uh, figuratively speaking, of course. I mean, I'd've gotten a spanking, but it's not like she would've beaten me unconscious or anything."

            I noticed one corner of his mouth lift slightly in a wry smile as he nodded in capitulation and I continued to reassure him. "And no, she's never broken my arm or anything else, so you don't have to worry about that." I couldn't hold back a scornful laugh as I admitted, "Although, she did chip a bone in her own hand when she tried to knock the crap outa me and missed."

            There was a look of horror on Michael's face as I explained. "Yeah, we were in the car, driving to Greenville to see some of my dad's relatives. I smarted off, and she tried to backhand me from the front seat. She missed me and hit the door instead." I shrugged, and then winked at him, "I thought it served her right, so I guess I sorta deserved that whippin' I got afterwards. Anyways, it didn't hurt quite as much since she had to give it to me with her left hand."

            Michael was shaking his head again. "My God, Maggie, I can't imagine what your childhood was like," he exclaimed in astonishment.

            "Growin' up, I thought everybody's parents were like that," I said with a shrug. "I didn't know there was any other way until this new family moved in next door when I was nine or ten. They had a daughter ‘bout my age, and we got to be friends. Well, one day Mom was gonna drive us to school, so Jeannie - that was her name - came over to our house to wait. Well, Mom was on a tear about somethin' or other. I don't really remember if she was hollerin' at me for some reason, or just gripin' at the world in general because everything wasn't goin' her way, but she was rantin' and ravin' and stompin' around the house. I wasn't payin' any attention, 'cause that's her usual mood an' her normal tone of voice, but poor little Jeannie nearly had a nervous breakdown. Her parents never raised their voices to each other, much less to her. She ran home cryin' and when I went to her house to see what the deal was, her mom met me at the door and said she was too upset to go to school that day."

            I thought back on the incident I hadn't remembered in years, and something occurred to me. "Come to think of it, she didn't come over to my house much after that, at least not when my mom was home. Whenever we played, I was the one who always had to go next door to see her. I don't think she ever got over bein' scared of my mom."

            Michael regarded me with an odd expression. "You're a tough one, Maggie Mae."

            I honestly had no idea what he was talking about. After all, you can't really know how bad things are if you've never had anything better for comparison. It never occurred to me that Michael would find my resilience of spirit remarkable enough to comment upon or compliment. "What?!" I demanded.

            He merely gave me a half smile and patted my hand. "Aw, nevermind," he said as he rose from the couch. "Where's my guitar?"