The Third Personality: A Novel (9)

UNINCORPORATED DARLINGTON COUNTY, South Carolina - Alcohol was not legally sold in "dry" Scotland County, North Carolina. Thus when St. Andrews Presbyterian College students from Laurinburg wanted to purchase alcoholic beverages, they had to go elsewhere.

So they did. More often than not, this meant congregating across the South Carolina state line at a dusty, old, overcrowded bar off Highway 15 in McColl, called Rogers (no apostrophe).

Even there, all you could get was 3.2 (percent) beer and those "soda-pop" wines, Boone's Farm and Ripple. But what the hell; at least you could loosen up a little from the curriculum - from such courses as "C & C," for starters: Christianity and Culture, all totally-damned six semester hours of it.

And it was here, in the spring of 1967, that the future parents of Hamilton Boggs, Jr. first met, and fell in love.

Hamilton Boggs Senior was already a starting guard on the St. Andrews Knights basketball team, even as a sophomore. And his future bride, a classmate of his, in fact - one Mary-Madonna Turner - was a music theory major and voice principal in the school of music.

Both were in Rogers on this night, loosening up.

A five-member, multi-harmony-vocals rock band from St. Andrews, The Underground, was performing popular hits. They looked like college students; they were clean-cut. Their singing was okay, but they were too loud. For the mostly young crowd of people in the small, narrow bar to talk to one another on this Friday night, they had to shout over the top of the amplifiers.

The group ended one song and went right into another. The lead singer for this song, a 12-string guitarist with a crusty voice, launched into a brief guitar intro, and then the band began playing their version of The Monkees' hit, "Mary, Mary."

Appropriately enough, it was during this song when Hamilton Boggs first spotted Mary-Madonna Turner, seated off in a corner with a couple of giggling (and slightly glassy-eyed) dorm mates, soberly deliberating her mug of the watery-tasting brew.

"…Mary, Mary, where ya goin' to..?" the guitarist warbled. Hamilton thought Mary-Madonna looked a little like a girl he once had a crush on back in Indiana; only this one looked better: she was fresh-faced, bright-eyed, and almost completely out-of-place. The starting guard decided he was going to go over and introduce himself. He was pretty well-known around campus, and that ought to help her to cotton-up to him a little, he figured. (Maybe.)

"…Mary, Mary, can I go, too..?" the lead singer continued.

"Hi," said Hamilton Boggs, a bit too loudly.

The other girls at the table looked up at him, and giggled.

"Hi," said Mary-Madonna, now conscious (and a bit surprised) that the young man was apparently addressing her. Her chums, meanwhile, aware that an uninvited hitting-on was taking place (and that they weren't the targets), grinned like Cheshire cats.

"Um, I saw you sitting over here… Don't we have a class together at St. Andrews?" Hamilton asked. (He was sure she didn't, or he would have noticed. But he had to say something.)

Mary-Madonna shrugged. "I don't know," she said, honestly enough. Her lecture classes were gigantic.

"Then do you go to basketball games, maybe?" Hamilton asked.

"No," said Mary-Madonna. (But she did see them practice…)

"Well, um - my name is Hamilton … Hamilton Boggs. What's yours?"

Mary-Madonna told him.

"…This one thing, I will vow ya, I'd rather die than to live without ya," the lead singer went on, and then the whole group joined in with: "Mary, Mary - where ya goin' to..?"

Keenly observing the entire interaction from a neighboring booth, a healthy-looking young woman, a bit older perhaps than the students (and whose eyes seemed quite a bit older than her years), was gently, if playfully, dancing her empty glass of water-beer on her tabletop (no easy task, given the complex physics behind such an effort) while she listened in, studying the circles her glass bottom made on the plastic tablecloth.

Another young man, this one visibly wobbly on his feet and otherwise Ripped Out of His Gourd alcoholically, approached the lone woman.

"Hahyah," he burped, semi-good-naturedly, in her direction.

Tawker Hunt, only a few "days" removed from watching (future boyfriend) Tommy Mendelson argue with a baseball umpire in South Florida, attempted to ignore this intruder.

"Ah sayed hah," the drunk mumbled, a bit angrily. "Mahnims Billy… Wahss s'yure's?"

Tawker Hunt still said nada. (Damned 60s Neanderthals.)

"H'you, girly - girly-whrrly-girly; Ahm tawk'tin t'you!" the besotted youth now demanded, loudly and belligerently.

Tawker shook her head; this just wouldn't do. People were beginning to notice.

She looked up at him intently, and then gazed deep into his eyes.

He stared back as best as he was able - and then something from her stare locked into something (unknown) within him, something inside his head, somewhere behind - what, his eyes?

