CHAPTER 9
A Starry Night in Wisconsin
Her name was Diane.
It was summertime and a starry, starry night in Door County, the Cape Cod of Wisconsin—the state of my youth. Door County is a fantastic place for college kids to party late into the summer nights after summer jobs serving the hordes of Chicago tourists. A zillion stars hung overhead on this crystal clear night, sparkling and twinkling as far as the eye could see. And I could see into the infinite in every direction as well as directly above me—especially directly above me, as I pushed my two-seat, top-down convertible—a silver Datsun 1600 Roadster—to seventy miles per hour on the roller coaster of County Road Q.
I was on my way from the harbor town of Ephraim on the Green Bay shoreline eastward to Bailey’s Harbor on Lake Michigan. I cruised mindlessly, achingly carefree and fearless of hitting a deer (which were everywhere!), fearless of death, fearless of everything, fearless like every nineteen year-old male. My eight-track’s volume was cranked to the max on Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild,” which I replayed on every last note, putting me deeper and deeper into a state of immortal ecstasy. I drove on, riding the paved waves into a lightless bliss of blackness, penetrated only by my short-reaching headlights, trailing a wash of endless shadows of trees in my wake, my vision blurred by the balmy backwash of air swirling in my cockpit and a couple of beers too many.
Three minutes later, I turned right onto Highway 57, four miles out of Bailey’s Harbor. I picked up speed again and continued airborne for several miles until I saw the AC Tap, a roadside tavern, coming up on my left. I slowed. It stood by itself under the starlit canopy, with not much else in sight other than a couple of dark low-slung houses tucked back along the tree line. It was surrounded by a gravel lot, which was overflowing with cars and cluttered with clusters of college kids doing what college kids do and talking about what college kids talk about and, no doubt, making plans for the rest of the evening. Some were smoking, and several had drinks in their hands—beer mostly, which was the drink of choice in Wisconsin. Pabst was the brand of choice. Cheap had something to do with that.
I found a place to park in the back, off the gravel, and butted my Datsun Roadster into a knee-high field of grass that was on the perimeter of an old apple orchard. Everything around here was old, except the customers. The AC hadn’t changed much over the decades. It was an old roadhouse in the middle of nowhere, next to nothing special. It had probably been the favorite of four generations of underage drinkers. It would probably be my last stop. The midnight hour was well behind me, but it was primetime at the AC, and the joint was jumping. I was alone and didn’t know anyone when I walked in. I recognized a few faces from some other places that I’d been to earlier that night—and last night too, after I drove up from my parents’ place in Milwaukee. That morning, I felt like taking a road trip in the Silver Bullet, so I picked Door County for the weekend: three hours up and three hours back, with two nights in between in a cheap hotel room at the Evergreen Resort in Ephraim. Now it was Saturday night, and I was hoping to run into some really cute girl, someone to party with through the night.
I zigzagged through the crowd to get to the bar, wedged myself into a skinny space on the railing, and flashed an open hand in the direction of the burly, mustachioed bartender for some attention. I ordered a PBR on tap and turned and scanned the smoke-filled room. The bartender brought my beer over, and I slapped a ten on the bar. I leaned against the bar, in my best lean-against-the-bar look. You know—nothing slouchy but no posing for the good posture award either. I was feeling light-headed and horny. Guys outnumbered girls, but not by much. The quest began for a connection. Within a minute, the search appeared to be in vain. If she was there, I didn’t see her. I was okay with that. It was typical, but a little disappointing. I had almost no expectations, which was something that had developed from experience, but it was always fun looking. I’d have to lower the search parameters or change the mission. Maybe something would develop, like a late-night party. Or nothing. It didn’t matter. I felt great, probably because I was really buzzed.
