The Silk Skirt and The White Bikini

Carl had a crush on me, but though none of us in the neighborhood ever figured out exactly what Carl’s mental disorder was, his behavior was a little frightening sometimes. One day, for instance, as I was sitting on my couch in the seat nearest the window, I felt a presence next to me. The presence was Carl, who stood at the window on my patio, staring at me. I stomped outside and from that day forward I forbade Carl to stand on my patio or anywhere on my property.

However, I would then find him pacing in front of my house, back and forth, back and forth, muttering some kind of conversation that I could never understand. As you might guess, I tried to avoid Carl. But another time soon came when I had to confront him. He stood at the bus stop in the morning and held onto the shoulders of my youngest daughter, who shivered in fear beneath him. She was 5 at the time. One of my other kids raced home to tell me that Carl was holding her captive, so I ran out to the bus stop, demanded he let go of my daughter, and when I returned home, I called the school to report him. No longer allowed at the bus stop, Carl was confined to his home during bus pick up and drop off times. All the kids felt relieved by his absence.

Every year, when he and his mother went on vacation, he would send me post cards, addressed to Terry Hayes. Nobody knew why he called me that and why I was the only one who received post cards from him, but the kids in the neighborhood thought the whole situation was funny and they started calling my car the Hayesmobile that year.

One hot summer day, a friend of mine and I got together at a local eatery, the kind of place where you order your food from the front counter and have to clean up your own messes. On those extreme-heat days I wore my favorite lightweight skirt. The skirt was so lightweight, in fact, I felt as if I was wearing nothing when I wore it. Near the end of our meal, Carl and his mother walked in and sat at the table next to ours. Grateful that we were almost finished with our meals, I politely said hi, got up, bent over the booth to grab my purse, cleaned off our table, and walked out, only to find out later that the entire back of my skirt was missing. Yeah – not just a hole, but the WHOLE back side of the skirt was missing!

What happened, I’ll never know – maybe I sat in something sticky somewhere or slivers of wood from a bench ripped it off. Whatever way it happened, my thoughts immediately went to the moment I bent over to grab my purse and clean the table, my backside to Carl and his mother. How long had I been walking around like that? I’ll never know. http://gty.im/119273551

My neighbors used to tease me about Carl. One neighbor, who became one of my best friends often reminisces about her favorite Carl story. He had told her that he really likes it when I wear my white bikini. I have never owned a white bikini.