Nancy

He had only turned 19 a few weeks before they crossed paths for the first time.
And he had had only one real girlfriend prior to that.
He was a virgin.

Its hard to recall how he met Nancy, but she lived in the same building as some guys he had met in class and one of them dated her roommate.
Throughout the Spring he saw her around and they talked a bunch.
They eventually went on a few dates too.

She was a nursing student.
From a small town.
That much he remembered about her years later.

That Summer they dated a bit more and one Friday night she had a party at her place.
He worked late and arrived even later because he knew he wouldn't know hardly anyone there.
Her friends and his didn't really mingle.

He walked through the doors and the place was packed, the Clash album London Calling was playing.
Looking around he didn't have much luck finding any people he knew.
He didn't see Nancy anywhere either.
Across the apartment he saw this real sleazy dude named Tim who was calling out "Nan-cy, Nan-cy" in a sing-song way and wiggling his finger in a luring manner.
He looked to the other side of the room and there was a drunken Nancy laughing, crossing the room and suddenly following Tim out the door.
That didn't make him feel too good.
This guy Tim was known for sleeping with anything that moved.

He hung around for a while but she didn't come back.
So he left and decided he had had enough of her.
Besides that he was having luck meeting a much better standard of women lately anyway.

A few weeks later he was back in that building hanging out with some other people and as he left he ran into Nancy.
He had barely talked to her since the night of her party and she knew that he was unhappy with her.
She asked if they could talk.
He was not sure that was what he really wanted to do.
But he said Yeah OK.

The two of them sat outside on a nice late Summer night laying it on the line with each other.
She said she really liked him and knew she made a big mistake with that guy Tim.
It was not the first time.
Tim always used her and then treated her like shit.
That didn't make him feel any better.
But she was really sweet to him that night and after a while they kissed.
She asked if he wanted to go upstairs to her apartment.
And they did.

That night he lost his virginity.
And there is little chance that it could have been worse.

She literally just lay there.
On her back.
With her legs barely spread apart.
He had no idea what he was doing.
Experience wise, he was just a kid.
She was 6 or 7 years older than him so he let her take the lead.

It was weird and definitely not wonderful.
She continued to just lay there.
No emotion, no movement, no sounds, no nothing.
He could only remember one other element of that sex.
He did not wear a condom, and he ejaculated inside her.

It was horrible.
And he left very confused.

Over the next few months this happened a couple more times.
Why? He had no idea.
There was no pleasure in it at all.
Fucked. Up.
The only two words to describe it properly.

At one time she had been engaged to be married.
And the guy dumped her just before the wedding.
Does this matter?
Not really.
Its just something to put out there.
But would you marry someone who had sex like that?

Again, why he ever went back for more is very strange indeed.
All of this was happening right at the time when he was hitting his stride as a male for the first time in his life.
He was meeting lots of really nice, very cool, beautiful women.
And there were all passionate, or at least lively, women.
Not that he was having sex with them.
But he did make out with a handful of them.
And that was always more satisfying then sex with Nancy.

Sex. With Nancy.
Could it even be called that beyond a technicality?

Sometime later in the Fall they went to a concert and then spent the night together afterwards.
More heartless sex with the dead.

Over the next few weeks they began disagreeing about everything, and finally the both had had enough and went their separate ways for good.

What took him so long to move on from her is a sad mystery.
Years afterward he couldn't remember anything that went on between them beyond the very weird lifeless sex.

* * * * *

Six weeks into the new year he was hard at work on school projects.
He was doing really well with his studies and for the first time in his life he was enjoying being in school. It wasn't hard, but some of the classes were at least cool.
One night he was writing a paper that was due the next day when the phone rang.
The phone was for him.
It was Nancy.

He had not talked to her in quite a while.
She sounded very nervous and out of sorts as she started talking.
Where had she been? He hadn't seen her around.
She said she had moved out of her apartment and was staying with a friend, but that things were very messed up in her life.
He asked her why she was calling now and what was really going on?
She said, "I'm pregnant."
(silence)
And "I'm going to have an abortion tomorrow."
(silence)
"I need you to take me to the doctor.
Its yours."
(silence)

And she wanted him to pay for the abortion.
It had to happen the next morning.

His mind was reeling.
He never saw that coming.
This woman has been out of his life for nearly 3 months.
He didn't know anything about the details of pregnancy and abortion.
He was really scared.
And realized he was really an idiot.

Why the next day?
She told him that you can't have an abortion after the first trimester of pregnancy and it had been 3 months.
The doctor had told her that they may not even do the procedure.

Now he was scared to death.
And angry.
With her, but of course himself even more.
What was his responsibility?
Why did she wait so long to contact him, to sort this out?

She eventually broke down crying and couldn't answer any more questions, so her friend had to come on the phone.
The friend was calm and polite.
But firmly said that he needed to take care of this the next day.
If he didn't help Nancy out she planned to go to his family and tell them about it and ask them for the money.

What a fucking mess.
And she was going to punish him.
While the whole time he knew her he was never once cruel or mean to her.

