The Palm Oil Reunion

By Art Lobaugh

Art Lobaugh received an invitation to his 20th high school reunion, and after spending nearly 20 years living in NYC, he convinced his best friend Dave to travel with him back to Iowa to attend the festivities. Neither friend had been back to their hometown in years, but upon arrival, Art and Dave reconnected with old friends and worked their way down memory lane, visiting old haunts, family farms, old friends, and their old high school. The reunion was planned at the most distinguished hotel in town and was expected to be a grand affair with drinks, dinner, music, and dancing. The reunion turnout of over 200 alumni was a triumph for the planning committee. Once Art and Dave were seated at their table of 12, each person was asked to spend a few minutes talking about the past 20 years. Dan Ivey, seated at their table, began to tell his story of how he fell in love with Maria, a foreign exchange student from Trinidad whom he met in high school. 

Dan, a well-known alum, captivates his former classmates with a tale so bizarre that no one dares question its provenance or truth. Dan's story begins in high school when he meets a beautiful foreign exchange student from Trinidad. He asks for her hand in marriage after college, but on one condition from her father: he must move to Trinidad and work for her father's shipping company. For hours, Dan's story of love, loss, heartbreak, murder, fear, and revenge transports his former classmates on an unbelievable journey. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Art Lobaugh
• Release date: Mar 4, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224230570

Book preview

The Invitation

The invitation to my 20th high school reunion arrived in the mail and went unopened, straight into the trash. Just as it had for the past 19 years. As it was Friday and the night was calling, the idea of anything other than hard liquor and chasing some tail was all I had on my mind. I made my way to Greenwich Village via the subway and to my favorite bar, Hock’s Hawkeye Lounge. At the bar, talking with my best friend Hock, the owner, about my week and the letter I had just thrown away, we couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of returning to that town. I hadn’t been back to my hometown in 20 years. Going back now to that dreary, hot, humid, gray dome of a city to spend three days walking the halls of a high school I hated was sheer absurdity, and the thought was all but laughable.

After ample amounts of my favorite liquid intoxicant, the night turned into the bewitching hour. I found my way back to my uptown apartment, where I passed out on my couch and slept like a drunken sailor until 10 a.m. the following day. I woke to find the rain coming down in what is described as a million-dollar rain. A heavy, steady street-cleaning rain that everyone loves. I took my umbrella and walked to the corner of 82nd St. and Lexington to fetch coffee, the newspaper, and a breakfast sandwich.

Since leaving the gray dome of sadness after graduating college in 1981, New York has been my home. For all her problems, New York is still the greatest city in the world, and no place I’d rather wake up single, hungover, and hungry.

Coffee and breakfast in hand, I made it back to my apartment only to find that trash was in dire need of finding the trash chute. When I began the extraction process of the trash, the invitation, in all its glory, slipped onto the floor. I must admit, it was an impressive envelope. Embossed across the top in blue raised letters: ‘TRHS 20th High School Reunion Committee.’ The Montserrat typeface—was another nice touch.

I picked up the envelope, placed it on my kitchen counter, and then dumped the trash down the chute. If not for the rain, I would have never opened the envelope. As the rain continued to come down in sheets, I reached for a letter opener from the knife drawer, sat at my kitchen table, opened the envelope, and began reading.

Dear alum class of 1976, a unique opportunity to reconnect with your fellow Bicentennial classmates is just around the corner. Your presence is needed to make this event a truly memorable reunion.

I graduated high school in 1976, our country's Bicentennial. I hadn’t thought about being a Bicentennial graduate for 20 years and found the idea a bit nostalgic. The invitation continued with what I assumed was the standard plea for ideas to make it a great party. There was a list of those no longer with us and an additional plea to find missing classmates who might want to be included in the festivities. Lastly, there was a website with instructions on registering, where to stay, and contact information for the committee members. I continued to read on.

Several of our classmates have sadly passed away, and they will be remembered with a prayer and a ceremonial toast. Also, we need your help locating many classmates. If you know the people listed below, please tell them the date, time, and location. A website is available for registration. You may also call the phone number below to contact the committee chair. We look forward to reconnecting with you.

Scanning the list of missing names, two stood out. Hock's name was among the missing, along with Tracy Kirkpatrick, my high school sweetheart. Hock never thought to tell anyone except his parents and me that he had left Iowa years ago for NYC. Tracy went to Seattle to follow her dreams. We had scattered in the wind like dandelion seeds.

The invitation got me thinking about my childhood back in Iowa. It suddenly dawned on me that I had not been back in Iowa in 20 years. In fact, aside from a few trips to New Mexico to see my mom, I hadn’t left Manhattan for nearly five years. New York City is like a magnet. Once it locks on to you, it doesn’t let go without a hard pull. Well, maybe this was the pull I needed to get out of town for a few days.

-2-

Nuclear Drills

Growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, in the 1960s and 1970s was a much different experience than that of kids growing up in America today. We enjoyed three black-and-white TV channels, paved roads in most urban areas, public transportation through city-wide buses, and AM and FM radio.

There were no cell phones or video games in the sixties and seventies. We practiced nuclear war survival drills in school every month by crawling under our desks and covering our heads with our hands. We were told that the procedure would save us from the blast, radiation poisoning, and falling debris.

