Author's disclaimer:   Reading this in its entirety for the first time I felt a little embarrassed by my maudlin tone when discussing Hayley 

 I considered doing some rewriting but upon reflection decided to own it,  after all the feeling was  authentic enough to me when I was immersed in recalling the scene,  who cares if I feel a bit uneasy about it in the light of day.

Hayley .... And Related Adventures

And now we come to Hayley.  Perhaps the most uncomplicated girl I have ever known,  with whom I had perhaps my most complicated  ever relationship.  I did not realize this until very recently,  about 50 years after we lived together.    I don't know why it took so long to come to this realization although I have long felt much regret that I behaved so badly and was so obtuse about things.   

The song is over

Excepting one note, pure and easy

Playing so free, like a breath rippling by

In the very late fall of 1972,  about eight months after my arriving at RAF Chicksands,  three single airman (Dave Black,  Paul Carter,  and myself) sort of inherited the lease on a three bedroom duplex English cottage a few miles from the base;  it was built in 1480 - believe it or not. 

The three of us were sick of living in the barracks and this place was a palace compared to other places our friends were renting.    It had two bedrooms on the second floor and one on the third floor - which was reached by a narrow winding staircase.   It was called Rose Cottage and was located in the small village of Gosmore,  near Hitchin in Hertfordshire;  complete with a pub,  red phone booth,  and picturesque village green.   There was even a lawn bowling club nearby.

Hertfordshire is an English county, which serves as the primary setting of Pride and Prejudice. It includes Longbourn village, Netherfield Park, the town of Meryton, and the Bennet estate. Jane Austen describes Meryton as “a small market town.” The Bennets' estate is in the Longbourn village.

All three of us worked a rotating shift schedule (four swings,  four mids,  four days,  then four days off).   There were four communication intercept units - called flights - which rotated coverage.  One flight was always on duty and they combined to give 24-7 coverage.   The flights were designated  Able,  Baker,  Charlie,  and Dog.  Paul and I were on Baker Flight,  Dave was on Dog Flight. 

Three other airmen had been renting the cottage and when they headed back to the world we replaced them.  Mike Raye was one of the previous renters and I recall that he had just rotated home to California and Castle Air Force Base.   I suspect that I was the driving force behind our action because at that point I still had two years remaining on my assignment.  Dave and Paul had less than a year remaining so my long-range plan would have been to find replacements when they left.   

Of course at the time I was not putting a lot of effort into thinking long-term,  rather I was impulsively grabbing at anything that would distract me from the suffocating depression of working a job with which I had huge ethical issues for a group of people I detested.   And from which it appeared there would be no early escape.    I was reduced to marking time like a well-adjusted prison inmate.    Which was pretty astonishing given that otherwise I really enjoyed being stationed in England and generally even liked the Air Force.    But I was just 22 and the two remaining years I was facing loomed before me like an eternity. 

My post-Hayley 190 SL parked across the street from the cottage with the village green in the background - late 1973.

So the three of us moved in and within days Paul was busted on a DWI charge driving from the base to the cottage.   Which meant that he would have to move back on base and we would have to get a replacement housemate.    I had no likely prospects,   Dave proposed a WAF (Women's Air Force) named Hayley and invited her to see the cottage and meet me.    She worked a regular day shift job as an operator in the main comm center.  Anyone with such a job was called a Day Lady - in her case that was literally true.   In 1972 WAF's constituted less than 5% of the base's military personnel as they were excluded from jobs in operations and were only eligible to serve in support positions.  

Hayley was near perfect physically but was transparently lacking in confidence,  which in my opinion worked to her advantage as it enhanced her waif-like  delicate look.   

Hayley had no obvious irritating qualities and it seemed like having all three of us on different work schedules could work to our advantage as none of us were bullying aggressive types and therefore inconsiderate behavior was likely to be at a minimum.    So she moved in.  Dave and I had barely established ourselves in the house when she came so it was not like she was starting at a disadvantage.  Then out of the blue her boyfriend from her last assignment (Andrews AFB) arrived for an extended visit.   He lived with us for about two weeks with no real issues.  When he went home that was the last I heard about him and I think Hayley simply dumped him as he was no longer of any use to her.    This was 1973 and the sixties and seventies sexual revolution of free love was in full force. 

Hayley's MO soon became clear.  She was not trying to find someone to marry or even someone with whom to have a serious romance.  She was open to sex but did not seem to particularly enjoy it or to have any kinky compulsions about it,  in our humble friends with benefits assessment. 

