Terry












In February 1976, I was walking my dog for his last potty break of the night.  When I walked out of my apartment, I noticed a police car backed into a parking spot.  The cop in the car was running radar on the passing vehicles on the main street.  I walked behind the car and around the corner with my dog.

After Buck (I didn't name him) completed his task, I walked back around the corner on my way back to my apartment.  I noticed the cop car still sitting there.  As I walked past it, the cop started whistling at my dog.  Bucks' hair started standing up, and he was growling.  Then the cop started calling the "puppy," and Buck, my protector, went nuts barking and snarling at the cop.  He said, "Miss, you need to control your dog!"  Without looking at him, I continued walking and told him he needed to leave my dog alone.  "You need to come over to the car, Miss."  Cussing under my breath, I said, why the hell is he messing with me when he is an accident investigator?  Damn!

I walked up to the car with the dog chain wrapped around my entire arm to restrain the dog.  In the darkness, he asked me what the name of my dog was without looking directly at me.  I think.  I couldn't really hear him because of the dog.  I leaned down a little and asked him what he said.  When I did, he faced me entirely and turned the inside light on.  Upon seeing him, bells, whistles, fire alarms, and rockets started going off in my head.  "What?"  I asked stupidly?  The only thing I could think about was the face of that man.  He was the best-looking man I had ever seen.  Ever, all the way to the present day.  His face is burned in my soul for eternity.

I told him I needed to take the dog inside to hear him without worrying about a dog attack on him.  I felt his eyes on me as I walked away.  I knew that I looked pretty good. I remember I had on Sedgefield, tight jeans, and a cream-colored sweater with a suede coat.  At that time, the jeans were a popular brand, low cut, boot cut, men's jeans.  Did I say they were tight?  I took Buck in and took him off the chain.  The kids were already asleep.  I was hurrying.  I wanted to see that face at least one more time; I ran into the bathroom and brushed my hair, and tried to casually walk back out.

He was still there writing stuff down on his clipboard.  I was trying to be cool, but I was all jittery on the inside.  I wondered if he could see that.  I walked back up to the window, and he turned the light back on.  Damn, damn, damn, why did he have to look so good?  "You want to come around and sit in the car?"  No, I wanted to lay down in the car. I told him no because I didn't want my neighbors to think I did something wrong.  "But it's cold out there, isn't it?"  Cold?  I was burning up.  "No, I'm okay,"  I asked him what he was doing like I didn't know anything about cops.  He said he was killing time, running radar, and writing up his accident reports.  "Oh." Yawn.  He started the small talk, where do you work, how long, are you an operator?  No, but I bet you are.  Smile.

He was asking me question after question after question.  He had gray eyes,  Gray eyes.  In my entire life, he is the only person that I have ever known with gray eyes,  Beautiful eyes.  And incredibly long lashes, coal-black lashes.  His hair was exquisite also.  Black hair with white hair scattered around in the slightly wavy mass, just enough to notice; his hair had volume to it, not slicked down, not puffed up too much, not too long, not too short.  It was just right, like in a fairy tale.  He looked like he might be tall and had visible muscles puffed up in his reasonably fitted long sleeve shirt from what I could see.  He was the buff cop before buff cops became a thing.  He was distracting me by talking.  "What did you say?"

He said he would like to take me out the next night to go dancing, would I like to go?  Do I drink?  Do I drink beer?  No, I'm not crazy about beer, but I do like wine coolers.  Well, he was waiting for an answer. YES, YES, YES.YES!  Oh, wait. I have kids, I can't go, no, I don't have a babysitter.  Now he's going to blow me off.  Yeah, I like the Grammies.  Wait, you want to come over and bring wine and watch the Grammies?  My kids will be here, and my dog hates you.  Really, you don't know my kids, they are young, and one is wild, and my dog hates you.  Okay. If you are sure.  Eight o'clock. See you tomorrow. (Notice this is not in a conversational quoted form,  It's coming from the conversation in my memory banks.)

And his name was Terry.  Wasn't that cute?  Terry and Sherrie.  Tomorrow was going to be one extremely long day.  It was going to be hard to work.  Hard to think about anything except 8 pm.  I would have to rush home, threaten or bribe my kids, maybe both, whatever worked.  And what was I going to do with the killer dog? Buck Cujo?  I was worried about that.  He didn't even like my uncle.  He would lay between my uncle and me and stare at my uncle, daring him to move.

The next day at work was torture.  All I could think about were those gray eyes.  At 5 o'clock, I literally ran to my car, exceeding the speed limit whenever possible.  I rolled into the daycare and rushed my boys out to the car.  We broke speed records getting home in a Beetle.

At this stage of my kid's lives, they ate crap.  They ate soup, cereal, croutons, chips, candy, occasionally a hamburger, but one didn't like fries, pancakes, that's about it.  I gave them whatever they wanted from their limited menu just to keep them peaceful.  And then we had the "you better behave" talk, mostly aimed at my wild Jeff.  They could watch TV until 7:45, and then they were going upstairs to play until I was ready for them to zonk out.

I walked them upstairs at 7:45 and reinforced the rules for the night.  At 8 o'clock sharp there was a knock on my door.  I was more nervous than I could ever remember.  I almost ran to the door to open it.

I opened the door, and there he was in civilian clothes.  I couldn't believe my big, brown eyes!


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