He was an older man. I believe he was 32 when I met him. I was 13.
My brother worked at the concession stand at Boulevard Drive-in Theater in North Miami Beach Florida. We had recently moved there from Michigan. Since my brother worked there, I went to the movies every night and got in free. One night there was a raffle drawing for a large turkey. Thanksgiving was just days away.
I did not purchase any tickets but I was sitting beside a kid I knew who had a handful. He pulled one out and gave it to me. The next number called matched the ticket in my hand. I walked over to the food counter where a new guy was standing. I told him I had just won a turkey but I could not take it because my brother worked there. He winked and said you will get that turkey.
I said there was no way for me to get it home anyway because I could barely lift it (I was a skinny girl at that time), and I had to walk a mile down US 1 to get home. He said he would take me and the turkey home on his Harley. That seemed like a perfect solution. My family would surely be happy to have a free turkey for Thanksgiving. We were not in the best financial situation at that time.
So I hung around the counter the rest of the evening talking to this guy who, by the way, was very cute, clean cut, and really nice. He said he had just moved down from Washington DC. I told him I was going to call him DC. He said that was OK.
At about midnight, he took me and my frozen turkey home on his huge Harley and dropped me off in front. Then away he went. I did not even think to invite him to the turkey dinner.
After that I most often hung out at the concession stand talking to DC. Sometimes I actually watched part of a movie. He told me his age and that he was divorced from his wife who still lived in Washington. He told me about the time she had chased him down the stairs with a large pair of scissors. He had a three year old son whose photo looked just like him. I could tell he missed him very much. We talked and joked and laughed whenever he was not waiting on customers.
On his one night off a week, he came to my home and took me for rides on his Harley. My parents were never home in the evenings so I would invite all the neighborhood kids over and we would have fun playing music, card games, magic tricks, dancing, acting like fools, laughing, etc. DC would be there among the kids having as great a time as they were. The kids and I turned his nickname around from DC to CD and then to Ceder-Deder. That sounds pretty childish but some kids were only 11, like my sister and her friends. I feel sure that he knew it was all in fun and we all loved him.
He taught me to dance, always keeping a respectable foot of space between us, and he taught me to play chess. We spent hours having fun with all the kids that showed up on those nights. That went on for many months and then Ceder-Deder disappeared. Though I missed him, I filled in the empty space in my life with friends, school work, and life in general.
After about a year, when I was 14, Ceder-Deder showed up one sunny day. He told me he had just returned from Mexico and he brought me a very colorful satiny Mexican scarf. He also gave me a photo of himself that I cherish to this day. I had realized as I got older that DC was a more proper name for him and that is what I called him that bright summer day as we stood out by the road and talked for hours. I never thought to ask him inside. Then he was gone again.
Another year passed. I came home from school one day and Mom said that DC had come by and wanted me and my younger sister to go out with him the next night, which was Saturday. I was 15 and my sister was 13. My big brother was home and he flew mad at Mom and yelled that she had NO business letting us go out with an older guy and WHO knew WHAT the heck he was up to and WHAT the heck was he hanging out with KIDS for anyway? I was shocked. Brother had never said a bad word about DC. My mom ignored him.
The next night Sister and I got ready and waited for DC to pick us up. He arrived driving an older black sedan. When we got into the front seat, I sat next to him and forced my sister to sit by the door. I was a bit nervous though because my brother had put some fear into me and my uneasiness probably showed. The air was static where it never had been before.
As we drove toward Miami Beach, DC explained that he had gotten a call from a couple that he and his ex-wife had been friends with in Washington. They were in Miami Beach on their honeymoon and they wanted him to bring a date and meet them for an evening of dining and clubbing. My mind was whirling with this news. I did not possess the slightest bit of sophistication. My uneasiness grew the closer we got to our destination.
When we arrived amongst the bright lights and crowds in Miami Beach, I was wondering what in the world DC had been thinking. The couple was waiting on the sidewalk in front of their hotel with big smiles when we drove up. They got into the backseat and I could feel the trepidation and subdued anger emanating from them as DC introduced Sister and I as his "dates". Stunned silence ensued.
DC drove straight to Wolfie's which was a popular brightly lit restaurant on Collins Avenue. We all climbed out of the car and entered the restaurant and were seated in a huge booth with red leather seats in a half-moon shape. First the couple slid in, then DC had Sister slide in beside them. Next he had me slide in and then he took his place on the end. We were nearly swallowed up by the size of those leather seats and the huge round table.
The silence was deafening as we looked at our menus. I so wanted to not be there. Again, what was DC thinking? We all ordered. The couple tried to make small talk with DC, seemingly intent on ignoring the fact that he had two young girls with him. He was not acting sullen but kind of cheerfully quiet and politely evasive. Every now and then Sister would say something and I would kick her to shut her up. It was excruciating. The couple tried to talk about the old days when DC and his then wife and this couple had such great times together in Washington. "Oh, remember that time....." They got little response.
They tried to get DC to talk about what he had been doing since leaving Washington. Again little or no feedback from DC. I could not figure out why we were here. Somehow I decided that this evening was some sort of message that this couple was supposed to take back to his ex-wife in Washington. But for the life of me, I could not figure out what that message might be. Maybe that DC had completely lost his mind, was all I could come up with.
Finally we had all choked down our food, probably not even noticing it was delicious, and climbed into the car for what was supposed to be a night of clubbing and seeing the sights. As we drove down the street away from the restaurant, the couple suddenly announced, you can let us out right here. DC obligingly pulled to the curb and they jumped out of the car, yelled goodnight, and hurried off down the sidewalk, disappearing into the crowd.
Not another word was spoken in the car as DC silently maneuvered into the traffic. We drove for awhile and then he turned off onto a side street and headed for a darkened building on some sort of waterfront dock area. He parked the car in front of a low building that had one lighted window. He told us to wait in the car for a few minutes. We watched as he disappeared down some steps and into a dimly lit doorway.
We waited and for once, my sister did not open her mouth. Finally she was grasping the situation, whatever that was I still did not have a clue. DC came out after awhile and got into the car. He said he had just rejoined the Coast Guard. He said this with a voice that was without emotion. He had a heavy heart, I could tell, but I still did not know why this evening had happened.
He drove for the next 45 minutes in silence and dropped us off in front of our home. I had a sad feeling that I would never see him again. The best, nicest guy I had ever or would ever know. I was right. I never saw him again. And I still miss him to this day.
click on photo to enlarge:
I should mention that I really don't know if DC came back when I turned 16 because we moved to another city/county shortly after this incident. Whereupon I was promptly raped by one of the local yokels. (I added this after my lil sis read it.) She was pretty shocked reading about my friendship with DC so imagine her finding out that I was safer with him than with a sex-offender in the form of an older teenage boy whose main objective in life was to break the hymen of every young "heifer" in town as soon as she turned 12. He didn't get to me earlier because I was 15 when I moved there, but after betting a friend a dollar, he got me. Jay Conner Gould. What a winner.