She did not want daily bed hopping,  if she slept with a guy it was part of a relationship of some duration.  My impression in retrospect was that she just wanted someone to do things with,  who could provide companionship and function as a protective screen until she got her discharge and went home.  Most likely she used the sex as a way to keep a guy interested but never seemed to connect with them,  then when a guy fell in love with her and things started to get complicated (as tended to happen with young airmen who were away from home for the first time) she would ease out of the relationship leaving a broken guy to put his life back together.   She was not the slightest bit cruel but like a lot of very attractive young women she was irresponsible.  

She was not a true social butterfly but as such a scarce commodity it was feasible for her to break it off with someone and be deeply involved with  a relative stranger a few hours later.    And it was largely a random process,  she could have her pick of several hundred lonely guys and the choice seemed more a matter of convenience than anything else.  But she was not trying to get guys to spend a lot of money on her and I think if someone she was involved with had gotten into some kind of non-lovesick bind that she would have helped him out.   And she never bad-mouthed any of her boyfriends or ex-boyfriends.

I felt that she was too indiscriminate about the guys she selected,  she had reasonably concluded that  she could get what she needed out of a sad sack and do so with less complications.   They were largely a tedious bunch.  Although we were the same age I had several "big brother" talks with her about how fragile these guys were,   that they were stuck overseas as single airmen and had no defenses against her and no likely candidates to replace her.  That there was a huge power disparity.   And they frequently game to me after being dumped for help in understanding what had just happened to them.  

We also had at least one long discussion about her being so naturally disarming in manner and looks,  something I don't think anyone had ever discussed with her,  and how that was causing these guys to let down their guards and then get hurt.   She did not even know what a femme fatale was but she was the most innately skilled one I have ever met.   Her last guy before she left Chicksands was older,  his wife had already gone back to the States and he only had a few weeks left on the base.  Perhaps  I had gotten through to her.

I can't claim an especially large sample size but during my three years in England I never knew a WAF who got romantically involved with a bloke (England civilian).   Given that these girls were all baby boomers who had grown up in the era of the Beatles/British Invasion,  it is curious that at least some of them had not come to the country fixated on British manhood and aspiring to be groupies hanging out at the Rainbow Theater.    

There was a bit of "friends with benefits" action between Hayley and her two housemates but neither Dave nor I became one of her sustained romantic interests.   I think we both intimidated her intellectually,  Dave was always telling her how smart I was and I was saying much the same things about him - she believed this bullshit and felt at a disadvantage although she was no mental lightweight - just a little unsophisticated.  And Dave had nicknamed her "Zero"  which she hated and which did nothing to improve her confidence.   And I feel so much affection for her every time I read that last sentence.

As Hayley and I got more comfortable with each other and I was switched over to day shift,   we routinely hung out together at the house.  When she was bored with whatever guy she had in her thrall at the moment,  or she was in between guys,  she and I would go to London or out to dinner.   

Of course I was young and stupid.  It would take almost fifty years for me to realize that without either of us willing it,  our relationship had subtly transitioned to a new level and we were seeing  each other in an entirely different way - or maybe that was just me.   Spending a lot time alone with her she had begun triggering mental hot buttons I didn't even know that I had.  

Then one night as we were driving back from dinner she told me that she needed a friend more than a boyfriend.   I was driving and not looking at her.   I took it as a rejection and was mildly hurt and disappointed - even though I had already concluded that going forward we needed to keep our hands off each other.  I deliberately did not take my eyes off the road.  I now think she had sensed the transition as well,  and sincerely wanted me to be her friend.   But I was still too  caught up in my hurt pride to think through what she was actually saying,  that with me as a friend to do things with she could end her run of transactional relationships.    Which would have been fine with me - but I was just too focused on the rejection to pay attention.  

Our attraction had been simmering unacknowledged for a while.  It was extremely difficult for me juggling two often contradictory perspectives,  a case study in ambivalence that had me feeling ashamed of becoming turned on.   I'm not sure when it occurred in the timeline but I do recall being at a party with a lot of girls,  looking over at Hayley and thinking to myself: 

 "who are you kidding - she interests you far more than any of the rest of them".