He and Nancy's friend sorted out the details and he told the her that he would be by in the morning to pick Nancy up.

The paper he had been writing was due for his first class the next day, and he had to get it done, so he stayed up all night writing.
No doubt it would be a very badly written paper.

At 6:30 that morning he went to school slipping an envelope under the professor's door apologizing for missing class, saying he had a medical emergency, but here was his paper.

He drove to the address that Nancy's friend gave him and around 7:00 he pulled up and honked the horn.

For some reason he couldn't even get out of the car.
He was really nervous and upset.

Finally the door to the house opened and her friend waved at him.
Then Nancy came out the door, looking like hell, all bundled up in a winter coat and large blanket against the cold.
She got in the car and they exchanged strained greetings.
He didn't even know what to say.
No doubt she didn't either.

He asked her where to go and she gave him directions.

They drove to a clinic on the west side of town.
The parking lot was pretty empty when they got there.
As she started to get out he realized that he did not want to go inside with her.
He said he would stay there in the car.
She mumbled an Ok.

It was cold outside and sitting in a car, with the engine turned off, with no heat, was going to be really tough.
But not nearly as tough as going in there with her would have been.

He watched her walk inside.
She had left the big blanket that she had wrapped around her, so as the temp dropped in the car he covered himself with it.

He closed his eyes and tried to drift off but obviously that was not going to happen.
He tried as hard as he could to not imagine what was going on in there.
What was being said? What was being thought? What was being done?

It felt like hours went by, but it was about 45 minutes.
The door to the clinic opened and there she was coming out.
She looked even worse than before.

He drove the car up toward the entrance and picked her up.

They couldn't do the abortion there.
So they were sending her to a hospital in the city.

Oh fuck.
Just what he didn't want, more time in this nightmare scenario.
He wanted it to be over so he could start burying his guilt and begin forgetting about it as quickly as possible.

Again she gave him directions and they drove without speaking.
But it wasn't silent like last time because she was crying most of this trip.

They got to the hospital and he drove up to the main entrance.
She got out and went inside alone again.
This time he didn't say anything.
She said she would come back out in a minute and tell him what was going on.

After a few minutes she came out and told him that they were going to do the abortion, but it was going to be about 2 hours.
She asked him if he was going to wait out there.
He said that if she got him a phone number then he would call in about 90 minutes to check on her.
So she did.

As she went back inside he drove off.

It was not even 8am, so where was he going to go?
Again, not in there.
He was so pathetic, but also confused and angry, not to mention overwrought with that guilt.

He parked a block or so away in another fairly empty lot.
He had time to think now.
It was the first time since the phone rang 12 hours earlier that he could think.

What was he going to do now?
Sit there in the cold with this blanket?
With the windows steaming up?
What was actually going on here?
Lots more questions washed over him.
Was this even his child?
He had not seen her in months and he figured she had been with other guys, like that fuckin creep Tim.
Why had he been such a moron this whole time with her?
No condoms? Really?
Even a naive stooge like him should have known better than that.
But she had insisted it would be OK.
Did she really?
What the fuck was his problem?
One thing that was probably true was that he was the most decent guy she knew, which meant she also knew he would be responsible and help her out of this awful situation.

Finally, enough time passed that he drove around until he found a pay phone.
He called the number she gave him at the hospital.
He asked how she was.
The person on the other end was not friendly as she told him that Nancy was done with the procedure, but she was in rough shape considering what she had been through.

They asked him if he was the person coming to get her.
He said Yes, and they said Then you should be here.

He hung up and drove back.
He actually went inside this time, but stayed in the lobby, calling the department again to tell them he had arrived.

After a while two very unhappy looking women came pushing her toward him in a wheel chair.
She was really out if it and looked bad.
The hospital women gave him very dark stares, and then some instructions for taking care of her.
He made sure it was all in writing, because he knew he wasn't the one who was going to be with her.
They didn't need to know that.
As far as he was concerned he was a ride home. Nothing more.

And what a wretched ride home it was.
Grueling silence.

He dropped her off at her friends house, not even knowing if anyone was there.
He carried her things to the door, putting the stuff inside on the landing, and then left without saying anything.

She had paid the money for the abortion that day, but demanded that he pay her back
$300.
He didn't have that kind of money around at one time, but over a few months he paid her the whole amount.
She would call him every couple of weeks and he would get her $75 or $50 or whatever he had.
By the time the next summer started he had given her even more than $300 because she said there had been other doctors visits.

And then it was over.
He may have heard from her once more.
But not more then that.
Not ever again.

He wouldn't say that he was ever haunted by the experience.
But it was a painful and humiliating memory.
Not something anyone would want to spend time thinking about.
Denial helps but only in the short term.
But there is just no way it could not have left a deep psychic mark.
Things that serious and heavy always do.
He also knew that he should never have been in that position to start with.
And its a situation he made as close to 100% sure that he would never find himself in again.
It was a very tragic lesson learned.
And he had only just turned 20.