Sitting here now, I have to say he was absolutely right. Never one to act with caution, if ever I wanted to know something, I would just go right out there and find out for myself. Whatever ....where-ever!
I wouldn't say dad and mom were overly strict parentally, but I was brought up to be mindful of the need to observe healthy thoughts and actions. "Having respect for yourself Heather," my dad would remind me "is the cornerstone to having respect for others."
How I miss him. Snatched cruelly from our lives when I was just seventeen years old, in an auto-wreck caused by a drunk-driver, I don't think I ever came to terms with it.
I am twenty-one now and holed-up here in this shabby little room on Cleveland Drive, so far removed from any lifestyle my parents might once have wished for me, that my only joy now is to be found at the business-end of a shared needle.
Perhaps sympathy was all I ever wanted? Maybe just a shoulder to cry on. Who knows? At seventeen though, I discovered that my developing body was of particular interest to the male population of Thyssen County, Iowa. When I say 'the male population,' you can take that to mean anyone between eighteen and those with a walker - not that I ever tested my theoretical limits you understand.
I can tell you exactly how this all came about - if you're interested?
It was only a few weeks after the funeral. I had just turned eighteen and couldn't face school that day in my final year. I had just gone to Rafferty's Park where I had been sitting alone on a swing for maybe an hour. Between bouts of tears I just felt so alone. An only child, mom had been considerably older than my father and although shattered herself I suppose, she didn't have enough emotional space for me as well. We fought over nothing most nights.
My thoughts were interrupted by this guy - he must have been in his fifties I suppose, asking me what was wrong and could he help? I wasn't so far out of it that I didn't recognise stranger-danger, so I more or less told him to take a hike. Instead of taking offense though, he just looked at me in a kindly way and said he was sorry for interrupting and to forgive him. Something about him looked and sounded "safe" and as he walked away, I felt such a little bitch speaking to him like that and called him back.
"No apologies necessary missy," he said to me. "You are quite right to be wary...there's some total fruitcakes in the County." I managed a half-smile.
We must have sat in that park for almost an hour. I told him what had happened and why I wasn't at school. He listened just like the father I now needed so badly and after I had finished - brought down by a further emotional relapse...he cuddled me and held me to him.
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