Moving On, Part III
Chapter 14, "Stripes"
When Samantha came into the Forman's living room holding her suitcase, and announced that she and Hyde got married in Las Vegas, Hyde's jaw dropped open. He could only think, "What the #?" His brain froze from the shock. He thought he heard Jackie say something in the background.
Once he regained the ability to formulate thoughts, the following ran through his mind was "What? Wait. I got what? Shit! When did that happen? How? Why don't I remember this? Am I dreaming? I've done a lot of stupid things, but …. God, I wish Red were here to put his foot in my ass, and wake me up? This can't be real." He continued with this line of thought until Sam said, "Hyde, honey, are you alright?" She was about to sit next to him on the couch to hold his hand.
However, before she moved an inch, Kitty intervened between the two, helped Hyde to his feet, and guided him into the kitchen. She gave him a nice hot cup of tea, and asked him how he could get married . . .to a stri--…um, an exotic dancer, and not remember a thing about it.
"Why couldn't I have come back with something easy to take care of, like v.d.?" he wondered. At least his sense of humor was coming back..
To Mrs. Forman, he said, "Alcohol is so much more dangerous than wee…not going to sleep on time." Even though Red and Mrs. Forman knew that the gang got high almost daily, and the kids knew that Red and Kitty knew, they all liked to keep up the pretense that they didn't for the sake of denial. They did the same sort of thing when they joked about how Laurie was a whore, and Red and Kitty would pretend not to hear anything.
Hyde had a headache. He arrived home this morning thinking that, after a month away to regain his equilibrium, he was ready to pick things up again. It wasn't going to be so easy. Not only was Jackie not living in Chicago as he'd hoped. She'd moved back to Point Place, stirring up all the emotions he had run away to hide from. And he was married to a woman he didn't care about or even know. He didn't even know her last name. She had taken his. Could it get any worse?
Yes. It could. He found that Leo had let his store turn to pot, just about literally. Hyde with Kelso walked into an opium den filled with hippies smoking from a hookah and copulating all over the place. The store was a sty. His inventory, cash register, everything was gone. The whole place would have to be disinfected, re-stocked, re-staffed. His life was a nightmare that would not end. One good thing - Kelso was beginning to learn the calendar. He was able to connect a holiday, Roshashonah, with the correct month, September. "Well," Hyde said to himself, "if today does mark the start of a new year, as it does in the Jewish religion, this year was going to suck!" Hyde decided he'd take a page from the Chinese calendar and call the final months of 1979 the Year of the Ass.
He came home later, and told Sam the condition he'd found Grooves in. She then said, "Do you know what you did? You just told your wife about your day. That wasn't so bad, was it?"
He replied somewhat apathetically, "I guess it was okay."
Next, he was given an out. Red and Kitty told him that if this wasn't what he wanted, it wasn't too late to make a change. Sam chimed in, "Yeah if you don't want me here, Steven, I'll be on the next plane out." She sounded a little hurt.
Out of inertia, confusion, bewilderment, he didn't know what, he told her to stay.
Late into the night, he was alone in his room, thinking, "Do all women want to trap a man into marrying them? Oh, God! I'm going to have to have my balls chopped off, so she doesn't get pregnant and really nail my coffin shut! I almost wish I were Fez. He'd never be in this kind of Hell. Fez could count the number of women he's had on his thumb. Okay, so maybe I don't wish I were Fez. Shit!"
He'd have to put his life back together. He'd think about it tomorrow.