The Meeting

By Doug Downie

A novel of sex, love and loss that follows a man's life from adolescence to late middle age. Set in South Africa and the US.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781794733107

Book preview

The Meeting

THE MEETING by Doug Downie, Jazzman Publications, Sacramento, CA. Copyright © 2019 by Doug Downie, all rights reserved. ISBN 978-1-79473-310-7

Except for short excerpts no part of this book may be reprinted without permission from the author or publisher.

Cover by Henri Matisse

Also by Doug Downie

Cat Came Back and Other Stories

Two Trains Running

Stockboy

God Awful Acres

No One to Blame

Neighbors

PART ONE

One

The 4th of July was nothing for me. It’d been a long time since it had been much of anything for me—maybe since the time when my daughter was a child and we cavorted in the park on those crowded days and nights waiting for the fireworks. It’s a real damp squib, that whole dull and routine display; stupid flags flying and all that shit. That might be the definition of shallowness and empty-headedness. To think that it’s a day that commemorates a revolution—very strange.

But that was the day I was supposed to meet her again, so it had some meaning this time.

I was sitting at a bar in a small town in the Sierra Nevada. I was thinking: how many times can you watch that crap? How many times can you do the rote manoeuvres and poses that you’re asked to perform in order to be allowed into the club? How many times do you have to shake your patriot’s pompom before you are credible as being ‘an American’? I had gotten very tired of it all. All those years I’d spent in South Africa had given me a new perspective, which really just strengthened what I had already felt before I’d left. It wasn’t just about the 4th; that was just a symbol. It was about the whole bloody myth of America. It was a huge lie, and the people just continued to eat it up, year after year, from one generation to the next.

I was finally forced to confess that I lived in a nation filled with suckers, dumb shits. It was embarrassing. I wasn’t sure how I could go out into the world having been spawned from such a place.

The 4th of July in your town may not be anything like the 4th of July in my town. For all I know I’m the only living resident of my town. It feels that way sometimes. Still, in any town you care to name the face of life will be different— though the heart of it will be much the same, and that’s a fact. And the heart of it was what I was trying to get at.

Those are the kind of things I was thinking; sitting there at that bar in that little town on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada on that particular 4th of July at about 9 PM. Outside the street was quiet and very still. You could smell pines and feel a slight mountain chill in the summer air if you walked out the door, or when the door opened.

The 4th was nothing for me. How could it be, anymore? I’d gotten well beyond that—beyond the symbols as well as what they represented. Fireworks? Who cares? How many times can you be thrilled by fireworks? Fireworks are cool, brilliant. But forget about travelling, or parking, or jostling, or queuing up, or listening; just to go see some. That’s a misguided decision. At least that was the feeling I got every time I went to one of those patriotic displays of American exuberance down at the central park.

So, the 4th was nothing for me. In a sense then, America was nothing for me. I was seeing the broader picture. Putting things into perspective. Apparently I’d learned something, though I was still unsatisfied with my ability to articulate exactly what I had learned. The clear expression of my vision eluded me, as it eludes me still. I’m not ashamed of that. I know I’m not a genius. The knowledge raged within me and made my scalp itch, but for all my education I was inarticulate in the face of its onslaught. It was still organic within me, growing but not yet fully formed. I was still too naïve to say out loud what I felt in my heart, too fearful to voice my utter discontent. I felt like a blasphemer.

I muttered over empty beer glasses.

The discontent had grown in me like a youthful rebellion. Yet I was no spring chicken. Life in a near third world country can do that to an honest American. Looking over it all from the outside one begins to see things more clearly.

I was back in the USA after eight years in South Africa. There hadn’t been any 4th of Julys over there. I sure hadn’t missed them either. I had missed fishing for native trout in cold mountain streams though. There was a reasonable facsimile of that in a few places in South Africa, but it wasn’t the same.

That’s why I went up to my favourite little Sierra mountain town on that 4th. I was kind of thinking I was going fly fishing, but I didn’t really care too much if I actually did do any fishing. Sometimes just knowing you easily could fish if you had the urge is enough.

The 4th wasn’t much to them up there either. There was a little bit of flutter and hoot for an hour or so and then it was all back to normal. Reality. Power the beers down. They lived in the world of granite mountains and trout streams. The world of my dreams. Who gave a shit about the 4th of July? It was just another excuse to party.

Of course if I’d said that to any of them I might have gotten a fist in my face.

I didn’t do much fishing, except after the bubbles in my beer glasses. I liked that little pub though, without doubt. There are thousands of little pubs all around America that are slices of at least one version of reality. I must have some kind of affinity for that version of reality because I’m always attracted to those little pubs.

I was watching the baseball game on the tv, all the while eyeing each and every patron (all 8 of them) as well as the bartender when the tv suddenly went blank. There was an oscillation of blue and white across the screen and then the asshole went blank.

That’s when she walked in the door. A gust of chill air followed her in and I could pretty much see the still snow-capped mountains reflected in the eddies of warmth that followed in her wake.

