Geronimo

I once jumped out of a plane. I had a parachute on ( I guess I don’t really need to say that). I had signed up for a full day of skydiving lessons, which would culminate in a type of beginner’s jump, called Accelerated Free Fall. I know you must be thinking, how or why would one accelerate a free fall. Isn’t terminal velocity fast enough? Do you strap Wiley Coyote rockets to your feet, point yourself downward and zoom toward a collision with the planet resulting in a small puff of dust? (If you are a fan of Roadrunner cartoons you know what I am talking about. If you are not such a fan, you are seriously missing out on an important life experience.) No, accelerated free fall means that you will experience free fall on your first jump. Of course you will do this while being held in correct position by not one, but two experienced instructors, who will be falling with you. You have certain skills to perform in the thirty seconds you will be falling, then you pull your own rip cord and you are snatched away from their firm grasp, to glide down to a soft landing.

After several hours of ground training, as we walked toward the plane with a crowd of serious sky divers, I started to have second thoughts. The plane looked like something you wouldn’t want to board even wearing a parachute. The other jumpers were all young and fit in their brightly colored jumpsuits, all pretty much into themselves. The men were hard and the women were just as hard, and here I was, middle aged and very soft, walking toward the plane with two nefarious guardians who would take me up and drag me out of the plane with them. The day was bright, and very warm, and I was sweating but not from the heat. The plane’s engines were on, noisy suckers, and my instructors were making idle chatter. I kept walking because the alternative, running away screaming, “Take this fucking thing off me,” would have been just too embarrassing. How’s that for self awareness? I would rather actually die than die from embarrassment. I understand I’m not alone on this.

So I climbed aboard, squeezed in with the others, and off we went. Almost everything after that on the plane is kind of a blur. I know I was feeling nauseous as we climbed, and that my instructors kept talking to me, probably because they could see my green skin and wanted to keep their very expensive gear vomit free. I do clearly remember that there was an old geezer on the plane. I had noticed him on the ground because he looked as out of place as I did. I call him a geezer because he fit the qualifications. He was short, with a scruffy beard, old jump suit with visible repairs, and he walked with a distinct bow legged gait. But I could tell from watching him that he had a gazillion jumps, and probably had made his first jump from out of necessity from a burning bi-plane that had just been shot from the sky by the Red Baron. Shit, he probably was the Red Baron. Now, as I sat across from him on the plane I noticed he had a hole in his left ear. I’m not talking about a hole for an earring but a hole you could slide a pencil through in the top part of his ear. Probably a bullet wound. I found myself staring at the hole, noticing that I could see out of the other side of the plane right through it. For the rest of the flight to altitude that’s all I remember, I could not stop looking at the hole. I kept looking at it even as he yelled something as he leapt from the plane. It wasn’t “Geronimo,” as I had half expected, but a cry of inarticulate joy like “Yee Hah!” or something like that as he fell away toward the ground, tumbling wildly, seemingly oblivious to the need for a controlled free fall.

Then it was my turn. My instructors guided me to the door where I held on to the frame just as I had been taught. I looked down, and noticed that being high up is so very much more compelling when there is not so much as a rope between you and 13,000 feet of nothing. At that moment my nervousness crossed over into anxiety and was rapidly approaching the land of fear and terror. But there comes a point in any dangerous endeavor that you cannot stop yourself from continuing, even if death seems a very real possibility. My instructors were hanging outside the plane grinning like they were about to play an enormous joke on me, and it was my time to count to three as I rocked forward, back and then just stepped into the void. The void in this case was not soft, or hazy. Time did not stand still, nor did I see any dead relatives. This void was chock full of things I did not like. I must not have leaned forward enough because I was falling backward looking at the plane shrink at an incredible rate. I was flailing to turn over, and I think my two attached guardians were doing the same. As we finally turned to face the ground and get stable, I noticed what had been bothering me even more than the prospect of death. It was the noise, incredible, terrible wind noise everywhere, crushing my mind and freezing my body. Sky diving is not silent. It’s as if every air molecule rushing past you at 120 MPH has something to tell you and they scream it in your ear all at the same time and all you can make out is this loud roar that drives everything else out of your head. Well, not everything exactly. I think I did my required maneuvers. I have no actual memory of all that, but I do remember that my instructor signaled to me to check my watch, which told me IT WAS TIME TO PULL THE CORD NOW, NOW, NOW!!! I did just that, and was very rudely yanked up and out of their grasp. And now everything moved in slow motion. I don’t mean some kind of cliché mental perception of time standing still, I mean actual slow motion. I’m floating toward the ground, very quiet, very peaceful. I check my chute, looks good. I calmly put away my rip cord in it’s special pocket and I’m at one with the sky. I do all my turns like I’ve been taught. I’m in complete control. I even try to make a fast 360 turn by pulling hard on the left control line. Bad idea, as I go into a very fast spin that has “here comes lunch” written all over it. Hokay, enough of that.

Setting up now for my landing. My instructor comes on the radio with final instructions. He’s already on the ground, probably sipping a beer, while I am setting up to land about a quarter of a mile away from the drop zone. I guess they don’t want to take the chance of a newbie crashing into the classrooms, or into the propeller of the jump plane ready to take off with another load. Bad for business. So I glide in, flare for landing (that’s skydiver lingo), and go in for an easy stand up landing. Perfect. Except that my knees, bathed in adrenaline as they were, have turned to Jello, so they buckle and I go kerplunk on my ass. Oh, I forgot to mention that my skydiving experience, from beginning to end, is preserved on video tape by the flying video guy who, for a significant fee, jumps along with you and shoots the whole experience from a camera mounted to this incredible camera helmet. For really cool gadgets and gear, I’ll put skydiving up against any other sport/activity, including scuba diving and rock climbing. To get more gear and gadgets, you have to become a fireman.

So I’m sitting there in this field on a very warm Summer day in Lake Elsinore, California. I’m not yet sure I can stand up so I decide to lie down and reflect on the experience I just had, and all I can think of is the old geezer with the hole in his ear, screaming with the pure joy of being alive and tempting death, while I, felt no exhilaration whatsoever. Such different life experiences brought us together for a brief moment in time in that plane, and I think that maybe he has had the more exhilarating journey. I have played life safe and secure without taking risks and never once have I braved true jeopardy -- no war, no swimming with sharks, no mountain climbing. And no duel, pistols at 20 paces, with a jealous husband, where we stand back to back then pace, turn, and fire. My aim is true and he falls mortally wounded, while I believe I am without injury. But the blood flowing down my neck says otherwise. Miraculously, his bullet has passed clean through my ear without even nicking any other part of my head, but it leaves me with a bullet hole in that ear, proof of my courage and bravery. Yes. From that point forward every day would be a glorious adventure on borrowed time. One “yee hah” moment after another, and now, I would be sharing a beer with those others who live life on the edge, instead of laying in a field wondering why no one has come to rescue me from my boredom, and saved me from dying. Well, not from dying, but certainly from a long, parachute laden hike back to the jump site.