"Wha'you doo'n?" he then asked almost meekly (and at a now-significantly-reduced decibels level).

Immediately Tawker's gaze deeply softened, as if some dark sadness had suddenly overtaken her. Whatever she was feeling, she passed it along from her eyes through his, far into his …

Then she snapped off her hold on his stare, and innocently asked: "I'm sorry … Were you addressing me?"

The young man then winced, and awkwardly collapsed into a nearby chair. Tears began to stream down his cheeks - he was sobbing. His face fell into his quaking hands, and he teetered on the edge of his seat, nearly threatening to fall on the floor.

A couple of other young men, also clearly intoxicated but otherwise conscious and much more stable, hurriedly dashed over to grab their friend before he slipped off of his chair.

"Hi, ma'am," one of them began apologizing as they pulled at him. "We're sorry about our friend. He's really drunk, and doesn't mean nothin' really … You know how that is, and all."

Tawker didn't. Not really. But she smiled, nodding anyway.

"It's a pardonable impropriety," she said. "Alcoholism is a serious debilitation, no matter how it manifests itself. And its impact on others - well, it can be profound."

The two students looked at her like they were dumbfounded - and then glanced at each other. Then they began to splash some water from a nearby pitcher into their companion's eyes.

"Whoa, there, Billy, time to get up; it's time to take you home," the other said to the teary undergraduate. "Let's go."

Inevitably, the two young men managed to get their companion onto his feet and headed out the door - and from there, out into the parking lot, toward their car. But Billy barfed onto the dirt lot anyway before they'd gotten very far outside.

"Let it all hang out, buddy," one of his friends said to comfort Billy, while patting his stooping back.

"Ah feel so fawk'n sick!" Billy groaned between regurgitations.

"Well, you would'a felt sicker if that girl'd gone out with you!" laughed the other. Then he looked over at his companion. "Can you believe how she talked?: ...Pardonable impropriety?! I swanee - what's that about?!"

The two students, standing over their pal, had a good laugh.

Billy was not amused.

Back inside Rogers, Hamilton Boggs had managed to talk Mary-Madonna into moving over to another table, out of ear-shot from her dorm mates - and, unfortunately for her, also out of the auditory range of Tawker Hunt, as well. (The latter, however, was perfectly happy to simply "observe" the historic interaction from a distance; their words didn't matter. These were significant "supporting actors" in her [really, really long-term] professional studies - and her intent had never been to invade the couple-to-be's privacy. It was a big night.)

Hours passed quickly for the couple. Already Mary-Madonna's friends had driven back to the campus (leaving Hamilton to drive Mary-Madonna back in his car), and the entertainers were relaxing on their third (and final) break.

Another Friday night at Rogers was finally winding down.

"So," Mary-Madonna began, after a long pause signaled the conclusion of their previous subject, music. (Both were real big on The Beatles, as it turned out.)

(They were also big on Star Trek, and faky old horror films; and on seeing new places; and on pizza; and on cheese omelets…)

"So," Hamilton responded. "What religion are you?"

"What … religion?" she asked. Her frown suggested it wasn't one of your typical dating-type questions.

"Yeh," Hamilton said. "I used to be Quaker; how about you?"

"A Quaker, really?" Mary-Madonna gushed. "I've never met one of them - one of you - before. I … like the cereal."

"Yeh, well, believe it or not, the cereal company's owned by some Presbyterians now, or something like that," he said. "Anyway, I'm not a Friend, a Quaker, any more. That's my parents' religion. I hated it."

"My parents are Roman Catholic, which isn't real big back home," she sighed. "Me, I don't know what I believe." Then a knowing smile began to form on her lips. "Yet," she added.

Hamilton sat back and looked at her appraisingly.

"Would you be interested in trying something different? I mean, really, truly different? There's a new church I just heard about, that I've started going to on Sunday mornings …

"Would you like to go with me there, say - this Sunday?"

Mary-Madonna looked as if she wasn't sure about going to a "new" church with a new boy on what was basically a first date.

"I don't know," she said, hesitatingly. "Where is it?"

"Near here," he said. "It's sort of Christian - but then it's not… It's kind of hard to explain to someone if you haven't actually been there to experience it.

"Um, look," Hamilton began, shifting gears. "I'd really like to get to know you better … We don't have to go to this thing - not if you don't want to. I just asked, because..," and his voice trailed off.

"Because why?" Mary-Madonna asked softly.

"Because it's intriguing," he said. "It's an adventure. And I would've bet the farm you like adventures - same as me."

She laughed. "I like adventures," she agreed.

Mary-Madonna sat back, as if taking stock of Hamilton.

Then she leaned forward. "Alright. I'll go," she said, reaching across the table to lightly touch his hand.

"Sunday? Let's do it."

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