I have to admit, I was impressed by her appearance. Maybe it was the long red hair, I’m not sure.

The first thing she said, after she’d settled herself on the stool next to me, was; Is your team winning?

To which I answered; Nope, not the Giants. But how would we know? The tv just went out.

Aren’t they the Champs?

Not tonight.

We didn’t say much for awhile after that. I kept watching the patrons. Observing. Sucking at my beer. I’ll do that.

What’s your name? she asked.

Jack. Jack Dugan.

I like you Jack.

I think I might like you too. Where are you from?

South Africa.

South Africa! Isn’t that interesting? What’s it like there? Has anything really changed since apartheid?

Oh ya, it’s very different, but it’s not always clear that it’s better.

The Rainbow Nation…?

She looked at me as if I was a child. Which of course I was.

"Let’s just say it’s better and leave it at that. How do you know about ‘The Rainbow Nation’? Most Americans don’t even now there are any other nations."

I don’t know. I’ve read a few things. But OK, whatever you say. You follow baseball?

Nope. I kind of like cricket though.

Yeah, cricket. I saw that once. Very interesting. Five days. That’s amazing.

She smirked into her drink and we glanced at each other through narrowed lids. I confess, I was tired of American women. I was tired of America, in fact; still, even after having been away for a long time—tired of the whole patriotic claptrap of which the 4th is only the silliest and most obnoxious manifestation. It was much more than that really—my bone-aching exhaustion—it was much more than that.

But she intrigued me.

Later, back in my room as we snoogled like old lovers under covers with a bear and snow motif, I realized again that she was really quite beautiful. I saw her as a much younger woman; all the etches of age that had lined her face had disappeared, and I was young again too, feeling the grip of love, and I wondered how it could happen so many times, all the while feeling as if there was only the two of us, in our own world—a much better world.

We looked into each other’s eyes with silly abandon. We knew something at that moment; we had something at that moment. Then we kind of snorted with a seasoned wisdom, seeing the transience of it all, and laughed again to let it pass.

She rolled over and I felt the mounds of her tits almost before they actually touched my chest and I pulled her to me. It was exquisite.

I like you Jack Dugan. she whispered into my right ear.

I like you too, Claire Meugan.

Happy fourth of July.

God bless America.

Then we slept again, a half sleep of half awareness, in a luxuriating pleasure that many people never allow themselves to feel.

It was a lot like when we had first met—that very first meeting—in a pub in a small town in South Africa.

Interesting thing is, after all these years, it seems we’re still doing it.

Two

In the days and nights after that first meeting at The Golden Toad we’d be sweating on the bed with windows wide open as we waited for our hearts to slow down. It seemed as if it would never happen. Thump! Thump! Thump, thump.

It’s the beauty of sex…nothing is quite as intense or justifying. It’s the winner in most competitions.

It’s wonderful, really, to meet up with a complete stranger and in very few minutes know that you both want the same thing; the very same thing. In that moment you hope, and then you know inside that’s it’s only for that moment…and then you clearly see that it really is only for that moment. There will be no demands or ransoms or obligations put in place as prior conditions placed upon future pleasures. It’s all understood. You both accept it, and take it as a gift.

That’s nice, and that’s the way it was with us.

In fact, that transient thing is exquisite; make no mistake. The instant attraction and drive to satisfy are not phenomena that can be easily cast off as meaningless urges. One night stands can be wonderful. I have a problem with people who say otherwise. They speak from minds in too tidy boxes. And yet that first meeting was one of those moments when I knew that I wanted a few more of those kinds of moments, with her; the ones we’d just had. It came as a minor shock. It was a kind of violation of an internal agreement I’d had with myself.

I’d made this agreement with myself on at least two occasions: first when I was a young man, footloose and fancy-free and determined not to be tied down or restricted in pursuing my pleasures; and second, after a divorce had blasted my belief in stable relationships. It was the second occasion that liberated me the most.

I can’t believe how corny it all sounds now.

I LOVE SEX! I LOVE SEX! I had shouted one day after we’d finally become exhausted—all in all in a paroxysm of bliss.

I turned to her.

You think they heard me? I asked. The houses were built close together and people passed by on the afternoon street.

I think they heard you. Lay back down, OK? She was suppressing a laugh.

Well, OK, if you say so. I lay back in full luxuriousness.

There were no echoes from my statement however, so perhaps I could be just as rambunctious as I thought I could be in the world of my dreams.

I hoped so.

Three

It wasn’t but two days after that meeting that I began to wonder in earnest how the fuck such things can happen. How can you find yourself in such a position? It was a position of such utter and complete vulnerability that it was necessary to contemplate completely the extent of foolishness that was involved. I could see myself driving down a road where I knew what happened at all the intersections, where I knew all the corner stores and all the little rules and regulations that kept things neat and clean. And then boom! This happened. Right in the middle of the road! I knew I didn’t want to take the drive that was coming…but then again, I knew that I had to.

There was a kind of miracle involved; I felt it in my bones, though maybe it wasn’t quite the miracle the storybooks pined after.

After a whole