Colorado
A lesson in how much the government could mess you up.
I don't recall the actual date I first went to Colorado. It was supposed to be for either one or two weeks. I forget which. During that time Tom expected to marry me. I hadn't actually quit my job because for one thing I thought he would have changed his mind by then and it would just be a vacation to a nice place.
Some of this is a bit fuzzy. I flew from Albany to Chicago and then to Denver. From there I took a bus to Colorado Springs. I don't remember why I couldn't fly into Colorado Springs but for some reason I didn't.
Tom may have met me at the bus stop the first time. We stayed in the Econolodge which at that time was a nice place. He did get a little leave time but not much. We went to a few museums in town and out to the Garden of the Gods.
I was falling in love with Colorado.
What we didn't do, is get married. He told me that his CO said we had to go through 6 months of counseling before we could get married on base. Neither of us wanted to do this. Looking back, it was probably a good idea, but at the time it was a nuisance. His CO said I was after his money and with only a PFC pay, I don't know what money he was referring too. At that time, my job back home combined with my now Army Reserve pay was way more than Tom was making. So we enjoyed what time we had. Tom found a tiny two room apartment where you shared a bathroom with the other tenants. I thought it was pretty crappy.
We were there about three nights when there was a knock on the door. Both of us were in bed and didn't answer the door. I was half naked lying on the bed when the door burst open. It was the fool landlord. He claimed Tom still owed him thirty bucks on the rent for the first month. I was still in shock at him actually breaking the door down to get in when no one answered. I'm pretty sure he didn't think we were there. I really thought then and now that he came to rob the place thinking he had a dumb kid he'd rented to and he'd get away with it. Of course he was right on that part because Tom did not know that much about unscrupulous land lords and then too he didn't keep the rent up so we lost everything we'd left there.
A few days later it was time for me to go home. I had a trunk that I'd taken with me with my stuff in it. Unfortunately I'd left most of my new clothes there and my opals and some other stuff.
Tom said it was a short walk to the bus stop so we started out. He was hauling the trunk behind him and I had a small bag I would carry on the plane with me while the trunk was checked. After a block he started complaining about how heavy the trunk was. "What have you got in her, rocks?" he asked. I just smiled. I didn't tell him until years later that yes, indeed, I did have rocks in there.
That's what I did with a lot of those rocks.
There was a place I walked by a lot while we were there. Instead of grass outside a building and between the sidewalk and the road they put smooth round or oval rocks of various colors and sizes. I collected a few every time we went out. I never thought about if they'd weigh it when we got to the airport but as it turned out it didn't matter.
We hauled it on the bus and got to the airport and up to the check in window. I asked if the flights were running on time and handed over my tickets. The woman frowned and told me they could only get me as far as Chicago and they had no confirmed flight after that. It might be days she said. This was the time all the DC10's were being grounded because of some default or other that was making them crash.
I asked if I could get my money back for the tickets so I could take a train or a bus. They told me I'd have to take them back where I bought them to get my money back. I'd bought them back in NY at a travel agent so that was out of the question.
We called Mom collect and she wired the bus tickets for me to come home on. What she didn't do was wire me any cash. I had none by then and he wouldn't get paid for another week. It took me 5 days to get home by bus. During that time not only did I have no money for food but I also had to go through stomach cramps because it was that time of the month.
I had eaten something before we left the house and I think I had a roll of candy with me. I drank when the bus stopped at rest stations. An old black lady on the bus gave me some apples. I made friends with people on the bus and sometimes they gave me stuff to eat. I didn't ask because I wasn't raised that way. I think maybe the ones who were on the bus for a long time just noticed I wasn't eating anything and may have suspected I didn't have any money. I just didn't have any other option. I had a job I had to get back to on time.
When we got to Albany I called home collect to let them know I was there and Dad started out to get me. It would take him at least an hour. I'd met a young boy on the bus who also had to wait for his parents to come get him. He bought food out of a machine there and shared it with me. I never knew his name and never saw him again.
Back home I went to work the next day only to be told I'd lost my job because I didn't come back in time from my vacation. No one wanted to listen to my excuses. I think I wrote somewhere on here that I'd gotten my job back but now that I've had time to think about it, I realize I didn't but what I did get was unemployment which was even better. I was only there a month when Tom sent me money to come back to Colorado. I think I went by train this time but I'm not sure. I really did love train travel.
I arrived when I was supposed to arrive and no Tom. I took a cab to what was our apartment only to discover it no longer was our apartment because the idiot had never paid the rent. The landlord had confiscated all the stuff I'd left there the first time around. He later claimed it was owed to him and he gave it to Goodwill. I highly doubt that as not only did I leave a lot of almost new clothes and my opals and some other stuff but Old Tom had left a shotgun there. Tom's excuse was flimsy at best. He said he couldn't find the time to get back there.
