Ron Goulart - Why I Never Went Steady With Heather Moon

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RON GOULART

WHY I NEVER WENT STEADY WITH HEATHER MOON

It was about the time that the third large fire-spitting demon came spilling out

of the bathtub that I decided to capitulate. Dodging the scaly green creature's

sticky coiling tentacles, and making a rush past the second demon, who was

crouched on the toilet seat and bellowing out noise and sooty yellow smoke, I

dashed into the small living room of my apartment.

My neighbor on the left was pounding on the wall with the ferrule of his cane.

"Do you know what time it is, young man?"

"Midnight?" I guessed.

These particular supernatural manifestations usually showed up some time around

the witching hour.

The initial demon, who was covered with blood-splattered feathers and seemed to

have several toothy mouths, was now crouched on the sofa and eating one of the

faded cushions.

"C'mon, don't do that. I'm having a hell of a time explaining all this stuff to

the landlord as it is."

The demon wolfed down the entire cushion, then made a nasty roaring sound.

My neighbor on the other side smacked the wall with a rolled up magazine. "Turn

down that TV show, Harkins."

"In a minute. Sorry."

I made a shushing gesture at the demon and pointed at the phone. "You guys win.

I'm calling him now."

The feathery demon snatched a coaster off my lopsided coffee table and ate that.

Taking up the phone, very gingerly since it was resting on the far end of the

same coffee table, I dialed the number of Professor Matthew Krouch.

The telephone rang five times before he, feigning a drowsy voice, answered,

"Krouch here."

"Skip the acting, professor," I said, keeping an eye on the nearest demon. The

other two had, as far as I could determine, remained in the john. "This is Will

Harkins."

"Who? Calling me at such an ungodly hour is --"

"I give up. I quit. I concede," I informed him, sadness, weariness and quite a

bit of anger sounding in my voice. "She's all yours."

"Whatever are you babbling about, Harkins?"

"About Sue Smith," I told him. "I'll stop dating her. She's yours exclusively."

"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Is this some undergraduate

prank, my boy?"

"Just call them off- the demons and all the other crap."

"Whatever drug you're on, Harkins, I suggest you make a serious effort to sober

up." He slammed down the phone.

The demon on the sofa gave off a faint popping sound before vanishing.

I moved, very carefully, to the bathroom and chanced a look. I was pretty sure

those other two would be gone as well and they were. Although the fuzzy pink

cover on the toilet seat had a burned spot where the demon had been perched.

I was free, yet far from happy. I had, out of fear and cowardice, just given up

the only woman I'd ever truly loved so far in my life.

This was some years back, I was not quite twenty-one, and the idea of losing Sue

Smith for good and all seemed enormously important to me.

The next day, an autumn Wednesday, while completely free of demons and other

chilling supernatural manifestations, was not especially happy for me. For one

thing, because of the psychic occurrences of the night before, I hadn't been

able to study for the quiz in Political Theory 22A and my paper on "Tap-dancing

in the Movies" for Pop Culture 1 lB came in at just over a page and a half. A

good three and a half short of the minimum length. Worst of all I had to phone

Sue at the Gamma Epsilon sorority house and tell her I'd decided to devote

myself to my studies and couldn't see her anymore. She cried, which almost

tempted me to go on defying Professor Krouch and his black magic. But I already

knew it would be impossible to go on dating her and so I didn't weaken. I was,

however, sniffling slightly when I stepped out of the phone booth in Wally's

Pub.

I'd postponed phoning until nearly five in the afternoon. So I was able to walk

directly from the phone to a table at the far side of the sawdusted floor and

join Nat Weinbaum.

At the time -- this was my senior year at Brimstone University in Brimstone,

Connecticut -- Nat was, even though we weren't in the same fraternity, my

closest friend. And he knew quite a bit about what I'd been suffering through

the past two weeks.

He wasn't at all sympathetic, though. "You're a shmuck," he observed after I'd

outlined what I'd done.

"For giving up Sue? It is a hell of a sacrifice, yeah, but --"

"No, she's a typical whey-faced adolescent with a brain the size of a prune

pit." Nat picked up his beer glass. "Sue you're well rid of. What I meant was

--"

"Wait now, Nat. My relationship with Sue was something special that-"

"Not all that special. You're the third guy she's gone with this semester and

it's only October."

"Look, that's because Krouch --"

"The reason you're a shmuck, Will, is that you gave in to him. Now the

bastard'll send critters after you every time he --"

"Nope, it had to do with Sue entirely," I said. "He made that clear when he

called me into his office at the start of all this."

"There's another thing to contemplate, old buddy. Why, if you two were such an

exceptional team, has Sue also been seeing an aging prof of English ?"

"I've already explained that to you."

"No, you simply recited her feeble excuse for --"

"She's majoring in English and -- well, Krouch implied that if she didn't date

him fairly regularly, she'd find that her grades and her --"

"A word to the dean on her part would halt that."

"Nobody'd believe the guy is practicing sorcery just on her word. I didn't

believe it myself when he told me he didn't want anybody else dating her," I

said. "Besides, Nat, she's afraid to make a fuss. That's why she keeps going out

with him."

"Myself, I'd be extremely ticked off if Bey dated one of her professors."

"Few rational people, in my opinion, would risk all the grief and loss of self

esteem that's involved in dating your girl. Even a fire-breathing demon would

think twice before --"

"Did Krouch send more of those after you?"

I held up some fingers. "Three last night."

"That's four."

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