Daughters of the Shadow Men

One night I saw a tall dark headed stranger come into Van deCamps who immediately caused a stir.  Waitresses gathered around him.  I asked who he was and a waitress told me simply that this was Gene.  He had been working for years for the railroad with headquarters close by.  He had not been in for a while. 

He started coming in quite regularly, so I managed to get up front where he usually sat to make his acquaintance.  He was just magnetic to me, I could not stay away from him after he walked in the door. He was so distinctive looking with such a kind smile nobody could have ignored him. In this photo in his Shriner's costume I thought he look like a sheik with his slightly hooked nose and black hair. I learned from our talks that he had been going through a divorce which was why he had stayed away.  He also told me he had belonged to the Shriners Club for many years which was one of the issues that caused his wife to flee. 

She said they were too much competition! She needed more of his attention.  He also mentioned that she was very beautiful and perhaps that had some bearing on her inability to accept his commitment to the Shriners.   

He said that the Shriners had rescued him from despair as a boy when divorce shattered his family and his father was no longer in his life.  He left, but the Shriners made sure one of them was always around.  He had wanted nothing more than to become a Shriner when he grew up so he could pay back. 

He said that he was going to be honored with becoming their leader in the coming year.  After going through a divorce, he implied that he would not become serious about any woman until his term of office was over.  The divorce had nearly killed him, the end of a love that he thought would last forever. 

So this was the kind of guy Gene was.  He warned me that he was a foodoholic, too.  He was still 60 pounds overweight which he had gained when his marriage broke up plus many more pounds.  He had been in hiding until he could take it off and come out in public again without disgracing himself.  He poopooed the idea that I was a foodaholic.  He said he was the kind who binged and then purged, binged and purged, with laxatives.  The story got more and more disturbing.  He said his eating disorder was now life threatening and he did not want to saddle a woman again with his problem until he could somehow get more control of it. 

He did ask me out but we mostly just talked.  We were irresistibly drawn to one another but Gene was very firm in his commitment to leadership of the Shriners.  I began to think that it was the wrong time for us to be together.  And since that probably meant that we would never have a romance, we did not have to talk about the problem of birth control, which was somewhat of a relief, even though I was starved to death for the touch of a good man. 

I was very much afraid I would not meet a man of Gene's character again, especially in the outlaw country I usually inhabited whereever I went, having been born into that culture and always being found by one of the wild men doomed to make a woman's life too exciting and then too miserable. 

Sure enough, just before school let out, while Gene and I were still seeing one another, I got a call I could not ignore.  I was asked by the family to return to Utah.  Our outlaw father was giving the family such fits, they desperately needed my help to contain him. They thought he was on the verge of committing a major crime. I could handle Father better than anybody.  I was single.  I knew Arizona, too.   Please! 

Good-by, Gene, I said to myself, but he did give me his address.  I meant to write to him.  I just could not lose track of this man.  He was a good man and them was just too hard to find for this country gal.   

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this

• #3 Comment from plieck30 
  4/21/08 11:03 PM | Permalink

  My husband's boss was Potentate of the Shriners in San Antonio at one time. He always gave us tickets to the circus when our girls were young. Also one of my classmate's husband was Potentate at one time too. Don't know anything about their life serving as that though. Gene was a nice looking man. Paula
• #2 Comment from lanurseprn 
  4/21/08 4:14 PM | Permalink

  I am sorry it did not work out with you and Gene. He was a very handsome man. I enjoyed reading this.
  Pam
• #1 Comment from wwfbison 
  4/21/08 1:29 PM | Permalink

  Gene sounds like a wonderful person.  I didn't realize the Shriners were such a demand on members.  Wonder where it would have went had you not returned to Utah.
  Lisa