45 - what i never wanted

When a gent sees the spirit and not the eyes or the tits, then a gent is in trouble…. They say men fall three times. The first is calf love. The second is the one you marry. And the third,… the third is your deathbed bride. You sniff her, you sniff your own shroud.

      —Jane, the moll-sack, to The Libertine

~~~

A little before 5, kissed her on the cheek and whispered, “I love you.” Half asleep, she reached up, touched my cheek, then turned and disappeared under the covers.

Drove to the Starbuck’s on Villa La Jolla, parked the car and instead of heading over to the café, sat and watched, as I often do. Rolled down the window to listen. It’s still dark, and like every morning at Trader Joe’s, an 18-wheeler is parked out front, engine idling, and the unloading has commenced. They’ve got a boom box set up, and they’re hard at it, pop music and the whirring sound of the walking forklift, up and down, back and forth, full pallets dispensed to the front of the store, comrades inside stocking the shelves, organization and clean up outside, over and over, and over again, then yesterday’s empty crates and pallets back on the truck, the boom box taken inside, and as the 18-wheeler pulls away, the engine’s sound fading into the distance, always, a kind of coda to the beginning, a woman comes out to arrange the flowers and plants, like someone tending to their garden, ever so meticulous. And it’s this moment that always gets to me, so entrancing it is, the perfect human gesture, more often than not the gesture of a woman seeking to provide color and warmth, an accent to the daily round, wanting us to remember, to pause, to see, hear, feel, and before she heads back inside, she turns and smiles, an acknowledgement, an understanding that there will be chaos and ruin before too long, the stream of humanity will come flowing in, and that’s life, that’s how it is,… isn’t it grand.

~~~  

Nestling into my spot at the end of the bench where in two hours time the café will be in full-throttle. Earbuds in, The Libertine film score queued up, pressing play, the first, History of the Insipid begins, and those in the café, the shuffling in of the homeless man with his travel case and his sugar cookies from Ralph's, everything and everyone, sight and sound, go out of purview, inward I go, enrapt, rendered still, a mind searching, and I never quite know what will happen, am at the mercy of,… and this morning memories come rushing in, details, and it's always, "Is that really what happened?" and they're never perfect or precise, but they're there, and the first to show up, Angela Anderson, and it’s just brutal to remember her, to think of it, but still, a joy.

She was 16 and I was 19. We belonged to companion organizations, one for girls, one for boys, and we had this big convention in Santa Maria. It was full-on first sight, lots of looking, staring, smiling, waiting, couldn’t take our eyes off each other. It took me forever to screw up the courage, and finally, when I went over and asked, well, that was that. I danced with no other that night. And we talked, and talked, and talked, and we were just head over heels, not cliché but real, head over fucking heels, and I remember the next morning, meeting her mother, they were traveling back to Cottonwood, near Redding, north of Sacramento. Her mom could see it, the way we were with each other, lingering, not wanting to part, and she says, “C’mon you two.” So awkward, no hugs, no kisses on the cheek, just an “okay then,” and she gets into the backseat of their four-door sedan, and she turns facing the window, and as they drove out of the parking lot, she waves, then presses her hand against the glass, and I'm standing there, waving back, sad, so sad.

It’s 1972. No cell phones, no email, calling someone was a very big deal; it was long distance. We wrote letters, lots of letters. We arranged to spend a weekend in Cottonwood. They have this quarter acre in the California heartland and I was to drive up on a Saturday morning, and her parents agreed to let me stay over in the cottage out back. It was her brother’s room, and he now, like so many, was in Vietnam, on a tour of duty.

