***At
16 Or 68 It Never Ends- The Trials and Tribulations Of Sam Lowell
From
The Pen Of Frank Jackman
The
last time Sam Lowell saw Melinda Loring he was looking back at the headlights
of her automobile as dusk approached veering off to go north on Route 133 just
south of Amesbury along the New Hampshire border in the early spring of 2014. He did not know that that glimpse would be the
last, the last physical time he saw her, although given the all-out fight they
had had earlier that evening including an enraged outburst by him he suspected
as much. But like many things in this wicked old world of romantic
relationships that would not be the last of it, although that indeed was the
last physical time he saw her. There was one final shot, one last metaphysical
kiss-off before the real end. And so as Sam had muttered to himself at some
point during the last not so metaphysical dust-up whether 16 or 68 years of age
the romance game never gets easier. And so this story, or end of story.
Let’s take a step back to figure out about the whys of that last
headlight glance before we find out what happened after the subsequent fall and
the last dust-up. Sam had been thinking about his 50th class reunion
at North Adamsville High School since he had received an invitation to go to
his 40th reunion back in 2004. At that time Sam had dismissed the
invitation with so much hubris because then he still thought that the bad luck
that had followed him for much of his life had been caused by his growing up on
“the wrong side of the tracks” in North Adamsville. He told me, a number of
times, that he had spent half a lifetime blaming that bad luck hometown affiliation
on everything from acne to wormwood.
Subsequently through some family-related deaths that took him
back to the old town Sam had reconciled himself with his roots and had
exhibited the first stirrings of a feeling that he might like to see some of
his old classmates. In late 2013, around Thanksgiving he, at least marginally
savvy on such user-friendly sites, created a Facebook event page in order
to see if anybody else on the planet knew of plans or was interested in making
plans for a 50th reunion. One day, a few days after setting up the
page, he got an inquiry asking what he knew about any upcoming plans. He answered in a short note his own limited
knowledge of any such plans but that his intention in setting up the page had
been to seek others to help out with organizing an event if nothing had been
established as yet. In that reply he had forgotten to give his name. And that
is how the “girl with the pale blue eyes” came into view.
“Who are you?” asked Melinda Loring returning his message, a
name that Sam immediately remembered from his high school days although he did
not know the woman personally. He shot back a blushed reply about being sorry
for forgetting to include his name, gave it, and casually remarked that he had
remembered from somewhere that she was a professor at a local public university
in the Boston area. He asked if she was still there. She sent an immediate
reply stating that no she was no longer there but that she had been and was
still a professor at a state university in an adjacent state, at the University
of New Hampshire, and had been for the previous twenty-five years. She also
mentioned that, having access to her Manet,
her class of 1964 yearbook she had looked up his class photo, and said he was
“very handsome.”
Naturally any guy from six to sixty would have to seriously
consider anybody, any female, who throws that unanticipated, unsolicited
comment a man’s way especially since she sent her class photo back as well.
That got them started on what would be a blizzard of e-mails over the next
several weeks.
During the early stages of their correspondence Sam told Melinda
that his previous knowledge of her had been perked a few years earlier when he
had as part of his reconciliation with the old home town looked up and found
his old high school running and running around buddy Brad Badger through a
school-related Internet site and he had gone over to Brad’s house in Newton to
look at his Manet and talk over old
times.
Sam, having had a few
drinks that night and feeling expansive, related the following story to Brad
and which he subsequently related in an e-mail to Melinda to her delight if
disbelief. It seems that in his junior year at North Adamsville Sam had noticed
Melinda around school (they later confirmed they had had no classes together,
although having been in the same junior high and high schools for five years or
so they must have run into each other or been in the same room sometime if only
the auditorium, gym or cafeteria) and had an interest in meeting her after
seeing her around a few times.