Gasoline was $.40 a gallon. A large pizza cost around $2.50, and a six-pack of beer was something in the neighborhood of $2. I could take my girlfriend on a date to the drive-in movie for around $10. An ear of Iowa sweet corn was twenty-five cents. Soda cost fifteen cents, and they were made fresh at the soda counter at our local pharmacy. Converse, Fila, and Wilson were the only athletic shoes available at a handful of general merchandise stores. Everyone traded marbles as a kid. Reading, writing, and arithmetic were taught in schools. Corporal punishment was used as a deterrent to a life of crime by priests, nuns, and parents who were there to administer swift and painful judgment if you got out of line or mouthed off. Usually, a wooden dowel rod, a wooden paddle, or my dad’s favorite, a leather belt, were all used to administer swift and painful justice.

Growing up, Saturdays were always set aside for organized sports or chores around the house. Sundays were for church and family dinners. Phones were used for phone calls, and social media was any gathering of two or more friends over marbles, jacks, baseball, or bike riding.

I grew up a middle child of five kids to divorced parents, and as shit flowed downhill, I’d taken my share of punishment, abuse, and slander. So, too, did my two younger brothers. Number four and number five, I called them. They had names, but numbers were so much more torturous.

One thing about growing up in a house with four brothers is that fist fights were prone to break out at any moment, like spontaneous combustion. And the moments they kept coming and coming. In one fight over God knows what. He had me in a headlock, and we both fell, breaking my mother's piano bench into pieces. Out of nowhere, an aerosol can appeared in front of me on the floor. I grabbed it and hit my older brother in the head so hard that it burst open. He let go of my head and rolled over to the floor in agony. The aerosol can whirled around, spraying its contents until empty. We both stood watching it spin in circles, mist spraying in all directions. A truce was called so we could fix the piano bench before None the wiser; Mom came home and asked why the house smelled so clean and fresh. The nails we used to fix the piano bench went unnoticed for about a month. When she spotted the injustice we had done to her beloved bench, she called a meeting of the entire clan and demanded to know who, what, why, and where her prized bench was reassembled with roofing nails.

One day, out of boredom, we put number five in a cardboard box and dragged him around the yard for fun until his screaming got our father's attention. Dad yelled out the kitchen window, For God's sake, let that boy out of the box, damn it. Little did we know that number five had sustained a broken collarbone some 10 minutes earlier. He ran lopsided with his right arm dangling as if it no longer moved like an arm. Dad watched him with a look of amazement from the window as he ran toward the house, screaming in pain. He was taken to the hospital for surgery. Such infractions always resulted in a severe beating from my old man. He used his 36" belt, folded in half like a medieval torture device, and with precision. He and Mom brought number five home from the hospital, put him to bed, rounded us all up, and exacted justice. Mom looked the other way and later said we all had it coming.

But the worst beating was when we caught our garage on fire. We had stolen several cigarettes from my Mom’s purse and snuck out to the garage to smoke them. When Dad came home early from work one day and parked in the driveway, we rushed to put them out. The only problem was that an old, stinky cotton mattress wasn’t a good substitute for an ashtray. Twenty minutes later, a neighbor came running through our backyard, waving her arms hysterically and screaming, Call the fire department. Your garage is on fire. Call the fire department. Let the beatings begin.

Iowa, like New York, has all four seasons. Three of which in Iowa were tolerable affairs, but winters were an unbearable mix of ice, snow, and subzero temperatures. New York winters are more bearable due to the fact that NYC is a concrete jungle that retains heat, and the buildings keep snow from reaching the ground. My only modes of transportation for years growing up in Iowa were my 10-speed, walking, and the city bus.

I had a few close friends growing up. Dave Hockenberg was my bike-riding partner. We rode bikes everywhere in those days: spring, summer, and fall. He would bike to my house, ring the doorbell, and we’d ride like the wind, exploring the city, county, and state. We rode hundreds of miles a week in the summer and thousands yearly.

We worked on our bikes, too, and after numerous mistakes, we finally figured out how to keep them running in tip-top condition. We even dreamt up a scheme to open a bike shop after high school to serve the peloton needs of our hometown.

Don Anderson was another close friend. He was so charming to my mother that she nearly adopted him as one of her own. Why can’t you boys be more like Don? She was fond of saying.

Don was fishing, hunting, or chasing girls when he wasn't riding his motorcycle. He would pick me up on his Honda 350 motorcycle, and we would explore the state on two wheels at 65 miles per hour. Don taught me everything about girls, fishing, deer hunting, and how to charm your way into a mother’s heart. At 18, he was my only friend with his own house. He rented a small two-bedroom, one-bath house and furnished it with second-hand furniture. It was party central.

He erected a chicken coup in his backyard, supplying him with fresh eggs. He would drop a dozen fresh eggs off to my mom bi-weekly. Why can’t you boys be more like Don?

-3-

She Never Drove Again

My father’s parting gift to us when he divorced my mom was a broken-down crystal blue 1967 Chevy Impala with an AM radio, no a/c, bald tires, several oil leaks, roll-up windows, no spare tire, and a droopy headliner. It didn’t help that no one in my family knew the difference between radiators and carbonators. Firstly, if it did run, which wasn’t often, the tires were so bald that the car usually would slide to a stop. It overheated regularly and generally at the most inopportune times. Like at a stop light,