 Unlike most of my romantic relationships over the years,  I think Hayley admired and really cared about me,  that she was not faking it.  So I threw away a friendship that would have been beneficial to both of us and maybe I threw away much more than that.   I suppose the "need a friend" statement sounded too much like a standard brush off line.    In the ultimate do-over,  colored by 47 years of nostalgia and maybe even some wisdom;  I should have pulled over into the next parking lot.  Then looked at Holly and said something to the effect that "I give thanks each day to the improbable set of circumstances that have allowed us to get to know each other so well,  because we are so different that we would never have deliberately connected so closely".    That wherever she wants to go with this I am on board for the remaining time we have together on the base.   

It's probably not good to think about this kind of stuff too much.

This was the point in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" film where Paul gives Holly the pretend engagement ring from the Cracker Jack box and they take it to Tiffany's to have their initials engraved on it.   Although it is exactly the sort of thing I can see Hayley and I doing,   in real life there was no pretend romance for us;   instead a couple weeks later I  found myself once again reluctantly consoling one of Hayley's forlorn abandoned boyfriends. 

 And at least in part because of my not understanding what she had tried to say that night in the car,  the next time I saw her I asked her to move out.  She started to cry,  more accurately she started trying not to cry which is much worse.   And I knew instantly that if she even mildly protested I would suggest that I move out instead.   But even then if it was to be more of the same I don't think that I would have agreed to both of us staying.   And I really don't think that she held it against me.    Of course I held it against me because  we both  knew that it was to at least some extent motivated by jealousy .   So for some time I felt like a complete jerk.   My motorcycle accident happened a couple weeks after she had moved out - I suspect that self-destructive feelings of guilt had led to some aggressive driving and risk taking and it finally caught up with me.    Like I said earlier,  femme fatale.

And then she visited me in the hospital.  Now why did she have to go and do that?

In 1973 Dave was convinced that neither of us would have dated her in civilian life,  but just last year he was talking wistfully about Hayley.   So clearly she had made a lasting positive impression on both of us.

In 2021 Dave had this to say:  She was from Texas. She graduated from high school there. She was younger than us.  I think she was less than 20 when I first met her.  She worked in communications.  She wore Coke bottle glasses and was truly blind without them. She was very funny and a great friend.

I’ve tried to find her a couple times with no luck. 

She loved the UK.  She was a natural  hippy.

Since this has been a story about Hayley,   who improbably is  the closest thing I've ever had to a sister - just in case you haven't figured that out already - although the sister/brother dynamic might have eventually transitioned to romantic love as it did in the film -  I have filtered out some other major events taking place in my life during this time.  But the final incident with Hayley was only one of a number of reckless and desperate actions I took over a 50-day period from late April to mid-June of that year,  culminating in my waking up one  sunny morning in Lister Hospital in Stevenage - 29 miles north of London.  Sedated into a gauzy haze,  I settled back  to an immediate future in which I would be taking no more rash actions,  surrendering control of my life to  more responsible people who I hoped could  eventually patch me back together.  

More of this drama than the accident itself was motorcycle related and began in a parking lot on base where Harley-Davidson had set up a mobile sales exhibit for their bikes.  They had the latest Sportster on  a display trailer and the idea was that soon to be discharged servicemen loaded with cash would purchase a Harley in the UK and then  take delivery  weeks later at a dealership in their home town.  Seeking distractions that would keep me from doing something drastic on my job I discussed my options with the salesman.  They could not sell me one for delivery in the UK,  but there was nothing to stop me from picking it up back home and shipping it to England. 

So with visions of sweeping through the English countryside on what promised to be the ultimate chick magnet (an expression not yet in use in 1973),  something that would provide enough distractions to get me through at least another six months of working in operations,   I ordered one for an April delivery back home in Ohio.   And I rode my Triumph Tiger 650 to Coventry where it was crated and shipped to Ohio.    And I took leave and flew back home.   The bike was only a year old and I sold it to a young woman living near my parents who came by with her cop boyfriend - my mother was flabbergasted.  Back in those days you ran an ad in the paper and prospective buyers came by for a test drive.  

With Harley contract in hand I then headed to the local dealership.  I could barely contain my excitement.    At that point the wheels fell off my plan,  the dealer said my bike had arrived stripped of several parts - although not literally of its wheels.   I learned that parts were scarce as were bikes and with my rapidly closing window of opportunity (my leave was a few days from ending) I would not have time to wait around.   Which the dealership did not encourage - I later found out that they had a waiting list and could make a lot more selling it to someone on the list - and that the missing parts claim was likely complete BS.  In all fairness,  the original idea of trying to break in a new and at that time notoriously unreliable AMF Harley-Davidson in a country with only one factory authorized dealer was just asking for trouble.  

