Lost Loves - Part II

As he reached for the phone his memory drifted to her. It had been at least fifteen years since he had seen her. He hadn't contacted her but he had kept up with what she was doing through mutual friends. She was the perfect person for the case that had found its way into his office. She was really the only one he trusted that also knew the exotic dancing business. Had enough time passed to erase that terrible pain of their last meeting? Or at least had the paid subsided enough that he could handle seeing her again? The pain was the worst he had ever dealt with, it entered his heart every day since that dreadful night. Each day it got a little easier but was he all the way back yet?

He recalled the day they had met. It was his first day of work after graduation from law school. He wasn't the best student, nor the worst. The best first job he could find was at a small law firm in Gardena, California. He asked his co-workers where a good place to have lunch was. In unison they all replied, "Kings, it is right on the corner, you can walk to it."

He walked into a pitch black "restaurant," so dark that he couldn't see anything but total darkness. After what seemed like an eternity his eyes adjusted enough that he could see a young scantily clad woman probably not at the age of majority gyrating on a well lit stage to extremely loud music. He quickly determined that the crew at the office had pulled a fast one on the hick from the sticks. Just as he was planning his exit, the hand of a woman dressed in a light pink bikini touched his arm. She was stunning. 5'3" with a compact body, light brunette hair, and hazel eyes that were so bright that the darkness of the room disappeared.

Her first words to him were:

"You don't belong here."

"Where do I belong? It is a question I've been asking myself all my life."

"I don't know where you belong, I just know it isn't here."

"Do you really serve food here?"

She laughed "Yes, we have the best hot turkey sandwiches."

"Should I stay or should I go somewhere where I belong?"

Smiling, "I'm sure an hour here won't corrupt you."

In the next two years they had become inseparable. She was married to an excessively older man. She was from Louisiana. The marriage was arranged for her when she was fourteen. Her parents were just to dirt poor to afford to raise a teenager. She was amazingly intelligent, having taught herself to speak five different langauges. She had gotten her GED. She was working at Kings to support her husband's gambling habit. Her dream was to go on to college. She didn't really care about majors, a formal education was her only goal.

At first because of the respect for her marriage their time togehter was limited to lunches, phone calls, and to his many visits to Kings. About six months after they had met the phone rang a little after midnight at his apartment.

He was jarred out of a deep sleep:

"Hello, this better be good."

"He's dead."

"Whose dead?"

"My husband. He died of a heart attack this afternoon."

"I'm so sorry, are you all right?" It is one of those dumb questions that we ask in stressful situations. Of course she wasn't all right, her husband had just died.

"Will you come over. I don't want to be alone. I don't know anyone else."

"I will be there in fifteen minutes."

(to be continued. Well, maybe if I have the guts it will be continued. Off to an accounting seminar and won't be able to respond to messages until after five tonight.)


WHO AM I?

Yesterday's answer was Dorothy Dandridge.

Once called the most dangerous woman in America I was born in 1869 in Russia and emigrated to the States when I was twenty-six. I lived in New York City, and joined the anarchist movement. I became a writer and a renowned lecturer on anarchist philosophy, women's rights, and social issues, attracting crowds of thousands. With my lover I planned an assassination as an act of propaganda of deed. The intended target survived but my lover went to prison for twenty-two years. I was imprisoned several times in the years that followed, for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control. Once I was sentenced to two years in jail for conspiring to "induce persons not to register" for the newly instated draft. I was deported back to Russia after my release. I originally was supporting of the Bolshevik revolution but quickly voiced my opposition to the Soviet use of violence and the repression of independent voices. Although I distanced myself from first-wave feminism and its efforts toward women's suffrage I developed new ways of incorporating gender politics into anarchism. My dad died of TB. Dad used violence to punish his children, beating us when we disobeyed him. He used a whip on me since I was the most rebellious. Family poverty forced us children to work and I took an assortment of jobs including one in a corset shop. After making it to New York I met and married a man. Our relationship faltered when we moved in with my family. It also didn't help that I discovered on our wedding night that he was impotent. We didn't make it to our first anniversary. I later began a several year affair with a man I met at a political rally. Later I would fund political activities through prostitution. Because of the Panic of 1893 the US Suffered one of its worst economic crisis ever. I began speaking to crowds of frustrated men and women in New York. I encouraged unemployed workers to take immediate action and to us force. I was charged with inciting a riot. The jury frightened by my politics found me guilty and sentenced me to one year in the Blackwell's Island Penitentiary. Later when an unemployed factory worker shot McKinley some thought I had planned the assassination. The worker was executed. After his execution I withdrew from the world. That was until John Turner was arrested under a new act. That led me to join forces for free speech. I would later fall in love with the hobo doctor. I joined Margaret Sanger in crusading for women's access to birth control; both of us were arrested for violating the Comstock Law. I was deported for encouraging people not to sign up for the draft. I suffered a stroke in 1940 and a great orator was silenced. A second stroke led to my death in Toronto. Who Am I?