Friday, January 28, 2005
Susan
mo-ment
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin momentum movement, particle sufficient to turn the scales, moment, from movEre to move
1 a : a minute portion or point of time : INSTANT b : a comparatively brief period of time
2 a : present time b : a time of excellence or conspicuousness
3 : importance in influence or effect
4 : places in your memory where you can make an X mark, saying "You were here."
I wonder how long it really takes a person to make a lasting change in themselves.
Of course, events outside of us can change us as rapidly as a hammer does a piece of glass, and that isn't what I'm talking about here. No, I'm thinking of those instants we can call to mind where our stream of thought changed, and we came out the other side of that instant forever different.
Is it really that sudden? Or is it just the breaking out of the chrysalis, a freeing of something that has been in our subconscious for a long time?
And once turned, once our direction has changed, it can take a while for the rest of us to follow, just like a dog on a slippery floor.
The floors in Dino's that night were sticky, not slippery. They were always sticky, with the cloying layer of spilled and evaporated beer piled up for years. That didn't stop anyone from dancing though.
And there was this one girl, just awesome. Hot with a capital "H". Blonde, killer body that could just make men weep, and she was wearing a way-too-tight silk shirt and boot leg jeans that looked like they were painted on her.
She had been on the dance floor for some time, trying to clog but mostly just careening back and forth. Her drunk level was maybe an eight out of ten; another beer or two and she wouldn't even be careening any more.
Her date finally got completely fed up with her and left. I saw my chance and moved in like a car grabbing the last parking space in the whole world.
Her name was Susan. She was, I believe, a secretary. She was a couple of years older than me...like that mattered at all, especially right then. I was in full predator mode.
It felt good, it had been a while.
Eventually, like all nightclubs in Southern towns on a Saturday night, Dino's closed. Last call was announced, we all drank our last beers, and people started heading for the door.
"Can you give me a ride home?" Susan said.
"Of course. Do you live alone?"
"No, I live with my parents."
I hadn't considered that. My dorm room wasn't going to work either. We got into my car and in about two seconds we were making out.
Five minutes or so later, we came up for air. "I have a friend," she said. "She's having a party tonight. Let's go there."
"Just tell me where," I said.
We headed into a part of Greenville that I had never been to before, a part that seemed filled with apartment buildings. She gave me directions as we went.
"OK, stop here, park right there," she said. I went around quickly and opened her door for her. She really liked that. You could tell that the guys she normally went out with didn't do that.
It's the little things. I always paid attention to them, they made the game so much better if it was done right.
She dragged my hand firmly and pretty much dragged me down the sidewalk to her friends apartment, smiling the whole way like a kid that was about to get some candy.
I began to wonder if I wasn't the only predator out that night. Then, one look at her, and I didn't care. Catch me, eat me, I'm the best there is.
The door to the apartment opened, and it was filled from wall to wall with people all talking at the top of their lungs, like people do at parties like that one. Everybody had a drink, and I wanted one too, but Susan never lost her momentum and we plunged into the crowd.
She stopped and said something to a girl, who pointed to a door on the far side of the room.
"Come on," Susan said. I followed.
The door led to a bedroom with a big king size bed in the middle of it. Susan closed the door and locked it.
We were on the bed in a heartbeat.
'Yes!' I was thinking.
She started peeling off her clothes as quick as she could grab them, almost in a frenzy. Not wanting her to feel out of place, I did the same.
Then, and this is where the Moment comes in, she lay there, blonde hair spilling over the pillow, legs from here to next year, wondrous, an incredible creature, everything a man could have dreamed of, and said something I will never forget until I die.
"Is...is this what you really want?"
No one had ever, ever asked me that before. Especially at that moment.
And, since when did what I wanted make a hill of beans of difference?
What did I want? I mean, really?
I looked her right in the eyes, and as God is my witness, I said "No, it isn't."
She smiled, and it seemed like she teared up a bit.
I helped her get dressed, and dressed myself too. We headed out to my car and sat and talked until the sun came up. I couldn't tell you what we talked about, but somehow it was more intimate than any physical contact I had ever experienced.
She was somehow vindicated, I think, by the fact that at least one person did not see her as just a piece of meat in a market. And I was amazed at myself that I had the reaction I did.
At that moment I realized that I needed something deeper than just the fly by night encounters I had for so long. That there was more to life than just taking advantage of people, than tricking people, than preying on people.
And, what I really, really wanted was to find that something.
Susan and I went out a couple of times, then she met a local guy that seemed really nice and treated her well. I was glad for her.
But, inside I had this hole that I hadn't realized I had before. Or, maybe, it was an old wound re-opened.
