A Train For Under The Christmas Tree, Page 3

  And thus enters Jamison Tate, a twenty five year old graduate of the University of Kentucky. Jamison was a former collegiate wrestler at the 145 pound weight class, and had a cauliflower left ear to prove it, but otherwise the man did not look much like a wrestler or any kind of athlete at all, his curly blond hair covered a round pudgy face with soft blue eyes and a pouty lips, his shoulders were hunched and he had developed a bit of a beer belly since graduation. He had tried to enlist in the military as an officer after college, but was rejected due to a ruptured disc in his lower back that he was not even aware that he had. Jamison had a degree in Transportation, and went to work for a local trucking company as a sales rep after the military rejected him. It was a job that he hated, but it paid his bills, and allowed him to pursue Rebecca Ballard, of the Louisville Ballard’s, one of the finest families in the state of Kentucky, S. Thurston Ballard, former Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky was her Great Uncle. It was this political connection which attracted Lawrence to Jamison and thus to Kentucky and as Jamison was born and raised in Paducah, and Paducah was on the panels list, the choice seemed perfect. Jamison was brought to Hanover under the guise that he would be working at the new distribution center that the Sheppard’s were planning to build in Hanover, the one that they would build to support the distribution into the northeast once the production facilities in Kentucky were fully operational and they could shut down the old facility in Hanover, but in fact he was intended to be the traffic manager for the Kentucky distribution facility.

  Chapter 13

  Jamison Tate arrived in Hanover by Greyhound on August 18th, 1963so that he could report to work at the corporate offices on the following day. Reservations had been made for him to stay at the motel above the Aero Oil Station at the corner of Walnut and Carlisle Streets, basically across the street from the corporate offices of Hanover Shoe, and within walking distance to the factory and the center square. It was very plush, with an in room refrigerator, an in-room pond with a water fall next to the sitting room in the front, a color television set, stereo record player, and a bar stocked with whisky, rum, gin, and vodka, plus a variety of mixers. The first weeks lodgings were on the Sheppard’s, after which Jamison was put on a per-diem account of thirty two dollars per week. The weekly rent at the motel was a staggering seven dollars and fifty cents per day, not counting the cost of the liquor if opened, meaning Jameson would need to contribute to his living expenses out of his two hundred and thirty dollar a week salary, something he had no intentions of doing. He had been put on notice that Lawrence Sheppard was a tea-totter and disapproved of his executives drinking or partying, unless of course it was business related, in which case it could be allowed but only to a minimum. But Jamison had developed a taste for partying and drinking during his employment as a sales rep for that trucking company. It was amazing how many traffic managers were willing to give their company’s business to the firm that offered the best food and drink and ‘other’ services to them, rather than the best service to their company, and since rates were standardized by the ICC, it was hard for any auditor or accountant to determine that a better option could be or was available. Jamison couldn’t wait until he had his own little empire and he would play one trucking sales rep against another to have all the partying he could handle without it costing him a red cent.

  Chapter 14

  After the first week in Hanover, Jamison moved to the Huffman’s Hanover Hotel on the Center Square, two doors east of Myer’s Pharmacy. Huffman’s Hanover Hotel was a rat trap, literally. The rooms were dark and dingy, with lousy lighting and no television sets, and only a pay phone in the hallway of each floor. The joke around Hanover was that the Hoffman Hanover Hotel was such a dump that that was the reason that General Kilpatrick’s horse, from the statue that sat in the middle of the Center Square, had its ass pointed towards the hotel. But they did have a kitchen on the main floor that made good, not great, sandwiches, and they had a billiard room with thirteen of the best pool tables that Jamison had ever seen. The photos on the walls of the billiard room were amazing, showing so many famous pool-shooters right there where Jamison was shooting pool himself, it was as if he were connected to these great shooters.

  After work Jamison would rush back to his hotel room, maybe grab a quick nap, then he’d descend on the pool room, after snatching a sandwich and a beer from the little kitchen, he’d secure a table and work on his game, taking on a challenger every now and again, trying desperately not to be hustled. His game was good, but he lost a lot, their game was better. But the Huffman’s Hanover Hotel only cost him twenty eight dollars per week, and a beer and a sandwich was a buck and a quarter, the pool tables were free to guest, except for the racking fee of a quarter. Cheap living and he was having fun, and the extra cash from his per-diem was worth the down grade in living conditions, who was afraid of a few rats anyway.

  Chapter 15

  One night in early-October, a girl shows up at the poolroom. She was young, say twenty one, maybe twenty two at the most. She had her own pool stick that she carried in a case. Jameson was impressed, ‘a girl with her own pool stick’. He watched her shoot and she was good, better than him for sure, maybe better than most the guys who had been taking his money over the past few weeks. She was tall for a girl, maybe six foot, five eleven for sure, big advantage for a girl to be tall to shot pool, very thin, barely any breast at all, hardly any hips, reminded him a bit of Olive Oyl from the Popeye cartoons, except she had a prettier face, at least pretty enough, not as pretty as Rebecca, but that would be hard for anyone.

