Me and Bonnie Jean

In the Navy, I spent a lot of time alone, especially when the ship was in port in Norfolk, Virginia. I don't know exactly why I didn't socialize with my shipmates more. I think the bottom line was that I didn't feel we had much in common. Besides that, I'm just the kind of guy who revels in solitude sometimes. I considered it a pretty good morning to be able to wake up and realize I could spend the day doing whatever I wanted without anyone trying to convince me otherwise. The flip side was that I would start to hate being alone so much after awhile. I would think of something I'd like to talk about. but there was no one around to listen.

I would say to myself, "Man, Charlie, you've got to quit being the Lone Ranger and make some friends or find a girlfriend or something." But this seemed easier said than done, and I continued to do my own thing. I lived on the ship, but despised being there during off-duty time. Often, on weekends, I would drive to Virginia Beach, go for a run on the beach, then go to a shopping center that featured a Barnes & Noble bookstore, a giant music store, and a movie theater. It was like the place was tailor-made for me: three of my favorite things--books, movies, and music all rolled into one.

By the time it got dark, I found myself faced with two unattractive options. I could go back to the ship for the evening to maybe crawl in my rack to read a book until I got tired enough to sleep or head to some night spot to drink a beer or two and check out the women. On most nights, the only thing I wanted to do less than go to a club was return to the ship. So to a club I would reluctantly go. I'd order a beer and sit at the bar sipping it, watching everyone else seem to have a good time as I tried my best to get into the spirit of the place. This was a tough chore on most nights because I've found that drinking alone at a bar is one of the most depressing activities a human can engage in.

So one particular night of this type, a couple of months before I embarked on my second six month Mediterranean cruise, I went alone to a club called Country World in Virginia Beach. I chose it because it was a place I hadn't been to before and I was curious about it. Also, I was in a country music phase at the time. But the difference between me and most of the other club's denizens was that I was content to sit and listen to the music dressed as a normal human being while almost everyone else was dolled up in their cowboy best, line dancing until their shiny boots gave them blisters.

Soon after taking my seat and ordering a Bud Lite, I decided this would be a one beer stop rather than the usual two. I had about half a swallow left when my waitress handed me another one. "This is compliments of the two ladies over there," she told me, pointing out two tall, attractive women a few tables over. They waved to me and I waved back, flattered by the attention. I couldn't remember such an event ever happening to me before. I sat back again in a much better mood and had only taken a couple of swallows of the free beer when I noticed the two girls motioning me to come speak to them.

Flattered again, I went to their table and took a seat.

"My sister thinks you're cute," one of them told me.

"Shut up, Sarah," the sister said, embarrassed.

"Don't let her fool you," Sarah said. "She's not shy."

I introduced myself and the sister told me her name was Bonnie Jean. The two girls seemed to be in a good mood and seemed to have drunk more than a couple of beers themselves. For some reason, I felt comfortable around them right away. At some point, Sarah drifted away, leaving me alone with Bonnie Jean. I learned that she was from West Virginia. She had been enrolled in college there until recently. She'd come o Virginia Beach to live with her older sister until she figured out what to do next. We talked for a long time and at some point, Sarah drifted away. The band started playing a slow song and Bonnie Jean asked me if I wanted to dance. Unlike the boot scootin' boogie, I could handle a slow dance with no problem. Bonnie Jean pressed herself against me like we were going steady. Her forwardness took me aback somewhat, but on the other hand, I was thrilled that the night was offering me much more than I'd expected.

After the dance, we went back to our seats and talked more, holding hands, kissing, and drinking beer at a slow but steady pace. We stayed until our waitress announced last call. Sarah still had not materialized.

"I think Sarah already left," she told me. "Would you mind giving me a ride home?"

