You are visitor number since Saturday, August 12, 2006 08:11 PM

(An excerpt from "The Chameleon Man")

By J. Needham

Chapter 12 - In School

    Images flashing through his mind were relentless and varied.  One instant he'd be thinking of earth-toned maple leaves playing tag in the nippy autumn wind, on a deserted lamp-lit street, and then he'd be thinking of the girl in the red flannel shirt.  She had come into the student lounge shortly after Jay had, and sat at the opposite side of the table next to his.  Her arrival had interrupted his reading.

    It was between classes and he had a few hours to kill.  Ellie Scott's "Milk River" had him thinking about creating moods with verbal images.  He looked around the room and smelled the scent of newness....new books, new clothes, new friends and new surroundings in a new school.  As his eyes moved from the woman bus-driver reading a book in one of the scattered lounge chairs, to the television set above the piano in the corner, he noticed it was getting dark through the windows on either side of the fireplace.  The day had grown old since he'd arrived and started reading.

    The setting sun and autumn cold that heralded the death of summer, and approach of winter, provided an ironic contrast to the newness, youth and vigor within the walls of Clackamas Community College.

    The light at Jay's table was above and behind him.  It cast his shadow on what he was reading and it'd been annoying him for a long time.  Just after the girl in the red flannel shirt walked in, his annoyance exceeded his reluctance to move and he decided to relocate to the other side of the table where the light would be better.....besides that, it afforded a better view of the girl in the red flannel shirt.

    She was very attractive with short, curly brown hair and blue-gray eyes.  They had a mischievous sparkle with a kind of feline quality.  Her frame was slender, but well proportioned, with ample endowments in all the areas Jay considered essential.  There was a vaguely familiar quality about her, but experience had taught him that many people looked familiar, and one of the oldest come-ons in the book was the old "haven't I seen you somewhere before?" approach.

    "The light's not good enough over there."  Jay casually remarked to the girl in the red flannel shirt as he prepared to settle back to his reading.

    "You're probably right."  She replied.  "I think I'm going to move too."  She began to gather her things together.  "One of these days I'm going to learn not to spread everything out so well."  She had her books spread out over half the table in front of her.

    "Probably."  Jay wasn't entirely sure he'd heard what she'd said.  Whenever he wasn't sure what someone said he'd respond with some neutral or inane remark like that.

    In a few moments she had her study material spread out over half the table again....on the opposite side of the one where Jay had been....and was busy writing, apparently oblivious to everything else.  Jay noticed a wedding band on her left hand.  She was married, he thought.  Oh well, that hadn't ever stopped him before.  This time was different though.  She hadn't given any indication that she was receptive to anything but her studies.  What a lucky guy her husband must be to gaze into those pretty blue-gray eyes and see the devotion and respect that a man....that Jay....needed so much.  Then again, Jay might be totally misreading the girl's character.  He preferred to be optimistic and rejected the alternatives, but knew that rejecting the undesirable didn't make it true.

    Rejecting the undesirable reminded him of the girl's that thought he looked like Kris Kristofferson.  It always pleased him when someone, particularly women, would think that he resembled Chuck Norris or Kris Kristofferson.  Especially when they felt compelled to remark about it.  He thought they were both good-looking guys who portrayed characters he wanted to be like.  Jay Adams, country singing Karate expert.  It had a nice ring to it....in his imagination.  Just the kind of guy a lady could really go for!  Good-looking, rich, able to defend himself and his lady, but sensitive enough to croon ballads to his lover that would sweep her off her feet.... and into the sack.  If it were only true.

    Jay wasn't a Karate expert.  He wasn't rich and, although he'd probably get his ass kicked, he'd fight if there were no other alternative.  He was a loser at love.  Even though he wasn't unattractive and didn't have much trouble finding a girl in a bar, to sack out with, he either lost the good relationships or they just eluded him altogether.  Jay was saving himself for the right girl.  It reminded him of Julie, at the Gazebo.

Chapter 13 - The Gazebo

Yesterday he was at the Gazebo Saloon talking to a lady-friend about the right guy or girl.  Julie was depressed with her hot-and-cold relationship with her shack-up.  It seemed her old man had gone out with some girl and then the girl told Julie about it.  Jay had designs on this particular lady-friend.  He'd been trying to maneuver her into the right circumstances for some time, and saw this as an opportunity to make some points with her...at her old man's expense.

"All you need is a little 'attitude adjustment'.  In a few days you'll be back with your old man and this'll be history."  Jay knew that Julie was into nose candy and figured she'd pick up on the 'attitude adjustment' reference.  She did.

    "What kind of 'attitude adjustment'?" she said with mock innocence.

    "What do you want me to do, draw you a picture?"  Julie wasn't that naive, and Jay knew it.  She didn't pursue the subject, so Jay didn't either.