There were a lot of girls in the AC, but it looked like all the ones I was interested in were with guys or sheltered in a cluster with their girlfriends, making them unapproachable, unless a guy had the courage of a lion or he was totally insensitive. I’m pretty sure I was somewhere in between. Maybe one more beer could get me to do that, to walk up to a cluster—like the cluster of five girls jammed together at the corner table by the door. And what—say, “Hi ladies, what’s up?” I didn’t think that was going to happen, though I had fun thinking I could do that and instantly be a hit. It was an iffy proposition. Doing that was begging for the ignore button or worse—a group stare down of me, an obvious alien from outer space sporting horns bigger than any buck in the back forty. That’d be tough to take. And what would come of my greeting if, in fact, they warmed up to me? “Hey cool guy, join us five inseparable girls.” Or, “Join us; we’re just talking about how dopey guys can be.” Or, “Sit with us and buy us all drinks, okay?” My imagination was racing with all kinds of pathetic scenarios. It made me balk at the idea, so I held my position at the bar.
I finished my beer and asked the bartender for another mug of liquid courage. A moment later, I got the beer, but I didn’t taste any courage in it. After a couple of swigs, I accepted my loner status and decided to just enjoy the scene, groove on the music, go with the flow, and give up my thoughts about scoring a chick. I was never very good at it anyway, but it was always a healthy desire and very male, I figured, to think about scoring. It was genetically coded into guys, most of us anyway. But, every once in a while, the universal law of a guy hitting on a girl was overturned, and a girl would actually hit on a guy.
She was a tall, thin brunette, with straight hair that had a slight wave down to her shoulders and a bit beyond. She was taller than any of the girls I could see—maybe five ten. She wore faded jeans and was prepped-out with a lime green sweater over a pink turtle neck. I didn’t see her till she was inches away from me. She came in quietly, like a heat-seeking missile. I hoped I was her target. As I said, she came from out of nowhere and, suddenly, she was pressing against my upper arm, leaning over the bar, trying to get the bartender’s attention. She sure got mine.
My radar clicked on. I twisted in her direction, facing over the bar again, alongside her, leaning in with her, joining in her quest for the bartender’s attention. He was at the other end of the bar mixing a drink. I think I was the one who caught his eye first, which was a good thing because moments earlier out of the side of my mouth, I stupidly said, “I’ll get him for you,” as if I had some special technique to flag down bartenders. Having a longer arm helped, I suppose, and so did blocking his view of her. He walked over to me, gave me the heads-up nod, and then I thumbed him to her and waited. Mission accomplished.
“Thanks,” she said to me and turned to call her order out to the bartender. She was cute. Maybe more pretty than cute. For one second, we had been face to face, which was all I needed in order to know I was interested—really interested. I glanced over my shoulder to see if there was some guy hovering over her, supervising the buy. She seemed free and clear. It’s amazing how fast the brain works sometimes—all that in a second—and then I looked at her, wanting to hear what she would order.
“I’ll have what he’s having,” and directed her thumb at me.
“Wow, this was good,” I’m thinking to myself, “Houston, we’ve got lift off.”
She turned to me, and her face was so close I could smell her perfume. I think it was Ambush, which was big that year, and the only brand I knew because my sister liked it. It was my turn to say something.
I smiled and said, “You just ordered a PBR.” I paused a beat. “I’d be happy to pay for it.”
“Thanks.” She stood up tall and pulled back a bit to offer a long, thin fingered hand, which was full of grace, connected to a long, thin wrist of porcelain. “My name’s Diane.”
I shifted off the bar and stood tall with her, establishing that I was a lot taller, which could be worth a point or two. “Mine’s Tom,” I declared, as we shook hands, “A pleasure to meet you, Diane.” That much I knew to say. I held on to her hand, liking the connection. The rest I had to play by ear and hoped I wouldn’t start thinking too much. I was already thinking too much. My head was spinning over this miracle-in-the-making. Thinking too much was not a good thing. It kills spontaneity.
“Nice to meet you too,” she said. We were facing each other now and smiling, still in a handshake. Her eyes twinkled like the evening stars, and she had a terrific smile to match mine. So many dopey things were going through my head that I was afraid one of them would leak out. I probably held on to her hand a little too long before letting go, but she didn’t seem to mind. This was good.