  Someone told Jamison that her name was Sandy, and he struck up a conversation with this tall pool shooter, “You’re pretty darn good with that pool stick, would you mind giving me a few pointers?”

  He was surprised at how comfortable he was with spending time shooting pool with her. She had a gentle way of coaching him, without sounding like she was a ‘know-it-all’, although she did know a lot. She told him she had been shooting pool for eleven years, but she had never competed in any contest to see how good she was against other pool shooters, and she would never bet on a pool game, or any other kind of game as far as that goes. She said, “Games are supposed to be fun, and betting would just take all the fun out of it, that would make it work, and I would rather have fun than work any day.”

  Jameson understood, he’d rather have fun as well.

  The following night she returned to the pool room and again she and Jameson spent the night shooting pool and talking. At the end of the night he walked her to her car which was parked on Frederick Street just past the Sears and Roebucks Store. As they walked the few blocks to her car, he reached out and grabbed her hand and held it for the remainder of the walk. When they arrived at her car, he pulled her towards him and gave her a kiss. Just one and then he said, “I’d like to see you again.”

  She was more than willing, and showed it by giving him another kiss. By the end of the week, he had her in his hotel room and they were no longer just shooting pool.

  Chapter 16

  It was now the middle of November and Sandy had been excessively troubled. She’d sit and cry for hours on end, even missed work because she was simply too upset. Fortunately, she worked for her father and even though he didn’t like the idea of her not showing up for work, he wasn’t going to fire her, or even dock her pay. He thought the whole thing was just dumb on her part, but that was the way women were, overly sensitive, overly sentimental. But Sandy started to think that there was something else wrong, accompanied by the fact that her period was about three weeks over due, she took herself to Doctor Davidson’s office on Baltimore Street. Doctor Davidson was not her family doctor, but she could never go to her family doctor if her fears were correct. Fears, well not exactly, she was not afraid to have Jamison’s baby, she loved Jamison and he had told her that he loved her, and girls her age, many of her friends from high school already had children, some more than one.

  Sandy was pregnant, a little over six w
eeks, certainly not showing or anything even as skinny as she was. Now she had to tell Jamison, she was sure that he would be excited and receptive about the news. She made reservation at the Hill Tavern for Friday night and picked him up at the square and drove him to the restaurant about five miles east of town. She told him that she felt that they needed to have a special date and that it was on her, and the Hill had the best Prime Rib around. Jamison was always up for a good meal, he’d been on a steady diet of meatball subs and beers so Prime Rib sounded like a feast to him, especially since he wasn’t buying.

  Chapter 17

  The meal didn’t go as Sandy had planned; in fact the entire evening did not go as planned. Word out of Dallas of the killing of the President had shocked the nation. Sandy, who had worked the Kennedy Johnson Election Center on Carlisle Street in Hanover and actively went door to door asking people to vote for this Catholic Democrat in a Lutheran Republican town, was especially troubled by the event and had cried most of the day. But she had more pressing concerns and she willed herself to put the Kennedy Assassination aside to face this most important event in her life to date. They arrived at the restaurant, and were ushered to their table. Drinks were ordered, Rum and Coke for Jamison, Seven Up for Sandy, and they placed their orders, Jamison got the Prime Rib while Sandy ordered the Trout, stuffed with Crab. The drinks came, and Sandy said, let’s hare a toast, and Jamison raised his glass to her and said, “To us!” and they clinked their glasses, and Sandy added, “All of us!”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, it means,” she paused and curled her lips into a sly grin, “That there are now more of us. I’m going to have your baby!”

  Sandy saw him pale, as he said, “That’s not possible, we’ve been safe. You can’t be pregnant.”

  “Oh, I assure you I am. The doctor confirmed it on Wednesday.”

  “Well you got to get rid of it. I can’t be a father.”

  Sandy was not ready to hear that and she allowed herself to cry, then she pled, “But you’d be a great father, and a great husband, and we’d have a wonderful little family.”

  Jamison slammed down his drink. Looking around the room, he could sense people were noticing their conversation. Actually most of the people in the room were focused on the little television set in the bar area of the restaurant, listening to Huntley and Brinkley as they covered every aspect of the news coming out of Texas and Washington DC. But he didn’t wish to continue this conversation at this time nor did he want to spend another second pretending that he had affections for this woman. Anything that might put a strain on his relationship with Rebecca Ballard could not be tolerated. “I need a smoke, I’ll be right back.”

  Even though it was perfectly acceptable in 1963 to smoke in a restaurant, Jamison chose to step outside to have his cigarette and to clear his mind. He had to come up with a strategy that would get him out of this jam. ‘Good one,’ he thought, ‘Jam, that’s what Rebecca calls me when we get playful. She’d not think this was very playful!’

  The evening air was cold, actually crisp, and it allowed Jamison to focus his thoughts. Traffic of commuters and shoppers coming from York roared past on the road in front of the Tavern, but he barely heard a sound, locked in thought and deep concern.

