CHAPTER 15

Hazel

Final exams were one week away.  As usual, Scot, the perennial procrastinator, had left everything that didn’t have a prior due date until the last minute.  A weekend of cramming was critical if he were to get the grades necessary to preserve his assistantships and student aid.  His roommate had gone home to Cleveland, so Scot had the privacy he needed.  He had snacks sufficient to get him through half of his meals.  He was ready to cram.
There was a knock on the door.  He decided to ignore it.  Childish students frequently raced up and down the corridors randomly knocking on doors.  They did it more frequently during finals.  Perhaps it was just a convenient way to release pressure.
“Scot?” said a soft female voice that he could not identify.
It must be someone from the dorm complex administration, he concluded.  He better answer it.  Slightly irritated, he got up from his desk and went to the door.  He opened it and looked for the name tag of the official, but there was none.  In fact the young lady was dressed in winter clothing with a scarf around her neck and a fur hat which concealed most of her face.  A few wisps of auburn hair stubbornly refused to take refuge under the warm hat.  Apparently Scot had a puzzled look on his face.
“Do you remember me?” she asked.  “I was with your friend Fred in Calcutta a couple months ago.”
Scot recognized her before she could complete her description of their meeting.  He was baffled by her presence.  She must be bringing a message from Fred, Scot concluded was the most likely explanation for her surprise appearance.  She was the last person he expected to see at his dorm.
“Of course I remember you,” he responded.  “Come in.  You’re Hazel,” he told her to assure her she had not been forgettable enough to purge from his short term memory.  
“Come in.  Sit down.”  Scot motioned toward the one upholstered chair in the confined room.
“Scot, I hope I’m not intruding.  I would have called, but it was a last minute decision to stop in Kent.  I have a conference this weekend in Akron.  I was getting too tired to drive safely, so I decided to stop for the night.  Kent is about half way to Akron for me.  After I checked into the hotel, I remembered that you go to college here.  So I decided to stop by and say hello.  Again, I hope I’m not inconveniencing you.  Did you have plans for this evening?”
“No.  Not at all.” Scot lied.  He still was completely entranced by her.
“Is there a good restaurant near here?” she asked.  “Have you eaten tonight?”
“I had a snack late this afternoon.  I usually get a pizza on Friday evenings.”
“If you’ll join me, I’ll treat you to dinner,” she tempted him.  “I’m on an expense account, so we could eat wherever you like.”
One thing a starving student does not do is pass up a free meal, Scot reminded himself trying to justify his inversion of priorities.  However, he did not want to seem too eager.  He did not want to come across as ungentlemanly.  Even though this was his good friend’s girl friend, he wondered if he would be willing to betray that friendship for a prize like Hazel.  Do affairs of the heart supersede friendship?  Scot found this rule to be more true among women.  All of these thoughts raced through his mind.  Each one doubling the complexity of the question.
“There’s an excellent Italian restaurant just north of here,” Scot offered.  “He still had pizza on his mind.”
“Sounds just like what I wanted,” Hazel responded.  “You’ll go then?”
“Love to,” Scot responded trying hard to conceal his delight.
The restaurant was perfect for a romantic evening, Scot thought.  However, romance was not an issue, he reminded himself.  This was two people who shared a close mutual friend having dinner as acquaintances.  She probably wants to probe into something personal about Fred, he rationalized.  Does that mean she is considering a permanent relationship with him.  Had he proposed to her and she was seeking more information before making a lifetime commitment?   As much as he liked Fred and wanted only the best for him, Scot convinced himself it would be a huge loss if Hazel wasted the rest of her life with such a plain person.  Huge loss for what?  For whom?
The lights were dim.  The tables had white cotton table cloths.  Red napkins wrapped around the silverware.  For a Friday evening, there were few people.  Perhaps the late hour accounted for that.
The waiter, with a distinctly fake Italian accent, led them to a remote table apparently assuming they wanted as much privacy as possible.  Although Scot knew there could be no intimacy, some mischievous part of his mind refused to abandon the possibility.
“We have a wonderful red wine as our special tonight.” the waiter offered, holding the wine at a 45% angle with the label facing Scot.
