Go-Nuts

My first couple of years in college were spent up in Boston, and while there, I had the pleasure of making Melissa's acquaintance. Although we went to the same school, we met over a dating site. We did dinner a couple of times, and she invited me up to her dorm room to watch A Clockwork Orange (nothing happened). Time passed, we fell out of touch, I transferred schools, and until the magic of Facebook, I never really thought much about her.

One day, thanks to that aforementioned magic of Facebook, a friend request arrived from her. I was happy to receive it. From what I remembered of her, we had always had a good time together, and I looked forward to the chance to reconnect.

Wouldn't you know it, she was working for a TV station not 20 miles away from where I lived! We made plans to meet for lunch on a Saturday.

Melissa showed up, looking great. The years had been very kind to her. She gave me a big hug and we had a great talk over lunch. So far, so good.

She did ask me a question, however, that at the time didn't come across as very queer: "Do you remember Isaac Morrow?"

Tried as I might, I couldn't recall anyone by that name. I asked Melissa, "Was he a mutual friend of ours? I honestly can't remember him."

"Never mind," she said, and I never-minded it.

Our talk turned to fond memories of places in Boston, including a coffee shop (now unfortunately closed) that made its own donuts. Ah, those were good, good donuts.

"Want to go to Boston?" she asked.

"What, like right now?"

"Yeah!"

From where we were, Boston was about a three-hour ride away. I didn't have any other plans for the day, and I definitely enjoyed the company.

So that's how I found myself in my car, with Melissa, heading up to Boston for donuts. She seemed to be mighty pleased, and the conversation went from testing-the-waters flirtation into straight out this-is-what-I-would-do-with-you-if-you-weren't-driving.

I needed gas, and so I pulled over in a small Connecticut town. Keeping with the day's spirit of spontaneity, Melissa suggested, "Let's drive down the road and see what we find."

Worked for me. After filling up, we drove down an overgrown set of local Connecticut roads and parked next to a grown-in field with an old-looking white silo.

"Let's go check it out," she said, and I was all in favor of that.

When we made it to the silo, though, something strange happened. She pointed to a spot on the ground, a patch of dirt not unlike most others, and sank to her knees. She said, "This is where he is... where he's buried..."

So much of our conversation had been jovial, I thought that she was setting me up for some sort of punchline. I smiled and asked, "What's buried here? My hunger for Boston donuts?"

She said, without looking at me, "No. No. Isaac Morrow."

Then she cried.

Huh. Well. Didn't quite know what to make of this. I put an arm around her and said something along the lines of, "It's okay, shh, it's all right," but I had no idea who Isaac Morrow was, what we were doing in the field, or why Melissa was acting this way. She couldn't have intended for us to end up at that precise spot, since although it was her idea to explore around the area, I was the one who decided where and when to stop for gas.

"Can you..." she choked, "Can you leave me alone for a bit?"

"Okay," I said, drawing away from her by a few steps.

"No," she gulped, "I mean maybe just leave me here. Take a drive and come back in, in like an hour?"

This was madness. "Melissa, what the hell is going on? Are you being serious right now?"

"Yes," she said, more than a few touches of annoyance in her voice, "Just leave me. You don't remember him, but I do. Just go. Go!"

I left. After driving around for about 15 minutes, I found a mom-and-pop coffee shop that had donuts. Guessing that we likely wouldn't make it up to Boston, I ate one and grabbed a few to go, to share with Melissa, whenever she was done, as I guessed that her excessive bullshitting would make her hungry.

I arrived back at the silo about an hour after I had left. She was lying on the ground with her eyes closed. The skin around them was bright red, as if she'd rubbed it to excess.

"Melissa?" I whispered.

She opened her eyes, rubbed them, looked at the patch of dirt on the ground once more, and said, "Okay. Okay." She nodded, then turned to me and said, "Let's go."

I said, "It's a little late to go up to Boston. It all right if we just head home?"

She nodded again, and we climbed into my car. When I showed her the donuts, she barely acknowledged them.

We hardly spoke, all the way back, and when I dropped her off at her place, I offered her the donuts one more time. She shook her head and left my car without a word.

I typically consider the burden of contact to be on the crazy one, so I didn't reach out to her after that, and I haven't heard from her from that day to this. As for her Facebook account, I ended up blocking it, because the whole situation just creeped me out a little too much.

Incidentally, I took the opportunity to look up "Isaac Morrow" as he may have ever related to me or anyplace that I ever went to school. I didn't find a trace of anyone by that name (which I changed for the purposes of this story).

Thanks for reading!


- JMG