I was smarter this time around and I had cash. I had the cab take me to a place called the Star Motel. Not only did I have to pay a lot of money for the two cab trips but the bastard stole my tape player. He tried to tell me it wasn't there when he put my things in the trunk but I saw him put it in there. I knew he stole it but I had no proof and I was a stranger in town. I had to let that go, too. I was learning lessons all the time now. Some didn't sink in fast enough.
At the motel which turned out to be a much cleaner and nicer place than the apartment, I called Tom's mother back in Ohio. I asked her if she had any idea where he would be and why he didn't meet me. She gave me the number to call his company at Fort Carson. I called and they told me they were all out in the field on maneuvers.
Eventually, he showed up after dark with a load of excuses. We stayed at the apartment for two weeks before renting an apartment from an old black lady on the back side of Colorado Springs. We were right near the train tracks. It was not a great apartment but compared to the first one, it was heaven. We had our own bathroom with plenty of hot water. We had a kitchen, living/bedroom and a small entry way room. I don't know what you would call that.
Before we found the apartment though, I would go through days of being alone and taking a bus around town to try to find an apartment on my own. One day I'd gotten back and was reading a book while I waited for Tom to get off duty and come out there. I heard a knock on the door and there was a black guy in army cook whites. I thought maybe he had a message from Tom. I let him in. It was a big mistake.
At first he seemed all nice and friendly and told me Tom was running late and he was one of the cooks who worked with him. After a few minutes when he didn't leave he made his move on me. First he tried to kiss me and I pushed him away. He shoved me the bed and landed on top of me. We were both fully dressed but still I knew I was in a bad situation. I was fearful I was about to get raped and I needed to quickly diffuse the situation and get out of there.
I tried reaching for the phone to the motel office thinking I could call for help but he'd knocked it on the floor and under the bed where I couldn't get it. He was young and skinny but he had more muscles then me. I was not going to let this happen. I was trained, for God's sake. He told me, "You give it to Tom and you're gonna give it to me!"
I screamed "No!" but it had no effect. I was really scared now. He was holding my hands over my head and it was really painful. If I could have gotten my knee up he would have felt that. The good news was that he didn't have a free hand to pull my clothes off me. While my hands were up there, I felt something sharp by my hand. I suddenly remembered what it was.
The night before, Tom had come in and emptied out his pockets. He had one of those meat thermometers. I was supposed to remind him to take it with him when he went back on duty but I never thought about it.
Now, I knew I had a chance. I poked it in to my hand at the same time he let go of that hand to reach for his pants. I shoved it to the back of his neck, not hard enough to break the skin but I knew I could do that in a heartbeat if he didn't listen. I told him to back off now and get out or he'd be a dead man. I pushed it just enough to let him know it was a sharp object at his neck.
I'd never seen a black man pale before but it sure looked like he was a little ashen. He let go of me and jumped back quick. He still didn't know what I had for a weapon. I kept it out of sight but he could see my fist clenched around something pointy.
He backed up to the door and started to panic. He was more scared about what Tom would do to him if I told him. He was begging me as he fumbled for the door in his rush to get out. "Don't tell Tom, please don't tell him!"
I just yelled, "Get out!" and he ran. I slammed and locked the door, found the phone and called the office. The lady and her husband came quick when I told them what happened. We had become friends in the time I'd been there. They wanted to call the authorities and I wanted to as well but I knew it would just make more trouble and who would believe me. I was a stranger from New York. Nobody in their right mind would take my word over his.
We locked up the room and I went over to the office with them. I didn't want to be alone in that room. Tom arrived about a half hour later. The reason he was late was he was renting us the apartment from the old black lady. I really don't remember her name. She owned blocks of cheap apartments that she rented out to soldiers mostly. She told me once that they used to be chicken houses till they bought them and turned them into apartments. We packed up what we had in the room which wasn't much and moved into the new place that night with the help of a good friend of his.
I , of course, told him what happened with the other guy. I left it up to him what to do about it and I never heard another thing. I don't know if he did anything or not. It was out of my hands and the guy never showed his face again.
When we moved in it was furnished with stuff the woman had collected through the years. Nothing matched but it seemed to be solid furniture and there were no pesky bugs. I was happy with it. It was easy to clean.
One thing I wasn't happy with was the fridge. The first night we had no food to put in it but he'd stopped along the way and bought a six pack of beer. He only drank one because he had to be up and back to work in a few hours. He put the rest on the first shelf in the fridge. There was not another thing in there. I don't know what it was set on. The woman set it and checked that it was cooling before she left. It was clean too.