    "No, Jay," she said as she turned her pretty blue eyes to gaze, briefly into his.  She never held eye contact for very long, and that annoyed Jay.  "That sonufabich really blew it this time!  Why are guys always such self-centered ass-holes?"  Then she seemed to address some nonexistent entity saying "Why can't I ever find a guy that isn't always thinking of himself?"

    Jay didn't even bother to look at her.  He just stared at his glass and shrugged "Just find the right guy."

    "Yeah?" she shot back with a skeptical sneer.  "There's no such thing as the right guy!"

    "You bet there is," he said.  "You're lookin' at him."

    "Are you trying to tell me you're the right guy?"  The way she sarcastically emphasized "the right guy" didn't deter Jay in the least.

    "You got it!"  Jay couldn't believe he'd actually said that, but now that he'd declared a virtue he was committed to defend it.  Everything Jay said was true, at least until he admitted he was just B.S.'n.  This time he wasn't.  He really believed he was the right guy, it was just that he hadn't ever found the right girl.

    "Well, if you're the right guy, how come you broke up with Mary?"

    "Because she wasn't the right girl!"  It seemed the perfectly natural reply, to Jay, but he was still surprised that she hadn't burst out laughing at his arrogant self-confidence.  There was a lesson to be learned here, he thought.  He'd have to remember that women don't always have a negative response to presumptuousness.  Anyway, even if she wasn't swallowing "hook, line and sinker", at least she was nibbling at the bait.  His ego was gorging itself, so he followed through with his come-on.

    Julie was saying something but he wasn't listening.  He was thinking about ravishing her supple body and wondering if she looked as good, without clothes, as she did with them.  He felt the heat of passion growing until he felt Julie may notice the tremble in his hands....or the tightness in his jeans.

    "Do you have any idea how nervous I'm getting with you sitting right here, next to me, like this?"

    She couldn't figure out why what she was saying or doing was making him nervous. "What do you mean?  Do you want me to move?"

    God, he thought, is she stupid or what?  "I mean I keep thinkin' how I'd like to ravish your body, but this isn't the time or the place.  Dig?"  She glanced at his groin and he knew she'd figured out what he meant.  "I'll tell you one thing," he was on a roll.  "If you were my girl, I know just what doctor Jay would prescribe!"  He took a leisurely drink of his beer to let his words have their effect.

    "Yeah?  What's that?"  She still had that skeptical expression, but she was obviously interested in determining what kind of come-on this was.... and how it would end up.

    "The first thing I'd prescribe is a little relaxation.  On a nice soft sofa, in front of a crackling fire, in one of those seventy-dollar-a-night condos at Cannon Beach.  Kinda kick-back and 'let your hair down' with a guy that cares enough to listen, and a few beers to loosen up."  Jay had never seen Julie maintain eye-contact this long.  She seemed to be conjuring up mental images of the scene he was describing while he spoke.  "Take off your shoes, put your feet up, and get down to a good, healthy, self-expression session."  He didn't know whether she'd caught the sexual overtones.

    "What do you mean 'self-expression session'?"  She'd picked up on the sexual overtones and wanted him to expand on them.

    "You know, do what you feel."  He shrugged.  "If you feel like making love, make love.  If you feel like getting high, get high.  If you feel like yelling or getting violent, yell or get violent.  Just take it easy on the hardware....and the guy!"

    Julie smiled and kinda laughed without making a sound.  She looked right at Jay with that sexy, sleepy smile, and dreamy longing in her eyes that drove him crazy.  "Sounds good to me."  Jay hated times like this.  He knew that if he had the money to do what he was describing, he could do whatever he fancied with her.  But he didn't.... and he couldn't.  So another opportunity slipped by, to join the legions that had slipped by before.

    "What's stopping us?"  Julie queried.

    "Money!"  Jay knew they both knew that that summed it all up.

    "That's it!"  She picked up her drink and took a swallow.  The dreamy expression was gone, replaced by the depressed expression she'd worn when he came in.  Maybe in another life, he thought.  At least we can find a moment of happiness in our dreams.

    "Well," Jay exhaled heavily, as if he'd been holding his breath.  Maybe he had.  "I've got to get to work!  You know what?  I'd give you my number if I thought you'd ever use it.... I mean if you move up to Portland, or get your own place, or something."

    "I'd use it."  She promised.

    She probably meant it when she said it, but experience told him otherwise.  He went through the motions, though, and wrote down his number at home and work.  It was all he could do to suppress his desire to feel her warm lips against his.  Her hand seemed to linger unnecessarily long as she took the matchbook he'd written his number on from his hand.

     "Easy Jay", he thought.  Leave her wanting more.  He knew he was fantasizing.  She wouldn't call, and they probably wouldn't see each other.  Let alone get-it-on.  Even if they did, he doubted that she was the right girl....but he never knew for sure.

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