The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy

AND THEN, well, I’ll let May say it: And then, well, Lorna died too. At least neither of them had to go through that dreadful Alzheimer’s business. I mean, what a damned injustice it is for someone who’s been an absolute delight to have to become all sort of baffled . ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at peterleroy.substack.com/subsc...

“WELL,” said Lorna when they had finished. “Well, well, well.”  There was a twinkle in her eye, and she hopped up from the table with all of her old energy. On the sideboard was her old papier-mâché duck. She pried the duck apart, and from it she produced the very box that Mark and Margot and Martha had seen in Punta Cachazuda. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences &...

     Martha was waiting for Mark when he returned. She met him at the door, looking impish. She gave him a hug and the quickest of kisses. She had a Scotch and soda ready for him, she made poached salmon for dinner, and after dinner she made love to him with the reckless passion he had expected from Margot a week earlier. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Obser...

WITH THE MARRIAGE of Mark and Margot, the trio seemed to have found a solution to their Situation, a conventional, traditional solution. Martha was maid of honor at the wedding, and after Margot and Mark left the reception, they didn’t see Martha for months. Naïvely, simplemindedly, all three imagined that their Situation had been left behind in their crazy past, part of a complicated courtship th...

     When her cancer was diagnosed, Lorna told no one, but something about her manner, a finality in the way she began to handle her affairs, in her visits to old friends, convinced Ella that something was fatally wrong, and because cancer was what Ella feared most, she guessed, correctly, that that was it. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Pete...

     In the years that followed, the Punta Cachazudans tried to confine their secret to the town, to protect their art and industry from an uncertain reception outside, but there was in them that urge to tell, and now and then one or another gave in to it, and the secret spread somewhat, underground, whispered or mumbled. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Obser...

THE CLASSES were a success from the start, though Herb and Lorna tried to keep them from growing too quickly by swearing the students to secrecy. The secret was a hard one to keep, as hard as the original secret discovery of one’s own sexuality, that secret we’re immediately eager to spill, the biggest and best secret that we ever have held in common, the secret that joins us. ... Get full access...

     “Hello-wo-wo!” It was Andrea Cogliano. She was tapping at the front door. Lorna went to let her and Frank in, and Herb folded the paper and put it aside. Andrea came out to the patio in the middle of an explanation for their being late. “ — and would you believe we left the house twenty minutes ago?” she was saying. She bent over to give Herb a kiss on the cheek and squeeze his knee. ... Get...

THE NEXT EVENING was one of those when the sunset would be visible between the other houses, and Herb and Lorna were sitting on their patio, waiting for Frank and Andrea Cogliano to come over to watch the sun set and drink some old-fashioneds. The Coglianos were late, and the sky began to redden without them. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Pe...

     “Well,” said Herb, “since I’m the oldest — ” Margot and Martha and Mark snickered. Herb gave them a quizzical look. “It’s nothing,” Mark said. “It just has to do with our announcement. I’ll explain in a minute.” ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at peterleroy.substack.com/subscribe

MARK AND MARGOT AND MARTHA were again the catalytic agents. . . . The situation for the trio had not improved. Separately, they had come to the conclusion that there was no future for them as a trio, that some kind of choice must be made, some choice that would leave a pair and a singleton. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at peterl...

     The primary pursuit of most Punta Cachazudans was to discover and employ new methods of killing time. They passed the hours with games of cards and shuffleboard, shell gathering and fishing, gossiping and arguing, but the most popular way to keep busy was to learn something new. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at peterleroy.su...

     The Bagnell-built house that Herb and Lorna chose was a significant one in the history of Punta Cachazuda. It was the first one built beyond the limit of the plan that Humboldt Bagnell himself had drawn on a roll of shelf paper and pinned to the wall of his garage. It was the first house in a new territory, a new beginning in a literal as well as a figurative sense, ... Get full access to The...