Of course in high school, at least back then, maybe now too, a
guy didn’t just go up to a girl and start making his moves. He got
“intelligence,” found out if she had a guy already, stuff like that. Usually
this information was gathered in the boys “lav” (especially the Monday morning
before school session when all the “hot” news of the weekend was discussed) but
in this case since Sam was a trackman this happened after school in the boys’
locker room where he inquired of two guys he knew who knew her what she was
like. Both agreed instantly that she was a “fox” but told him to forget it
because she was “unapproachable.” Meaning low-rent raggedy guys like Sam forget
it. Meaning, as well, that Sam as is almost always true with the young just
moved on to his fantasy next best thing. And so they did not meet then. Melinda
said she laughed when he related that story to her and in their further
exchanges related lots of information to Sam about what she was really going
through back with an extraordinary tough family life, lots of low self-esteem,
and other problems too intimate to detail in an e-mail.
Frankly, after the first few exchanges Sam had been more than a
little intrigued. And as it turned out Melinda had been as well. They
discovered they both had much in common academically, professionally,
politically and personally. I won’t go into the specifics of those “things in
common” because in looking over my notes from Sam that would take more time
than necessary to make the point.
A point necessary to make though since it contributed to the
fall was Sam’s “relationship” status
which he introduced to Melinda after an initial blizzard of e-mails and phone
calls:
“Hi Melinda –Well we have been on a roller-coaster so far and we
have not even met in person yet. That is what is so surreal about this whole
thing that had developed between us. That business from last night about me
tracking your record down got me thinking though. Kind of has forced my hand
about something that I had intended to bring up tomorrow as the first order of
business to clear the air and give our friendship a proper footing. I was
struck by the way you said you have been honest with me and that got me
motivated to write this now instead of wait until tomorrow. I have, unlike you,
not always been honest in the past. For example, not to brag or anything like
that but to deal with the honesty question, a couple of times way back I have
had five girlfriends at one time so there was no way I could be honest and
juggle all that. So I was lying to beat the band. I have gotten better and
tried to be honest with you and have been doing so. But sometimes you can be
honest and still omit things and that is what this e-mail is about. I take it
as something that we will work through as we go along and I hope you agree.
You know as well as I do that we both carry a lot of baggage,
busted marriages, affairs, and so forth. On the other hand we are both old
enough to have whatever level of friendship we want from just friends to an
affair because with both as far as I know have no ties that would prohibit
that. And even if we did in this day in age we could still have whatever
relationship we wanted. As long as we both have our eyes open and know the
score. That “know the score” part is what I want to talk about. It is nothing
bad but it is a complication. And even if we decide to be just friends it is
part of what is unfolding. I have decided to do the rest of this as a narrative
so here goes.
Up until a few weeks ago for the past ten years or so since the
end of my last serious relationship I was just rolling along writing, doing
legal work, doing politics, playing golf and all the rest. Doing all of that
while living in the same house as the woman that was my last serious romantic
relationship, Laura, who is still my closest woman friend. I have known her for
over twenty- five years and about twenty years ago we bought this modest house
in Walton. As time went on though we had, as couples will, our problems until
about ten years ago we decided that it wasn’t working. But we both wanted to
keep the house and be friends. I won’t go into all of that now but you can ask
me about it. So that is what we did. And nothing wrong with that people make
such arrangements all the time. And so time moved on. I did my thing-she did
hers and we do things together. For example we still go out to Saratoga to
Laura’s family for Thanksgiving and Christmas since I don’t have family that
way. Stuff like that. At some level we have deep affection for each other but
it is just easier and more comfortable to be friends.
Then out of the blue you came along. You know how we “met” and
all so I don’t need to go into that but what happened is that I was not sure
where we were heading (at one point if anywhere) and so I made a point of
keeping that information to myself. Remember I made a point about just
concentrating on us and not on other baggage stuff. Part of it obviously is
that if we were not going anywhere then such information didn’t matter and if
we were then that would just be an awkward situation that we would deal with.
That is what a lot of my concern about expectations, the way we have met and
all of that has been about. I have told her about you in general terms (the
only way to put it since we still have not met) and since this whole thing has
been topsy-turvy that is where things stand right now.
