Marriage . . .

After the narrow escape up in Apple Valley with Cecil I found, after returning to the Crystal Apartments both Nanette and I were rived up. The few days away from each other cemented, at least for me and I think her, that we were fated to be man and wife. It took us only a matter of a few short days before we were on a Greyhound Bus hauling ass to Las Vegas, Nevada. There we could be married quick, no waiting, no blood tests, immediately! Why were we in such a hurry? For myself I think I was suddenly, after the weekend disaster, ready to chart a different course. With the quiet, but powerful strength of Nanette I guess I was thinking, wishing, hoping that I could somehow turn my life around from the crime-ridden, hustling, small time bandit that I had become. It sounds terrible to put it in those words, it make it sound like I did not love Nanette. I did love her and that was part of it all. I thought she loved me also and together we could strike out together and make a life we could both be proud of. Ah, but I was getting ready to marry that sweet person in a fraudulent way.

Why did Nanette want to marry me? I was somebody who, until a few weeks before was nobody to her. I can't answer that question. I did sense a feeling of sorrow inside her. I don't know, maybe she was just anxious to find that little house on Main Street, U.S.A., with its white picket fence, the garden, all the trappings of a Norman Rockwell painting. I can only suppose she saw in me a diamond in the rough and she assumed that after the rough edges were whittled away I would be polished and bright and her dream would come true. Like I say, I don't know, it maybe be something as simple as her falling in love with me.

Well, we got to Las Vegas and we were married under my assumed name, the one I had been using since I'd broken parole. Why did I do that? I can only say that the idea of me going back to prison was first and foremost in my thoughts at that time in my life. I'd done four and a half years and did NOT want anymore of it. Still . . . It was a chickenshit thing to do and it has haunted me all these years, although when I finally got around to telling Nanette, she really didn't seem too upset. Then again, maybe she was so stunned she was unable to bring herself to anger. I'm trying to remember, I cannot think of one time Nanette got angry enough with me to raise her voice. I had what I had probably always yearned for. A wife as opposite my mother as was possible. She loved me . . . I loved her . . . What could go wrong?

Plenty . . . Every bit of it my fault . . .

My Novels:

Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621

Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842

My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742