I had a dream about the abandoned light blue caddy the night before last. It was sitting right where it was left.... under the light in the little patch of parking spaces between the Waffle House and the Best Western that didn't really belong to either, in Nashville, in January 1999. I spent countless hours sitting behind the front desk watching the flurries cover it in silence.
That was the best job ever. The pay was shitty. The hours were shitty. I was always the only one on duty and I was almost always second shift so not even my 2 favorite housekeepers were around, the recovered junkie/former Allentown, PA prostitute or the sweet but dumb as bricks large toothless former drunk woman. And I looked forward to Air Guard weekend each month.
Once a month I had a hotel full of Master Sergeants and higher ranking officers.... Good southern men. Good strong southern gentlemen. I was a not quite 22 year old fresh out of college girl far from home with a big smile and quickly ended up with a dozen or so body guards.
It was the one weekend a month I was guaranteed to be well fed and stocked with beer and conversation. They would bring burgers and fries or pasta or peach cobbler and ice cream to the front desk for me regularly. Mmmm I remember that cobbler... it was still warm and the ice cream on top was barely starting to melt!
One particular paratrooper (Room 112. Always. Double, non-smoking.... he liked the second bed to lay his stuff out on.). He always greeted me with a huge smile and tons of charm. At least once during each stay he would call down to the front desk, have me order delivery and would show up 20 minutes later with a six pack, pay for dinner and we'd eat together. He would call the front desk every hour or so and tell me a joke or ask a stupid question "to make me laugh and kill the boredom of the hotel for a few minutes." His admiration did not go unnoticed by his fellow airmen and if they were in the lobby at the same time they would tease him about his shameless flirting and tell me that if he bothered me to call their room.
He never did anything to put my job in jeopardy and never made me feel uncomfortable. He was deployed to Kuwait sometime during that year and we kept in touch via email. That year was not a great year. I commuted back and forth between Nashville and Philly every few weeks for my sick father and was getting pretty good at drinking heavily and regularly. I was bored and depressed with my life and my lack of opportunities to play and make music. It's really no wonder I pushed things out of control electronically with 112.
I knew what to say to get a reaction out of a man, even a player 16 years my senior. It was easy.... he was putty in my hands. Safe putty on the other side of the world. I loved the attention and the fantasy and the freedom of being freshly single for the first time in 8 years. I enjoyed exploring my own sexuality and was in awe at how simple it was to drive this man crazy.
We met up on 2 occasions after that. Once between Kuwait deployments in the hotel where we first met where I was no longer an employee and once before an Afghanistan deployment in Pittsburgh on Easter Sunday. I left family dinner with a lie and drove 5 hours for the sake of adventure. I remember sitting in my car staring at the massive hotel in front of me wondering what possessed me to drive all this way for someone I didn't really care about and hadn't seen in 3 years. I called him and when he answered he said, "You aren't coming are you?" I told him I was in the parking lot and he said he didn't believe me and to flash my lights. Again I thought about saying never mind and going home but couldn't resist the urge to prove I was there.
I spent the night with him, ate room service in the morning, and then we went separate ways. Depending on your definition of sex, it is possible to say nothing happened. We never had "sex". Our meetings included a big barrel of inappropriateness and a touch of awkwardness whereas our emails were completely uninhibited and fantastic. Isn't that the way it goes though? Electronic communication isn't really communication at all.
We lost touch sometime during his next deployment. Internet access was rare for him and I had my life going in all sorts of directions. I've tried to find him a few times in the passed few years..... facebook, myspace, google... to no avail. Though honestly, I haven't tried super hard. Never even tried to send an email. He's one of those experiences in my life that I look back on and smile about and giggle a little and even blush about. Everyone needs a few of them. .....Gawd, he's in his 50's now! hahahaha wow!