Scot looked toward Hazel soliciting her preference first and confirmation that it qualified for her expense account.
“I believe I would like that,” responded Hazel and paused as the waiter poured a sample for her.  “Very good,” responded Hazel, as she delicately allowed the wine to swirl around in her mouth.  “You should try it Scot,” she urged.
“Sounds inviting to me,” Scot responded and repeated the same taste test.  Then he handed his glass to the waiter to be filled to the proper serving level.
“We’ll take the bottle,” Hazel advised the waiter.
“Would anyone like an appetizer?” asked the waiter.
After both abstained, he asked,  “Are you ready to order?”
Scot almost always ordered cheese ravioli, and tonight would be no different.  Pizza no longer held any appeal to him.
Hazel ordered a sampler special.
The waiter finished writing down the order, then promised them their meals in 10 to 15 minutes.  Both watched him walk away as their minds searched for a proper topic to begin the evening’s conversation.
“How’s Fred?” Scot asked concluding that that was the appropriate subject to begin the conversation.  Deep down, he hoped to hear that the relationship was over or at least strained or troubled.  Scot had more dates than he could handle already, but some hormone or primitive animal urge told him to remain on the hunt.  The right woman could appear magically at any time, anywhere.   Men are not naturally monogamous, he had concluded.
Then Scot transitioned into a question that had bothered him since he first met Hazel.  “You said when we met in Calcutta that I had risen from the depths of poverty and now was in sight of a college degree.  You must have heard a lot about me.”
Hazel was surprised by the question and was not sure how the question was intended.  “As I recall, all the houses around there had outhouses.  They had wells and water pumps in the back yard.  Water had to be pumped then carried in buckets into the house.  Fred said there were eight in your family living in a small single story house.  How did you fit eight people into it?  I know families were somewhat self-sufficient with vegetable gardens, fruit trees and, usually, a few animals, chickens, pigs or cows.  That’s a lot of work.”
“I guess I never thought about it,” Scot responded.  “As I recall, almost everyone had outhouses and a well and pump in the back yard.  We didn’t get indoor plumbing until I was entering High School.  We were self-sufficient to a great degree.  My father swore he never would allow my mother to work, so he had to provide for the family, and did.  We never went hungry or without shelter.”
“What if you had an overpowering urge to relieve yourself in the middle of the night in the middle of winter?”  Hazel asked.
“Come to think of it, it was not pleasant going to an outhouse in the middle of Winter day or night.” Scot responded after searching the ancient files of his memory.  “We had a ‘honey pot’ we kept in the house for a middle of the night emergency.  It had to be emptied in the outhouse every morning.
“We did a lot of things that seem primitive, even disgusting, now.  I recall killing a chicken for dinner.  My father would catch one and tie a string of binder twine around its neck.  I would hold the string which stretched its neck across a log.  My father was on the other side of the log.  He held the wings and legs together with one hand, and, wielding an axe in the other, chopped off the chicken’s head.  Even without its head, the chicken flapped its wings and squirmed wildly as blood gushed from its headless neck.  Then he dunked the chicken into a bucket of scalding water.  The scalding water loosened the feathers which then could be plucked off of the chicken.  It was a process that required precision and coordination.”
Scot noticed Hazels face had distorted into an expression of complete disgust.  He admonished himself for the graphic detail.  How could he be so stupid?  Now Hazel always would associate him with the mental picture of a stringy kid carrying a putrid honey pot from the house to the outhouse, or decapitating a chicken.  That vision could elicit nothing but disgust.
“I hope this is not disgusting you as much as it is me,” Scot said realizing he was in polite company, not regaling his male friends with stories of primitive man.  “There is no way I could kill a chicken or any other animal today.  Were you that insensitive to life at that age?”
“I never was put into a position to take an animal’s life,” Hazel responded.  “That was the domain of the males in the family.  I guess I had no aversion to hunting animals either.  My father and brother were hunters.  I doubt that I could have gone hunting, or fishing for that matter.  Maybe women can’t do things like that?”
“A neighbor woman killed chickens by herself, according to local lore,” Scot recalled.  “She did it with a penknife.  I really never understood how it worked.”
