We quit fighting long enough to discover
we had been on the same side all along.

I gently rapped the serpent-head doorknocker, noting that the symbolism was uncanny. The door opened slowly, creaking and groaning like Herman Munster’s. Her father stood there, dressed in what looked like laboratory coveralls. I remember the first thing that came to mind was to force a smile.
         It was a first date—that clumsy ceremony that begins with the dreaded handshake with Daddy. My grasp was dutifully subservient and his was firm enough to cause my knuckles to fuse. My fingers rung red with pain, but I knew that it was just a form of basic training for having asked for his daughter’s company that evening. Nothing I could say and no manners I could conjure up were going to grant me a bye. No, dues to Daddy must always be paid in full.
         I also remember thinking my hair may have looked too slick, and the black leather jacket I got for Christmas probably sent the wrong message. But it was a stylish jacket, not the kind with excessive zippers or an ace of spades painted on the back. As I left the house, I sensed his beady eyes following me, and even the clap of the heavy front door didn’t free me from his stare. I looked back just in time to see one slat of the venetian blind tilted up at the corner nearest the door. His laser pupils pierced the darkness, causing the freshly waxed paint on my Chevy to sizzle and smoke.
         Thus I survived the first meeting with Mr. Walter Banks—“Fast Eddie” to his friends.
         Miss Kay and I dated non-stop for the next two years, and I met cold reception after cold reception. When Eddie and I had any conversation at all, it was like giving an oral exam. I formed each word carefully, not wanting to give up any clues about my life that he could probe. After all, I had been raised almost like an orphan—shuffling among caring relatives and living out of my footlocker for as long as I was welcome. My parents divorced when I was six months old, and then took separate flights to everywhere—resurfacing only on rare holidays or when the checking account got slim. Somehow I felt ashamed about my past. I feared that my gypsy-like character would never pass muster against the standards set by Eddie for his daughter’s beau.
         Dating and courtship went by the book. I had Kay home by curfew, and never called on the phone during meal times. I brought yellow jonquils to Mrs. Eddie on her anniversary, and once I raked their yard while they were at work. They had what seemed like acres of pecan and black walnut trees—both of which are prolific leaf-producers. I piled the leaves in two giant pyramids at the curb, and had them both burning by late afternoon. When Eddie got home that day, he stood on the patio like General Patton, a Lucky Strike crimped between his teeth. One single nod of his head was approval enough for me. I was glad I earned those points instead of going fishing with my friends at T&P Lake.
         Came the awful night when I asked for his daughter’s heart in marriage. The knee-bend part went okay, but when I produced the rings of betrothal, all hell broke loose. He spewed back my proposal, substituting his slur for my words of passion.
         “She can be ‘re-gaged,” he said, “but there’ll be no damn ringely-dingelies on her hand!” The lid of the ring box snapped shut so fast I nearly lost a finger, and I stuffed it back into my jeans pocket like a shoplifter. His quivering pointy-finger showed me the way to the door, and I left with Kay writhing out pleas for mercy while Mrs. Eddie joined her husband in a chorus of boos. The last words I heard went something like …
         “Don’t show your Palooka rear-end over here again, if you expect to have any padding left to sit down on …” His words trailed off amidst the appropriate hissing of the pine needles in the night air.
         It became obvious that there was no option remaining for two such star-struck lovers. I devised a foolproof plan. My brother lived in Florida, and through contacts there, he got me a job at the paper mill. I traveled there, secured the job, and got a few paychecks under my belt. It was to be our nest egg, albeit meager. My brother gave up his extra bedroom to help me defray expenses. Then I sent for my bride to be.
         It was an elopement in whirlwind fashion. Miss Kay packed a small suitcase and left a note on the kitchen table saying she was spending the night with a girlfriend. With trembling legs and a thumping heart, she took a cab to the airport, slumping down in the seat to avoid detection. Three hours later, my brother, his wife and I met the plane, and we whisked Miss Kay away on a short trip to Georgia where marriage was legal for eighteen-year-olds.
         The sign said, “Welcome to Donaldsonville, Georgia.” It was just a sleepy little town, but well known as a marriage mill where the required legal blood tests could be obtained at a Gulf station between fill-ups. The quickie marriage process was handled in auctioneer-fashion, and only cost twenty dollars. For that price we got a tinfoil-stamped certificate and a “starter kit” from the “Ordinary,” the local name for a judge. It was a gift box filled with samples of Midol, Tampax, Vaseline, Mercurochrome, and Kleenex. It also contained a memorable plastic rain cap with an insurance man’s slogan printed on it. I still have it somewhere. It says “Shorty Neely will keep you dry from life’s unexpected showers.” I didn’t realize that thunderheads had already formed on my horizon.
         It all went so fast that we had already exchanged our ‘I do’s’ before Mrs. Eddie even noticed that Kay’s dresser drawers had an unusual amount of room. To my surprise, the phone was ringing when we got to my brother’s house, and it was Mrs. Eddie. It seems that an hour after she left, Kay’s girlfriend showed up looking for her, and knew nothing about the so-called overnight stay. Mrs. Eddie explained on the phone that her husband checked the airport and quickly figured out the elopement plan. She warned that Laser Eddie, together with the Texas Rangers, had already started the global manhunt. Something was mentioned about the Mann Act, the penalty for which is ninety-nine years in the electric chair.
         I had visions of Laser Eddie and his swat team surrounding my brother’s little house and perforating it like Swiss cheese. Whatever plans I had for a Goom-Bah wedding-night performance were dashed, as we spent more time hiding under the bed than on top of it. It was windy that night, and the palm tree outside the window made pass after pass across the shadowy glow of the street light. With each sweep, the screen shook and my heart sank. If I live through the night, I thought, the tree has got to go.
         With morning came reassurances from my brother that the Mann Act didn’t apply, and that by now Fast Eddie had given up the chase, if there ever was one. Besides, he said, “Texas Rangers don’t have jurisdiction in Florida.” I had seen enough TV homicide shows to believe that part, but I still wasn’t sure about Eddie. After all, he had outlined a most dubious future for my Palooka rear end.
         “Besides,” my brother added, “Y’all are consummated.”
         The look on his face begged confirmation of that fact. I nodded in a circular motion, a sort of “Yes, no, maybe so.”
         I had to go to work at the mill that day, since I hadn’t worked there long enough to earn any vacation. Kay was so frightened about her father that she insisted in going to work with me. She said she would hide in the backseat of the car, and I could meet her during my lunchtime and share my sandwich and a Coke.
         The first thing I did was to explain everything to my boss, Mr. Peacock. He was an older gentleman, always full of wit and humor. He laughed at my tale of the wedding night palm and the chilling hours Kay and I spent under the double bed. When I told him that Kay was out in the car hiding, he almost ran me out of the place.
         He gestured toward the door and shouted: “Get out of here. You’ve got the rest of the week off. Try to kick start that honeymoon again tonight,” he said with a wink. “Oh. And cut down that damn palm tree.”
         I think everybody in the office heard it all. I thanked him and started to leave. “One more thing,” he said. He leaned down close, not wanting to be overheard by a now-snickering office crew.
         “Here’s some good advice from an old man who knows. Pace yourself boy, you’ve got forty years or more. Remember that the post always gives out before the post hole.”
         My neon-red face lit up the room. There was cheering and applause as I closed the office door and stepped out into fresh Florida sunshine.

