5.4

Jerry Aeche was a normal enough man for the company he kept, or so my dad's friends says. Certainly they never knew what to do with him. Was he a drinker? Only in moderation. Did he do drugs? Once, at Vallaby's party last year, but only if you count a single hit off a joint. Did he chat up the ladies? He certainly was interested in ladies, but I don't think chat up would quite describe it. He wasn't funny, especially, nor was he exceptionally dull. Jerry just was, and if you don't believe me, you can ask around. I'm sure most people will agree.
The only truly interesting piece of Jerry's life relates to his daughter, which I'm sure you will all agree after I tell you about her. You see, Jerry is normal-looking, of course. And his wife was normal looking, and probably still is for all I know. But Jerry's daughter caused him no end of pain on account of she made him abnormal again. Of course, there was the first and foremost inconvenience on account of single dads aren't too common around here. I didn't learn that Jerry was one for the first ten months of our acquaintance. Anyhow, his daughter was attractive.
Oh, right. That's a major inconvenience for Jerry, because most Dads aren't (once quite literally) beating boys off their daughters. But Jerry did, you see. Ok, I'll start from the top.
Dark (that's Jerry's kid) was normal normal when she was in grade school. Just like everyone else, you understand. She was Jerry's pride and joy. She got Bs in school. She had one or two conservative sleepovers. She played with her dad and didn't complain about wearing dresses. She got in trouble once. Normal, you see. And then puberty and everything. If you've never known a girl grow to a woman in . . . oh, let me see was it about a good solid month in his mid-forties and you look away and she'd grown an inch? And then she filled out just like you'd expect from a real woman. I mean, I'm exaggerating, but you understand that she was a girl one day and a woman the next. And you can believe me, the boys noticed. She was in middle school, but a high school boy started hanging around her, which was abnormal because none of her friends had that. Jerry actually found that boy outside the house at three in the A.M. and he did one of the first abnormally un-Jerry things. He locked that kid inside the house and told him that nobody would hear him scream now, but Jerry didn't have to hurt him. You're hearing this, right? Jerry said this. Anyway, he held the kid down and he said that "You've got a choice, see, and it's between trapped here and your parents don't get to see you graduate or get a degree or get married or have any kids and that, or you can choose to leave her and tell everyone you know that nobody messes with Aeche's daughter." And of course the kid liked his life more than his dignity, but doesn't everybody? So that was the first of Jerry's problems.
And this kid, Jerry's, I mean, she was something else. She wasn't one of those magazine ladies with the teased-out hair and the push-up bras. Nothing like that. She wasn't necessarily a body, you understand. She was confidence and power, the like I'd never seen. She walked like an avalanche, all pure and perfect and yet in slow motion because if you really knew what was going on in there, she was an unstoppable force. She fell into every step she took and never had to move for nobody on the sidewalk. See, I could describe her hair and hips and lips and so on, but she was something even when she was wearing all winter clothes and a hat and all, and you couldn't see her figure worth nothing. She just had to walk past you and you were catching yourself staring at the walk away. And more than that, you know was her personality. She could talk to anybody and I don't think I'm joking at all by that. She always had something she could talk about with anybody. I mean get her in a room with an astrophysicist and she'd be asking him questions and then telling about that one time that she learned what stars were and she'd have him wrapped in ten minutes, tops.
You can see how this is going, you know.
Anyway, Jerry was, by all accounts, normal. So he was a pretty normal dad. Other than that one creep from high school, he left Dark all to herself as far as love went. I mean, he would ask questions, but she was always so good at answering that he never caught on. See, she talked to a lot of boys on account of her talking so well, and then she would get all confused when they act "Hey, honey how about a hump?" and she hadn't given them so much as a go-ahead or a how-you-do. These boys I think really started to get her down, but she never stopped trying to befriend them, as you know. Anyhow, Jerry was always watchin' her on account of her being the only thing in his life worth noticing. He was pretty normal still at this point, I think.
And then! Then, oh boy. She fell in love. We're talking fluttering lashes and pounding hearts and sweaty palms and all that and then on top of it they would stay up until the sun just talking about everything and every once in a while when she didn't think he was looking she would steal a kiss and he would wrestle her on down and kiss her so her knees went and then they would walk outside and look at the moon for a while holding hands. They had it bad. I don't think I remember that boy's name, but he was just what you'd expect would be with the most beautiful girl you've ever seen--what? No, he was an ugly mother's son. Tell me the truth, have you ever seen, I mean outside of the movies, of course. No, you haven't either. Only them really terribly unlikely men ever get the women of your dreams. I guess he wasn't that bad, either, but he sure was short and dark, and that wasn't what I would have pegged her for at all. Maybe I'm just confusing myself because I'm not really a partial judge, you know. Every man is in love with her and all.