Yes, that was it.
I was lonely. Plain and simple.
And casing the bars wasn't going to fix it either. No, I needed something more permanent than I could find there. Some one more permanent.
Just a couple of weeks later, I suddenly thought I had found her. And I am sure that she curses that day as the most ill fated day of her life, and she would be right.
How helpless we are, like netted birds, when we are caught by desire!
--Belva Plain
Permalink: 1/28/2005 08:36:00 PM |
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Dino's
li-ba-tion
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin libation-, libatio, from libare to pour as an offering; akin to Greek leibein to pour
1 a : an act of pouring a liquid as a sacrifice (as to a deity) b : a liquid (as wine) used in a libation
2 a : an act or instance of drinking often ceremoniously b : BEVERAGE; especially : a drink containing alcohol
3 : something I used to participate in, to great excess
Have you ever noticed that when you ask directions, people give you an insight into themselves?
For example, I used to work with a woman who was quite overweight and really enjoyed eating out. Her directions would be something like "Go down 1st street until you come to the red light just past McDonalds, then turn left until you get to Friday's, then turn right and look for a Chinese restaurant on the right..." and so forth.
On the other hand, a businessman might say, for the same directions, "Go to the corner of 1st and Main, and turn left by the Bank of America. Keep going until you come to Harvard Realty..." and so on.
And a trucker, he is likely to give you highway numbers and major route names.
Our memories are stored the same way, I think. When I think back to times long past, I find that my memory is very selective.
I can't tell you a single team that won the Superbowl in the eighties, but I can recite songs I wrote or sang in the late seventies.
I have great problems remembering people I went to high school with, unless they were people that I dated or were very close friends. Same goes for college. Now, my father (who still lives in that town) not only seems to remember all four thousand people I went to school with, but their entire family trees. Oh, he sold insurance.
I can't tell you but maybe one or two classes I took in my sophomore year of college, but I can tell you what my favorite beer was and what bottles were in my liquor cabinet that year.
So, I guess, to me the important things at that time were wine, women and song. And not necessarily in that order.
One of the best places I knew of to get all of those was a bluegrass bar in Greenville named Dino's. In late 1979 they were in their heyday, and would be full almost every night. A lot of nights I would contribute to that.
They had an awesome house band named the "Stoney Creek String Band." Guitars, banjos, drums, bass and a female vocalist that could just about break glass when she wanted to.
They really knew how to play a crowd too, and frequently people would get up and do a dance from Appalachia called "clogging." For those of you who haven't seen people clogging, its sort of a cross between a stomp and a riverdance, with beer.
Occasionally, people would get so riled up that they would clog on the tables. But only the littler people did that. I did my own share of clogging there, but never was a table clogger.
Used to pick 'em up though. After my experience as an entertainer, those poor drunk girls were like shooting ducks in a barrel. And, as usual, I didn't want that portion of my life to overlap with my "real" life, which was across town at school, so these "in town" girls were perfect for me.
I remember one waitress in the club, a striking redhead that I never had the chance to date. I think her name was Amy. I ended up writing a song about her.
Dino's had this big biker guy that worked as the bouncer and the door keeper, and he would sit up by the door looking all mean in his big black beard and bushy eyebrows.
So this night Amy was waiting tables, and the place was jammed full of people. Most of Amy's job involved carrying huge pitchers of beer back and forth, and that's what she had on her tray.
Which unfortunately was over some guy who decided it was the right time to leap up from his chair.
The full pitcher went flying, and landed square on the bouncer's head like a hat. The entire pitcher of ice cold beer drenched him from head to toe.
The whole room fell instantly silent and froze. Amy looked like she was breathing her last breath.
Then, a low chuckle.
And a bigger one.
And the bouncer began to laugh.
Quietly at first, then quickly into a guffawing belly laugh. He thought the whole thing was hilarious! He let loose one of those laughs that are so intense that your eyes close and you squint so that tears run down your face. Which in his case mixed with the beer.
Amy had the expression of a prisoner at the gallows who just got a reprieve call. She sat down at the nearest table to catch her breath and let her heartbeat return to normal. The rest of us were too busy laughing.
Oh, make that laughing with the bouncer.
Never at. Never.
So I frequented the bar, and picked up girls, and drank far too much beer, and enjoyed the music.
Until one night.
The wine urges me on, the bewitching wine, which sets even a wise man to singing and to laughing gently and rouses him up to dance and brings forth words which were better unspoken.
--Homer, The Odyssey
Permalink: 1/28/2005 01:50:00 AM |
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Thursday, January 27, 2005
No Retirement for Me!
