Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
world, perhaps, but generous in romance. Then came her unique, obscure yet often dazzling
wit.
I did not want to marry her, which she needed someone to do. I would commit to be her
one and only forever or until boredom or a dynamic new horizon do us part. Why not enjoy
what we had into the foreseeable future? For my part, we should have done so. Why would
we mess things up? Marriage? Marriage was for parents. The world was a few years past the
archaic social dictum that required married couples to stay together till the principals found
somebody else, usually also married. Then came a round of divorces to make way for new
marriages. Fuck. We were smarter than that.
Betty accepted my terms in the short run, so we could build foundations for a more lasting
regret. She made me realize what I declined—what I would soon do without. Confidence
with her footing as any woman, affirmed by gasps and whimpering, she brought us along in a
small step for man, a giant leap for manhood. Beyond the squish and her singular beauty we
achieved a rounded exchange. Maybe such frequent frolic indicated long-term commitment,
so formalities would be foregone, if only I'd say as much.
Maybe we'd still be together, despite the odds, but she got married in March on spring
break, ahead of schedule. She laughed too loud for comfort on her return, asking, “Why the
fuck not?”
Her boyfriend posed the question first. They were so ready and willing, he said. So, why
wait? Why not just . . . get it over with? Repeated to me, the question seemed personal and
moot; Betty had moved beyond an answer. I was willing to resume practical relations for mu-
tual relief and the betterment of the world in general but got another laugh, this one short,
sardonic and also rhetorical.
We didn't learn much that year beyond the stark alternatives that life presented. Campus
days could be loved or suffered. My girlfriend could trump all logic in her perverse compul-
sion to be what her parents wanted her to be—what we, as a cultural force, wanted so dearly
away from. My college mentors could trump all instinct by discouraging a natural bent for
adventure and settings way out of town. My government could trump all logic in its will to
wage war and require my participation.
One side used duty and patriotism to frame the Vietnam War. The other asserted that the
government was largely bought and paid for by corporate interests, primarily defense con-
tractors with billions to lose or gain. The government would make the world safe for demo-
cracy—and for mixed free enterprise in lucrative new markets. McDonald's and Coca Cola
were mere icons, like the oil companies for that matter. It was billions in weaponry that had
the world by the balls and still does. I chose not to go, not for Dick Nixon or anyone.
Who would choose to be in a jungle trading fire with someone never met over an ideology
applied far from home at best, over mercenary interests at worst? I would not. I would be else-