“Did you ever go hunting or fishing?”  Hazel asked.  She had a look of revulsion and disgust on her face after that last story, and wanted to ease away from the gory subject.  “Every boy I knew did.  I would be surprised if you didn’t have that opportunity.  It was so common in that area.  It put protein on the table which helped many families.”
“Hunting and fishing were glamorized,” Scot responded.  “I got a .22 calibre rifle when I still was in junior high school.  It was like a rite of passage proving that you could feed your family if civilization came to an end.  As I recall, I shot one rabbit and one squirrel.  When I looked at their dead bodies, I felt revulsion.  I also felt like a great hunter, and couldn’t wait to take my prizes home and receive praise.  Then I never did it again.  The same was true for fishing.  I got all of the equipment, then went fishing about four or five times.  I always threw the fish back into the water.  I never got hooked, so to speak, on that sport either.  I never did get that feeling of serenity or elation or whatever fishermen claim comes from fishing.  Perhaps that’s the first fish story.”
“Did your family have an outhouse or outside well?” Scot asked, changing the subject with which he was becoming bored and guessed Hazel was also.
“Not during my lifetime,” Hazel responded.
“Do you travel to Akron often?”  Scot inquired, hoping to learn more about her personal and working life.  So far she had not volunteered any personal information.  She knew a lot about him.  He knew nothing about her.
“I have an advertising business, so I travel periodically looking for new clients or leads to possible new markets,”  she responded.
“How did you get into advertising?” Scot asked somewhat incredibly.  He assumed all advertising agencies were in New York, Chicago and other large cities.
“I was a model initially.  I had several parts in commercials.  I made many contacts in that business, and saw some gaps in what my employers offered.  I decided I would try to fill those gaps.  It has worked quite well so far.” She said proudly.
“What kind of gaps?” probed Scot?
“The other agencies targeted the upper and upper middle classes.  I saw an opening for middle and lower classes.  I figured I would need to work a little harder, but there was a real market there.  I took several courses in Public Relations.  I was fascinated, and repulsed, by people like Walter Lippmann, Edward Bernays and Ivy Ledbetter Lee.  They had a very low opinion of the American people.  Lippmann said Americans are a bewildered herd.  I tried to prove them wrong, but, alas, concluded they were right.  People are hard-wired to conform to their community cultures and habits.  Therefore, they are easily manipulated.  I believed I had an insight into how they thought.  All I needed to do was start a small change.  People are alert to small changes.  “Narcissism of small differences,” as Freud observed, makes people more alert to minor differences than to major ones.  People want nearly total conformity within their inner group.  People are obsessed with total cohesion.  I watched for minor style changes among wealthy or famous people, then created something similar with less expensive material.  When everyone felt a subconscious urge to conform, say to a new dress style or other attire, they would go out and buy replacements like those they had seen worn by the rich and famous.  It might be slightly unethical and wasteful in a way, because what they had most likely still was wearable and useable.  However, that’s what the advertising business is all about, getting you to buy something you really don’t need.  Prosperity requires money turning over as frequently as possible, so I believe I have a net positive effect in the end.”
The waiter arrived with their orders before Hazel could go into any personal detail about her profession.  He accurately placed every plate of food in front of the correct person then inquired if everything was right.  After the expected confirmation, he walked away briskly.
Scot and Hazel tasted the food.  It was to everyone’s satisfaction.  There were several moments of silence, and contemplation Scot assumed, as the first bites of food sated their hunger.  As consumption changed gears from devouring to nibbling, banter resumed.
“Fred never mentioned you before,” Scot ventured.  “Did you meet him just recently?  Granted, I am so bogged down at school that I seldom have time for friends back home.  I’m sure if I had run into him, you would be the first thing he would mention.”
Scot immediately regretted his last comment and wondered if his awkward attempt at flattery was a little too bumbling for a sophisticated lady like Hazel.