In the morning, I don't know why, maybe habit, I opened the fridge and looked inside. I was staring at it in amazement when I heard Tom behind me, "What the hell?" All the bottles were broken. There was beer and glass all though the shelves. I didn't think beer could freeze. I didn't know that much about beer. He told me it was a 3.2 state and there wasn't much alcohol in it but that alcohol could and did freeze.
While he was a work, I called the woman who came out and checked it out. She got her husband to bring us another second hand one before the day was out. A lot of folks around there, mostly the ones who owed her money, didn't like her but she treated me fine.
I could look out the kitchen window over the sinks and see a small courtyard. I had clotheslines to hang wash on when I could find a washer to wash them. It wasn't long and he found me a second of maybe third hand mini washer that worked and was small enough to fit in the apartment. I think it was Sanyo. You pushed it up to the sink and used a hose to fill it. Then another hose to drain it when it had spun out so you could rinse them. It was only slightly awkward but I'd never had anything better so it didn't bother me.
I made friends with people in the neighbor hood. I don't really have a lot of photos from here but I do have some. We had good times and we had bad times.
I spent my days wandering around the town, finding my way, transferring my unemployment checks from back home to here, looking for work all the time. It being a military town most of the jobs were already taken except for ones I didn't want or couldn't do anyway.
We met Mary Turner a lady who lived on the other side of yard from us in another apartment. She was my savior and friend. I'd have gone nuts without her. You can only wander around so long before it gets dead boring. She had a son Kevin who was about ten I think. I do have a photo of him somewhere, I think. Kevin was a good kid. Sometimes I'd take care of him while she was out on dates or working if there was no school.
Mary went through a lot of guys looking for Mr. Right. All she ever found while I knew her were Mr. Right Nows and Mr. Oh So Wrongs. She was optimistic. She knew a lot of guys because she'd lived in the area a long time. I think she came from Oregon originally. She worked as a bartender/waitress at times but she also did construction sometimes.
One day she came to me and asked me to watch Kevin over night. She showed me the license of a guy in the Army. She said he was OK but she wanted me to know who she was with just in case. She was going up in the mountains alone with him because he wanted to take some Art Photos of her. Even I knew what that meant and so did she. She was excited about it. People didn't know about AIDs and the other stuff you didn't hear about much either. But we'd both watched TV crime shows and we knew what could happen.
That night Kevin fell asleep on this small orange love seat we had. It was a damn ugly piece of furniture but someone was moving out and gave it to us.
I knew I had sleep problems but I didn't really know at that time that what I had was what our Dad had. We knew he had problems. He called it "sleeping paralysis." Its a form of apnea. He didn't know that name either.
I "woke" up in the night. I'd dreamed and was still in the dream that a giant polka dot snake with orange and purple spots on it was hovering over Kevin's head ready to drop on him. Tom was exhausted and slept through it all. I got up and pulled Kevin out to the kitchen where I sat him at the table and told him to stay there. I grabbed the broom and went back to combat the snake.
I woke up for real about then and Kevin was right behind me. He just went back to bed and was sound asleep in seconds, never remembering a thing in the morning.
I stood there for a minute or two thinking about it, rationalizing it. I knew by then it had to have been a dream. There was no huge snake over the couch. If there had been it sure wouldn't have had any orange and purple polka dots! And to top that off, I don't sleep with my glasses on so if there had been a real snake of almost any size you can just bet I'd never have seen it.
In the morning after Kevin was off to school and Mary came home safe and sound and happy, she just laughed it off. She kept telling me she knew he was in safe hands if I'd fight off a snake that huge to protect him. I blame it on that ugly couch!
That's Kevin and Scruffy and the gun is real but there are no bullets in it of course. As a safety precaution Tom always took the firing pins out and kept them in a different place. He said if someone broke in and stole one while he was out that they wouldn't be able to use it without the firing pin. Kevin only had it in his hand long enough for one of us, probably me to take the photo.
I was coming back from a failed interview for a job I'd applied for one afternoon. I knew going in there I wouldn't get it. I had to keep looking for work and applying for jobs in order to keep my unemployment funds coming. I really did want to work but if there were no jobs out there I could do I still had to look and prove I was looking by applying for jobs. This one was as a cook for a restaurant. I had no training and no experience. I knew I wouldn't get it but it was a tick on my list of tries.
I walked home because I couldn't afford the bus and didn't want to wait that long. I was halfway home when a pickup truck slowed up next to me where I was walking on the sidewalk. He held up two fingers and asked me if I did housework. I really had no clue what he meant. I replied, "I don't even do housework at home!" I got home and told Mary. She was laughing so hard tears were coming down. She said he was propositioning me and wanted to know if for twenty bucks I'd come to his home for sex. I was so embarrassed and then I laughed too and wrote home to tell Mom about it.