Help Me Make It Through the Night---The backstory

HERE IS THE BACKSTORY TO THE SONG

With pen and paper in hand, Kris, anguished and tormented, head down and teary eyed, entered the tavern and sat down in a dark remote corner and ordered a double. He needed something to relieve his pain.

Hours earlier, a sympathetic and kindly Salvation Army Officer who was hoping to negotiate the beginning of a reconciliation had driven him up to the house of his long estranged wife.

Obviously, Kris had confided his pain to the Officer.

The uniformed Officer approached the door of the house while Kris waited hopefully in the car for a face-to-face meeting with his wife whom he had not seen for many years.

His wife angrily rejected any thought of reconciliation. And who could blame her?

By 20, she had mothered three of Kris’s four children. Despite this, Kris spent most of his wages virtually every night having a good time in the pub and coming home most evenings only after last call. Once home, usually in a drunken state, if indeed he did come home at all, he would beat his wife, often for rejecting his advances.

She was the classic abused wife and her beatings would earn Kris jail time these days. Unfortunately, spousal abuse was not treated seriously in those days of sexual inequality. Then, man ruled the roost as king of his castle.

Until recent times, divorce was uncommon and difficult. The only ground for divorce was infidelity, and embarrassment at that becoming public in the Victorian 40’s and 50’s deterred divorce for many on those grounds. The other ground for a legal end to a marriage was the death of a spouse. In the absence of evidence of death, this ruling was made following seven years of separation during which time the spouse could not be located. But Kris kept surfacing just before the seven years, each time denying his wife’s freedom.

After the birth of her fourth child at 24, Kris’s wife escaped the abuse by running away with her newborn son to work somewhere...anywhere, as a domestic. Painfully, she had to leave her other three children who came under the care of the Children’s Aid.

All this gnawed at Kris’s tormented mind as he cleared his tears and started to write.

“Dear Rose....”

Kris was spent and broken and words didn’t come easily. He found it difficult to express his remorse for the hell he’d brought his family.

“I think of you constantly,” he wrote. “I’ve brought only pain to you and our children. I regret this with all my heart. But yesterday is left and gone. It can’t be changed. But, I promise, I won’t let the devil take any tomorrows if we can share some time together. It’s so sad to be alone," he added in self pity.

Thinking of his shameful past was painful. He put his pen and paper aside and bowed his head to hide the tears again welling in his eyes. Kris’ emotions overcame him making it impossible to continue.

Shortly, a stranger, a busty scantily dressed woman with her hair tied up with a bright red ribbon approached his table.

“You’re all alone,” she said. “You look like you need some company.”

“Sure, sit down. Let me get you a drink,” Kris replied.

They drank until the place closed and then left arm in arm...together.

WRITER'S NOTE---This story is mostly factual with Kris portraying the character of my father and his estrangled wife my mother.  It is doubtful though that my father ever displayed any of Kris' remorse or tears until his end as a broken, lonely, and forgotten soul.

An Invitation Home ©

I was attending a student social shortly after starting my first teaching job in China and was amazed at how all of the university-aged students seemed to gravitate easily to the instructors, myself included.



All of the foreign staff was kept very busy by the students accepting their invitations to chat and to dance.

This seemed like “over-the-top” attention that none of us were use to. Nevertheless, it seemed marvelous to seem to be the center of the universe.

The students seemed naively innocent and were quite forward in asking questions like, “How old are you?” “How much money do you make?” “Can I visit you in your apartment?” and so on.

One of the students, Gloria, whom I’d never met, approached and asked right up, “Would you like to come to my house in Beijing and stay with my family?”

“Great”, I said, figuring it would be wonderful to meet some people and have a place to stay when I visited Beijing.

It was arranged that we should catch the train for the four hour ride north on the upcoming Saturday, about two days hence.

Gloria seemed very excited about this arrangement, a joy that was probably unmatched by mine.

Early Saturday morning, she knocked on my door and we left to catch the early morning train. Communication was a little difficult because of her limited English, my complete lack of Chinese, and her imperfect placement of em-pha’-sis on the correct syllables in addition to her heavily accented Chinglish.

These barriers did not stop our attempts at communication which seemed to improve steadily on the adventure.

When we reached Beijing, we caught a bus and ended up in her very traditional Chinese neighborhood. We walked along roadways that seemed to narrow with every subsequent turn in the maze of brick walled roads that we followed.

She finally exclaimed, “We are here,” as she opened a large wooden door in the brick wall lining the road which by this time had become not much more than a mud floored wagon path.

Inside the door, she led me further as we meandered along and around a whole series of what seemed like little brick sheds until we got to her parent’s “house.” We pushed aside a beaded door-curtain and entered her one room brick living space filled with two bunk beds, a sewing machine between the beds, a table holding a black and white shimmering TV with rabbit ears, and a light bulb hanging overhead from an electric wire…and no washroom.

Gloria lived in a traditional Beijing hutong …and wasn’t it nice to finally arrive at her home?

Reference
hutongs
siheyuan
hutong tour
hutongs in China Daily
Pictures of Life in China
Beijing's hutongs
Description of hutongs from book, "Behind the wall"
China Daily history of hutongs

The Panties to Scanties Dilemma ©

An Original Tale by Bill Longworth
First public reading, Valentines Day, Thursday, February 14, 2008

Looking up from my newspaper and breakfast coffee, I questioned “Who was that on the phone Cuddle-muffin?” as I thought of the pair of red thong frillies I’d recently found at the bottom of her drawer…quite a change from the cottons she normally wore as I mentally recalled my recent suggestions that she get in the groove with some modern lingerie styles.



“Just a friend from my last job dear. She wanted to catch me up on all of the changes with the plant…you know, downsizing and all.”

“Well you certainly didn’t say much. She must be quite a talker,” as I thought of the new hair style and perfume she’d recently acquired.

“We seem to be getting quite a few of these strange calls recently. Quite often when I answer the phone, I’m told it must be the wrong number…or the caller just hangs up. Something seems to be going on. You seem to be rather secretive lately,” a rising and uncontrollable tenseness growing in my voice. “All those strange telephone calls you make when nothing important seems to be said. When there’s no purpose for your call…you seem to be hiding something from me!”

“Going on?” she screamed indignantly, uncustomarily raising her voice. “I think there is something going on! What are you doing with the red thong underwear I found in your toolbox?”

“Well today’s Valentines Day, Zelda, and I was going to give them to you at bedtime tonight…you know to sort of celebrate the special occasion like we used to many years ago.”

“Oh, Pussycat! Today’s also your birthday and I bought this wonderful pair of red thongs just to wear for you tonight.”

“Oh my wonderful Cuddle-muffin, and I was just beginning to think that with all those strange phone calls, there might be a problem creeping into our marriage.”

“The phone calls? Those are from all our friends discussing details of your surprise birthday party that we’re having Saturday night. Now you’ve spoiled the fun!”

“Spoiled the fun, my dear….it’s just beginning. Let’s go upstairs and try on the new stuff. “

The moral of the story? The transition from panties to scanties is problematic! Like your favourite dessert, the pleasure should be consumed immediately.