If all of this seems like too much then so be it-but as for me I
still say forward- if you don’t that is okay and we can work on some other way
to be friends. I think we both strongly want to be friends and should be damn
it if that is what we want. Later Sam”
The tipping point for both of them, the piece of information
exchanged that startled, hell, flabbergasted them both, made them think for a
moment that destiny’s wings beckoned, made them think their flame thing might
be written in the stars was an event that occurred when they were nine. Here is
what I wrote at the time when Sam told me the story (after he told me that he
was “smitten” with Melinda and I begged
him to be cool, be cool for Laura’s sake although I had always had an abiding
interest in her, if she ever fell off of Sam’s wagon. Laura never did, damn,
she never did.):
A couple more cell-phone calls and another round of e-mails got
this pair to the idea of meeting in person, a “date” like some
hormonally-driven teen-agers. (Sam could not remember who suggested the idea
first but neither flinched at that possibility.) They both admitted to
nervousness as they planned to meet in Portsmouth up in New Hampshire at a
restaurant that she had selected (he was to be at a legal conference in Maine
and that locale was the closest convenient city for both of them). Needless to
say they hit it off remarkably well.
And Sam, with two divorces under his belt and that also untold
number of liaisons, was also in his less lucid moments thinking along some just
such lines as an affair with Melinda, maybe more. Except. Oh yeah, except here
it got tricky Sam was, as he learned as they went along ah, “married,” had been
“married” for many years to Laura, although for a number of years past they had
been living as “roommates.” Roommate meaning separate beds, mostly separate
lives, and most definitely no sex. That hard little fact, that “marriage” fact,
a fact that I kept mentioning to him as he got deeper into the human sink of
Melinda. Naturally he would not listen.
Although not because, and it can face the light of day now, I secretly,
secretly then, wished that Sam would leave Laura, Laura who had disturbed my
dreams for years. We later discussed this situation after Sam’s fever over
Melinda had broken. Sam said he knew of my feelings for Laura, had known for
years and acknowledged that if things had gone differently with Melinda he
would have wished me well in my pursuit of Laura.
Naturally, or maybe not so naturally for the senior set,
for people in their sixties, and
supposedly beyond sexual desire as they dote on grandchildren, gardening,
golfing or whatever, the question of sleeping together, staying overnight
together came up after several dates. Sam as part of his professional duties
often went to Maine on legal business and so he suggested that they, he and
Melinda, meet at a hotel a mutual distance between them and they did one Friday
afternoon in frigid January. Melinda, assuming that the offer of meeting at a
hotel meant that they would sleep together, had made provisions unbeknownst to
Sam to stay that night with him. Sam, perhaps a little more backward in the
dating game and its progressions expected them to just have a few drinks, go
out for some dinner, come back and have a nightcap, let her go back on her way,
and leave it at that. That afternoon Melinda came on strong, almost caught Sam
flat-footed with her desire but he was not ready, had not been prepared for
Melinda’s desire and so nothing happened that night except an unhappy Melinda
who left unfulfilled around midnight.
That event left Sam in a quandary. He knew, just like Melinda
knew, that he desired her, wanted to have sex, make love to her. But he also
knew that once that happened that a bridge would be crossed, or so that was his
thinking at the time. Still Melinda was there, still he wanted her so the next
Friday afternoon he called her up out of the blue and told her to meet him at
that same hotel. Oh yes, and feed the cats and bring an overnight bag. She was
thrilled and arrived a couple of hours later. And that was that. Well not
exactly because that night they a great long sex bout like fifty years of
unacknowledged, unknown, unknowable desire surfaced. And that was their high
point, the acme of their thing. That was also the point where Sam,
back-tracking, began to squirm a little both at what he had done, that bridge
that he had crossed and that home he had left behind for a minute. The omens
thereafter were not good, although he never spoke of those nights to me and I
only knew about them from the notes he handed to me.
Who knows how some relationships turn from spun gold to dross in
a short time, in time for a “forever” man to turn into a never man (the first
designation an inside joke as it turned out since she had started to call him
that in the early days when she was still smitten with him and expected to
share her time with him that long, and everything was possible. In the event
“forever” turned out to be, ah, significantly shorter).
Maybe the turning point was Sam’s response to that second date,
a December Friday a couple of weeks before Christmas date at a tapas restaurant
in Portsmouth. Sam had never been to such a restaurant where they give you
small portions of many good things to eat, well-prepared, served at intervals
and a place which provided a relaxed atmosphere to while away the time in. They
talked up another storm and could barely keep their hands off each other,
gathered closer as the evening progressed. After the meal, the weather New
England winter cold he escorted her to her car and before she left they
exchanged several meaningful hugs (and he might have kissed her on the cheek).