The bartender set a frothy mug in front of her. I pushed a couple of bucks his way from the change I already had on the bar. That left me with five bucks out of the original ten that I’d already laid down on the bar, which was good for a couple more beers. Diane took a sip of hers and stood there, gazing at me, possibly waiting to see if I could say anything other than something really stupid.
This thought occurred to me because it was late, and guys can say a lot of stupid things late at night after a couple of beers. I’d already put down a couple after I’d had a couple too many—maybe more than a couple—but I felt just fine, not drunk anyway. Of course she wasn’t waiting to see if I was too drunk to talk; that was just my imagination, fueled by my insecurity. She was waiting because it was my turn to say something. I didn’t think she was drunk, but that isn’t evident to people our age unless someone is slurring and wobbling. She wasn’t doing either, and neither was I—I don’t think. I certainly wasn’t wobbling, which may have been attributable to the rock-solid bar I was, once again, leaning on. It was some kind of dark hardwood—maybe walnut—but big and hard like the old bars from ancient times when our parents were our age. And I wasn’t slurring. I was probably good for a couple more beers out of those tiny mugs.
Well, I could talk, and we did. For the next hour we explained ourselves, shared brief histories, and got along great. I told her I was up for the weekend, that I’d been to Door County many times in my life, that I didn’t have a girlfriend, and that I was staying at the Evergreen. She knew the Evergreen because she had been coming to Door County every summer that she could remember with her parents and staying at their cottage in Bailey’s Harbor. My hotel was a fifty year-old tired two-story pseudo-colonial hotel with white porch railings running the length of the outer hallways on both levels, all under a green gabled roof, facing the water. It had a tiny kidney bean shaped swimming pool in the front yard that was fenced in with chain link. This was a new addition to the hotel’s limited roster of amenities. The pool’s surface glistened daily with a rainbow slick of tanning oil. I stayed there because the price was right. The pool didn’t change the fact that it was a cheap hotel.
Like me, Diane was a sophomore in college. She went to the University of Wisconsin in Whitewater. I was at Indiana University. Essentially, we had the summer off. She worked some dayshifts at Wilson’s, which is a hamburger and ice cream parlor in Ephraim and the busiest place in Door County. Wilson’s was a fixture of local lore and a place that everyone who’s ever been to Door County has been to. I told her I spent the summer giving tennis lessons at private homes on the north shore of Milwaukee. It was a nice summer for both of us.
Not only was it a nice summer, it was a particularly nice summer night. The clock struck two, and the AC Tap was closing up. Most of the crowd had left while Diane and I were talking at the bar. We chatted right through everyone’s departure and missed the last call, which was probably a good thing. My last five bucks had been spent on round two. However, neither of us wanted to call it a night, so it was just a matter of deciding on the next place. Bars were out. Her parents’ cottage was out. I was pretty sure the Evergreen was out. But, in our favor, the stars were out, so I suggested that we go to the beach, build a fire, and make the most of the moment—not exactly in those words. I didn’t say “make the most of the moment,” but I know what I had in mind, and “make” was one of the operative words. The other operative word was “out.” I think she knew that came with the setting. At least I hoped she did.
I tried to look indifferent about going to the beach, though frankly, it was all I could come up with other than calling it a night, and I didn’t want to do that. Besides, I really wanted to go the beach. I really liked her. I really didn’t want the evening to end. And I might have been really drunk, like every other college kid in the AC after midnight that night, but neither of us cared. She and I were laughing and having a lot of fun, so the beach seemed like a good idea. She said, “Let’s go!” and with that, we walked out.
