***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Elvis’s Are You Lonesome Tonight -Take Two

 

 

…he wondered, truly wondered whether she missed him, missed her walking daddy that night, that seemingly endless night when he wondered once again whether  she missed him after all the slow meaningless time that had passed those past few months since their over-heated short love affair had gone down in flames almost as quickly as it had started. That walking daddy moniker was a little term of endearment that she had tagged him with after they had, well, done the “do the do” and she though that she had him reined in, reined him in with kisses and a few little special things that he liked, and that she knew he liked even before he told her that he did. That “do the do” sex stuff was the least of their problems, he knew she liked his  kisses and a few little special things that she liked, and that  he knew she liked even before she told him that she did, although at the end maybe it was the sex stuff  too, it could have been everything jumbled together. But if anybody asked him he missed that part, no question.    

 

He did not really believe that she did, did miss him, she was not built that way, had kind of steel-trap mind on the subject (and others too, subjects she was steel-trapped about), he knew from the first, and she made the fact abundantly clear in all their conversations, that once she was done with a man that was that and she moved on, maybe to the next man, maybe just off to lick her wounds. She would illustrate the point  with examples citing, chapter and verse, whenever the subject came up ex-husbands and lovers, one of whom she said had asked if she needed a blackboard once she got on her high horse about the subject. Still he took a ticket, took a chance that he would be, what she called him at the beginning, oh yeah, her “forever” man (and a few short months later her “never” man although she did not say that word exactly he just plucked it out of the air one night, one early on night when he first thought about whether she missed him).  Yeah, so no question he was as sure as a man could be, a man who no longer was on speaking terms with her to find out, that she did not miss him.

 

He wondered too whether she was lonesome tonight for her walking daddy, a very different proposition than whether she missed him. He was not sure on that score, although he thought in the far recesses of his brain she might. See as she also explained in detail with those same ex-husbands and major lovers example complete with blackboard remark even if she was through with a man, had moved on to another man, or just went off to lick her wounds the way she put the fact in those same conversations mentioned above about her way with men, she was as likely to be licking her wounds as looking for another man. As likely to be filled with solitary sadness as out on the town, out with another man.

 

That is where those two marriages and many love affairs came in, came in and softened rather than hardened her to life’s romantic ups and downs. She mentioned that she had since childhood and a very savagely cruel upbringing had a hard time letting go, letting the past fade, and that it took her a long time to get over a man once they were through. How did he say she put it one night, oh yeah, she was fast to love a man when he got under her skin and slow to forget him. That fast love start had been her way with him in their whirlwind love affair smothering him with all kinds of undeserved accolades based on fairly limited knowledge of who he was, what he had been through, and his own spoken appreciations of his worth which added up to the usual man of clay, nothing more. All of the above not giving him time to breathe before trying to plan their future unto infinity after about a month. Yeah, the far recesses of brain might be right she might be lonesome that night he spoke of but let me tell you what he told me one night about that night he was wondering and many others before and after while we were sipping white wines at a Boston bar, listening to some old time piped-in jazz music as background (could have been Cry Me A River starting out, in fact I think it was), which started him out on what exactly had happened the previous few months. Let me give you some of the story and you try to figure the damn thing out:     

 

He had met her sitting at the bar in Cambridge, a rock and roll bar, an oldies but goodies bar that he frequented when he needed to hear Elvis, Chuck, Bo, or some rockabilly beat after some hard case was done or he just needed to blow off steam when some appeals case was slipping away for lack of presentable issues that could win. Some nights, like that night, he wound up just slugging quarters in the juke-box, others, mainly weekend nights he would wind up listening to a live band, The Rockin’ Ramrods, covering the classics. He noticed that from his vantage point a few stools down she looked very familiar in a long ago way. After he slid down the few empty barstools between them to get beside her he had mentioned that fact to her as a come-on and offered and bought her a drink on that basis (a glass of red wine which she loved, loved to perdition as he would find out later) they spent the next several minutes trying to figure where that might have been. Work, no, some godforsaken political conference, no, another along ago bar, no, the Cape, no, College, no, and so on. 

