Complaint Review: CLARENCE HULSEY LEWIS

Occasionally, there are people who will rock your world and rule your planet and become your universe...

I met this guy in Dallas, Texas in 1981 when I was working for Sentinel Security Services, Inc., a private security guard contracting company located in Farmers Branch, Texas in the Brookhaven Office Park which I have no idea if the office park is even still there.

It was at 2815 Valley View Lane, # 103; Dallas, Texas 75234.

For the first time in my life, I had a job that paid me a living wage and I worked very long hours and suddenly, there he was.

I am single and he is just getting out of a divorce to a lady and I believe they had three sons. They lived in Rowlett, Texas.  He was from Idabell, Oklahoma and I believe he was part Cherokee. He had been in the Marine Corps and served in Viet Nam and had stepped on a land mine and been slightly burned by some sort of chemical the military used there. Agent Orange, I don't know.

He was worldly, sophisticated to me and I went head over heels, crazy, crazy mad for him. He had  short blone hair, blue eyes, and had aviator frame glasses. It was also the first time I had fallen for anyone near my age.

He was the field supervisor for those of us troops in the field.

I was working a lot of hours, too many hours, trying to make money while I still had a job. In the uncertainties and economic insecurity of the Carter years, I learned to work hard and save money before the economy went bust and there was no work.

I didn't have much time for a social life or any experience in matters of the heart. No time to find anyone but he was there, he was charming, convenient and very handsome to me.

We spent a lot of time talking, sharing our hopes and dreams and he wanted to be a police officer but didn't see how that was going to be possible with the loss of one of his legs and complications that threatened the other one.

He smoked very nice pipe tobacco as well and I decided that with him by my side I could accomplish anything, climb any mountain and do anything in the world for him --nothing would be impossible, including law school or even police academy and I would be for him the cop that he could not be. .

There were a lot of really sappy love songs back in the 1980s with those  harsh electronic keyboards that I didn't like very much but I think about him sometimes on the rare occasions I hear those tunes from that era--sometimes in an elevator or Muzak--makes you realize how old you have become.

I was walking on air, until our operations manager called me into the office.

Seems that my hero and another field supervisor were vying for the attention of a tall, willowy woman with legs that would not stop and the other field supervisor had turned in my guy and gotten several female security officers, promising them overtime and good posts if  they would claim that my guy had sexually harassed them. so the farcical parade of jokers began.

Captain Lou was all harrumpty-harrumpty like retired Air Force sergeant majors are and he asked me if my guy had ever sexually propositioned me or asked me to perform any sex acts on the job.

"no sir, " I answered truthfully. " And I would consider myself extremely honored if he would."

In the end, he kept his job.

The owner of the security company's son, Mike, was a close friend of his and he ended up getting  planning the demise of the other supervisor who was a friend of Captain Lou's.

I was expecting the sun to stand still, fireworks, stars and moons and rainbows and sonic explosions but it was rushed and hurried instead...whe I finally got the nerve to tell him that he might be "The One."

That is when I found out that  he was two-timing me for a pre-med student's fiancee with short, frosted hair, named Mindy or Stacey who sported a rock on her engagement finger of at least 2 or 3 carats. She was younger, dumber than me and I wondered what she could do besides look good.

I felt like I was falling thrown off of a skyscraper when I got the news. Another friend who was a investigator with the same company showed me black and white contact sheets showing the couple together, smiling, sharing a romantic kiss outside of one of Dallas' best  restaurants --the Old Warsaw --and I was turning into a puddle of crap I was emotionally melting down so hard.

Nobody saw me cry. I made sure of that.

i just wondered what the h*ll this s***k had that I didn't.

I was still working seven days a week  14-16 hours a day so didn't have much time to think about what I let him do to me. After all, the country kicker/ redneck mentality is pretty close to machismo and we had plenty of that in my family so I didn't need it from him.

I moved out of my apartment and got another place in Garland with a police dispatcher, a corrections officer who was also an Army reservist,and his girlfriend a busty brunette who sang professionally.

I could not stop thinking about my guy who wasn't my guy anymore.

I had just come back from working a double shift on a December night in 1981.
The corrections officer told me that some guy had called and wanted to know if I was there and said he was going to be leaving Dallas, he was no longer working for Sentinel and probably going back to Oklahoma and wanted to know if I would go with him.

I would be willing to go  into the depths of h*ll for my guy!

I wanted to know if he had left a number but the corrections officer stated that he had seemed disappointed that a man answered the phone and hung up.

I called everyone who knew him to find out how to reach him and finally reached his friend Mike who told me that he didn't know how to tell me this but that my guy was shacked up with an airline stewardess at a house in Farmers Branch and they were probably going to be married and I needed to know.

He was out of my life from that moment on.

Some cop friends of mine found out where he was living but I never went by--stalking was beneath my dignity.

I still think about us responding to alarm calls in dangerous parts of town and patrolling buildings and sitting and watching the people who came to the bar in a certain high rise residential tower known to be frequented by rich johns, hookers and gamblers because we were the security in the building.

Not much to remember but I do think of what could have been and I later learned that he was a cad, a rounder, a womanizer who sometimes conned a lot of money out of lonely, insecure, romantically needy women.

He never got any money from me. He did get my heart.

I see in the Social Security Death Indices that a guy with his name  who was born in 1945 passed away in Arlington, Texas in 1993.

"Ain't it funny, how time slips away..."