“I was exploring religions,” Hazel responded, ignoring, or missing, the flattery attempt.  “I just was not happy being a run-of-the-mill Protestant.  There seemed to be too many contradictions, hypocritical church tenets and excessive arrogance for a true religion that deals with the conscience, soul, altruism and modesty.  I looked into the Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Fred was in charge of initiating new members.  He seemed to be so knowledgeable and patient.  He had a grasp of the Bible that really impressed me.  He also had a broad knowledge of world affairs.  He struck me as someone who would have been a prophet 2,000 years ago.  Our Bible studies were followed by lunch.  Many were just Fred and I.
“I didn’t approve of their obsession with proselytizing.  I dropped out after a couple months.  Fred called to ask why, and asked me if I would like to discuss it over dinner.  He genuinely was concerned about what was not appealing about his religion.  That led to a couple dates--on the condition that religion was not discussed.
“His hour-glass theory of judgement day struck me as way out of character.  I think that sparked some sort of alarm that I could not rationalize.  It was speculation on his part, not a belief of the church.”
“Hour-glass theory?  What was that?” Scot asked in amazement.  This was new to him.
Hazel hesitated.  She wondered for a second if she had revealed something she wasn’t supposed to.  She was certain Fred had never cautioned her not to share or discuss the theory.  He seemed to be quite proud of it.  She decided to pass it on to Scot if for no other reason than to find out if her reaction was similar to that of others.
“The hour-glass theory held that on judgement day, the soul, which is the size of three grains of sand but is immaterial, would rest on the sands of an hour-glass.  The sins, transgressions and hurtful acts of the person would be read.  After the worst sins, there would be longer pauses, and more grains of sand would pass to the lower section of the hour-glass.  If there were enough grains of sands in the upper half to support the soul when the list was finished, the soul was saved.  The soul qualified to be “launched” from the sands then up and out of the hour glass.  If not, it broke into three parts and each searched for two new parts which enabled them to return for another try at salvation.  It bothered him that the soul would have only one chance at eternal salvation as currently taught by Christian religions.
“When Fred talked about the hour-glass, he seemed to go into a trance, which scared me,” Hazel said.  “What intrigued me was that the theory sounded very Zoroastrian.  He was unfamiliar with that religion, he claimed.  Apparently he arrived at that conclusion independently.  I must admit that really impressed me, and convinced me that he is a great independent thinker.”    
“Would you like anything else,” the waiter asked.  He had approached silently startling Scot when he spoke.  Or maybe Scot was so intent on his conversation that he blocked out all other senses.  Scot wanted to keep the food coming and the conversation going.
“I don’t care for anything more,” Hazel spoke up.  “How about you Scot?”
Since Hazel was paying, Scot thought it would be improper for him to order anything else.  “I am stuffed,” Scot lied.  “I couldn’t eat another bite.”
“I’ll bring the check,” the waiter said happily as he turned and walked toward the cash register.
“This is astonishing!” Scot said.
“What is?” asked Hazel.
Scot’s voice betrayed a higher level of excitement.  “You are on a quest for the ideal religion.  I have been searching for the most just religion, but more for academic reasons.  Only a couple have reached the favorable rating level: Jehovah’s Witnesses and, in first place, Quakers.  I need to learn more about Baha’i and Buddhism, which seem very promising.  Do you know anything about those two religions?”
“I’ve been intrigued by what I've learned about Buddhism.”  Hazel said.  “I need to find out more about it.  So far, it has seemed the most promising.  I must admit I haven’t explored the Quakers.  That’s going to the top of the list.  Do you know where I could get in contact with them?  Where are their churches or whatever they meet?”
“I don’t know of any specifically,” Scot admitted.  “I know some Quakers personally and have met some of their friends.  As I recall, there is a large community of Quakers in Salem, Ohio.  You might try there.”    
The waiter returned a couple minutes later and, as tradition dictated, gave the check to Scot.  He had barely turned away when Hazel grabbed it from his hand.  Scot protested, but Hazel was determined to keep her promise.  Scot had been so steeped in the male domination customs that he was uncomfortable not paying even when his dining partner was paying from an expense account.
“Do you think we’ll see full equality in our lifetimes?” Hazel queried.
Scot suspected she was sizing up his politics.  “There’s a determined women’s rights movement on campuses, but it doesn’t seem to have spread outside academia,” Scot stated.  He didn’t want to expose his stand on the issue until he knew more about Hazel’s.