That memorable weekend would begin with a stroll on Shasta Dam Blvd, along the rim/edge of the mighty reservoir, so electrifying to see the powerful whirlpool where the water swirled to its exit on the other side. Then later, in downtown Shasta Lake, another stroll, on Main Street, so exhilarating to hold her hand, to think of nothing else, just the two of us, gaga and innocent. And dinnertime, a home-cooked meal, spaghetti and meatballs, and the third degree by her dad, he was wanting to know who the hell I was, what my intentions were, and I was all stable and upright, told him I was wanting to follow in my father's footsteps, to go into business with him, that I had tried college but it wasn't for me. He seemed to sympathize and I got a sense that he liked me, that he was at ease. And the denouement, after her parents had gone to bed, we're on the couch watching television, and we're in the teen talk, and Saturday Night Live is on, and we're just cracking up, having fun, and of course one thing leads to the next, and we end up making out, it’s hot and heavy… and lo and behold her mom comes out, probably had never gone to sleep, and she says, "Max you need to go to the cottage! Angela you need to go to your room!" I liked her mom, a sweet and warm human being, a gentle soul. “Yes Maam!”

~~~

The glow of that romantic weekend ended abruptly. In short order I got my letter from President Nixon, "Greetings…" I was drafted. Everything changed. Went into a kind of no-man's land. Limbo. Reeling. Had I not gotten drafted I'm convinced Angela and I would have married, would have had a brood of kids and I’d probably still be in the plastering business. I would have never gone back to college. When I got the draft notice I freaked, wrote these despairing letters, suggested we should break it off, that with my luck I’d be one of the last to be killed at war’s end, or worse, come back fucked up and a mess. Blah. Blah. Blah. She was a fighter, said we could work it out, pleaded, said she could wait. But I won the battle and that was that, except, well, two years later, 1974. I’m a lonely G.I. living in Manitou Springs, stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado, working in the 4th Military Intelligence Company, paid to live off post, kind of like a regular job, driving in at 8, leaving at 5. I’ve got a little less than a year left on my time in service, and I write her. She’s in a relationship, yet she doesn't hesitate, she responds immediately. A few letters pass between us, and then, oh so incredible, she just comes out with it, she's prepared to dump him to be with me. She came on strong and wrote of coming to Colorado. She had called my bluff. She had made the memories and the "love at first sight" connection a foundation, barriers and challenges be damned. Whatever it takes. So so young, yet wise, she understood love, she was brave and fearless.

And me? Well, more than insensitive to write her the way I did, all lonely and in need of affection. I hadn't expected her to come on so strong, was simply wanting to remember what it was like, to feel what I had once felt. I got cold feet, told her she shouldn't do anything rash, that her coming to Colorado was not a good idea.

I never heard from her again.

~~~

After work, driving home, got to thinking about the life I’ve lived, what I never wanted, what I’ve never desired or attempted to conjure. Never really had a dream or imagined succeeding in a particular trade or profession. Never wanted a family or kids. The thought of following the Old Man into business was go-along thinking. I am without ambition, I have no competitive drive, no desire to please or obtain approval from those close in, and most everything that has happened, most all who’ve come into my life, all that I’ve created and produced, have come as a matter of course, a Millerian adventitiousness, always a waylaying, life simply an unpredictable and unruly collection of moments.

We’re sitting on the veranda, she’s sipping a pina colada, and I’ve got my classic Shirley working, and we get to talking about it, about goals, about ambition, about dreams and straight line living where early on you know where you want to go and you get yourself there, and she says, “Hold on…” and she queues up DJ Spindler mixing with Deniz Kurtel, and it’s an affecting rhythm, just underneath our conversation, and right off, these words:

“Your love is true and unconventional.  Only your love can ease my mind. Feel the love."

And she remembers how she got here, a kind of tacking, a ship at sea against the wind, her mom’s move to Baton Rouge, her father’s disappearance, how her mother’s cancer and death led her into nursing, a job in California, and she offers up a different take, says that I’m not without goals, says I do have ambition, that the dream’s ongoing, that who you are, who you love and what you end up doing is all of a piece, that sometimes one’s ambition, purpose and goals are not thought of beforehand but made real in the day-to-day, and she asks if I’ve ever read, Wherever You Go, There You Are, and I have, and she goes off, points to my own arguments in this regard, and dang, I smile, in my mind thinking, “Who the fuck are you?," poet, nurse, future physician and now philosopher. And DJ Spindler’s mix comes round, on queue, yep, all of a piece:  

“I’d like to turn the whole world on, just for a moment…”