Their names were Dave and Beulah, a middle-aged couple that picked me up while I was hitch-hiking. I wondered why they were so eager to give me a ride, but I put all doubts aside once I heard they lived in the same hamlet where I was renting a place.
“No problem. We’re practically neighbors!” yelled Beulah from the passenger seat.
She was a bleach blonde, bulky lady, a bit too made up in my estimation and certainly very vocal compared to Dave. He just drove: eyes straight ahead in anticipation, smiling as though at a private joke.
“We’ll take you home. But why not come to our place for a drink first,” said Beulah.
Drinks? At three in the afternoon, I wondered. Well, why not? I was curious about this couple…
They lived a few minutes pace from my place. There were no more than fifty inhabitants in the junction, for that’s all it was: two rural roads bisecting farmland and forest.
Dave and Beulah’s house was one of those one-type fits all that are common in American suburbs. There was the obligatory driveway and garage with the basketball hoop, a house without charm or character.
It wasn’t a moment after I entered their home that I realized something was amiss. On the dining room table there were more bottles of booze than I had seen in any bar. It seemed there was a party going on.
“What’ll you have? Scotch? Bourbon? Gin? All of them?…Ha. Ha. Ha…” laughed Dave, already pouring himself a hefty Jack Daniels.
I hardly replied before I had a scotch on the rocks in hand. This was service. And, at three in the afternoon.
Beulah appeared with a drink in hand. “We start early,” she laughed, moving like a sailing ship, arms extended sideways.
Dave was a government employee, Beulah a housewife, and as I soon learned, their only son had just left home for the first time in his life to attend college out West, several thousands of miles away.
“My baby’s gone,” lamented Beulah. “GONE. And now I’m stuck with HIM,” she shouted, scowling at Dave.
Oh. Oh, I thought. So that explains the bar.
“Gone! Flown the nest. And now, there’s only us two…” she said more softly, taking a drink.
Then, remarkably, she broke into song: “PLEASE RELEASE ME LET ME GO, FOR I DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE…”
Beulah went on like this for several minutes as Dave looked chagrined. He poured himself another one.
I now got the impression I had been invited to witness the sinking of the Titanic. This couple was going fast and needed someone to appreciate it all; they needed a witness to their pain.
Dave chuckled but said nothing. Beulah kept singing, then stopped to say: “I wannahnotherbaby… I wannababy…Ole Dave there made mine go! He convinced him to go out West to college…”
This was getting embarrassing. I stammered something about needing to get back to my humble abode, but this raised objections from Beulah:
“Oh come now; you donthaftago… DAVE! Pour the man another drinkypoo… Let’s party!”
She lit a cigarette and put on a Latin dance tune, then began gyrating her hips and shaking her fat ass.
“Mybabyshgone. Mybabyshgone…” she sang.
“Whosgonnamakemeanotherbabieeeeee…?”
For the first time, Dave made eye-contact with me. He did not seem amused but sad, desperate perhaps. Most likely he didn’t know what was happening in his life, his marriage, and I supposed this is where I was supposed to offer some help? But, what could they expect of me? I was twenty-three years old and they were my parents’ age.
“I gotta get back to my place or my wife will be worried…” I stammered.
Beulah kept singing and dancing as Dave walked me to the door. He seemed like a nice fellow. He offered to lend me his canoe any day I wanted it.
Then, as he opened the front door, he said: “I hope this isn’t what you got to look forward to…”
I went home. As I entered my domain, I heard my young wife ask:
“Where have you been?” and I was afraid to explain…
Tags: family life, marriage breakdown