They left knowing they both definitely had a thing for each other.
But Melinda was a fretter and a planner, not necessarily in that
order so at some point between that Friday and their resumption of e-mail traffic
the next day Melinda possessed of some dream future with Sam tried to find out
more about Laura, about that “roommate” arrangement and what was to become of
her. See Melinda had certain rules as we all more or less do in that she took
pride in her serial monogamous relationships. She was with a man, and a man was
with her, or no dice. Once she finished with a man that was that. She told Sam
that in an e-mail exchange set. He in a little panic over her position kept
trying to calm her doubts, kept trying to pass over his longtime relationship
as some platonic boy-scout trip, kept trying to keep his head above water with
Melinda. That night, that restless Saturday night he tossed and turned trying
to mull things over in his head and came up empty. Came up with the only
conclusion that made sense-end the flirtation and walk away. He, and this is
characteristic of Sam, “wrote” the thing out in his head first and then at the
crack of dawn gathered himself from his bed and went to compose the following
e-mail which he sent later that morning.
Sam never gave Melinda a chance to respond since a few hours
later, maybe two, he called her up and begged her to forget what he had written
and that they should keep on going as best they could but that he planned to do
right by her. Of course he sent me this new information and I blew my top but
since it cannot do anybody any harm, or minimal harm let me show you an e-mail
he posted to Melinda after their “mini-break-up” episode:
Maybe it was San Diego- Sometimes a guy can’t quite figure out
what to do, can’t for the life of him, despite his age and the fact, the hard
fact that he has been through many mills before what the right thing to do is,
or maybe is too callous, too concerned with having his own way, having his
kids’ stuff “two women” thing that he gets blindsided by the truth, by the
equally hard fact that he cannot burn the candle at both ends. Melinda had
screamed at him, raised bloody holy hell about the fact that he was taking
Laura to San Diego with him, a few days in the sun he said to give her
winter-weary body so Melinda would have to put up with the fact that he would
be with “another woman” in the same room in the same hotel. That drove her to
rages, to fits, to tantrums which made him cry bloody murder. He made sure that
he called her every day but that every day was like a prison as she took aim at
his situation. He made the supreme mistake though of one call making a
comparison between the hotel room in San Diego and their love-nest in
Portsmouth. That caused a burning flame for days after.
Maybe it was after that Washington, D.C in February which was a
trip that solidified, mainly, their desire for each other, but because she was
taking a scheduled bus back to New Hampshire and he was grabbing his car from
an off-site lot they had a rushed good-bye after furious movement at the
airport where she had an odd exchange of luggage problem getting hers’ mixed up
with another causing several headaches and problems for Sam at home when Laura
received a telephone call from Jet Blue asking if that mislaid luggage was
there. The next day feeling some
ill-wind had crossed their paths Sam had refused Melinda’s request of him to
call her when she was confused by an e-mail that he sent because he had written
it hastily as he had his hands full with Laura and her furor as fallout over
the luggage problem.
Probably though the end started to crumble the month before the
end when a few days after coming back from that fateful Washington trip Melinda
took a big spill, a serious fall at a pool in Portsmouth where she swam to get
exercise, that broke her hip bone requiring surgery and their budding romance
came to a crashing halt as she convalesced and Sam took on the unaccustomed
role of care-giver general. Not so much that incident itself since it was an
accident but what it did to enforce her idleness which left her too much time
to think about how she wanted him with her, wanted him to leave Laura, wanted
to make those 208 plans (roughly) that Melinda spent her waking hours doing in
order to have him come closer to her. And Sam needed to be in Boston, or wanted
to be, and not stuck in some winter wonderland town in Podunk New Hampshire at
the beck and call of her highness.
Not a meeting between them in that period went by without some
variation of the on-going argument. Although there were some nice times, (one
time he drove her to their North Adamsville youth homes and they had many
laughs, and some sorrows, over that). Even when he had driven up in order to
allow her to teach a seminar at UNH and then drove her the next day over to the
Portsmouth General to get her cleared to be able to drive she/he/they argued
over that same old, same old material. Now that Sam thought about it he
believed that was clearly the case, the place where all hell broke loose, since
he just from his end got tired of the arguments that were leading nowhere.