"Sure," I said, thinking that it was awful convenient for her sister to disappear like that. So I drove her home. When we got there, she asked me to come in. In her room, we sat up talking and making out most of the night. It occurred to me that she was the first girl I'd so much as touched since joining the Navy almost two years before. It also occurred to me that had I been back home, I likely would not have been interested in her simply because, although she was attractive and warm, she probably wouldn't have passed my standards test. But in Norfolk, Virginia, playing the part of the loneliest man alive, she suited me just fine. Things with Bonnie Jean that night progressed to their inevitable conclusion and afterward, I felt a bit unsure of the whole thing because I could tell she was hoping it was going to be more than a one night stand.

Around six thirty that morning, I told her I was heading back to the ship to get some sleep. She said, "Don't you want to go get some breakfast first?"

So we went to Denny's and got pancakes and eggs, and she seemed surprisingly chipper for someone who also hadn't slept all night. After breakfast, I finally extricated myself from her and headed back to the ship where I climbed in my rack and slept most of the day away. I told myself that although I liked Bonnie Jean just fine and enjoyed a perfectly awesome night with her, I didn't need to call her again because I knew she wasn't someone I genuinely wanted a relationship with. She wasn't someone I felt comfortable taking home to present to my family and say, "Here's my girl! Isn't she amazing?"

But only a couple of days passed before I caved and called her. We went to a dinner and a movie and afterward, she invited me over again where I wound up spending the night once more although I had to get up early the next morning to drive back to the ship. I started staying with her four or five nights out of the week and found it much more pleasurable than spending every night in my rack on the ship which was one of six racks in a cube and one of about sixty in the open bay area where the enlisted men lived. Only a couple of weeks passed before she dropped the "L" word on me.

I had some reservations about it, but I gave it back to her because I wasn't about to ruin a good thing and also tried to convince myself it was true. Besides, in the back of my mind, I knew the cruise was approaching and then I would be six months gone haze gray and underway as the Navy saying goes, and most likely that would be the end of me and Bonnie Jean. In the meantime, I was surprised by the intensity of our little relationship. It certainly centered around one thing and I had never before in my life--23 years at that point-- had that one thing on a regular basis. She was only nineteen years old, but much more experienced in that area than I. She confessed to me that I wasn't the first guy she had picked up from a club since she'd moved to Norfolk, but I was the only one she wanted to stay the next day. I asked her how many others there had been. "Not that many," she said.

She began to disengage from me a couple of weeks before the cruise. She told me her sister didn't want me staying over so much any more, which seemed a little odd to me because her sister was always extremely nice to me and seemed to like having me around. She also became less available when I tried to call her. All of this would have been fine if I'd been the one breaking things off, but it didn't suit me that it was her.

A couple of days before I was to leave, I finally got her on the telephone. "So what's the deal?" I asked her. One day you're saying you love me and a couple of weeks later I can't get you on the phone and it doesn't seem like you want me to stay over any more."

"I don't know," she said. "I still like you and everything. I guess I need some space or something."

"In a couple of days, you're going to get all the space you need," I told her. "You are going to come see me off when the ship leaves aren't you?"

"I don't know. I'll try to make it."

Her sudden indifference mystified me. I racked my brain trying to figure out if I'd done something to change things, but couldn't come up with anything. On the day the cruise began, Bonnie Jean was nowhere to be seen among the friends and family of my shipmates' coming to see us off. A week or two into the cruise, I made arrangements to have flowers delivered to her and also wrote her a very sappy, heartfelt letter. She wrote me back a single time saying she had received the roses and that it was very sweet of me to send them. That was the extent of it. I tried to call her twice during the cruise when we came into port, but she didn't answer. When my ship finally returned to Norfolk, I called her one last time before I drove home to Georgia for leave. Her sister answered and informed me that Bonnie Jean had met a Marine and they'd gotten married.

When I got off the phone with her, I had to laugh at the absurdity of it. I had no ill feelings towards Bonnie at all. In the final analysis, we'd had a good time and that was all it was meant to be. The experience also served as an initiation of sorts to me as it was the first genuine relationship I'd ever been involved in.

Thankfully it wasn't the last.