“Were you one of the protestors when the shootings took place last Spring?” she asked.
“No,” responded Scot contemplatively.  “I regret that I wasn’t.  That was a wake-up time for me.  My roommate kept telling me about how vicious our government can be.  I didn’t believe him until that moment.  It was as if hundreds of bright flood lights suddenly turned on.  I began seeing things from an entirely different perspective.  I began to understand how a nation could slaughter millions of people, and most citizens could go into denial and not see the hideous evil in the action.  I understood how millions of educated, ‘civilized‘ Germans could follow Adolph Hitler.”
“I would say that your Out House Period is over,” Hazel said.
Scot looked intensely into her face for a clue as to what that statement meant.  He feared it was mockery.  There was no indication in her facial expression.  Her eyes glistened with reflections of artificial restaurant lights.   That was as deep as he could see into her mind.  Her tilted head caused her eyes to open fully.  She looked up at him as if she were searching his face for reactions.      
“Shall we go,” Hazel said, following a long period of silence.  She left cash and what seemed to be a generous tip with the bill.  As they got up, she discretely pushed the bill and money closer to Scot’s plate.
Does she have any imperfections? Scot wondered.
As they left the restaurant parking lot, Hazel asked Scot if he had time for them to stop at her hotel.  She needed to get something, she explained.
Scot was beginning to get nervous about the precious hours squandered away from his study schedule.  His grades were good, but not secure.  A failing final exam could do great harm to his academic schedule.  His meditations and trepidations were interrupted when the car came to a stop in front of a fancy hotel.
“You might as well come in with me?”  Hazel suggested.  “I’m always a little bit nervous traveling alone.  If I’m seen with someone, I believe, rightly or wrongly, that I will be a little safer.”
“Sure!  Of course!”  Scot responded.  So, all she was interested in was her safety, Scot said to himself.  I’m just being used.  His ego had been swelling all night.  It wasn’t the inflation that ended it.  It was the news that he was nothing more than a tool, a foil.  Those soft words punctured the gigantic ego balloon that had grown on his shoulders that evening.  It would be ironic if he failed one or more courses because he had wasted a few crucial hours pursuing a delusion.
The elevator stopped on the third floor.  They walked a few feet and entered a large hotel suite.  It was furnished with everything including a small refrigerator and microwave.  A large TV set was atop a six drawer chest in the middle of the room.  A plush couch dominated most of a sitting area just inside the door.  The room was ideal for entertaining a few friends or business associates.
“Sit down,” Hazel invited gesturing toward the couch.  She walked across the room into the bed area and pulled an envelope out of one of the drawers.  She returned and sat down on the couch by Scot, closer than necessary.
“Do you recognize this?”  she asked as she pulled a photograph from the envelope.  Scot immediately recognized himself and his brother.  Both were shirtless revealing bodies with no fat.  Both had baseball caps cocked to the side.  Both had a sneering countenance specially honed for camera shots.  They rebelliously refused to pose properly for photographs.  Scot was leaning on a bicycle.  He guessed he was twelve or thirteen at the time.  There were two girls standing to the left of Scot.  One had short auburn hair.  The other girl appeared to be younger.  She also had red hair, somewhat lighter and much longer.  Scot recognized the shorter girl.
“That’s Sherma Avers,” Scot said.  “She spent a month or two each summer with her grandparents who lived next door to my parents.  Sherma usually spent more time at our house than with her grandparents.  She was a tomboy, very athletic.  I don’t recognize the freckle-faced girl.” Scot stated inquisitively.
“That’s me,” Hazel responded.
Scot had a good memory, but the event completely escaped his mind.  Hazel had been to his house and he didn’t recall ever meeting her before the encounter a few months earlier?
“Were you Sherma’s friend?”  inquired Scot.
“No,” responded Hazel.  “I met her at your house.”
Scot’s face must have had a very puzzled look.  “Don’t you remember inviting me to see your tree house the next day?” Hazel inquired.  Scot’s face still was a blank sheet.  “You and I explored a little more than the tree house,” she continued.
“Oh my god!” Scot exclaimed.  It was as if a beautiful butterfly had emerged from a drab caterpillar,  Scot thought to himself.  She was so plain back then with no memorable characteristics.