  He lit a second cigarette and took a long deep drag, holding the smoke in his lungs, then forcing it out through his nostrils. This normally helped him think, and he was quickly formulating a plan of attack. He decided that he needed to go along with this, for now, but that he would quickly and assuredly convince her that they both are not ready for parenthood, and that they needed to become better prepared financially before they made that kind of commitment to another human being. After she had an abortion, he’d break up with her, and by spring he’d be back in Kentucky and would never see her again.

  His plan worked, there was lots of crying, and promises made that never were intended to be kept, but his plan worked. Err, except for one small problem, neither of them knew anybody who could help them end the pregnancy.

  Chapter 18

  The following Monday, everyone was abuzz about the going on in Dallas. A fellow named Jack Ruby had killed that Oswald guy right in front of the police and the television cameras, for the whole world to see. It seemed like a melodrama from a bad soap opera was playing out in front of everyone’s eyes. But Jamison had urgent business that needed to be attended to regardless of what ever had been going on in national news, so he approached a production foreman that he’d come to know and disliked because of the man’s lack of couth. He figured that if anyone would know who could provide abortion services in this town it would be him, but to Jamison’s surprise the man simply said, “This be a Christian town, we do not abide with that type of thing here.”

  As Jamison walked away from that confrontation, Teddy Shoemaker, a skinny lad with long greasy pitch black hair with three cowlicks and a complexion that accompanied that type of hair, a roman nose and deep set dark eyes, approached and said in a hushed voice, “Hey, Mister Tate, I might be able fix you up with someone.”

  Jamison instinctively did not like the person to whom he was confronted, “I’m sorry, but who are you?”

  “That’s not really important is it? What’s important is that you need to find someone who can perform a certain service, and if the conditions are right, I might be able to find that person for you.”

  “And what conditions are they?”

  “First, are you a cop of any sorts?”

  Jamison shook his head.

  “Good, now you got twenty bucks?”

  Again he nodded, yes this time.

  “Alright, here’s the deal. Twenty bucks gets you an introduction, after that you’re on your own, you make your deal with them, if you can’t make the deal, you don’t get your twenty back. Understand?”

  Jamison had a sinking feeling deep in his stomach, it was starting to dawn on him that abortion was a dangerous and dirty business, and he also realized that he had little choice but to associate with people like the unsavory lad that stood in front of him at that moment with his hand out waiting for a twenty. Reaching for his wallet to retrieve the twenty, holding it in front of the lad, he asked, “When can we do this?”

  “I get off at 3:30, meet me at the corner of Franklin and Park then, and I’ll take you to someone who can help you. The twenty please.”

  Chapter 19

  Jamison followed Teddy down Park Street to High Street, where they approached Buffington’s Market, alongside the market was an alley that led to the rear of the building, where another building that looked like an oversized garage stood. Up a flight of wooden steps on the outside of the building, they came to a wooden landing. Teddy knocked on an old wooden screen door, and a voice on the other side called out, “Who’s there?”

  “It’s Teddy Shoemaker, Misses Wisebrod, I brought you a customer.”

  The wooden door the other side of the screen door cracked open an inch or two, but it was too dark inside for Jamison to see anything.

  “You sure he ain’t no cop?”

  “I’m sure, he works at the factory, been there for about three months, I asked him if he’s a cop and he said no.”

  The wooden door open a few more inches, “Well he don’t look a cop, kinda pretty boy, you asked me, what he do get his secretary knocked up?” She laughed.

  “No, but I do have a girl in trouble and it needs to be taken care of.”

  “Three hundred bucks.”

  Teddy spoke up, “I’m done, this is up to you guys now. Can you find your way out?”

  Jamison nodded to Teddy as he departed, then asked the lady, “When can you do it?”

  “You get me the money and bring the girl here and it is done.”

  Jamison had over four hundred in the bank that he had saved for a trip home over the Christmas holidays, he had hoped to buy his mother a very nice Christmas present, and of course Rebecca would expect something very nice as well. He had ho
ped that he might be able to buy her a pre-engagement ring. But this was more urgent, he’d deal with that all later. “Okay, how’s Friday night?”

  “Like I said, you bring the money and the girl, it will get done. I’m here Friday night, don’t come after eight.” The door slammed shut.

  Chapter 20

  Peoples Bank was five hundred feet away from Huffman’s Hanover Hotel, just past Myers Pharmacy, across Baltimore Street and next to the J. C. Penney Store. Jamison selected it for his savings account because it was close to the hotel, and he considered it a good choice, because of the remarkable beauty of the building, with its red stone exterior, large slate steps, and the triple towers, four and a half stories high, it made the building look like a fortress or medieval castle, it just felt like it was secure. After work on Friday, Jamison left the plant and walked to the bank, with his paycheck in hand. The weather had turned bad, with a cold wicked wind blowing from the north and mounting clouds, it seemed as if it would snow any second. He cashed his check and then withdrew three hundred from his savings account. Then he headed back towards the hotel where he paid his weekly rent in cash. It was here that it was agreed that he’d meet up with Sandy at 5 PM. He hoped the weather would not prevent her from coming. The foot traffic on the Square had already picked up with shoppers coming to and fro from the various stores looking for just the right gifts.