Good thing I wasn't really looking forward to it...
(Got this one off of Deneice's Blog, The Journey. She always picks the best surveys.)
Permalink: 1/27/2005 01:04:00 AM |
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Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Sidebar
aside
Function: noun
1 : an utterance meant to be inaudible to someone; especially : an actor's speech heard by the audience but supposedly not by other characters
2 : a straying from the theme : DIGRESSION
3 : this
While the rollercoaster is paused for a bit, I wanted to offer a little bit of commentary on the past few posts and the next ones that are upcoming.
First of all, I think an answer to "why" is in order.
One of my primary reasons for this blog has been to scribe a record of what I thought the important parts of my life are. I made a promise to myself at the very beginning that I would record everything, not a whitewashed version, but a record that reflected the joys of my life and also the gritty grimy bad parts for what they were.
Second, last night a friend said to me that I am now the exact polar opposite of what I was 25 years ago. That's true. This blog is going to describe the path I took that brought that about, and brought me to a place that, at least to me, is so much better and more fulfilling than it was before.
A small warning as to the "how" is going to be in order too. Some of the upcoming stuff is going to require me to describe the occasional "adult situation." As always, I will strive to keep what you read here as clean as possible. However, some of it is going to have to be at least alluded to. I apologise in advance if anything offends, but I don't think it will.
In other words, I've always felt that intimate moments were private moments, which is why I have skated around them with only the barest mentions in the narrative up to now. If I describe any that embarrass you, rest assured that it embarrassed me to post it as well.
So far, if you've been reading, you've seen my fall from grace, starting as the guitarist for a Christian group, and ending as a carnal honky tonk act concerned usually with nothing more than his next conquest.
It gets worse.
There's violence. Betrayal. Infidelity. Critical injuries. Even death.
But eventually, good wins out, and the darkness turns to light. God is faithful that way, after all, even with thickskulled dunderheads like me.
Hang on. The rollercoaster is starting up again soon.
An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.
--George Orwell
Permalink: 1/26/2005 03:54:00 PM |
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Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Unexpected Hero
great-heart-ed
Function: adjective
1 : characterized by bravery : COURAGEOUS
2 : a character trait not limited to only big muscular men with war paint on
Courage can be found in many forms, in many places, and I unexpectedly found a shining example of it at the beginning of my sophomore year at Furman, in 1979.
At the beginning of each year, about half of the student body is made up of incoming freshmen. They've had about a week to meet each other, and then the upperclassmen arrive.
Various activities are scheduled during the first couple of weeks to encourage people meeting each other. One of the major ones is a dance. They would hold it in the dining hall, with a live band. The room would be darkened, and there would be a few chairs around the edges.
All the guys would mill about in big groups, trying to be (or at least look) confident, and all the girls would sit or stand around the edges waiting on someone to ask them to dance. It was pretty much a meat market.
And I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
Several of us walked over together, but I think I was probably more ready to have a good time than anyone. Particularly after the summer I had, with girls practically falling all over me every night while I was on stage, I was as confident as a human being could be.
I intended to dance with every single pretty girl in the room, if I could. And there were bunches. Or at least it looked like there were, it was pretty dark in there.
So, I started circling and would pick out a girl, ask her to dance, then while on the dance floor I would try to get to know her a little more.
"So, what's your name?"
"What?"
"What's your name?
"What?"
"WHAT'S YOUR NAME??!?"
"Shhhl"
"What?"
"SHEILA!"
"OK! WHERE ARE YOU FROM?"
"TENNESSEE."
"WHICH PART?"
"NO, NOT ART. BUSINESS MAJOR."
And so forth.
Out of all the girls there that night, two of them really stood out to me.
One of them did so simply because her name was Cliff. I had never met a girl named Cliff. Apparently her dad wanted a boy really bad so he named her Clifford anyway. We became good friends, and even dated once so we could say we did it.
But there was another one. Her name was, I believe, Robin (and I might be wrong, if I am and she reads this, I am sorry.) She was as cute as she could be, with a short pixie hairstyle, sparkling eyes, and a great big smile that beamed like a headlight. At first she said she didn't dance (yeah right, that means "I'm bashful" in English, every guy knows that) but I ended up talking her into it.
I danced with her more than once. Like maybe eight times, or more. She was a good dancer, and fun. And that smile, wow. As far as I was concerned, she made my night.
One of the songs led to a slow dance number. She seemed particularly reticent about slow dancing, but I insisted. When I took her hand in mine, I understood.
It wasn't all there. Only part of it.
And you know what? It made no difference to me at all.