Maybe I can call a cab.

Trying to Escape Valentine's Day and Failing Miserably

(This isn't really about Valentine's Day, but darned if that damn holiday didn't just jump up and bite me, so it seemed a good time to publish this piece.)

Love Like a Woman

A while back I viewed a photo of some soldiers having just gotten off a troop transport, and in the foreground was a woman, with her two children in tow, running across the tarmac to get to her man. The woman was moving away from the camera, so you couldn’t see her face, but you just knew that at that moment, her whole world, her whole reason for existence, was to love her man. And if she didn’t get to hold him and crush him to her at that very instant, that she would not just die, but cease to exist. What it must feel like to be so consumed by love that loving engulfs you, takes away your heart, soul, and very breath? It must be like turning into pure energy, as if that woman was about to burst into a brilliant light, a bolt of lightning, a heat seeking missile locked on his heart. What a lucky guy.

I want to love like a woman. Men don’t love like that. Yes, we love, we feel it kindle inside but rather than succumb to the pure experience of it, we contain it, control it, hide it, use it to our own advantage, twist it, warp it, inflict wounds with it, especially the self-inflicted kind, and then we stand back and watch in disbelief as it dies. Oh, how strong we are, we men. We stand powerful and solitary, and live and die weak and lonely.

I want to love like a woman. I have been loved like that once in my life of 61 odd years, but it was many years ago, and not recognizing it for what it was, in my youth, ignorance, and imperfect manhood, I killed the very thing I longed for and did not know how to hold. It may be possible that I could know again that fire and oh so lucky to burn in it’s awesome heat. I didn’t believe it could happen twice, but I am starting to think I was wrong. A few months back, I looked in a lover’s eyes and saw in her the glory of possibilities, the joy and pain of an all-consuming passion, and I thought that if only I can nurture this thing, hold it safe from the harm that only I am capable of inflicting, that maybe, just maybe, I would be worthy of it, worthy of her.

Or maybe not.

What I discovered was that there is a flip side to loving unconditionally. The person you think you love might just not be ready for you. My guess is that any woman reading this is now saying, “Duh?” But for me, this was a painful lesson, and it caused me to pull back to my customary manly boundaries.

But having felt the singular joy of flying without a net, I am greedy for that experience again. Only maybe the next time I will ease my way to the edge of the precipice, dunk my toe in the water before plunging in, crawl before walking, walk before running, or any other metaphor you can think of for taking things slowly, yet still end up at some point flying across that tarmac. Yes, I want to love like a woman, but I might just have to sneak up to that point of no return.

So now I’ve met someone new, and as they say, we are an item. We are both bearing the burden of each other’s losses, and helping each other heal. We are good together, that much is certain, and I suspect that she has moved a little faster than I, and is patiently waiting on the launch pad for me to catch up. I’m not all that far behind. I am hopeful that someday soon I will be ready to let this woman climb into my heart, where she will reach me, touch me, burn me, and send that same heart soaring along with hers. Now that would be something to write about, to sing about, to scream out to the universe of my joy and redemption.

Yes, I want to love like a woman.

I want to love a woman like that.

My Field of Dreams

I was going to write about procrastination. I am a black belt. But the fact that I am finally at this computer puts an end to my latest go round. I wish I could just get past it for one time in my life, but then again, life may be just my way of procrastinating until I die. I think I’ll write more on this later – if I find the time.

I have several favorite movies, but there are only two that if I come upon them while channel surfing, I’ll stop and watch them till the end. (Channel surfing is the number one weapon of the master procrastinator.) The first one is “Casablanca.” It’s a wonder of script, acting, scenic design, camera work, directing, and the most romantic movie of all time. It’s not sappy romantic like “Ladyhawke,” but tough guy romantic. The hero gives up the girl for a noble purpose, and goes off into the moonset with his buddy. (If you even think there is any latent homosexuality in that, I will punch your lights out.) Of course, by saying goodbye to Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart knows damn well that he will be up to his eyeballs in gorgeous women from that moment on – e.g: Lauren Bacall.

My other, stop-me-in-my-tracks movie, is “Field of Dreams.” I just got done watching it while I was not writing this. Damn, what a story. It mixes fact and fantasy, present and past, new and old; but what it’s about at its core is fathers and sons, and their connection through baseball. I don’t know if women get this film at all. I don’t care. They can have “Sleepless in Seattle,” I’ll take “Field of Dreams.”

Baseball. Having a catch with your father. Having a catch with your sons. I have no idea why that is such a gut grabber. I’ve written about it before, but seeing the movie brings it back to me every time. You see, even though I have seen it at least 20 times, when it gets to the end where Ray Kinsella meets his father, I choke up every time. And when Kevin Costner says, “Dad, you want to have a catch,” I lose it completely, every time. If I’m alone, the tears start flowing. If I’m with another guy, I go get a beer and wash my face. If I’m with a woman, just enough tears to show her my sensitive side and get me in her pants.

By the way, say what you will about Kevin Costner’s acting, but his reading of that last line of his, is an all-time classic, right up there with, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Next time you see the movie, watch how full he is when he says that line. I like to think he did it on the first and only take. Every actor should have one moment in his career like that. Perfect.

I miss my father. I wish I could just visit with him one more time. We’d talk about stuff. Not important things, just stuff that comes up between fathers and sons. You see, women know how to talk about important things – about love, and how they really feel. Men love too, but we just don’t like to talk directly about it. I wish it could be different, but it’s not. We’re just not wired for it. Instead, we do things together and connect in sort of Bluetooth, wireless fashion. So, my dad and I, we wouldn’t have to have a catch. We’re both too old and it’s too muggy outside. Maybe we’d sit by the TV and watch a Yankee game together. We did that when I was little, and I would give anything to do that with him just one more time. He’d smoke his cigar, and now I’d smoke one with him. And my mother would not be allowed to come into the room waving her arms and complaining about this smoke like she used to do. Ok, I take that back. She should be there too, flailing away and yelling about the smoke, as if that would make a difference. And my boys would be there too -- the four of us, all grown up now, drinking beer, smoking up a storm, and watching young men playing a perfect game. That would be a moment to remember.

Perfect.

Somewhere on Craigslist

So it's 10:06 PM, somewhere in the Near Valley, and a tallish, “some say attractive,” woman sits down to make an honest plea for an honest man. Sure, she's doing it on Craigslist, with it's clientele of men unwilling to take the time and/or money to invest themselves in a more traditional online dating service. CL is easy, quick, very cheap, which is good because that's what most of them are looking for in a woman.

