just about a year ago now, she called out of the blue on a thursday night, sheila did, and i had written her off, i didn't know what i was doing and as it turned out neither did she, both of us smack dab in the middle of middle-aged but still acting like befuddled, scared teenagers when it came to this sort of thing, i had written her off out of self-defense, and then she called out of the blue and asked me out, and of course i said yes.
i may have been befuddled and scared but i wasn't stupid. i liked her, ya know.
she suggested a movie, but i said, instead, hey, do you know of and like celtic rockers black 47? told her i'd been rummaging thru the interwebs the night before and had seen that they were playing rev hall that coming saturday nite. i saw them at bogie's all the way back in 1993 and of course i had a story to go along with my suggestion...and of course i told it to her...it went something like this...
back in grad school, i used to start every thursday nite pub crawl at ralph's, and our group got friendly with this man and woman who often happened to sit at the bar during the early evening hours. they were a bit older than us, i was like 26, the woman was 35 and the guy was 37. that's what they said anyway. i think. and if the ages weren't exact, they were close enough.
anyway.
one nite when the woman went off to the bathroom i - being young and drunk and nosier than a little old italian lady, the latter a trait i still possess - said to him, so what's the deal? you guys look really good together and you're always out drinking, are you an item? i was just curious.
he gave me the whole, well i like her but it's complicated routine. of course it was complicated. they were older and, even though they were funny, they seemed, to my immature punk-assed ass, at least, to have a certain gravitas to them, so of course it was complicated. they weren't moronic meatheads like me, they were all deep and serious and shit. he gave me the whole sigh and sad-wisdom-laced smile song and dance and explained patiently that he was moving to new york city at the end of the year for a job, but she had a good job up here and didn't want to move, yadda yadda.
i was sort of infatuated with them. they were just these really cool older people, and you could tell they got a real kick out of us kids and i wanted to believe that i too was not gonna go gently into the good night of middle age and that i was gonna be a really cool older guy some day, rocking it out in the bars with my hot 35 year old like his friend in my all tragically complicated heart-wrenching semi-relationship. i just thought they were so awesome. i wanted to be them when i grew up, ya know?
sometime around thanksgiving, about a month before me and lauren ultimately fessed up, we were all hanging around the bar bullshitting. there was this other dude who was into lauren and they went out a few times and i thought she was into him. so the two of them were in the group and they all decided to go to mahar's and i said i'll meet you guys up there, i got some songs coming on the jukebox that i want to hear.
in reality i was kind of slowly realizing i was into lauren and i just didn't feel like watching this fucking dude, who of course i knew i was way cooler than, fawn all over her and make her laugh and shit. it irritated me, and it irritated me that it irritated me. i remember him coming into ralph's that nite with his look on, he thought he was so cool. for a brief period in 1992 or so some guys used to do this thing, the jeans and shirt with the tie on, and lauren was like, nice tie, and he was like, aw, i wore it cuz i thought you'd like it. and i was just like gag with a fucking spoon people.
i was totally jealous. of course at the time, well, not to be arrogant but at the time i looked pretty good and i had quite a few irons in the fire with several local beauties, plus a couple not so local, and one of the not so locals was a friend of lauren's who i'd hooked up with when she'd come over from england to visit that october, and the friend was writing me letters and inviting me over there and everything. so yeah, maybe not as complicated as our older friends, shit, they just dripped of complication, but i was tryin', i guess.
so they all left for mahar's and i had to wait until my tunes played, specifically "every day is like sunday" the classic morrissey tune. i moped at the bar as it played and the older woman said to me, you like that girl don't you? i protested mildly, like, wha? she said, the redhead, you like her. i protested mildly again, like, nah, we're just friends.
so it was me, her, and her friend sitting there and she said, well, i'm gonna let you in on a little secret. and i'm like, bring it on. she said, i got news for ya, buddy, she's totally into you. i denied, said something like, nah nah nah nah, we're just friends, she doesn't like me like that, she likes that little fart-bag with the jeans and necktie thing going. she looked at her friend - now we're all pretty tanked at this point - and says to him, this boy needs some educating, doesn't he? and they both laugh.
and she broke it down for me, all these little things she'd noticed in the way me and lauren interacted. and i'm like, oooh, i never noticed that. but in the end i said, nah, you make a plausible case, but i think you're wrong. and she says, well, i got this figured out, you can believe me or not, but someday you'll see i'm right and you'll remember what i told you here.
ok seriously there is a black 47-related point here...or some point...i think...
a few weeks go by and by then lauren and i had finally let the cats out of our bags, right before, and i mean, minutes before, she goes home to england with her american graduate degree in hand.
two or three weeks later, some friend tells me that a band we both dig, black 47, is playing at bogies that night. and you know me and my boy dan, who i lived with in a deliciously unkempt apartment in the heart of center square at the time, were all over that shit. we started drinking cheap beer and smoking all the resin i could scrape out of various bowls in our apartment by like 4:30 the night of the show. my boy lou came down from mechanicville, too. by 7:00 we were crushed to the gills.