PUNTA CACHAZUDA lies on the west coast of Florida, the Gulf Coast, where the beach sand is as white and fine as confectioner’s sugar, and the sunsets make a person pause and muse. There would have been no Punta Cachazuda at all had it not been for the effect of one of those thought-provoking sunsets on Humboldt Bagnell. One evening, years before Herb and Lorna arrived, ... Get full access to The P...

     They spent the next two weeks stocking the trailer. Herb had, of course, outfitted the trailer with gadgets of many sorts. Some were practical, like the two refrigerators. A larger one held their stores, and a smaller one held things needed every day, like cream for coffee, and food for the day, transferred from the larger. With careful planning — and Lorna provided the careful planning — the...

THEY EARNED THE MONEY, and they had a great time doing it. More important than the money, and more satisfying, was the work they did during the intense months that they spent earning it, a time when the whole house seemed to sing, when, in fact, it did sing, with the record player in the living room going all the time, playing their old favorite songs over and over and over again, turned up high t...

     “Well, when I got called, I figured that if I sold some goods to the other boys while I was in France, I could keep sending money to my mother. I had to get some goods to sell, so Uncle Ben and I came to Chacallit, that time when you and I met.” ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at peterleroy.substack.com/subscribe

      “ I got into it because it was a way to make money, that’s all,” said Herb. “You know how my family needed money in those days. I was just a boy really, and my father was a bankrupt. Uncle Ben got into the business somehow, God knows how. He was always onto one scheme or another, Uncle Ben. I remember when he showed me the first one — a shirt stud. I didn’t even know what a shirt stud was. ....

LATER, IN BED, in the pleasant lassitude after love, it all came out, slowly. If we had overheard, if we had been, say, Dudley, outside, beneath their windows, eavesdropping, we wouldn’t have been able to catch it all, just a snatch of mumbled revelation, a bit of whispered confession, the occasional bold declaration, a giggle, a chuckle, with interstices of silence, of ignorance, where we would h...

     Lorna turned from the sink to look at Herb, and even in the rude light of the circular fluorescent fixture Herb could see that her elusive loveliness had returned. For some time fear and fretfulness had poisoned Lorna’s system like allergens, had made the skin under her eyes puff and redden, had made her forehead break out, had made her cheeks pale and her jaw slack. Now, instantly, she seeme...

     After Mark left, Lorna began moving around her kitchen, following her accustomed patterns, clearing the dishes, washing them. Herb went through the house in his accustomed pattern, turning lights off, turning the radio off, locking the doors. Everything they did was familiar, habitual. But tonight there was something odd about all this homely activity. ... Get full access to The Personal Hist...

     In the back of Mark’s mind, he knew — or at least he had some kind of hunch — that Herb and Lorna were the people he wanted to — needed to — talk to, and so he visited them often. As Studebaker’s fortunes fell, Herb spent less and less time at the showroom and more and more time at home, tinkering, so the chances were good that he would be at home whenever Mark dropped by. ... Get full access...

OVER THE NEXT FEW YEARS, while Herb and Lorna’s financial problems deepened, Mark saw them fairly often. Sometimes he would see them at my house when they were visiting. More often, though, Mark walked to their house specifically to visit them. The Glynns lived near Herb and Lorna, so Mark often headed for No Bridge Road after seeing Margot and Martha or after finding that the girls weren’t at hom...

     Mark was sitting on the living room sofa with his right arm around Margot and his left arm around Martha, when Herb and Lorna, who had come in through the kitchen, suddenly appeared in the archway between their dining room and their living room. His first impulse was to jump up and thank them, he felt such a rush of gratitude. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experienc...

In Which Herb and Lorna Are Saved by the Art of Love: THEN I THREW A PARTY at Herb and Lorna’s house, and at that party Mark Dorset fell in love with the Glynn twins, and, therefore, everything turned out all right, eventually. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at peterleroy.substack.com/subscribe