This woman sits at her screen, in a dimly lit room. It's warm tonight in the Near Valley, and she's wearing her comfy sleep wear, maybe a tee shirt and panties, maybe sweats and bunny slippers. She's weary from the search, from the wanting for what she has always wanted, for what most of us have always wanted, but which now is, in our "middle" age, so elusive -- someone to love. It's very quiet now. She has turned off the TV or the stereo, which is her usual prairie home companion, and has decided to tell her truth to an anonymous group of strangers, most of whom will not even click in to read anything that a 57 year old has to say tonight. For some reason tonight is different. She's more than a little angry about the shallow men who are looking for women too young, too gullible, and too easily impressed by lies and half truths. But as I said, tonight is different. Tonight, she will speak from her heart, without anger, as much to herself as to the CL audience that isn't there.

She pours out her plea for honesty, for substance, for reality based self-appraisal, for a man of passion who, like her, is looking for a friend, partner and lover. She doesn't care if he's won the lottery (although that would be nice). She wants to hear from a person who, like her, is more than a little disappointed in the race for love, now that it's in the home stretch, but still willing to put himself on the line and say, "Here I am. Take a good look at me the way I am (although it would be ok if you don't wear your glasses). Listen to my story, look in my eyes, take my hand, my body (including the 20 pounds too much of it), and my heart. Maybe you and I can be a we."

Tonight is different. It's 3:00 AM in a mobile home right above the beach in Pacific Palisades, and a shortish, intelligent, hard working, and pee in your pants funny man sits at his computer and decides not to go back to bed. He has been sleeping, but as men of his age tend to do these days, gets up now and then to pee, maybe drink some cold milk from a chilled glass bottle, and give a quick look into his cyber window to check for that one email which could lift his spirits and set his heart stirring. It's not there. He's written more than a few women of Yahoo, women his age, who say they are seeking a man like him, but do not respond to his contact. Ok, his white horse limps a little. Some of his once thick, curly hair has moved on to wherever hair goes when it tires of life at the top. The ones left behind wave the white flag. But the person he once was, still is, and he wonders why these women aren't at least a little curious.

He sits on his Swopper, listening now to the waves down below, on the beach where he actually does take walks, although not as many as he would like to. He is also wearing his comfy sleep wear, his furry skin, which keeps him warm and has, on many nights, done the same for another. These days, it's a dog who shares his bed, but the dog understands that he's only holding her place. Whose place, who knows? And on this different night he goes on Craigslist. He's looking for a small dresser to put in his guest room closet, and maybe some bargains in potted plants. Oh, and as long as he's there, he might as well shop for love. This won't take long. Nothing much in the way of drawers and pots, and only young and younger women, who still believe they will find Mr. Right on Thursday, just in time for the weekend.

And there she is, this woman of the valley, and he reads, and doesn't go back to sleep. It's 3:30 now. He writes slowly and carefully, because he wants to answer her well, to let her know that there is at least one man, probably not even the right one, who understands her. And so he does. Sleepy now, he finishes by tellingl her that if she wants to know the details of whom she is hearing from, she should go on Yahoo and search the personals. He won’t be hard to find, he’s 60, his name is Milt, and the lead line of his personal profile is, “Still Frisky After All These Years.”

Two days later she writes back and thanks him for his kind email, but declines the possibility he offers. He sits there shaking his head.

A Short Film

(not that short, not all that long either, sort of an average length film)

FADE IN:

(The scene opens on a shot from above of a car speeding and weaving dangerously on PCH. The person driving is either running from or to someone. We watch as the car careens into a seaside jungle paradise known as Ocean View Trailer Park. As we follow the car up the twisting roads deep into the dark forbidding forest, we glimpse suspicious old people peeking from out of their huts. The car parks and we zoom in on the driver as she emerges sensually from the vehicle. Despite her casual attire, we notice that this is one hot babe. She’s got all the right equipment, in the right places, and from the look in her eyes, we can tell that at some time in the distant past, she knew what to do with it.

She approaches the front door of a palatial manufactured home, passing several women lined up with their Match.com profiles in hand. Obviously, the owner of this place is either an incredible stud, or likes to take long walks on the beach.

As she is about to ring the doorbell she hears the frightening sounds of an angry Welsh Corgi coming from inside. She is trembling, if not with fear, then certainly with anxious anticipation of what is to follow. It’s as if she is being asked to play a part in a movie that has no script, or at least none that she has been given until she walks on the set. Suddenly the door opens revealing Mister M, aka Mr. O, aka Mr. Overweight. He is standing there framed by sunlight shining around his head, wearing an outfit that can only be described as “special.” He is adorable. He smiles that adorable smile of his, and for a moment the woman feels like she is going to faint. As her knees buckle, she vainly tries to hold on to the door frame, but before she can slide to the floor of the porch, M takes her in his incredibly strong, masculine, yet sensitive and gentle hands, and draws her tight, we’re talking really really tight, against his strong, masculine, yet sensitive and gentle loins. She tries to speak, but can only manage a whispered plea.)

SHE: Take me.

HE: Are you talkin’ to me? Well, you must be talkin’ to me cause I’m the only one here.

SHE: I want you to take me . . . take me inside. I’ve been stuck in traffic for a over an hour, and I have to pee something fierce.

HE: Of course. I seem to have that effect on many women. The facilities are down the hall, the first door on the right. Remember, the door on the right, not the left.

(We see a CU of a far off look in his eyes as he recalls countless women who, unhinged by his raw masculinity, have turned mistakenly to the left, become lost in the detritus of the second bedroom and in quiet desperation, pee’d on the carpet.)

SHE: Thank you. I’ll try to remember.

HE: One more thing. You must wear this blindfold. There are things between here and the bathroom that you are not yet ready to experience.

SHE: Blindfold??? Are you fucking kidding me??? Never mind, I’ll hold it in.

HE: I was hoping you would feel that way. Now, take my hand and walk with me towards the sea.

SHE: You mean walk down the deck to the back patio where the dogs pee? Is that what you have in mind for me? Listen Buster, there is no way I’m squatting over that gravel pit of yours. You got some weird idea of romance here.

HE: Would you PLEASE get your mind off your bladder. I’m trying to weave a tapestry here. Work with me on this, ok?

SHE: (realizing how fragile her dream of finding that special someone has suddenly become, and suppressing her gag reflex) Oh. Yes, my darling. Take me to that place where only you know how to teach me how to see the sea through the eyes of love.

(They walk together out to the patio, where there is a magnificent vista of the pure blue sea, and a virgin white sandy beach, speckled with municipal trash cans. The only sound, is the insistent rumble of the Harleys on PCH, their riders on PCP.)

SHE: It’s all so beautiful. (Noticing the table set before her,) Is that what I think it is? Oh God, tell me this isn’t all a dream.

HE: No, it’s not a dream, and yes, it’s for you, and you alone. Please, take a seat. Whoops, I’ll take those. Imagine that, my neighbor leaving his panties on my patio.

(Quickly, he snatches the crotchless undergarment from the chair and shoves them in his pocket. Luckily she is so wrapped up in absorbing the view, she doesn’t notice a thing.)

