Although his name was Jeremy,
I called
him Rugby because he played the sport, and ‘Jeremy’ just didn't seem to fit
him. He was from a small town in
Louisiana, had a Southern drawl, drove a huge white pickup truck, listened to
country music, and chewed tobacco (the last I could have done
without). All in all though, he
reminded me of the good old boys back home in Greene County, so I felt exceptionally
at ease with him.
Yet, I knew nothing would
ever really develop, because the law school Rugby attended (in Lexington) was two hours
away from my city of residence. The one
evening/night we spent together came about because he had to be in Richmond for a job
fair; with Charlottesville being equidistant from Lexington and Richmond, Rugby thought it would save him four hours of traveling if he
spent the night with me.
We had dinner together, after which he
remarked he was tired, and wanted to get a good night's rest. We went back to my apartment, where I eventually got him off before we lay down,
in theory, to sleep. Well, I can barely share a bed with
myself, much less anyone else. Rugby
must have gotten two hours of rest that night with my tossing and
turning. He awoke very groggy and bleary-eyed, not saying much,
opting instead to just take a shower so that he could be on his way.
When he emerged from the bathroom, he was brief-clad. I watched intently as he got dressed, and he questioned why I was staring at him.
“I’m watching you grimace as you straighten your tie.
You're the most irresistible intermingling of boy and man
that I have ever seen.”
“You’re weird,” he replied to me.
The next time I saw/spoke to him was a number of
months later; I was escorting a young man back to his apartment, when I saw
Rugby sitting outside a door on one of the lower floors. I said ‘hello’ to him, which made the young
man I was escorting jealous. When we
got to his apartment door, he said goodnight to me and wouldn’t let me
come in (even though he had said a few minutes prior that he had wanted me to spent
the night). Left alone, I went back
down to see Rugby.
He
explained that he was sitting outside his ex’s door. They had suffered a falling out, and Rugby (who had been
drinking) was waiting for him to come
home to ask if he would consider reconciliation. He stated that his ex wouldn’t return his calls, but if he
could just talk to him in person, he was certain they could get back together. It was around three in the morning, and I could see that
the situation
was a hopeless one. I told
Rugby to come crash at my apartment and to let the attempt at reconciliation
rest until he was more sober.
Seconds thereafter, his ex
returned with an attractive young man in tow.
The first words out of his mouth were directed to Rugby. “What the hell are you doing
here? Fucking stalker, I told you I didn’t want anything
more to do with you!”
He had been drinking; Rugby had been
drinking, and I was dead sober enough to know that I would be a fool to get
involved. However,
before leaving, I once again extended to Rugby an offer of a place to stay.
That was the last I ever saw of my Louisiana country boy.