If Diane had come with some friends, I never saw them. She didn’t have a car there. She said that she didn’t need one, that her home was within walking distance. My arm was around her as soon as we cleared the front door. When we turned the corner of the building, we stepped into a shadow between the front and back lots. I stopped her right there, gently put my hands on her shoulders, and slowly backed her up two steps, intent on pressing her against the side wall of the AC. She moved in sync with me, like a slow dance, till the wall stopped us. My arms engulfed her and my lips went to hers. They were waiting for me. We kissed very slowly at first. It felt so good so fast that we dialed up, and our tongues were quickly in new territory. She was warm and wonderful and soft and smelled so good I couldn’t stand it. We kissed and kissed and kissed. I could hear the crickets in the fields, and someone who was walking on the gravel behind us said in passing, “Get a hotel!” We both laughed without separating our lips. Neither of us wanted to stop kissing. It was everything you could want in a summer kiss, and this was bliss. Someone else walked by us and said something that I didn’t catch. I think my ears were ringing with the thumping of my pounding heart. A moment later, I eased up on the press, reluctantly.
“You, Diane, are something,” I whispered into her ear, “right out of heaven.”
“And you, Tom…,” she mimicked my cadence in her own whisper. I thought she was going to say I was the devil or something like that. “You,” she continued, “are absolutely right! I am an angel!” And we both laughed some more. She was being so cute, and she knew it.
“Okay, Angel, let’s blow this pop stand. To the beach!”
My car was easy to see despite being out of reach of the building’s back-lot light: It was the only car out there. It looked like it was parked in the field next to the lot because it was. I had to explain that when I pulled into the AC lot, it was the only place to park. I led the way, a couple of feet beyond the gravel, and swung the passenger door open for her. She glided past me, like a summer breeze, and stopped long enough for a kiss that wasn’t long enough. She slid gracefully into the low-slung seat and made her legs disappear under the dash. The Silver Bullet had a lot of legroom but not much headroom, especially for a guy who is six foot three, so if I didn’t tuck myself down into my seat, I looked like I was driving one of those toy cars, where the driver’s head sticks out above the windshield. But so what—it was a sports car, and with a black rally stripe running down the sides, it was cool enough for me. And just then, I was feeling pretty cool.
I turned on the ignition and looked up at the sky before I put the headlights on.
“Wow, look at all those stars,” I said, and when I looked up, my head spun for a second, dizzy from that last beer. With my cue, she looked up as well. We both stared upward into the universe, and if she felt anything that I felt, besides the head spin, she too was humbled by the overwhelming beauty of so many stars, so concentrated in an infinity of blackness. There were more stars than sky that night. And I was feeling good about having Diane in my car. The universe felt like a warmer place with her next to me.
We rolled slowly out of the parking lot, and jus
t before pulling onto Highway 57, I remembered to put my lights on. It helped. I put the heater on too because the temperature was dropping.
Diane knew the neighborhood. It was her neighborhood. A mile later, at the edge of town, well past its bed time, she directed me through it, all six blocks of it, to the southern edge and a bit beyond. A half mile out, she had me turn left into a barely discernible entrance to a grassy, unkempt gravel road. It had some gravel for the tire paths but no gravel anywhere else. The center was humped with tall grass, which my grill was eating up. We bumped along for several hundred yards, rocking and rolling, literally, to her secret place on the beach, with the headlights bobbing and branches reaching out to within inches of the sides of the car, wanting to scratch it. This was definitely the road less traveled. Of course, as bumpy as it was, we were laughing hysterically at the silliness of taking my little sports car down a road that was an obstacle course even for a four-wheel drive Jeep. She was buzzed too and, together, we were having so much fun.
My headlights suddenly broke out over the water, like the beam from a lighthouse. Lake Michigan was relatively calm, and gentle waves washed in, lapping steadily onto the sandy beach about twenty seconds apart. The approaching water was totally intriguing and mesmerizing. It was a scene of serene tranquility, a subtle expression of the power and endurance of nature coming out of this remarkable Great Lake. The broad expanse of surf born from this virtual sea and an unseen horizon that disappeared into the starlit sky created a surreal setting for romance in the middle of the night. This was the place for us, I thought to myself, as we laughed with every carom and conquered hump.