So I found myself on a long transatlantic flight back to Chicksands,  to what promised to be a bleak future,  and without having either motorcycle available for distraction and de-stressing .   On the plane ride I concluded that I simply could not return to operations,  fifteen months unwillingly doing that work was enough.   I was too close to impulsively refusing to do a mission essential task which would have been the worst possible way to approach this thing.   To insure that did not happen I needed to make enough trouble before reporting to work to get reassigned or discharged.   The most direct and least dramatic way to do this was to simply refuse to pick up the access badge I had surrendered when I debriefed to go  on overseas leave,  this would also distance me from the immediate authority of any operations people.   Since my reason for doing this tied directly to the questionable legality of our mission I was counting on this not being the sort of thing they would want to become the subject of a general court martial.    Yet somehow that rationale became less and less reassuring as the clock ticked toward the 4PM start of work.  

There was so much risk and uncertainty involved in this that deep down I did not believe I would actually go through with this plan until I was inside the orderly room and standing in front of the acting squadron commander.  I say acting squadron commander because Captain Johnson was away on leave and a Captain from supply was covering for him.  Which was unexpected and unfortunate because Captain Johnson would at least have been a friendly face.   It is likely that I would have abandoned my plan had I known this in advance but once things got rolling I kept moving forward out of pure inertia.   Finding himself out of his depth,  the acting squadron commander eventually called the base legal office and was told to send me to them.  Working with them and an ACLU attorney I knew in Cambridge over the next few days I filed formal papers detailing the reasons for my actions.

Without going into great detail I then found myself working in the produce section of the base commissary while they figured out what to do with me.    This was all pretty low key,  the Security Police did not have to go out to our cottage and escort me back to base,  I was not confined to quarters.   There were a few other former operations guys working in the commissary at that time,   all had been busted by the British Police for drug possession and lost their clearances.   It was a different world down there,  a modified day shift with early evening spent hauling boxes from the warehouse and restocking the shelves.   All done efficiently under minimal supervision.   I even got to know a former Luftwaffe pilot who had been shot down during the war and afterward stayed in England in the produce business.  And I ended up buying a BSA Lightning 650 from a shop in Luton - my only justification for this was that the British tax was already paid so I could sell it when necessary on the local economy - I did not have to export it.

 Since my reassignment I was no longer depressed,  so that diagnosis was not relevant.   By all rights I should have been experiencing high anxiety over my future, but as an indication of just how bad it had been for me in operations I was finding it hard to feel anything but relief.  After a few weeks I was sent up to RAF Alconbury for a driver's training course,  upon completion I was given a government vehicle driver's license.  This was encouraging because the drug guys were not being sent to that sort of course.    The personnel section said I was going to become a heavy equipment operator.    

Then Hayley moved out,  I found a non-drug guy at the commissary to replace her,  and I tried to destroy myself on my new motorcycle - or maybe not and certainly not consciously - both insurance companies found the driver I hit at fault.    Never before or since have I had a 50 day period that even approached this one.

• It is worth noting that at the conclusion of my time with the Acting Squadron Commander he ventured the opinion that he considered me quite sane because he knew what we were doing in operations and the conditions under which we were doing it,  and that only someone who was insane would choose to work there.    When I incredulously responded:  "Then I am literally coming up against Catch-22?",   he told me that I could catch anything I wanted.  

It is also worth noting that roughly a year later the Catch-22 captain,  his wife,  and I found ourselves standing together beside our just arrived  plane at the Athens airport,  watching our luggage being unloaded.  We had ended up in the same small package tour group of Greece.  I was on leave from my new job in the "squadron orderly room" of all places,  where I was Captain Johnson's NCO in Charge of Disciplinary Actions.   Go figure!

And a few weeks after the accident the UK Harley-Davidson people tracked me down in the hospital and offered to sell me the display model on their trailer.  

It wasn't until I wrote this memoir that I put together how much our relationship resembled both the film and the book versions of Breakfast at Tiffany's.  So if you have a difficult time suspending disbelief when watching that film I can tell you that the relationship between Holly and Paul (the two main characters) is not as unlikely as it might seem.

There was once a lovely, frightened girl. She lived alone, except for a nameless cat.

If you haven't seen it and want a condensed watch check out this U-Tube reaction video.