(After a long period of quiet between them, they begin to enjoy what is set before them)

HE: How do you feel? You seem a bit anxious.

SHE: Oh, never mind the tee tee dance. This is just so perfect.

HE: Great, whatever you say. Let’s move on. I’m going inside now. This timer here is set for 3 minutes, exactly. When the time is up, you may enter and follow your heart. In case your heart is on a break, follow the road to paradise. (He starts the timer.)

SHE: I’m not sure I understand. You want me to go back out on the road?

HE: (stopping the timer) No. What are you talking about? It’s a metaphor, a metaphor for Christ’s sake. Just walk in and . . . and . . . oh, you’ll figure it out. Try not to trip. (He re-starts the timer.)

SHE: Why would I trip? Do you think I’m clumsy, is that what you’re saying? Or do you want me to wear that stupid blindfold?

HE: (Stopping the timer as he sighs heavily, his thoughts visible in a little balloon over his head.) [Why does she do this to me? I’m busting my hump here and all she wants to do is bust my chops. Women! The old saying is so true, “If it wasn’t for that little thing between their legs, there’d be a bounty on them.”] No, my sweet. I want you to enter with eyes wide open to the possibilities before you. “Legs too,” he thinks lasciviously, forgetting the thought balloon over his head. He notices her squinting to make out the words suspended in the air. Luckily they are written in Italics and she isn’t wearing her glasses.)

(Once again he re-starts the timer, aware of the precious seconds he has lost, and hurriedly exits into the house, parting the drawn vertical shades he purchased from 3-Day Blinds, just enough to allow him to slip through, but not enough to allow her inquisitive gaze to follow. Soon after he enters, we hear the sound from inside of someone falling down followed by muffled curses)

(During the following moments as the camera zooms in for a CU of the timer, we dissolve to a montage of her memories: getting drunk and holding hands at Home Depot, her first time at this unbelievable paradise, soaking up the view along with a whole lot of wine, running for her life across PCH, then a quick long walk on the beach then back to his bed for that first drunken embrace. We are suddenly snapped back to the present by the rather annoying chirp chirp of the timer.

SHE: Ready or not, here I come.

HE: What?

SHE: Is it ok to come in now?

HE: WHAT? I can’t hear you. What is that noise?

SHE: It’s the timer.

HE: Well, why don’t you shut the thing off?

SHE: How do I do that?

HE: You push the button marked “Off.”

SHE: Don’t snap at me! I just woke up from a montage, mister big shot romantic! Ok, button . . . button . . . ah, here it is.

HE: So push it already.

SHE; I did. It’s not working.

HE: Well, do something. That sound is driving me crazy.

(She grabs the timer and throws it about 20 yards down to the street below where it hits the asphalt and explodes into a million pieces.)

SHE: Ok, that did it. Coming in now.

HE: What did you do? That’s a very expensive timer.

SHE: Never mind, I’ll tell you later.

(She enters the house and as her eyes adjust to the dim lights she beholds something wonderful and unexpected. She is struck dumb with awe and admiration for this man who has gone to so much trouble to make this happen.)

HE: (from the bedroom) Hello?? Anyone out there.

SHE: You are so fucking adorable!!

HE: I know. I’m also adorable fucking. Ok, now follow the trail and find the envelope. Inside you will find the clues to your next adventure.

SHE: (She finds the envelope and tears it open. Inside is an even more wonderful surprise.) I don’t know what to say. I don’t deserve all this.

HE: Sorry, I think you do. Ok, now continue following your heart, till you come to where you will find what you are looking for.

SHE: (Following the trail down the hall.) Oh, you mean the bathroom? I don’t know about my heart but some part of me is really grateful. Just a sec.

(As she exits into the bathroom the camera holds on the empty hall and slowly zooms towards the closed bedroom door. After what seems like a long time to take a leak, even for a woman, we hear the sound of a toilet flushing. She then slowly emerges from the bathroom, wiping her hands on a towel of course, and walks towards the bedroom door. This happens in slow motion to emphasize the importance of her physical and symbolic journey to where she is destined to be. We watch as she opens the door and softly closes it behind her. The camera does not follow her, as we dissolve to stock footage of a very large train going into a tunnel that some joker in the set department has painted pink on the inside. Ok wait, it’s not a very large train. It’s an average train, certainly not a small train. I’ve seen a lot of trains and I know what I am talking about. It’s definitely not a small train. The picture then becomes hazy, and for a few moments the train looks like some kind of wiener, Oscar Meyer, Hebrew National, who knows exactly what kind of wiener, and for a moment the audience will worry if a soft limp wiener will make it into that tunnel. Not to fear. It’s a frozen wiener, and then it’s back to being a train and then we fade to Black.)

THE END

(As we roll the tail credits, we hear loud moans and oooohs and ahhhhs signifying that someone is either having a very good time or doing a damn well good job of faking orgasm. It hardly matters. Women are so easily fooled.)

What Happened

What happened? You want to know what happened? I’ll tell you what happened!! One day I’m looking in the mirror and I have no idea who the fuck is looking back at me. He could be Chinese for all I could recognize about him. I mean to tell you he was old. Not Strom Thurmond old, but well past his prime if you know what I mean. And he had the goddamnedest expression on his face. He looked like a dog wondering how the hell the cat got up on the kitchen counter.

Then it hit me. That son-of-a-bitch was me. Talk about shocked. I felt like I’d been kicked in the bread basket by a dyspeptic mule. And what’s with the hair? It seems I’ve hit the Daily Double, receding hairline and a bald spot? Worst of all, I didn’t actually lose the hair. No, it just migrated to my fucking ears. Maybe that’s why my hearing sucks.

Speaking of sucking. My current girlfriend really knows how to give a good blow job. I mean she can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch. But lately it’s like trying to raise the dead. I look down and I swear it looks like she’s slurpping up overcooked penne. Scratch that. It just feels like limp penne. I haven’t actually seen my dick without looking in a mirror since Namath was chucking ‘em for the Jets. Yeah, and it’s not a whole lot of fun to be drilling for oil with a Dodger dog either. Oh, I get hard alright, but my dick seems to have the attention span of a roadrunner on coke. “There it is, quick, put it in, put it in! Hmmm, I must remember to buy some Half and Half.” Bada bing, bada no bang, and that’s all she wrote folks! Goodbye hard-on, hello ESPN.

Next day I’m talking to a young thing who works for my doctor. Drop fucking dead gorgeous, and real or not, she’s got tits out to Bakersfield, and they’re always saluting in case a flag walks by. “What’s the problem?” she asks, smiling. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, if my dick went limp last night, it’s positively AWOL now. “Well sweetheart, I’m not going to beat around the bush, because that’s all I could do last night.” “I don’t get it,” she says. “Neither do I,” I reply. Nothing, not even a chuckle. Long on legs, short on brains sits there waiting for the light to go on. “What he means,” chimes in an old fat broad leaning on her walker, is that he can’t get it up.” -- and I swear I can hear those words echoing down, if not every canyon, then certainly the long hall of my doc’s office and into every exam room where my buddies and my ex all happen to be here at the same time for their check-ups. Can it possibly get any worse than this??? You bet your ass it can!!