“Should we pick up where we left off,” Hazel suggested.
Could she possibly mean what I think she means? Scot asked himself.  Exactly what did she mean by ‘where we left off’?
  The ‘50s had been formative years for Scot.  Everything was black and white back then, figuratively and literally.  The white male was accepted as naturally superior.  He was the most wise.  His decisions were best for society.  He initiated relationships.  He was the executive of the corporation.  He was the political leader.   Only white males became president, vice president, Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader.
While every boy dreamed of a society where women were as sexually driven as men, he did not want to trade his putative superior role in society for the added pleasures.  He preferred to initiate relationships.  He preferred to have the final say.  He preferred to have the first say.
Events were moving forward quickly.  Revolutionary change was transforming the black and white society.  The white male was up front and subject to trampling underfoot by the stampede if he did not adjust and adapt.  He recalled a little rhyme on a flyer given to him at a protest.

In America,
If you’re a white male
You can’t fail
Unless you are
As dumb as hell.

As Scot emerged from his philosophical musings, he noticed Hazel was in the lead.  Her blouse was open.  Unlike the women’s libbers on campus, she wore a bra.  Unlike most women on campus, she didn’t need one to lift and tuck her breasts into alluring positions.  She undressed slowly as if she were doing a strip tease.  Scot marveled at how nature had transformed that skinny, freckle-faced young girl into a voluptuous beauty.
Scot undressed more like a Nascar racer while Hazel was at a pole dancer’s speed.  They slipped under the blankets.  Scot no longer had that prepubescent problem that prematurely interrupted their prior encounter.  This time, he was insatiable.  Every few hours, he awoke, looked at the other side of the bed expecting to discover he was in a dream.  He awakened her with a bump he hoped would be misconstrued as an accident.  She smiled every time.  Each time he expected an annoyed rebuke, but it never happened.
“I have to leave now to get to my conference,” Hazel whispered to him.  “It’s 10 am.”
Scot was feeling a bit drained, but longed for the encounter to continue.  Deep in the back of his mind, a voice was warning: “You must study for your finals.”  He suppressed the warnings.  Ultimately, everything a male does is a step toward finding and keeping the ideal member of the opposite sex.  He had found his this time for sure.  He didn’t need to prepare any longer.  He had reached his natural goal.  Maybe it was predestined.  This was the third encounter.  Are they soul mates?  Will destiny help him take his tests?
“I must check out before 11 am,” Hazel informed him urging him to get dressed a little faster.
Scot was beaming as he waited in the lobby by the hotel desk for Hazel to check out.  This was a rare conquest.  At his stage of life, conquests were the highest priority in his dating relationships.  Usually he entered a relationship believing this was the one and only one for him.  She would be the last one. He could bring dating into his daily routine and dispense with those time-wasting visits to the bars and social events where he constantly searched for someone new, that right person.   Inevitably, after a short time of dating, and discoveries that she was human with human frailties, he noticed someone else who appeared to be a little closer to perfect.  The mating dance started again.
Now was the time to suppress any eagerness with Hazel.  He had to get his degree.  He couldn’t add another distraction especially one that called him away from college several weekends as off campus dating inevitably would do.  He needed to convey to her that she was very special, but not the ultimate person for him.  It was not good for a relationship to be devoid of doubt.  A little mystery was crucial to lasting memories, Scot had concluded.  What was he thinking?  He would be a fool to end this relationship.  Let destiny have its way.
Hazel dropped Scot off at his dorm.  The farewell kiss was long and tender.  It seemed sincere to Scot.  Neither mentioned another encounter.  Each was waiting for the other to broach the subject, Scot concluded.
“Promise you won’t mention a word about this to Fred,” Hazel half requested and half demanded.
“I promise,” Scot responded raising his right arm half way to an oath position.  Thinking it over, that could have been interpreted as a mocking, insincere oath, he concluded.
Scot watched Hazel drive away.  His feelings were scrambled.  Could a relationship be possible.  He didn’t want a Friday night relationship like a couple of his friends had with girls back home.  He also did not want Hazel to get away.