we staggered over to bogies to see black 47, all pumped up. and bombed up.
we get in there it's packed, but who do i run into but the older woman. we start chit-chatting. she was with two women friends but after awhile she kind of ditched them.
a lot of booze consumption ensued. dan knew me and lauren had hooked up but that's all he knew at that point, he had no idea that this thing had turned as serious as a heart attack already. as i have prolly mentioned, this was a touchy subject because dan and lauren had dated for awhile that spring and even though he broke up with her, i guess this is one of those rules, you're not supposed to hook up with your now best friend's ex. so it was weird and i hadn't told him much other than the absolute basics, which, even that, he didn't seem too thrilled about.
lou, on the other hand, knew the real story.
black 47 came on around 11:00 and they come out and just tear the place the fuck up. seriously my friend it was as close to an out-and-out riot as i've ever been involved in at a club show. the older woman is draped all over me at this point. lou's looking at me funny, like, what are you doin' man don't even tell me you're going there. dan's looking at me like, dude, you are my idol. you are gonna make this happen.
wll, i was the oldest guy in the crew back at ralph's, everyone was else was 23 or 24 and this woman was hot and together and just totally confident and chill and 35 and we used to sometimes talk amongst ourselves because she seemed so wise and exotic and as unflattering as it may sound now, we'd talk amongst ourselves and be like, holy shit, can you even imagine hooking up with her, she must know shit that neither us nor the early to mid 20's girls we were chasing can even dream of.
so black 47 is just killing it, truly a great performance, every one's into it, it just goes on and on and it was one of those shows that you just don't want to end.
but of course it did, after several encore demands were satisfied.
so we're all hanging out at the bar drinking yet more, like we needed it...and she's like, so what are we doing now? she wanted to go downtown, she says to me, how 'bout justin's? and i'm like, you know what i just moved to a place right near there. and in her drunken stupor she smiles and says, well that's convenient isn't it?
dan and lou are off in the periphery at this point, and her friends are nowhere to be found and she is pretty much all up in my kool-aid, and suddenly it hits me: i am now gonna have to turn down the chance of a lifetime here. the young boys of my crew woulda like put a plaque of me over the bar at ralph's. my street cred woulda been off the charts. i woulda been the king of the 1993 edition of the center square slacker elite.
so i gotta tell her i can't go downtown with her, and she's like but why? and i say remember the girl you said was into me, well...and she laughs and says, well isn't she in another country now?
she left...me and dan and lou have two or three or, ok, maybe four or five more unnecessary beers and dan is mystified and really almost pissed off, just on principle. and i say, well, she's goin' to justin's, maybe you can try. and he puts his arm around my shoulder and looks me right in the eyes and smirks and says, you know i would never do that to you buddy.
a couple of minutes later the black 47 singer walks over, orders a pint. the place had emptied out. i tapped him on the shoulder and like ten thousand other pathetic, loser, drunken fans had done to him countless times before, said, heyyyyy...you guys fucking rock, you tore this place up, come back soon. he grabbed his beer, smiled, said thanks, and walked back to the stage to help pack up.
&&&&
for whatever reason, even after me babbling this story into her headset, sheila agreed to go see black 47 with me two nights hence. like i said, i'd sorta given up on her anyway, she'd kinda blown me off once, maybe twice, depending on which judge scored it which way, so i figured i had nothing much to lose.
so we went to see black 47, only we went to some bar beforehand, and we sat at the bar, and i was kinda pissed the whole time, though i hid it well, i think, i was kinda pissed, because every time we hung out i found myself a little more infatuated with her, she just had something about her that got to me, i didn't wanna like her so much, but i did, and so anyway, we went to see black 47.
it went a lot different than the first time i had seen them. for starters, we didn't get there until the show was half over, what with us getting waylaid at the bar nearby beforehand. they tried to start a riot this time, too, but they didn't have too much of a crowd behind them this time, the place was half empty, and i found something sad about it, but sheila seemed to dig them, and so did most of the smattering of folks standing around rev hall.
afterward, after we had spoken to the singer for a bit, and for the record, initially he totally dissed me and my attempts to discuss the '93 show, but he got a whole way lot more interested in conversing once he caught a glimpse of sheila, but we chatted to him for a sec and then walked back to a friend's house and then back to the bar we started at and then back to our cars, and we agreed to see each other again soon, only she, sheila i mean, blew me off one more time, only it was more a case of confusion rather than a blow-off, but anyway...
here we are, a year later. sheila lives here, now, and we're gettin' married in less than two months. she's not here tonight, she went back home for some sort of bridal shower, drove back this morning, and i'm home alone, my daughter just walked behind me on her way to the bathroom, and i don't even know what the hell i'm talking about at this point, home alone with a few too many beers flowing through me, a few too many memories, last year, 1993, all kinda melding together, it's all kinda unbelievable, isn't it, the things we go through, and it's saturday night again, hope yours is a good one, friend.