Coming 'Round the Mountain

Writing isn’t easy for me, especially beginnings. Once I get rolling, it usually just flows out and takes me places I had no idea I was heading. When I have a plan or preconceived idea of what I want to write about, the piece usually sucks, with forced humor and words that just don’t sound like I wrote them. But starting a journey without any idea of where you are heading can be a scary thing. Life is like that. We should be frightened all the time because just over that next hill could be a truck on the wrong side of the road, or your wife leaving, or your dog dying. It seems like the only way we are able to function under the weight of so much uncertainty, is that we fill our lives with expectations, and little plans, and everyday stuff so that we can delude ourselves with the notion that we are in control. The irony is that the real meat of life, the stuff that startles us to the core and lights us up is also unexpected. And very often, the good and the bad get so tangled that we have no way of making sense of it all.

When I was first divorced, it was all new and all bad. I had never lived alone and wasn’t prepared for the quiet. I think that’s why so many people just leave their TV’s on, to fill the space around them with sound, because the quiet is just too empty. For me, I couldn’t go to sleep without classical music playing on the radio. I can still recall pacing and going from one room in my apartment to another without any reason (I do that now, except that I have a good reason to go into the room, but just forget what it was when I get there. Then I put my glasses down and leave, and later can’t find my glasses. I’ll have to write about that later . . . if I remember.)

So to fill my time, I spent many hours on the internet, and as it happened, I started an email liaison with a younger woman from Texas. Except for our common love of motorcycles, we could not have been more different. Me: middle-aged, Jewish, balding, urban. She: thirties, protestant, blond/cute, redneck. But there we were, both lonely and needing something good to happen, and finding it in the unexpected – an improbable, long distance romance. At some point, of course, we would have to meet and consummate our improbability. We did that one long weekend, at a Bed and Breakfast somewhere in the Lone Star State. (If there is any place better to have an affair than a type of hotel named after the sum of what you would be doing there, I don’t know what it is.) I got there first, and I remember how incredible it was to feel that awesome energy that only incipient romance can deliver. I did the room up with flowers, champagne, chocolates, Cokes (champagne before, Coca-Cola after). She was going to arrive that evening, and she intended to surprise me with something. The hours, delicious with anticipation though they were, dragged on and on. I think I showered four times. Just after dark, she arrived at the place driving her truck, and I remember I was surprised that she didn’t ride her bike. She came up to the room, accompanied by the grinning innkeeper and his wife, who knew the whole story. (When I wasn’t showering I was downstairs babbling on and on about why I was there and what was going to happen later.)

When Texas came into the room I noticed she was wearing a long coat, not unusual because it was cold outside. We kissed lightly and hugged for a very long time, like old friends who just happened to be breathing a little heavy. I turned to get the champagne and when I turned back she had removed her coat and was standing there in her motorcycle gear – boots, leather vest, and chaps. No shirt, no pants, and no underwear. She did a little spin so I could get the whole view. I think I may have blacked out. I do know for sure that after what seemed like an hour of staring at this vision of beauty and salvation, standing there wearing little more than a wicked little grin, I became aware that my jaw was wide open, and I was uttering unintelligible syllables. Trust me here, this was one of those coming 'round the mountain moments that sear themselves into your memory forever. Life, all of a sudden, was looking up.

We spent the weekend together, and she more than lived up to her coming attractions. But if that first meeting wasn’t enough to start me up, both at the time and for many a night of fond remembrance, (Forget finding my glasses. When I can’t remember something like that, shoot me.) something happened the next morning, that to this day I still recall as the sexiest moment in my entire life. I was standing at the mirror in the bathroom, shaving, wearing nothing more than a silly grin, when Texas came up behind me, snuggled into my neck and without warning, put a finger in a most sensitive place. Frankly, I do not know how I kept from cutting my throat. And best of all, I then did the coolest thing I’ve ever done. Without a word between us, I kept shaving. Forty five minutes later, I had the closest shave in the history of mankind.

Out of the blue, Texas called me today. It’s been ten years and I could tell from her words and the sound of her voice, that they had been hard years. She needs a favor from me and it seemed that she was very sad, drunk or stoned, and much older than the years that had passed. I told her I would help her if I could, but I wanted to do something nice for her right then, to take away the sadness and weariness in her voice, so I told her how fondly I remembered our time together, and specifically how I seemed to recall that one morning I was shaving and . . . It was good to hear her laugh as she told me that she too remembers that particular shave quite often.

I doubt if we’ll see each other again. I don’t think either of us wants to spoil the memory of what was with how the years have warped what is, but it is good for me, as I hope it is for her, to relive a brief time when unexpected followed unexpected. and jump started two hearts that had run low on love.

Lookin'

During the 11 years since the end of my marriage, there came a time when I decided I needed to date. That word still doesn't sound right to me. A man of middle age shouldn't "date," anymore than he should have a "girlfriend," unless of course she happens to be 19, and is totally smitten with you in spite of all your money. Even if I was a gazillionaire, I don't think I could have anything more than a one nighter with anyone who didn't even exist when JFK was shot. In fact, after two or three hundred of them, one night stands probably wouldn't be all that satisfying anyway. If I win the lottery, I'll get back to you on that.

So how does one go about finding a grown woman to go out with in this day and age? I guarantee that there are no singles bars just chock full of attractive, intelligent, and witty babes between the ages of 50 and 60, and blind fix-up dates are likely to be just as disastrous as they always have been. (I'm embarrassed to say that I actually had dinner with a woman my ex-wife fixed me up with. She was nice enough, but I couldn't handle the implications and ramifications of what continuing to see her would be. I mean do you really want your ex giving your new prospect inside tips? Is to shudder.)

These days, it seems we all eventually find our way to the internet and the plethora of dating services. I’ve used at various times Yahoo Personals, Match.com, AdultFriendfinder, and Jdate. All of these services suck. They lie, they match you with women too young, or too old, or too fat, or too tall, or all of the above. Worst of all they match you with women who haven't been on their service for "more than 60 days (which means anything from 61 days to deceased). But once in a while, one of them doesn’t suck. It all depends on if and where you find that actual, living, breathing, and hopefully loving match. I have had two “relationships” from the internet – both from Yahoo. The first turned out to be, what younger people call, “a friend with benefits.” When I initially heard that I thought it meant a partner with a great health plan. Then I found it meant a partner with a great plan to make you feel, for want of a better word, healthier. Big difference. I knew pretty early that I was not going to fall in love with her, but stuck around too long. It’s hard to say “no more” to those damn benefits.

