and what is interesting is that in our four years at school we spoke probably two words, at least that I can remember. We both said "Hi." to each other. When I found out her maiden name I remembered her face well. She was a very pretty girl with a beautiful warm smile that was a bit on the shy side. She was really quite a looker.
What is kind of sad is I would not have remembered this if it had not been for the fallout. I would be surprised if she remembered the incident. It really was a basic hello, a simple acknowlegement of someone else's existence. It was barely one step above a stranger waving as they drove past you.
Now I was the oldest of the generation much less the family and grew up Catholic. My mother had big plans for me. She pictured I'd marry a good Catholic girl who had a father that ran a major corporation and I'd become an overnight big shot by marrying the bosses daughter who I would keep pregnant for all of her childbearing years and give her a busload of grandkids. GoodCatholicgirl was one word to her.
Of course, I had other plans. I was looking for adventure and eventually found it but I digress.
Where were we? Oh, yeah.
Mom and I were making a hardware run for dad who was fixing some damned thing or another and Mom and I were downtown and my classmate walked by. Unless I don't remember this is the only time I passed her outside of her being a part of the mob in the hallway between classes.
I said "Hi." to her and she warmly smiled and said "Hello." as we passed each other. It was nothing more than basic civility, the era of which seems so far away and long ago.
As soon as she was out of earshot that started the game. Mom was trying to see if someone was a Catholic and what their father did, and I was not going to admit that there was one single Catholic in my entire school, nor did any of their father's have a decent job of any sort.
It was the unbending force against the unyielding object.
"Oooh, Piccolo, she's a real looker. Is she a GoodCatholicgirl?"
"No, Ma. They're Copetic Christian."
"What's that?"
"It's a form of very basic Christianity that originated in Ethiopia."
"Oh....what doees her father do?"
"He's in prison for 25 years."
"That's awful! What did he do?"
"He murdered a woman that kept asking her son too many nosy questions about his daughter."
"That's terrib....THAT'S NOT FUNNY!"
Of course she told Dad who later heard my side of it and realized the antagonism was not going to stop and shook his head.
"Kid," he said. "You don't have a father! You have a referee!"
He took a sip of beer that suddenly came out his nose. "Murdered a woman that kept asking her son too many nosy questions about his daughter, Huh? Well, at least this time you didn't pinch your grandmother's cheek at a funeral and say "You're next!"
"She had that one coming. She started it at a wedding."
He exhaled audibly. "Yeah, she did...but dammit!"
There were others. I can remember telling mom one classmate was Estemenian and her father was a swineherd in Tibet. Another classmate was of Italian extration and had olive skin. I passed her off as a Muslim Arab of some sort. I forgot what I said about her father but I'm sure it was a corker.
For what it's worth I have Googled the word 'Estemenian' recently and it only goes back to where I have used it in my writings on line.
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