 

Strangely they found out once they discussed where they had grown up (she had told him at first she was from New Hampshire and he said that he lived in Cambridge so the subject of home towns did not come up at first run) that the link had been  that they had gone to the same high school together, she a couple of years after him, North Adamsville High, located on the South Shore of Boston although they had not known each other, had not had any of the same classes, back then (but since they had also gone to the same junior high school they agreed later after they were “smitten” with each other, her term, and wanted to make some symbolic “written in the wind” closeness count they must have been in the same space at some point if only the gym, auditorium or cafeteria). That got them cutting up old torches that night for a while, well, a long while since they closed the bar that night. They agreed that they had some common interests and that they should continue the conversation further via e-mail and cellphone. See, since she lived up in New Hampshire in a town outside of Manchester, was a professor at the state university and had been in Cambridge to attend an education conference at Harvard so getting together soon in person with her busy start of semester schedule was problematic.

 

So for a while, a few weeks, they carried on an e-mail/cellphone correspondence. Both were however struck by the number of things they had in common, things from childhood like growing up poor, growing up in hostile and dangerous family environments, growing up insecure and with nothing and nobody to guide them left to their own resources. Moreover they found that they had many similar teenage angst and alienation episodes in high school in common as well as current political and academic interests. Both agreed that they should meet again in person since they had already “met” in high school (somehow in the rush of things they discounted that they had really met in Cambridge in a bar, but such are the ways of love in bloom go figure).

 

And so they met again, met many times in neutral territory since they lived so far apart (they called their romance, the Merrimack romance for all the old mill towns the met in, Lowell, Nashua, Manchester, Haverhill, Amesbury and a couple of others I forgot), had many chatty dinners and did other things together like museums and took long walks along the river. He explained to me the powerful first dinner where they talked for hours and went he escorted her to her car in the parking lot for them to go their separate ways home when she got teary-eyed and he caressed her hair to console her. Yeah, it was like that when it was good.   Before long they agreed to meet at a hotel in New Hampshire to see if they had a spark that way. Well you know they did since otherwise there would be no story to tell. You also know, at least you know what he thought about the matter, that they did very well in bed together.  Yes, they, he and she, were both smitten, both felt very comfortable with each other and were heading forward with eyes open. Along the way they had discussed their two each marriages, their serious love affairs and their attitudes toward relationships. Those were the times she would emphasize her take on men, her expectations and her limitations. She also early on started her campaign to get him to go stay with her in New Hampshire and leave Cambridge. He although not as well formed in his take on their relationship as she did likewise explain his two marriages, especially the hard fall of the second marriage which left him very stunned, and major love affairs, although he early on balked when she spoke of leaving the city for the Podunk country up north as he called her place. So yes both sets of eyes were open, open wide.

 

She pulled the hammer down, pulled it down early. Within a couple of months she spoke of love, of living together, of sailing out into the sunset together. He, slower on the uptake, slower having been more severely burned in his last marriage than he let on to her or had thought had happened, was a bit bewildered by her speedy emotional attachments to him. They went on a couple of trips away to New York and Washington together, had some good times, had some rocky times interspersed too when she tried to rein him in. He wasn’t afraid to commit exactly (well maybe he confessed to me although not to her when it could have helped maybe had a little “cold feet” problem but he said not bad for him) as much as he wanted the thing to develop naturally, give him time to breathe although I already said that air to breathe thing before didn’t I, there always seemed to be an air of suffocation every time she got on her high horse, got her wanting habits on, got the best of him sometimes.