The second relationship was a comet that burned hot and fast, and lit up my heart like I never thought could happen again. I jumped in with both feet, believing the Zen saying, “Leap and the net will appear.” Wrong. She not only cut the net, but then made sure to throw an anvil in after me. Picture this: We’re laying in bed after sex (ok, you don’t have to really picture that, especially if you’ve just eaten). Our sex life, which started off wonderfully (don’t they all), had now deteriorated to the point where I was considering faking orgasm. So we are laying there and she places her hand on my midsection and says, “You know, if you’d lose that you might get a lot more sex.” Nice, huh? I should have just walked out right there and then, or maybe come back with some childish retort like, “And did you know that sweatpants are not supposed to fit like pantyhose?” But I didn’t do either. I was in love, and let me tell you that love is not only blind, but also deaf, and dumber than a sack of hammers. I stuck around for a couple of more weeks to soak up some more abuse and then, still wondering what happened to us, pulled the plug. I should have known that a woman who writes a blog about middle-aged internet dating, would have too much invested in having relationships fail, the better to keep her in the game.

On the other hand, I have come to realize that after being married for 30 years, and single for 11, that I don’t do alone all that well. I mean you get used to it -- living alone with a dog or two, seeing friends, getting wrapped up in work, shopping, cooking and cleaning (or not), to the point where you have pretty much forgotten that feeling of loneliness that lies dormant way down deep. Except sometimes, just before you go to sleep, while nuzzling a dog or two, that feeling rouses from it’s slumber and whispers softly to you. “Don’t drift off yet,” it says, “You need to hear me before you put us both back to sleep. Schmuck, you are lonely and you need to do something about that. You need to find her, win her, and hold her close to you (ok, I don’t know who she is yet, but work with me on this). You need someone who fits into you like the last piece of that 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of the Sunset over the South Pacific, the piece that fell off the table and bounced under the couch, and that you looked everywhere for and found years later, covered with dust but still gleaming with promise (no, I don’t mean literally bucko, it’s a tortured metaphor for attractive maturity). And as she completes your puzzle, you complete hers, and you both know this as she snuggles in your arms, where of course she fits, as you both drift off to sleep. Do that please, so we can both move on. You’ve let me hang around way too long.”

So here I am again, sitting at my computer, going online looking for love. I wonder if I can find it on Google. Now THAT would be some kind of search engine.

The S Word

I want to talk about sex – not sex in the abstract or sex in the past, but right now, up-to-the-minute, down and dirty, sex in the senior set. Those of you who are past 50 are now leaning forward, eager to read every word and savor the revelation that sexuality does not expire at 40. Also, you probably don’t see so good, so leaning forward helps. Those of you younger than 50, if you haven’t already run screaming from the room, are probably squirming in your seat, but since I have pointed that out, you will now lean forward and pretend interest, but hope you don’t read something that will make you more nauseous than you already are.

Right away I want to get something straight with any kids in the room -- not children, but kids, young people in their 20’s or 30’s. I like sex, I liked it then and I still like it -- and I like to have sex as often as my body will let me, which is not that often anymore, damn it. I also have news for you. Your parents probably like to have sex. They did it, and they still do it. And think about this. Sometime, maybe just last week, when you called them up in the evening and your dad, in a strained voice, said that mom was busy right now? Guess what she was busy doing. Still with me? Good, it gets better. Your mommy and daddy like to fuck and suck just as much as you do. They did it like crazy till it caused you to come along, and after that they still liked to do it. I know you think they only did it those 3 times when they wanted to have you and your brother and sister, but it doesn’t work that way (unless, of course, you get drunk and have a one-time, one night stand, forget the condom, and 45 days later you get that awful phone call. Don’t ask me how I know that.) Your parents jumped each other’s bones every which way they could come up with. They used every orifice, every appendage, and several household appliances in their quest for that mind blowing orgasm. Hell, I bet that unless they are sitting in the room with you, there’s a good chance they’re doing it right now. I know it’s not pretty, but I think you get the picture.

It’s not that I want to torture you with unthinkable images that I have forced you to think of (although that’s fun too). I just want you to know that being a sexual being, is natural, normal, and doesn’t fade away. So you can take some comfort in knowing that you probably have another 30 or 40 years of glorious bumping nasties ahead of you. As long as you want to use that thing between your legs, it will do it’s best to lead you to heaven and sometimes, unfortunately, to hell.

Mine has led me to both. I had a wife who loved me, and we had great sex. Thirty years, and I swear our sex life just got better and better, right up to the time that she walked out the door. She loved me and I loved her, but I fucked around and that’s the truth. I loved her, but I didn’t care for her, take care of her, take care of us. Had no idea what I could lose. Ten years later, and I still remember that last day, standing in the hallway of the house we built, leaning against the wall to keep my knees from buckling, my tears in her eyes. She had already rented a condo and was all moved in but she was taking a few last things. This was the first night she would never sleep with me again. “Please, don’t go,” I whispered, “Don’t do this.” The hall was lit from a window high above the front door. I looked up and through it I could see a white sky, and the hall was painted white and she had on a white tee shirt. How could everything be so white on this blackest of days? We stood there facing each other. I wanted to grab her and just not let her go, but the white was like ice and I was frozen in place. I watched her turn and walk down the hall. The hallway became a tunnel that stretched to the vanishing point, where she was headed. When she reached the hall tree at the door, she paused. I saw the key in her hand, and I knew that if she put it down, I would die. Frozen in place I would topple over and explode into a million shards. She stood there and held it for a time, for a lifetime, our 30 years together in her hand for one last moment. She gently placed the key on the shelf. Then she opened the door, took a deep breath, and as she walked out she exhaled, and it made a sound like silk sliding through my hands.

I met a woman this week. Yahoo personals. She’s 65. What’s with me and these old women? Oh yes, I forgot, I’m an old man. We met at El Cholo, had a margarita, ate green corn tamales, and danced that same first-date tango that everyone knows and loves, and hates. She’s a writer too, and we both laughed because without planning it, each of us brought our work to give to the other. She was attractive and lively, and got my motor to turn over once or twice. After dinner, I walked her across the street to her car. We said goodbye and kissed – a soft lips, no tongue, but nevertheless inviting kiss that we held a few moments longer than goodnight kiss protocol would suggest. I told her I would call, and I meant it.

At home, I got stoned and went outside, and lay naked on a lounge chair in the cool ocean air, and for more than a few moments allowed myself to feel the peace that comes with possibilities. After a while, I took the suggestion that certain chilled body parts were making that we all go inside. I sat down and wrote her an email. I told her what I had just been doing and of my fantasy of her lying naked on a lounge next to me, of us holding hands, eyes closed, feeling the night, and listening to our breath ebb and flow with the ocean waves. Got an email from her the next morning, saying how much she enjoyed our evening, my writing, but that she didn’t enjoy sex, was aghast at the idea of being nude out in the open. She didn’t want to mislead me. (That’s me sitting there, mouth wide open.) She had always felt that way, and was thinking maybe, after all these years, she could learn to like what she had in the past only tolerated. But then she realized that she could never relax and enjoy sex, that she would always be worried about, “ . . . what was coming next.” Well for one thing, neither of us would be cumming next.