We danced, and she was wonderful, graceful, beautiful.
I saw her occasionally checking her mail or passing in the halls. It wasn't until I saw her in shorts that I understood the depth of her courage.
It wasn't just her hand.
Robin was a thalidomide baby.
For those not familiar with that, these poor children were born to mothers who had taken a prescription drug called thalidomide, which ended up having a very high incidence of severe birth defects. Usually this was in the form of misshapen or missing hands, arms, feet, legs.
Robin had both hands deformed.
And Robin had no legs.
You could see where the prosthetics attached above her knees. And yet she handled it, lived her life as a normal pretty girl would.
Even dancing with an idiot like me that simply wouldn't take no for an answer.
So many people make a deformity or a challenge in their lives an excuse. But others, the best of us, overcome these as best we can, and go on about our living.
Like Robin.
I was awed, and very humbled. Twenty five years later, I still am. It's people like Robin that really are the examples we should be holding up to copy, not the ones we do hold up. There will be no basketball, baseball, or football player I will ever hear about that comes close to Robin for heroism, in my book.
Five foot two, eyes of blue (or maybe brown, I don't remember) but oh what those five foot could do...
Thanks Robin. I might not remember your name perfectly, but I'll never forget your heart until the day I die.
I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.
--Christopher Reeve
Permalink: 1/25/2005 11:10:00 PM |
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Beth the Second: Coup De Grace
death-blow
Pronunciation: 'deth-"blO
Function: noun
1 : a destructive or killing stroke or event
2 : overwhelming revenge
Anger, for me, has always been something to harbor, to chew on, to stew in, to ruminate over.
Revenge is something that my very nature craves to the point of being incredibly patient, tenacious and meticulous. When I am uncontrolled, you do not want to be on my bad side. I am very, very dangerous. Not dangerous in the brute force way that a wild boar is, but dangerous in the stalking, plodding way that a polar bear is.
By the way, did you know that the polar bear is the single most dangerous predator on the planet? They only look cute and cuddly. In reality they are carefully ferocious beasts that can come through a ten foot high window and kill two of the three men in a room before the third can fire the single shot to kill it.
That happened. And, to my shame, so did this.
As soon as I realized that Beth was now at Furman, which I considered my turf, I marked her in my mind with a huge target. I would ruin her. I would spoil her college career and make her drop out. I would make her a pariah.
I started with my friends that were drama majors, and I knew almost all of the drama majors. I made it a point to welcome them back to campus as they returned from summer break, especially the male drama majors, and then I told them the story you have read here in my previous posts.
In detail.
Of course, my female drama major friends were outraged at my tale, and determined at the outset that they wouldn't like this wanton woman that had thrust herself into their midst. They also would make sure, I knew, that every single female drama major knew the entire story (with embellishments, I'm sure) before the first day of class.
The male drama majors were a different story. Here I told them about a set of events that ended in a licentious glut of carnal activity, and were they outraged? No. Instead they were thinking 'Hmmmm....should I ask her out? Do you think...?'
And that's how it began to play out.
You get a ball rolling like that one, in a place like Furman, and there's only one way for it to go. I watched over the weeks as things happened, like a spider watching a bug get more and more entangled in her web.
First, there was a string of guys asking Beth out, then getting swiftly rebuffed.
Second, she had become props mistress for a play at the beginning of the term. Once word spread about her, they ended up removing her from the production.
I think at this time she even began to fuel her own fire, without knowing it. I don't think anyone ever told her what I had told them, it would have simply been too out of place to do that. So they just kept it to themselves and treated her badly.
School was becoming a living hell for Beth.
Eventually, she had to get a job off campus to pay for living expenses. She was working in a club as a hostess. I went to the club and stumbled on her there after she had only been there a week.
She signed me up for a membership in the club, in the process mispelling my name worse than anyone had ever mispelled it before. I was very insulted. Was it intentional? I have no idea. But I wasn't thinking straight.
I ended up sitting at the bar with the owner. In our chat, I brought up the fact that I used to date his hostess. And I told him the story.
She was fired a week later after he supposedly made a pass at her.
By the end of that first term, her life at college was a shambles, her grades had suffered, and she had to leave. The deathblow had been delivered.
The last I heard of her, she had joined the Navy.
Now that I think back about my concentrated campaign to sneak around behind the scenes and tear up this girl's life while I treated her nice and cordial to her face, I count it among the most shameful things I have ever done. Truly, at this point in my life, I was more selfish, egotistic and self centered than at any point before.
