Way back when I was in high school, due to an odd chance of birth days and chance, I had an uncle who was a senior at the same school in which I was a junior. We'd been brought up more like brothers. Dated some of the same girls, drank together, did the double date deal, and pulled pranks on each other. I forgot what I did to deserve this long ago, but I'll never forget how he paid me back.
At the time, the legal drinking age was eighteen. We went out to test my new "ID", which back then was a lot easier to obtain than now, and sure 'nuff, all went without a hitch. We didn't sneak into any ol' dive, but rather a pretty nice and popular dinner club in the city. We didn't know any one there and decided while we ate our dinner that our best shot was with a couple of cuties who appeared to be sisters out with their parents. They were sitting in a booth not far from us and "Uncle Don" says to watch this as he puts the razzle-dazzle on Mom and Pops. I'm thinking to myself, "Well, if any body can, Donnie's got 'the stuff'".
Whatayaknow, a couple minutes later he's waving me over to come join them. So I go on over and introduce myself, trying to be just as cool as Don without blowing it and I guess I did OK for a seventeen year old because next thing I know we're all laughing and joking like we've known each other for years. Now all this time Donnie and I have been sitting at the end of the booth in a couple of unused chairs we drug over from a nearby table. Mom and Pops allow that it's getting pretty near their bedtime and Don and I say our goodbyes just as the little house band is tuning up. The girls say they're not ready to go and could we give them a ride if it's OK with Daddy. SURE! No problem with us and surprisingly the patriarc gives the go ahead "since we seem to be such nice clean cut young men." Yeah, this was in 1973 and there weren't a lot like us in those days.
Any way, Mom and Pops get up and leave and Don and I put the chairs back and slide into the booth next to the girls. We're having drinks and conversation and just sharing a wonderful time listening to this band that wasn't a bad little rock and roll combo when smooth ol' Donnie asked the girl on his side of the booth to dance. Sherry, her name was, and Carrie, her sister, was on my side of the booth. We watch them dance a while and comment on how good those two look out there and I finally get my courage up and ask Carrie if she would like to dance. She said that she would love to, but it just wasn't possible, and I, being young and naive just had to ask why so. It was then that tears started down her cheeks and she moved the table cloth back to reveal the fact that both her legs ended just about where the top of her knees should have been, and pointed to a wheel chair in the nearby corner and said that it belonged to her.
Well, that wasn't any thing to ruin my or her evening over so we just sat there and talked and she told me about the terrible car accident she had been in that took her legs. Kinda creepy but she was cute and nice and I figured she probably didn't get many dates and it was just one more night for me. Tomorrow would be another day and I'd feel good about myself for doing the right thing. Well, kinda. I kinda wanted out of there, too, just as soon as I could talk to Donnie. Alone.
Well, sister Sherry must've told him what was up during one of those slow dances because when I finally excused myself to the rest room after seeing him disappear behind that door and got in right behind him he was laughing, well, I'll just say uncontrollably. I went from being slightly panicky to pretty dang humiliated and we almost came to blows for the first time ever. After some harsh words I determined that we had come in his car and being forty miles from home I was at his mercy. I have wished thousands of times that he would have had some mercy to give because that SOB had me and he knew it.
All the way up to closing time Carrie and I just talked and got more than a little drunk while good ol' Uncle Don took his sweet time and got pretty darn intimate with big sister. When the bartender hollered last call, it was a major temptation to run over there and kiss him right on the mouth! Finally! I'm getting out of here. I get Carrie's chair, wheel it around and she climbs in and I'm hoping my emotions aren't showing too much. We get outside, she climbs into the backseat of Don's 57 chevy four door, Don and I put the chair in the trunk. He gets in and I get in the back and I didn't even hear the door close because I'm being physically attacked! Now, I really don't want to hurt the girl's feelings and I'm not totally creeped out, but just right there on the verge of it.
We get to the girls' house and I'm thinking I'm finally home free when Carrie, wheeling up to the house, takes a left turn around the side of the house and beckons me to follow. I look back at the car and notice Don and his girl never left the safety of the vehicle. I look back to where I'm going and in the back yard is a giant old oak tree with huge limbs in every direction, some of them sweeping the ground. Under one of them is Carrie in her chair and she's shucking off her clothes faster than a professional Kansas corn husker can peel an ear of corn. I figure, "What the heck? Don's up front in the car and he'll never know." The big surprise to me was she wanted me to lift her up under this part of a limb that's hanging about head high to me, and when I do she grabs hold of that limb with her hands and grabs hold of me with her stubs, and it's off to the rodeo!
Some where about half-way through the second go-round the whole back yard is lit up when the back porch light comes on. Well, that put an immediate halt on all that action! Her father says in a kind of seething voice for us to get decent and get in the house right now! Both of us, totally humiliated, say, "Yessir!"
I had only thought I was feeling uneasy to this point. Now, my whole world is quivering around me from the ground up, and my knees almost buckle on me pulling that wheel chair and Carrie up those back porch steps. I'm thinking seventeen is mighty young to die and it wasn't even my idea at all. As we came through the door, there the old man sits, smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee. He is not smiling when he tells Carrie to get her butt in bed and tells me he wants to have a man to man talk. I don't see any guns but I'm still plenty, plenty nervous when I sit down across the table from him.
He says, "Son, I'm not angry at you for what I just saw out there. Ever since Carrie was in that goddamn car wreck, all our lives have been turned upside down. It isn't an easy thing to deal with, to see one of your little girls grow up so pretty and full of life. Then to see that fire just go out through months and months of rehab until finally after all that the fire gets lit once again and I'm dealing with a teenager that's trying too hard to make up all that time she lost. And you know, Son, there's not too many young men coming over asking her to go out since that accident as you can imagine. I just want to thank you for being a really nice young man and showing my little girl a good time. There's just not enough good young men like you around, Son. The last three little bastards she got hooked up with just ran away and left her hanging there naked in that goddamn tree.