Damn. I thought of all the excitement and ecstasy that she had never known, and how sad it was that she would never know what it felt like to give someone the gift of your very being, and receive the universe in return. See, that’s what I know now, what all the joy and sadness has taught me. That once upon a time, before I killed it, I was part of a great love – for 30 years, for a moment, forever. I crush that memory to me, and hope that maybe, with the grace of Yahoo, Jdate, or backing into each other in the supermarket, I can have all that again, one more, one last time.

(Ok, I know I said this one would be an up-to-the-date, new piece, but it's not. I'm getting closer though, only about 6 or 7 months behind. I'll definitely let you know when my writing is in present time mode. Soon, I promise. Very soon.)

Go Like Sixty

I never played catch with my sons. I’ll pause here to let that put a tear in your eye. When each of them was five, they tried T-ball but were bored silly. Besides, you can’t have a catch with a five year old. Soon we all got into AYSO, so goodbye baseball, hello football . . . okay, hello soccer. When they got older I tried to initiate this hallowed father and son ritual, but discovered to my horror that Ari, best athlete in the family, throws like a girl. I am so embarrassed about that, but Zach seems to enjoy his older brother’s affliction, and a younger brother needs that sort of thing to level the playing field, so I let it go, and decided not to go through with the paternity test. See, my father and I played catch, and those memories, as they are with most American men, are some of my most cherished ones. I had hoped to make some more with my sons, but . . .

He was in his fifties, my father, when I was about eleven, but we would go out in the street in front of our house and he would throw me flies and grounders until I was tired and then we would end it by just tossing it back and forth. We’d throw it with that easy swinging motion that we copied, he from Dimaggio, me from Mantle. When we were really into it, we moved in unison like ocean waves coming in and going out. Rock forward as you throw the ball, and as you were rocking back, the other person would rock forward and return the ball to you. It was a most graceful ballet, performed in the cool of twilight, until it was too dark to see the ball.

I’m in my 60th year. I’ll complete it on the last day of June, 2005. Now, my family never made much of birthdays past childhood, but Tina’s family did. I admit I kind of grew to like that. Parties and presents good and bad, and all for one slightly embarrassed person. Unfortunately my two sons have taken after my family in that regard. We don’t have parties, and gifts usually consist of money changing hands. (That’s from me to them. There may come a time when they feel that they’d like to slip the old man a few bucks, but unless it had five or six zeros in it, I hope it never comes to that.)

Lest you think I was a complete dolt, I did buy and build 30 presents for Tina’s birthday of the same age, and when she turned 50 I threw a big time country and western party catered by El Cholo, complete with Margaritas. I still remember her smiles and laughter. Tina had a great smile that was all teeth and gums and squinty eyes. Freckles too. She had so many freckles that they ran together, almost like a tan. A friend in college once asked her if her breasts were freckled too. They were, but at that point who was looking at freckles? She still has all four – smile, freckles, and breasts. But I digress.

As I come to that age when the certainty of my next birthday is a diminishing probability, I’m starting to think about making the most of the most significant ones. Sixty is one big significant. It’s that line that separates the men from the old. It’s that age past which when you hear of someone’s unexpected demise you no longer think, “Ah, he was too young to go.” You start saying things like, “Well, at least he led a full life,” or “That’s the way I’d like to go, while I still have my wits.” There’s another saying like that but I can’t remember it. Please understand that I am not obsessed with death, just becoming aware that I am much closer to the end of my life than to the beginning. There is nothing middle about this age I’m at. But I digress . . . again. I think senility is when all your digressions jump in a big dog pile.

I’m going to celebrate my 60th birthday my way, and this is how I’m going to do it. I’ll take a trip with my two sons by motorcycle. That will be sweet. They both ride, but everyone worries about Zach’s coordination in this area, especially Zach. So I will be on one of my bikes and Ari with be on the other, with Zach as pillion (that’s English bike lingo for passenger) behind whomever he thinks will be less likely to kill him. I’d like to go to the Grand Canyon. Never have seen it, and I don’t think they have either, and it seems like a perfect setting for a significant passage. On the way there and back, we’ll do all kinds of grown up guy things – eat big steaks, drink cold beer, and smoke some fine cigars at a bar with an old coin operated pool table, with a worn cloth and bent cue sticks. And we’ll laugh all night. Then we’ll wake up at the crack of noon to hit the road again. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.

But maybe it won’t quite work out that way – no motorcycles, no Grand Canyon. Remember, as John Lennon said, “Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.” So here’s my other, other plan. We’ll have a great dinner on my birthday eve, with family and friends, and good food and drink. Where? El Cholo, of course -- the one on Western, not the one in Santa Monica that my friend, Pam, describes as a Swiss Mexican restaurant. Since her boys will be there, I’ll invite Tina, along with her boyfriend, Steve. She’ll be smiling that smile of hers at the boys, and I’ll be smiling at her, but I’ll look away before she catches me.

After dinner, Ari, Zach, and I will say our goodbyes, and we’ll go find an all night bar with a pool table and pretend we’re on the road. Yeah, we’ll be on our way to the Grand Canyon with plenty of beer, cigars and quarters for the table. I can see us now, and I can hear our laughing, loud and out of control, full of careless joy. Then after an early breakfast at the Pantry Cafe on my birthday morning, I’ll drive us to a park in Santa Monica. I’ll open the trunk and take out three newly oiled Rawlings baseball gloves, each perfectly broken in, with a brand new ball in its pocket, tied up with string. I’ll untie each one and remove the ball, and watch as my sons marvel at how the glove now holds the ball shape, and at their father who knows still how to make the magic happen.

Then we’ll spread out in a triangle pattern and we’ll toss a ball around. From me to Ari, then back to me, then to Zach and back to me, then to Ari, back to Grandpa, to me, to Ari, to Zach. Tinker, to Evers, to Gramps. The connection of fathers to sons, fathers to fathers, and fathers to fathers to be. And everything will be beautiful and everything will be as it never really was. And I’ll pause, holding the ball, to look at a nearby tree. “Hey Dad, what’s wrong?” And there will be Tina, sitting in the broad shade of an oak tree, her hair, dark before time stole its color, blending into the sunless pool, framing her face, brilliant with a glow from a light that has always been hers alone. She’ll be on reclining on one arm on a blue blanket with a basket of snacks and drinks, waiting for the game to end, and for us to return to her. The air will be crisp and clean, like after a rain, and I will inhale till all that is around me goes deep inside and I will keep it there till I burst. Tina will smile then -- smile at her boys. “Nothing, Zach. Everything’s okay now.” And then she’ll turn that radiant smile on me, and this time, I won’t look away.

(I wrote this piece about a year and a half ago. I'm still catching you up with older stories, but I think I'll mix in a new one in my next post. Stay tuned.)