I wish I could say that I awakened one morning and saw the error of my ways, rededicated my soul, and headed down the golden path. But, in the fall of 1979, that day is still far in my future and there would be terrible things, even more terrible, before it was done.
Oh, and in case it makes any difference to anyone reading this, my revenge was not sweet, didn't produce closure, and didn't even make me feel better. There's nothing there but bad, an awful business, and an eternal stain on me.
Little, vicious minds abound with anger and revenge, and are incapable of feeling the pleasure of forgiving their enemies.
--Earl of Chesterfield
Permalink: 1/25/2005 04:51:00 PM |
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Monday, January 24, 2005
Surprise
an-tic-i-pate
Function: verb
Etymology: Latin anticipatus, past participle of anticipare, from ante- + -cipare (from capere to take) -- more at HEAVE
1 : to give advance thought, discussion, or treatment to
2 : to foresee and deal with in advance : FORESTALL
3 : to act before (another) often so as to check or counter
4 : what sometimes, you just don't do
The Summer of 1979 was drawing to an inexhorable end, and amazingly, I was still alive.
But, as shown in prior posts, it wasn't due to lack of effort to not be.
The crowds in late August were dwindling, and the pace slowed down as if the world itself had almost burned itself out. Stores allowed their stock to run down, since they would board up in a few weeks time. People began pulling up stakes and looking for their next stop, wherever that would be.
My own next stop would be college, sophmore year at Furman. But unlike most schools, mine started later and so I could be full witness to the autumn that was infecting my summer world like an unstoppable cancer.
Maybe that's too harsh a word. Perhaps we were in more of a twilight.
Soon after our confrontation, Beth either quit or was fired from the magic shop she ran for Ripley's, depending on who you spoke with, and vanished from downtown. My own evenings continued to be filled with faceless girls, one after the other, but there was a malaise that settled over everything, a listlessness. It was as if everyone couldn't make themselves forget that in just weeks, then days, this would all be over.
The bingo parlor across the street told its attendants to clear out all of the nice gifts that had sat on the display shelves unclaimed for so long. So a lot of the local carnies and Gypsies would sit in on the bingo sessions, and working with the caller would cheat and take home portable TV's, blenders and tacky lamps and whatnot. Nobody really seemed to care.
I was invited to a Gypsy festival in Charleston by Papa Leo, but had to bow out due to my bad legs. I've regretted that many times since. I found out later that this may have meant they were going to make me an honorary Gypsy or something.
Oh well.
Labor Day, the end of the season, came like a 30th birthday. Unwelcome but inevitable, and why not party like the dickens anyway, so we did. All 500,000 and more of us.
The day after, the world had changed.
Sloppy Joe's was boarded up, and Mr. Z, my boss, had left town during the night with his two girlfriends and his jewelry counter. I never saw him again and he never came back to Myrtle Beach that I know of. The bar opened the next year as part of the Bowery.
Lots of shops closed too, and the ones that were open were dumping anything they could sell at ridiculous prices. Well, compared to the inflated ones they usually charged. Soon the only one open would be the venerable "Gay Dolphin" which was billed as the world's biggest gift shop. They stayed open all year.
The world's fattest twins left Ripleys and went to...well, wherever it is that people like that go to. Count Desmond left Guinness as well. The crowds were gone, things were quiet.
Soon even the carnivale rides would be silenced for the season, their metal skeletons standing mute all winter waiting on the Springtime sun and Memorial Day, and the garish paintings and sculptures standing guard over a ghostly, deserted midway.
I packed up all my important stuff, and headed out.
Furman was just like I remembered it. Oh, except for there was a whole new crop of freshman coming in, and they hadn't got the freshman twenty yet so they were still slim and cute for the most part. After my last four months, I was primed and ready.
My roommate was going to be a friend named Simon. We had met the previous year and decided to room together. I was looking forward to it. Simon was very different from me, a philosophy and religion major, but he had a quick mind and a good sense of humor.
Yeah, I thought as I dropped my first suitcase in the room, this was going to be fun.
My reverie was interrupted. "CLIFF!"
I turned and looked....that voice...I know that voice...
It was Beth. Here at Furman.
I think my bottom jaw probably swung in the breeze for at least a minute while my brain tried to get back in gear.
"Beth??!? What are you doing here?"
"I transferred in. I'm going to be a sophmore this year, like you. Drama major."
Surprise doesn't even come close to what I felt.
And down inside, as I made pleasant small talk, there was this evil voice that said "See? Patience..."
This story wasn't over yet.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
--Mahatma Gandhi, (attributed)
Permalink: 1/24/2005 01:02:00 AM |
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\__Cliff Between the Lines__/ is licensed
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