Then the Silver Bullet hit a big bump, humped over it, and then unstoppably jumbled its way downward over ten feet of some very rough terrain before coming to an abrupt stop in the sand. I had overshot the drive and was now one with the beach. The laughter stopped. Diane and I looked at each other, not in horror, but in the shared knowledge of being in a situation that couldn’t possibly be good. I broke the silence with the only word that came to mind, the word that would summarize the Tao of the moment. I let out a good loud, “Fuck!” We actually laughed for a moment after that, but it would be the last laugh of the evening.
We got out of the car. I suddenly felt sober, but I knew I wasn’t. The car didn’t appear to be damaged. It was clear of rocks and clear of the off-road driveway we had been on moments earlier. It was simply sitting in sand, right on the beach, pretty much down to the frame. It was loose sand, the kind that runs through hour glasses, but this was not my finest hour.
Thankfully, there was plenty of beach between my car and the water. With luck, I could get in the car, accelerate slowly, rise out of my little crater, and drive up the beach to the nearest exit opportunity. There should be plenty of those, and anyone of them could get us back to the road. This certainly changed the tone of the evening: Romance fled, and getting out of the crater in one piece became the motivation for the evening, which would soon turn to morning.
I climbed back into the Silver Bullet. Diane stood off to the side, in the darkness and in sympathy and silence—and suspense, a state I shared with her. I tried a gentle acceleration in first gear, but only managed to spin the rear tires and kick a lot of sand out the back of the car. Unfortunately, the car didn’t move forward, just downward, deeper into the sand. This was not good. I stepped around a bush, peed, and returned, feeling better and ready to tackle another solution. Diane and I came up with it simultaneously: Collect debris, like sticks and driftwood and maybe even small logs, to put under the tires for traction. We scampered around the deserted beach like two people collecting armfuls of firewood. The darkness didn’t help us. The morning light was still a couple of hours away, and you know what they say: The day is always darkest before the dawn. Well, I can tell you that’s true. We could barely see our hands outstretched in front of our faces. My headlights laid down some light, which helped, but the field was limited, and the field of dreams was gone.
With our best efforts, Diane and I packed branches and driftwood and some fist-sized stones under the forefront of the rear tires. I had a Pendleton blanket in the trunk, which I added to the pile, and laid it down to fit under each of the rear tires, a dubious contribution to the escape plan. For a moment, it occurred to me that the blanket should have been used on the beach for us to lie down on. It would have been perfect for that, had this bit of bad luck not happened. But now, hopefully, it would be useful in getting us out of this mess.
I climbed into the driver’s seat for my second attempt at escape. Diane stood silently off to the side. I wondered what she was thinking. Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been good. Neither of us anticipated this scenario. I started the car again and, slowly letting up on the clutch, I accelerated gradually in first gear, very carefully, thinking I’d have one chance at this. “Here goes!” I called out with as much confidence as I could muster on a base built of sticks and stones, a blanket, and more doubt than hope.
The engine noise slowly rose in sync with the pressure of my foot to the accelerator. Within seconds, sticks and stones were clanking against the underside of the car, making a helluva racket, like baseball-size hailstones hitting a tin roof. And it got louder the more I accelerated. Then the clanking stopped when the wheels went even deeper into the sand and everything had been spit out. The car hadn’t budged—not even an inch, unless you’re measuring downward. I turned off the engine but left the headlights on. I walked around the front of the car and moved into the darkness alongside Diane, feeling frustrated and sobered by the gravity of the situation.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “This is some mess I got us into.” It had been an hour—a very long hour trying to get unstuck. We stood side by side, staring at the car in the darkness, out of reach of the headlights and plunged into the silence of mutual frustration. The air off the water was chilly, and the balmy summer night was long behind us. The dream of the beach was also behind us. The magic was lost. I didn’t know what else I could do, and she was probably thinking what she should do. She broke the silence:
“I’m just going to walk home,” she said. “My house is only a mile down the beach.”
I listened to one of the waves break and then softly acquiesced to my defeat, “Okay.”