I Live in a Trailer Now

I live in a trailer now. it’s not a mobile home, but a genuine 1961 Detroiter that’s in a mobile home park on PCH, just across from the beach. It’s a friggin' dump -- not the park, just the trailer, with leaky plumbing and old dog smells in the frayed carpet that my dogs are only too willing to add to when I am not there or asleep. You have no idea how much fun it is to step in dog pee on your way to take one of your own in the middle of the night. You stop and stand there, feeling the cold liquid under your foot, or warm, which is actually more yucky, feeling your anger building inside you, and wishing that whichever one of them did this would just explode. Of course I don’t know which one did it, so I yell and scream at both of them. They stand there with that hang-dog look on their faces (aptly named) and take my abuse regardless of which one is the culprit. I think they have a deal -- no one tells, spread the anger around so I can’t really hone in on the guilty one. Just once I’d like one of them to crack and give a wink and a head bob toward the other one. “He did it,” Sadie would say, or “She’s the one you want, not me,” from Murphy. Alas, they stick together. Goddamn pack mentality.

So I live here, middle aged divorced man with two dogs. I walk them to the dog area twice a day, with my Tilley hat on my head, and my fanny pack stuffed with plastic bags from Ralph’s. This hat is a self-proclaimed legend, supposed to protect my head and attract women. I don’t know. It’s mad of off white canvas and it’s sort of a limp thing, like it just came back from a solo trip around the world on a sailboat. The hat, I mean. The idea of being alone on a small boat on a raging sea gives me hives. But I wear the hat. I think I’m cool, but then I catch a reflection of myself in the window of a Camaro, and I don’t know who the hell that fat guy is wearing my hat.

I say hello to the few neighbors I see TJ, a former WW II fighter and test pilot, who I think has diabetes, with a horrible skin all red and flaky, so he walks around in a sarong-like beach towel with a once gaudy pattern that has faded to indistinctity. I guess he wears it ‘cause it doesn’t rub on his legs as much as pants. I’ve never asked. I just make small talk like we’re standing in a sauna, and not on the street. He was a important man once, a man of courage and vitality. Now he is guardian of the dumpster, making sure we all obey the rules about what we can and cannot deposit there. His wife, Susie, likes to talk. She is small and very frail, and I always notice her skin. It’s almost transparent, and very delicate, so she bruises and cuts easily. She’s has white hair that must have once been WASP blond, and a wonderful smile that tells you that she was quite a babe -- and when we talk, she always touches me on the arm. I bet when she was young, that was her best flirt, one that melted the heart of a handsome flyboy or two. It still is, and for a moment as she touches this younger man, with his two dogs, standing there in the street, she feels young again. And if I let myself, I think that I too am young again, and this cute young thing has oh so casually laid her fingers lightly on my arm, and stolen, among other body parts, my heart.

When they go out, she drives and TJ steers. I shit you not. The other day I saw them trying to turn the car around. He would turn the wheel to full lock left, then she would back up, then he would turn the wheel back to the right, and then she’d go forward, and he’d turn the wheel once again to the left, and so on till they finally made the U and off they’d go. Tag team driving. If ever we are leaving the park at the same time, I wait and give them a big head start.

Her cat has run away, she tells me, and I am appropriately sympathetic with the required furrowed brow and the tsk, tsk’s that we use to show someone we care even if we don’t. I don’t. Actually, I do care. I’m glad that fucking cat has run away. Once it knew that my dogs were tethered to me and that I wouldn’t let go, it knew it could just sit there, and calmly stare at them while they went bat shit trying to pull my arm off and barking loud enough to get other neighbors to complain to the management.

See, even though I live in a hovel, the hovel is on a Wheat Thin of land that I rent from Tahitian Terrace, a “senior” mobile home community. Remember that. We are a mobile home community. Next door is a trailer park, Palisades Bowl. ( I wonder how many times a month someone turns in there looking for a bowling alley.) The Bowl has many trailers like mine, all bunched in close to each other, just yards from the beach but down in a bowl (hence the name) so they can’t see the ocean. But they also have trailer trash which makes it a very interesting place, methinks. All we have here is old people, and I fear I am living in the right place. Old. We never see ourselves as old. Old only happens to other people. Like death -- we don’t really see that one coming either.

Oh good, it’s raining now. Rain on an old trailer is a good thing, unless it leaks, which thankfully it does not. I can hear the rain much better than when I lived in a house, a thousand years ago. I like the sounds of weather. I listen to the rain and surf and the wheezy blowing of air from a heater with emphysema. A symphony of white noise, that can lull me to sleep or keep me awake and dreaming of long ago rainy nights, warm fires, caviar and champagne on a white sheepskin rug. Soft skin, hot on the fire side and cool on the other, laughing as she spills caviar on her lap and I volunteer to go get it. Does she ever think of those times? Does she ever think of me at all. I would like to know, but cannot bring myself to ask.

Back to the trailer. Lest you think I am deprived, I also have an ocean view to die for, 170 degrees from Malibu on the North, to that canyon hillside on the South that prevents me from seeing downtown. So now you get the idea. I live in a dump in a fancy, upscale park, with a beach I am looking at right now except that it’s dark and I can’t see it. I can hear it though. Gentle waves mingling with the not so gentle sounds of PCH traffic. Waves and traffic seem to make sounds in the same frequency range, so what I hear is a kind of continuous hiss like the tv makes when it’s not on a working channel, with an occasional peak when a large wave breaks. I tell visitors that it’s all surf sounds and I can’t even hear PCH. They buy it. Then some asshole on Harley with straight pipes roars by and my lie is revealed. So, now you know why I bought the trailer. I’m getting a new one soon, an 1100 square foot rolling condo, that they truck right in, in two sections, scotch tape together, and then put up on jacks. The wheels and axles are exiled to live troll-like under the floor, waiting for the day when I’m gone, and a new buyer looks at my old place, and decides it’s time to roll mine out and bring in a new one.

It dawns on me that the new trailer, in this park, could be the last place I’ll call home, along with a bunch of really old folks, many of whom have come here to wait for death to blow in off the Pacific. And it does. Every couple of months, the ambulance comes to get someone, and then we hear that another trailer is for sale. I bought mine from a woman who hadn’t died, but had just lived past her expiration date, so her children found her an assisted living place and sold me her trailer. “Assisted living?” Right. We used to call that an old folks home. Same thing, same outcome.

But isn’t assisted living what we all need and want? Someone to help us get through the day, listen to us, love us, and hold us at night? Like TJ and the radiant Susie, living catless here by the ocean, with only each other now, trying to hold on to their memories that slip slide away like so much beach sand through their fingers, as they drive off into the sunset, four hands on the wheel.

(I wrote this a couple of years ago. I'm living in the new trailer now, but nothing else has changed all that much, except that Murphy died, and has been replaced by Bandit. I just thought I'd catch you up.)