The few days before the end had not been better (really a few
weeks Sam thought since that damn accident put her out of commission placed a
damper on their affair as he became a care-giver and she a patient). The
inevitable Melinda war cry of when was Sam going to leave his “wife,” when he
was going to leave Laura, and what, get this, constructive steps he had taken
to break with her had led to a series of arguments starting with the day that
she was finally given the okay by the doctor in charge of her case at
Portsmouth General to drive.
Melinda, as an act of liberation from her confinement, had
driven them to Newburyport and then to Plum Island where when Sam had expressed
his concern about the change in their relationship from romantic to
care-giving, that the “spark” had gone out somewhere along the line (she took
his remark, the way he said it, as his displeasure at her). Melinda had
exploded and said that “she wished he had never taken care of her during that
month she was laid up if she was such a burden.” They talked but the fires had
not been put out. Newburyport was significant for that was where he had brought
her a trinket on their first trip there in December when they could hardly keep
their hands off each other (and had their first “lean-in” kiss). The next day
walking on Hampton Beach the smoldering fires erupted (slightly) again when an
issue came up about Melinda doing a favor for her ex-husband. They kissed a
statutory kiss and parted company she to Epping and he back to Boston.
Naturally the e-mail and cell-phone traffic (actually the
diminished traffic, significantly down from the days when they would sent
blizzards of e-mails to each other when he thought about it later) reflected
those unresolved tensions. She needed to spent that first week of liberation
catching up on work, house, social chores and could only spare that next
Thursday evening for them to get together and since she was going to be in the
Salem (NH) area they decided to meet in Amesbury for dinner. Before that though
Sam made what would be a mistake, a fatal mistake, of putting into writing some
of his feelings about where they were at in their relationship. Thus he sent
the following e-mail which was the final piece of evidence that things had gone
drastically wrong.
“Dearest Melinda -Where have those hands grabbing at each other
across the table in delight/need/want at Morry’s (and elsewhere) gone. Where
has your hand grabbing my arm while walking outside of Rudi’s (and elsewhere)
and me glad to have you do it gone. Where have the little stolen sweet kisses
of Portsmouth parking lots gone. Where have those endless phone calls where we
hated to sign off talking about great adventures ahead gone. Where have those
roundabout hours of blissful silliness gone. Where have those shy but
meaningful moments when our feelings for each other blossomed gone. I could go
on with a million more examples when were on the same page and were relaxed and
confident about our relationship and where it might head but you get the idea.
I sensed from this e-mail that you are beginning to get the
feeling like me that you/I/we are not in a good place these days. Think about
the first time at Newburyport in precious December and last week. I had already
spoken about this last week and now I think you sense that too from your side.
Our talk today where we got all theoretical about the future without any sweet
talk kind of epitomized that. Frankly, and you can speak for yourself, I am
unhappy with the drift of things now. I/you/we spent too much time thinking
about the future, future plans, about the relationship itself and not enough
about how to get out of the rough patch we are in. How to get the romance back
and just relax with each other. Why
don’t we take a step back, maybe two, today and tomorrow and think about things
we can say and do when we meet on Thursday to break the impasse. Why don’t we
step back and just forget about the future for a little bit and just think we
are “dating” for right now with all its sense of mystery in the now with no
future goals. Or maybe that we should think about just being friends for a
while. I always want to be friends with you that is for sure. These are only
suggestions. The main thing is that you/I/we think about this and not rush into
a blizzard of e-mails. This rough patch requires thinking not writing-
From a guy who misses those delighted hands across the table,
that grabbing hand on my arm, those endless funny phone calls waited for in
anticipation and nervousness, those sweet shy stolen kisses, that bubble
silliness when the outside world didn’t matter for a bit, those intimate
moments when you and I both blushed a teenage-like blush at how close we were,
those all night talkfests, those candles flittering in the dark, serious
Melinda and Sam just being foolish and off-guard, the kindnesses we did for
each other just because we were special to each other, the sense that our thing
was written in the wind, and lots of other things you remember as well as I do.