Neither of us moved. A few more seconds passed, and another wave broke.
“I should probably stay with the car,” I said, and paused for another wave. “I’ll figure something out in the morning, you know. You should go home.”
Another wave broke.
And I added, “Don’t worry about me.”
Another wave broke.
“Okay,” she sighed. “I guess I’ll go.” She turned to me and leaned into me.
I put my arms around her. “I’m sorry it ended this way, Diane,” I whispered. “You sure are fun. And you are an angel.”
She pushed back a little and said, “You’re fun too” and gave my frustrated face a peck on the cheek, let go of me, turned and walked out of my arms, through the beam of my headlights, and a minute later, disappeared into the darkness down the beach.
Another wave broke, but no one’s heart broke. It was just a misadventure, an exciting evening with a surprise ending.
It was not the ending I imagined. Time spent with the opposite sex rarely ends the way we envision. I was only nineteen, but I was learning that the outcome I wanted most would be the one I could pretty much bet on not happening. Life throws one surprise ending at us after another. In less than thirty minutes, Diane would probably be sound asleep in a warm bed in her parents’ cottage, and I would probably be sitting in my car feeling miserable and hung over, waiting for the dawn to break. She was gone, and I was still stuck.
But I wasn’t ready to give up. I tried again—the thing with piling driftwood, debris, and stones under my rear wheels. I even put my blanket under one of the wheels, which is all it was good for—the heat caused by the spinning tires from the previous attempt had burned several holes in it, mak
ing it no better than a charred rag. The outcome was no different, except this time, the eastern horizon was lighter, and a new day was about to begin, though my frustration still hung around like a stray dog wanting more of something.
There was nothing I could do at that point, so I hiked up that imposter of a road that had gotten me where I was and stood on the shoulder of the highway at the crack of dawn, waiting for a car to stop at my thumb. I wanted a ride to a phone booth, where I could call Triple A. Instead, I got a cop on the first car. I picked up on the rack of red lights a hundred yards out. I smiled with his approach, making myself obviously in need of something. The squad car stopped twenty feet in front of me. The officer stepped out and sauntered toward me with his right hand resting on the butt of his gun, which I assumed was a pretty standard approach. I was cheery and respectful but not sure if this was the car that I wanted to stop for me. I needed help, however, and with his radio, it could be a good thing that he was there.
He was a nice man, old enough to have a son my age—and old enough to have heard of everything and anything that could happen under the sun in Door County or, in this case, in the night. I told him what had happened, that my car was stuck in the sand, leaving out any reference to Diane and beer. I was actually mindful that I might smell like a brewery, so I didn’t want to get too close or upwind of him. I’m sure the thought occurred to him, but he took pity on me. I’m guessing he thought I was punished enough. Besides, I couldn’t think of any law I’d broken—maybe trespassing—but no harm was done to anyone.
The officer didn’t have the time to investigate my predicament, which was probably a good thing, as I realized there were a few empty cans of PBR floating around my car’s interior. Instead, he said he’d be back this way in an hour or so to check on me, and while he was gone, I should let most of the air out of my rear tires. He thought that might give me enough traction to get out of the sand and off the beach. He also told me I could drive up the shoreline about half a mile to a public boat ramp and get back on the road that way. We both knew there were a couple of gas stations in Bailey’s Harbor that had air pumps. I thanked him for giving me a possible out and went back down the beaten path to my car. Over my shoulder, I saw him take off to wherever he was going before he’d met up with me. I hoped I wouldn’t see him again.
The cop’s suggestion worked. One hour later, the sun was warming things up, as I collapsed into my bed at the Evergreen, hugely thankful for the five hours of sleep I’d get before a one o’clock checkout time forced me to drive back to Milwaukee.
Diane? I never saw her again. And I didn’t even talk to her, though I would have liked to. We never exchanged phone numbers. The chaos on the beach had overridden everything else, and I didn’t know where she lived. But we had given each other a night to remember, just not that kind of night to remember.
∞