Right! So Jerry got all twisted over this. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't drink nothin' neither. He was in a right terrible old state. He knew his girl was gonna make some decision soon and he just hoped it was the best decision for all involved, but he wasn't so sure about it. Jerry took off from work, one, and his supervisor didn't know, and he just went and talked to this boy's parents on the sly. I think he worked at an office where they sell cars, what's that? Oh, dealership. Right. Anyway, Jerry was all worried for her and rightly so.
No, I'm not tryin' to scare you. I'm about to tell you if you can keep your pants on.
See, she had fallen hard for this boy and he was just as sweet as can be, if you'll believe it. But comes the day she decides she's gonna marry this boy. When--I suppose about she was twenty, but I could be wrong. And Dark, she decides this and she takes this boy's words into her heart about how he's gonna ask her just as soon as the time is right. But she and he have different life paths for a while, I don't know what the summer, I guess? But she comes back and he's ready for her and now you have to understand something that Jerry is normal, right, but his daughter is not. She's not the casual doin' it type. I haven't known her to give it up to a boy, and that's maybe ever. She just don't see the point. I think it's on account of her having all the emotional security and that. She's constantly surrounded by boys she thinks are her "friends" so much that she may have forgotten what that means for the rest of us, 'cause we all see these boys and see so much more. And this all pains Jerry to no end, of course.
And she's not this "spread-your-legs-please-honey-just-a-little-to-the-left" type, but this boy has had enough of her stalling, see, and if you do love me, where are we, then, why can't you prove it. And he takes her and not unwillingly in his head, but this request is like the mountain that diverted the avalanche. She doesn't know how to articulate it or whether it's fair or not to say no on account of nobody had asked her before quite like that. And he came away from it thinking he was the better and she came away thinking she'd been had.
Jerry didn't learn about this.
Dark goes into complete recluse condition and won't talk to anyone for months or maybe years like she did before. She certainly loses all faith in men and she loses her man, too. I think he moved away and she didn't chase him like he expected and when he called back up she was so blistering angry that he just moved on. I don't think she did or could, though, you know?
So she meets more men and she's slowly coming back around to this old point of view when she finds the safest guy she knows. He's handsome like the movies and tall and fair. In other words, he's nothing like the old. And he's one of those Christian buttholes who gets ladies and doesn't know what to do with them for he's never even used his dick for more than peeing, I guess. He was just as safe as she could like. He wouldn't never sex her without her wanting first. And she thought that was enough. And so she really fell for this guy, you know, and he just fell for her like a big pot of water to the floor. Like thud and no helping it but to get the mop, you know. And he's so safe he doesn't even take her clothes off never. I mean if boys are like fire he was a flashlight, is what I'm saying. And he doesn't kiss her too hard, too often, and he always asks first. He always gives her an out and everything is always just so hunky-dory. I think, well I'm not an expert on her, though I might sound like it. But this boy catches her totally off guard, you see, in a way she didn't even know would be a problem.
No, she had run from the sex but forgot the promise. I'm telling you he asks her to marry him and she freaks out so hard that she almost goes back to that place where she won't talk to anyone anymore.
Really, I mean come on. She's so worried about her physical scars she can't even remember her emotional scars for just one minute? Anyway, he does what any good Christian would do, he runs and I don't think she's heard from him again. Just like them, too, to give up when the going gets tough.
And now Jerry hasn't heard none of this until she comes home after this Christian dude tears her heart out more efficiently than you can know. She spills all the beans to Jerry, and now he knows, see, and it's at this point I guess I should apologize to you.
See, I framed this as a story about Jerry, but this is where Jerry's story ends.
He dies, and I mean dies from a broken heart as soon as the words are out of her lips. Say what you will, but he did. And his last words to her were so sweet and lovely, I'm sure, and she cried to say goodbye, and now she's buried her old man in a little grave on the hill under the shade of the tree that he built that treehouse for her. But see, his story ends and it's tragic and all, but her story goes on, and even she don't know how it end. So you see Dark, just once in your life, and hopefully all this will flood back to you and you'll see past the confidence and the avalanche and the fact that she lives her life like a living painting, and you maybe won't be the next guy to walk through the revolving door of her life.