The next thirty years ran past us like those jerky, hurried characters in early silent movies. Changes fell upon us, and the birth of our two boys formed the bookends of our lives together. A spirit of respect had replaced the simple co-existence that had been the tone of my past relationship with Eddie. The feelings just evolved—I think it was a byproduct of the healing power that innocent and impartial grandkids bring.
         The two of us became comrades in purpose, the mentoring of the kids. We talked often about the experiences that shaped our own upbringing. Once, over a beer, I fully disclosed my past. To my surprise, he disclosed his. A wayward boy whose father died when he was only 14, Eddie supported his mother and four sisters with the meager pay from the CCC. Our conversations revealed that we had more similarities than differences, and the greatest similarity of all was our mutual love for his daughter.
         In 1993, I was at Eddie’s side the day he died from cancer. That day he made me a “honorary member” of his family, and leaned over in his bed to whisper a long-held secret in my ear: “I kind of hate to admit it,” he said, “but you’re my favorite son-in-law.” I told him that it wasn’t lost on me that his daughter was an only child.
         He closed his eyes, pursed his lips in a tight smile, and took his last breath with Kay’s hand and mine clasping his. His grip was firm enough to cause my knuckles to fuse.

LAD MOORE enjoys several writing awards and more than three hundred publishing credits in magazines and on the web. His short story collection, “Odie Dodie” is available in literary paperback at all major booksellers. A collection of his memoirs, Tailwind, was published in May, 2003.