The Richmond Years

As I'd mentioned in a previous post, I fled Austin for Richmond for four months to escape the wrath of a skanky ho and her boyfriend, holing up at the home of some friends from high school. That is, Carrington and I had been friends in high school; his wife Kay we both met the summer of 1967 while we were attending summer school in England. Kay was going to a girls' boarding school in Staunton, Va; Carrington still had a year left at EHS; I was months away from entering Davidson in NC; and my girlfriend Kate that summer (more on her later) was a beautiful 16 year old from Baltimore. Best. Summer. Ever.

Kay and Carrington were very generous to let me stay for those first two months, considering they let me feast while I was there. At dinner every night they'd tell me to eat all I wanted because they didn't keep leftovers. Within two months I went from a nearly emaciated 135 pounds (I'm 6 feet tall) to 155, pretty much from sleeping late, eating constantly, and not exercising at all. I'd smuggled about four ounces of killer weed from Austin--this lovely peach-scented stuff strong enough to send a normal person screaming for a shrink--to smoke at night once everyone else had gone to bed.

Hoon would come over from time to time to visit or to take me to play pinball or frisbee or whatever. Kay and her two darlin' children--four year old Pamela was cuter'n a bucket of bunnies--loved Hoon and me, and we them. Carrington and I had drifted apart--politically, culturally, socially--since high school, and it was hard to hold a conversation with him that didn't have to do with prep school.

Neither Kay nor Carrington had ever smoked dope. One night while Kay, Carrington, Hoon, and I were watching TV in their living room, Kay expressed an interest in smoking pot. I lit up the bong for her, but I'm not even sure she inhaled. But that was enough for Carrington. He told me he didn't want Hoon coming over anymore. Kay stepped in and told Carrington that it was her home too, and that Hoon was welcome there. I decided it would be better if I just moved out. I stayed those last two months at Hoon's on Ellwood. Hoon once referred to me as "the Texas Panhandler", which was pretty funny and, sadly, absolutely correct. I was a fucking leech!


Richmond 1987

Carrington and Kay were divorced a couple of years later. Kay kept the house and the children lived with her. The picture above of me and Hoon was taken in 1987 by Kay in her living room, shortly before I left for my 20th high school reunion in Alexandria.

Kay is one of the most wonderful, thoughtful, and generous people I've ever known. We remain good friends; when we talk on the phone she always asks about Hoon and my old girlfriend Kate.