 

Then he made his fatal mistake, or rather series of mistakes, starting with strong words one night at dinner when they both had had a bit too much to drink, too much wine, and she was going on and on as she did after her second or third glass depending on how tired she had been. He admitted he got snappy, told her they needed to slow down and enjoy each other. She responded with a blast that shook him up but they were able to kiss and make up that night. The real mistake though was one time after they had not seen each other for a week or so he sent her an e-mail speaking in sorrow of the drift of their recent relationship and he wanted the spark back that had go them going. She exploded at that e-mail seeing that as a callous rebuke of her actions rather than as what he thought was a plaintive love letter. What did he say she had called it, oh yeah, a closing argument, a damn lawyer’s closing argument (the “damn” part a result of having been married to a lawyer the first time out and now him). They agreed to meet at a neutral restaurant to discuss the matter (on the Merrimack River of course but I will not give the location since there still may be blood on the water).

 

When he thought about it later he could see where she had prepared herself to be confrontational toward him or at least be prepared to force the issue because the first words out of her mouth were an ultimatum-“come live with me or the affair is over.” The exchange got heated as she drank more wine this night as well (he did not drink that night having learned a lesson from the last session). She said something that when we talked he could not for the life of him remember but they were fighting words. He exploded saying “I don’t need this,” threw money on the table and stormed out. That was the last he saw of her not even looking back to see how she took the matter.  Oh sure the next day he tried frantically to call several times knowing that a decisive turning point had been reached, no answer. Tried some e-mails-same response. Later that day he got a message on his voicemail from her giving her walking daddy his walking papers. She told him not to call, not to write as she would not respond. He never did. As he explained it to me he never did although he spent many a night thinking about whether he should call, about what he would say and thought too of an e-mail but he knew in his bones she would not answer like with his first attempts so he let it go. Knew her steel-trapped policies toward men, toward him in her walking papers summary. Let it go to spend his time, his free time, fretting about what had happened. Jesus.

  

What he did do seriously in the few weeks after their break-up, what he was doing this tonight he spoke of to me as well as months earlier  when he first fretted over what had gone wrong, was think through how it could have played out differently. Did that blame game in order to curb his own lonesomeness as he replayed their short affair, as he tried to try to figure out something that had bothered him since that fierce parting night. No, not about the specific details of what had caused his downfall, although he was still perplexed about why his concern about their present situation and his anger at that last meeting over her ultimatum should have been the irretrievable cause. He would accept that, had to accept that was the way she perceived the situation and that those were the causes of his downfall pure and simple. He didn’t like it but he has come to see where what she said in her voicemail message that she could never see him in the old way, the way she had in the beginning of their affair when their love flamed, precluded any future romantic relationship. 

 

What he thought about mostly though concerned one point-how could two intelligent, worldly people, who individually had many strong and powerful inner resources gathered through surviving stormy childhoods and life’s hard knocks, not be able to figure a way to avoid letting their fragile relationship blow away in the wind, blow away without a trace after many professions of desire, devotion and fidelity. He fretted over how little energy they had devoted to using some of those personal inner resources in order to build the foundations of a strong relationship. He had been willing to take his fair share of the blame for his “cold feet” which had him, more often than not, attempting to walk away from not toward her. That last marriage had damaged him more than he had thought and it had still colored his worldview on intimacy, on commitment, no question. That walking away as they got closer, as she started to get under his skin, always seemed strongest as he left her after some bad days when she was pushing him hard. Or when he thought the whole thing was hopeless since they lived too far away from each other to compromise on a living arrangement. Yeah, he would take his fair share of blame on that.

 

She infuriated him though with her interminable future plans while disregarding the present, although he could not speak for her and whether she believed his house of card blown in the wind idea about what had happened. She had plans for them to go to live in California when they retired, deemed it mandatory that he spent a certain number of days up in New Hampshire even while he had pressing business to take care of in Boston, but best, best as an example, was that she had their next Christmas and New Year already mapped out in March. All the time not paying attention to the drift of the tempo of their day to day relationship where he was, frankly, unhappy, very unhappy. In the end he was shocked by how little there had been to hold them together in a serious crisis which he conceded or would have conceded if she had ever decided to talk to him again was a serious crisis. Now that he thought about it for a while he told me, no, whether she had a new walking daddy or not (or whatever new moniker she would make up for him) she would not be lonesome that night.