Sam”
They had a short acrimonious cell-phone exchange after that
e-mail but again agreed to meet in Amesbury the next day to figure things out.
That next evening things started well enough, after Melinda had ordered wine
with her dinner. The net result of their discussions was that they would go on
as friends for a while and see where that led. Of course to go beyond the
friend stage Melinda gave no uncertain terms to the proposition that she could
not go on, was “ashamed” to go on under the circumstances unless Sam got a
place of his own, left Laura.
Melinda ordered another wine, unusual for her, and that must
have given her courage to speak again of the e-mail. She said it read like a
lawyer’s closing argument, that she had been hurt and that he was basically a
bum of the month. He became incensed, yelled at her and threw money on the
table for dinner and walked to the men’s room to fume. When he came back he
tried to tell his point but he was tired of arguing by then and just said “let
it go for now.” They left, she put her hand in his arm as usual and he muttered
that “they were in very bad place” as he walked her to her car. He looked at
her shoes, the shoes she reminded him that she had worn in sunnier days down in
Washington and he commented “that seems like a long time ago” as they arrived
at her car. Rather than the usual kiss good-bye he yelled out “I’ll be in
touch,” as he walked back to his own car.
Since Melinda was not good at directions (and the Google maps were helter-skelter on this
one) Sam had consented to have her follow him out of Amesbury on Route 27 which
she did until they got to the U.S. 495 South entrance. A couple of exits up she
veered off onto Route 133 for home. As he shifted gears from fourth to fifth to
push on up to speed in the U.S. 495 night after he saw her automobile veer off
to the northern route home he breathed a sigh of relief, and of sadness. They
never saw each other again.
That is prologue.
Sam was frankly, as he expressed to me on several occasions when
we met over drinks later in Cambridge and Boston, heart-broken over the loss of
Melinda, had had many sleepless nights and days of forlornness. Of course there
were other feelings as well, feelings of rage after Sam had told Laura he was
leaving her once Melinda forced the issue. All for naught. The telling Laura
part had caused more anguish than he expected especially since he freely
admitted to me that he had not managed that part well. And then the
back-tracking to try to repair the Sam-Laura relationship. No things had not
gone well, gone well at all.
Somehow something (something unknown and only half suspected by
Sam) had snapped in Melinda about Sam’s commitment to Laura, about the enraged
last meeting, about that fateful e-mail, that “closing argument” e-mail as
Melinda had called it in an irate moment, that had expressed Sam’s
apprehensions about their future. What happened upon later investigation by Sam,
or what he thought had occurred was that while Sam was giving Laura notice of
leaving Melinda had independently and unilaterally made her fateful decision.
When Sam tried several time to call or e-mail Melinda during that next week in
order that Laura could make plans to leave their household as she was anxious
to do to get out of the maelstrom she stonewalled him finally telling him to
wait two weeks for her reply.
That hard-bitten and anxious two weeks over and done Melinda definitely
and unceremoniously gave Sam his walking papers. Of course faithful Laura
locked into limbo during this period was frantic, was outraged (and rightly so
Sam kind of half-heartedly acknowledged to me as I scoured at him when he
mentioned the dirty way he had treated Laura) and had made arrangement to leave
when Sam told her that he wished to stay with her, for her to stay. At that
level I had some sympathy for Sam and his loss of two women. Somehow though,
damn, Laura did stay with Sam but since this is about Sam and Melinda I will
let it go.
A couple of weeks after the Melinda break-up decision Sam sent
her an e-mail keeping open the old possibility of being friends. He did not expect
and did not receive any answer the way he posed the question in the e-mail
since he assumed that Melinda was still in furious mode and so left the that
possibility for some vague future. Then he made another fatal mistake. Not as
devastating as the previous ones since they had done their damage and were done
with but for the events that would follow. He assumed the no answer was really
that Melinda was thinking things over about a friendship. Fool’s paradise and prima facie evidence that even a smart
guy like Sam can act as silly as a 16 year old. He went along with that idea in
the back of his mind leaving Melinda plenty of room to decide. Eventually after
several weeks as her birthday approached he sent another short e-mail with
birthday greeting. Still no reply (none was expected, he said, as he presented
the thing to me as strictly a greeting like a birthday card, oh, alright an
e-card). Then all hell broke loose.
