The Sardine should have kept his trap shut about Melinda. Not only have the people at the Attic been bothering him for details, there were hundreds of letter from a growing readership.
Sardine, we were delighted to hear that you had a woman in your life. All successful men do. When are you getting married?
Sard, we don't mean to be rude, but how does a woman tolerate your negative guff everyday? I'd like to know so that I can handle my husband's foul moods.
Dino, baby, Melinda sounds like a winner. Were you the last fish in the tin?
Sardine, it distresses the hearts of all confirmed bachelors that even you couldn't resist the longing for security that a relationship promises. Believe us, the security and happiness are illusions. Men are solitary animals. They can't stand company or caring or too much sentimentality.
A few readers asked whether Melinda was gorgeous or not. How's one to answer anything but the affirmative? She's certainly not a "Stooge-woman."
"You should be clapped on the head for that remark," said Honey.
She has remained outside the column for so long because she personally enjoined me from using material about herself or her family. Not one bit ashamed of her, as some readers have snidely commented.
However, the clamor has been so great to reveal something about her. The Sardine begged Melinda to show parts of herself or simply let me speak about her more. Melinda had no desire to meet the crew at the Attic, especially Wal-terr and Joe T., but she named several things in her life that were available.
The Sardine wanted the major one, the one central to her life, that which all things come before and after.
"It's painful to think about. I don't know whether I want to see it in print."
The entire column's based on it. You have to let me.
"If you say so. Just don't tell anyone my age."
*
The Sardine wants to introduce her right leg.
"I look at the legs first," said Wal-terr. "Sleek, smooth, right up to a tight butt."
"I like a pair of tan legs," said Frank Weathers, "no stockings, maybe a bracelet on the ankle."
That's not what the Sardine's getting at. Her right leg is disfigured. She was hit by a car on Christmas Eve. Just started teaching at an elementary school. She was coming from a party. . . ."
"A party at a night club," she corrected me, "around two o'clock."
Didn't think you wanted to come to the Attic.
"I had to make sure you didn't screw up the story. And you might as well be honest."
Logged-In Public: What does she mean?
"I teach high school."
L-I P: Why does he always lie to us? First about not writing a Sardine book. Now, his girlfriend.
The Sardine's not obliged to reveal everything.
L-I P: Are you worried about that joker, Pellatier, trying to track you down?
He's the least of my worries.
"Did they catch the driver?" asked Father Grindgrad.
"Was he drunk?" asked Wal-terr.
"Did you sue?" asked McNulty.
The bar was lit up with questions. All to be answered in a future column.
L-I P: Another lie.
I'm going to call the column "The League of Non-Suers."
But I digress. The Sardine brought up this bitter memory to show how a life can be radically redirected and affect other lives radically.
L-I P: What's all this "radical" stuff?
Radical. Completely. Unequivocally.
"I had to give up teaching," said Melinda.
She stayed six months in a hospital. Doctors saved her leg but layers of scar tissue remain. Ten operations. Three years on crutches.
"I was a new teacher and barely had a grip on what I was doing. I was offered the job again but decided the kids would be too distracted by the crutches."
"Was the Sardine dating you at the time?" asked Honey.
"No, I was engaged to a guy who, after coming to the hospital for a few weeks, broke off the engagement and I never saw him again."
She went back to college to study nursing and ended up at a hospital near the Sardine's apartment. One day playing soccer I was kicked in the shin, swelling the lower part of my leg. The first person to assist me in the emergency room was Melinda.
"He really didn't need to be hospitalized."
"What about your tirade against health professionals?" asked Joe T.
Living with Melinda hasn't changed my opinion. We've been together ten years. I can't complain about her, though.
"Thanks for the ringing endorsement," Melinda said and left.
She often says that teaching was less stressful than hospital work and she would have been more fulfilled as a teacher. Which is fine, except that had she not been struck by the car, she would never have met the Sardine and have had the same degree of personal happiness. Nor would the Sardine have met such a caring woman. I love that leg. It symbolizes the wholeness of our love and destiny together. It couldn't have happened any other way.
"You could say that about anything," said Frank.
The Sardine nodded. Exactly, Frank. All events in the past should be embraced the same way. It's one thing to acknowledge such things, and something quite different to accept it as a basic truth of life.
Bob Castle is the author of A Sardine on Vacation. He has had two other books published this year: The End of Travel, a comic memoir and send up of traveling abroad (Triple Press) and Odd Pursuits, a collection of stories (Wild Child Publishing). He is regular writer for Bright Lights Film Journal and has over one hundred fifty stories, essays, and articles published. The first fifteen installments of his saga can be viewed at the old Unlikely Stories. A Sardine on Vacation is also available in book form.