A Mangled Affair - Part VI
I was disappointed to learn that I’d need a science credit to earn my degree at Boston University, but the lady in the registrar’s office assured me that I’d be in for a big surprise if I enrolled in a specific Geology class. I had no idea what she meant until a week later, when I met my professor.
THIS IS PART 6 of a SIX-PART STORY
Image: Tito La Star
I lost an important friendship because of a stupid indiscretion. Now I felt bereft, alone and friendless in the world, without anyone to watch my back. But I still had my crush on the geology professor; suddenly it seemed that my sole purpose in life was to find a way to connect with him.
We were at exam time, and so I studied my ass off to get an A in the course. For some reason, the professor proctored the exam instead of a TA, standing right in front of my desk as I struggled to concentrate on writing down correct answers. Although this totally rattled me, I took it as a sign that Dabney Withers was as interested in forming a relationship with me as I was with him. The only problem was that the course was over and I would never see him again.
Impossible! I had been living for this man for an entire semester, and my life would be over if I never got to see him again. Without thinking, I set up an appointment with him to discuss the exam, although I already knew I’d gotten an A and there was nothing to discuss. I suppose what I really wanted to do was confess my love for him. In the twenty-four hours before the appointment, I got my hair done, planned the clothes I would wear, obsessed with girlfriends about the upcoming event, and wrote notes to myself about what I would say. The appointment was set for three o’clock on a weekday afternoon. At noon that same day, I started drinking. By two o’clock, I was shitfaced.
But I intended to drive to the professor’s office at B.U. anyway. I went down to the street, visibly inebriated, and started fumbling with the keys to my car. “Uh uh!” a voice shouted behind me. It was one of my neighbors, a small, feisty lesbian who grabbed the keys from my hand, and growled, “Honey, if you think I’m gonna let you drive a car in your intoxicated condition, you’re wrong!”
I must've practically crumpled on the sidewalk, because the neighbor relented a little and said she would find someone to drive me. The someone turned out to be seventeen-year-old Frankie Dolan, a pimply boy who owned an ancient, long-finned automobile, and lived in the gloomy, shuttered Dolan house that no one was ever allowed to enter. I have only a vague memory of Frankie grinning in the mirror as he drove me down Storrow Drive in his archaic vehicle. I lay flattened in the back seat, a smeary-faced young woman, too drunk to even formulate words. I don’t remember arriving at the B.U. campus and wending my way to the professor’s office. God only knows how I even found the right door. But I know I saw Dabney Withers and I know I must’ve sloppily told him I loved him and I know he must’ve answered me back.
But whatever he said to me at the time will forever remain a mystery. I was in an alcoholic blackout, although I didn’t understand what that was.
I had been enamored of this man for four months and here’s where it ended: in a blurry conversation that I couldn’t piece together for the life of me. All that was left were a few disjointed images: Dabney Wither’s face, his hand on my arm, a clutch of papers on his desk. I didn’t see him again after that encounter. And now, almost forty years later, what remains is a mangled memory of a well-known man I had a crush on and the shame of allowing alcohol to distort my thoughts and senses to the point where everything was dimmed down, clouded over, gone.
Image: Marten Newhall