As detailed previously Sam and Melinda were old high school
classmates and as related there as well they had met up through a fortuitous
searching for reunion information. That class’s reunion committee, which
included Sam in a secondary role, had set up a website to help organize the
reunion events. For a period in the bloom of their affair they had collaborated
on messages to the class, memory stuff like lots of such sites. That website
gave all who joined their own profile pages to do with as they liked (within
reason and with some regard for taste and such). The site had the now standard
ways to tell each members’ story though words, photos, and videos and ways,
publicly and privately, to communicate with others on the site ( to the
exclusion of the rest of the universe since it was a closed site).
One day a couple of months after the break-up Sam noticed that
Melinda had updated her profile. When he clicked on her page he saw a photo
(actually two) of her and her high school friend, Donna, at Donna’s place in
California. Melinda had gone out there to celebrate her own 68th birthday.
Under normal circumstances no big deal- a couple of good-looking older women in
a photo (good-looking to older guys okay maybe not to hungry younger guys). What
made the photo a problem for Sam, had him seeing red, was that he was originally
supposed to have been on that California trip to see Donna. Seeing the photo,
and seeing something that was not there (he thought that Melinda had placed the
photos there to stir him up or something, a fatal mistake) he sent Melinda a
private e-mail that was a service as part of her profile page.
Mainly the message once again sent best wishes for her birthday,
congratulating Melinda on her trip, telling her that he had been in California
earlier that month and that he still believed that their thing had been written
in the wind. No respond. A few days later he placed a public message on her
profile page stating basically the same information. No response. The next day
he noticed that his comment had been deleted by her (which he or she could do the
way the site was set up). A couple of days before this Sam had also placed a
rather long remembrance of childhood July 4th celebrations on the
Memories section of the class website. A couple of days later Melinda posted an
old photo of her and other North Adamsville classmates on a July 4th
float from long ago.
The posting of that ancient photo led Sam to write a public
response to Melinda, a kind of coded love letter (based on another mistake that
he assumed she had placed the photo in response to his post, Jesus, didn’t he
see this coming). That elicited no response as well. Then Sam got the bright
idea to make a “cute” comment about how sexy the two women looked in that
earlier posted photo by Melinda. That brought down the “cops.” It seems
(although Sam is still not sure of the exact story since Melinda has never
spoken or written to him since she dumped him) that she took umbrage at Sam’s
remarks and got in touch with the webmaster, Delores, who read Sam the riot act
about appropriate behavior on the site threatening bloody murder if he did not
stop bothering Melinda.
That “snitch” (and here I agree with his classification of the
deed being an old-time corner boy) to the “cops” was the end for Sam. A boyhood
corner boy like me, a working-class corner boy who had followed a certain code
established seemingly from time immemorial did not countenance squealing, not
for this silly stuff. To anybody but certainly not to authorities of whatever
degree. He wrote one last personal e-mail to her commercial e-mail address (he
had been warned not to use the class site to contact her by the “cops”) with a
very cutting e-mail (I am being polite here I turned red when I read his draft
although there was nothing obscene in the thing) finally giving up the ghost of
that relationship.
Moreover, since in the communications between him and Delores
(Melinda used Delores as an intermediary and did not communicate with him
directly also not good form from an old corner boy perspective) seemed to him
to have cast him as some kind of lonely-heart “cyberspace” stalker of an older
woman, he set Delores straight about what had been what was going on between
Melinda and him since it was apparent that she was taking Melinda’s side or
assuming Melinda’s case was clear-cut. Delores had threatened to kick him off
the site and made other remarks that indicated to him that she was not getting
the whole story so he felt he had to lay his cards out on the table. Delores, a
good woman and wonderful webmaster, now caught in the middle of something she
did not want to be caught in the middle of, e-mailed him back and said “let’s drop
the thing.” He agreed and agreed to not contact Melinda on site. And that is the end of the story, finally.
But at 68 Sam still has that heartbroken feeling of a schoolboy of 16. Join the club, brother, join the club.
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