Apple Valley Inn Lolo Sexual Peru

Deep Secret

There are always secrets. What did you think when you saw her? Knowing she had all the power of your world over you?

Every day I was obligated to drive to the Buffalo Trading Post to pick up Lolo, who was Newt Bass's sister-in-law. She ran the dress shop. Although she was at least 20 years older than me, she was beautiful and glamorous and rich and invited me once to take a trip alone with her to Peru. Machu Picchu. Just the two of us. I was never sure whether she meant it. I was flattered and I won't lie that the prospect took my breath away at the time.

Even though a mere lad I was smart enough to not allow myself to be embarrassed. I felt sure if I had reacted enthusiastically she would have had a good laugh on me. So I simply smiled every time she asked whether I had my passport. It was a daily game.

I was afraid of her confidence (and perhaps of her sexuality) and how she used it as a weapon. I was the bellman at the Apple Valley Inn when I was a mere innocent at age 18. I had no idea of women in that way. I had not known women and I was not at all eager at that time, strange as it may seem, to change that reality.

(Of course back then I had still the physique of the high school football player I was at the time.)

Still Lolo each day was a glorious temptation. I walked the grounds of the Apple Valley Inn and could not stop thinking about her and her offer of international travel for the hired hand. She had beautiful blue eyes and the understanding that she would always get what she wanted.

She's long dead I am sure, as is Bill Overbaugh and all of them. Bill loved her madly but he was old and she wanted someone young.

How she tortured William Overbaugh general manager of the Apple Valley Inn.

Bill at first hated me because he thought I was just another 18 year old punk. I don't blame him at all.

But his thing was jazz.

He was 1950s. He had a black Lincoln Continental with suicide doors. There is nothing before or since that has been more beautiful in Americana. America on wheels. John F. Kennedy.

It was the high point of post-WWII American culture and Bill Overbaugh knew it.

One day I took the leap and started talking to Mr. Overbaugh, the general manager of Apple Valley Inn, about jazz 1950s. I remember it clearly. We were walking together to inspect one of the cabanas where something had been reported. God knows what.

When I asked him about Charlie Parker and Wes Montgomery his eyes lit up. He had discounted me as a dumbshit, for which I never blamed him. I discounted myself as such.

But when he saw I knew jazz from his era he smiled. He gave me advice. He had a perm in his hair and I wondered whether he thought it made Lolo more attracted to him. It was none of my business. I was embarrassed that he was sexually attracted to Lolo, and the idea that she was playing with me to ruffle his perm hair and old face I found slightly nauseating. Yes I liked girls just fine. I was in love with all manner of silly little things. But this was something different. It was a sexuality I was not able to fathom. I was afraid of it and did not like it one bit.

William Overbaugh suffered at that time with bladder cancer. He knew he would probably die soon. He in at least his 60s was awkward around 18 year old me and I wonder now thinking back if he had any children. He lit up when I asked him about jazz guitar. He had one bit of advice to me, as he faced on one hand an excited fecundity with the very naughty Lolo and on the other hand the very real handshake of mortality with his demonic bladder. "If you don't want cancer never hold your piss at night."

……

The old bastard Newt Bass who made all the money in greasy oil had long been dead and Lolo’s sister remarried - still young and beautiful, but now rich - to someone we had no idea at the time. Yet we were required to smile from behind the front desk as the luminaries filtered in and out. Western Bar. One of the illustrious guests had dropped something and admonished us to help her find it. We were not technically required to help her but we felt a friendly obligation.

Then all of us hotel staff were looking on the floor of the lobby for some stupid earring dropped by someone we did not know, did not care about, and had no obligation to help.

Suddenly Lolo came through the lobby as we were stepping and fetching, going beyond our obligation, and with a laugh ejaculated to we mere workers:

“Ha ha are you looking for diamonds?”

I will never forget that. That feeling when your face turns red from the embarrassment of someone telling you are nothing at all. Inconsequential. Simply stooping in the hope that someone has dropped a diamond.

Machu Picchu you old bitch. There are no diamonds for you. Ashes to ashes.