1992
We went to this bar in Hartford, Connecticut, at about midnight. On the roof they had this reggae band that we listened to while we talked. At about 1 am the band finished and the management made us go downstairs. On the ground floor they played incredibly loud classical music and had Dr. Gene Scott on the television. I really hadn't seen Dr. Gene since the early 80s when we used to watch him on John's satellite dish. Simon remarked that when he tried to call Dr. Gene they would hang up on him if he did anything other than offer them cash money. At two a.m. the bartenders shut everything off and yelled, "GO HOME!"
It was late and I really wanted to be in bed, but our presence was requested. We sat in the living room of Dave and Lynn's suite, drinking champagne. Lynn was sound asleep in the next room. Simon sat quietly in his chair.
"Do you feel any different?" I asked the newly married Dave.
"Nah," said Dave, who would say that if he just inherited 5 billion dollars or if his arm were severed.
Dave was about to elaborate when some guy who I think was Lynn's cousin, but he could have been a brother or even a bizarre form of revenge, suddenly yelled, "Diggin' up Bones! Ya know, I asked that band if they'd play Diggin' Up Bones and they said that it was a country song!"
Simon left promptly.
It was late and I really wanted to bein bed, but our presence was requested. I paced around the room and was informed that it was the room that Vice President Al Gore stayed in during a recent trip to Hartford. I looked at a little porcelain statuette on a table. It was chipped and broken in several places. "I'll bet he busted this statue," I said. "Nah," Dave said, "lots of people stay here."
It was one of those worthless holidays, the September one: Labor day? Yeah. Whatever. I wanted to see Algonquit, Maine. The whole world told me that Algonquit was just too cool. Simon and I drove up the coast, making John Sununu jokes as we shot through the $6 one- blink-and-it's-gone toll road in New Hampshire, headed for unset destinations in the Maritime Provinces.
I wanted to see Algonquit, Maine. We got off at the Algonquit exit and the backup of people doing the same thing stretched all the way back to the off-ramp. "Forget it," I said and we did a bit of slightly illegal auto maneuvering and got back on I-94.
I can never remember when Veteran's Day and Labor Day are, so I'm usually surprised when that many other people do. We decided to drive up to Kennebunk and make a jaunt out to the Bush estate. We drove into town and took a few pictures, then we asked for directions to the Bush place. What a wonderful surprise it was to have everyone we asked say, "Well, I'm really not sure."
The wedding had ended and we all went into
the historic barn for the reception. It was a lovely evening. I was having a very nice
conversation with Dave and Lynn's friend Beth over dinner. Things had ended and the
maid-of-honour asked me to dance. I had the most bizarre and inexplicable panic reaction
to the request: since I was best man it should not have been such a shock.
Simon and Beth both prompted me to go and took my rather nervous look to be a sign that I was uncomfortable with dancing. I tried to explain that I knew how to dance but that something else entirely was wrong. I told them that it was a long story. The maid-of-honour, who will probably never speak to me again, walked away -- she may have went off to dance with Simon.
The feeling was quite similar to my feelings the night that the woman I was dancing with at a Sting concert turned around and I saw my phantom fiancee, Lynda. Only as I sit here now, does this come to me.
In a nutshell, when I was 19 I went back to
Nebraska from Denver "in disgrace". I was broke and had nothing tangible to show
for my year away from home. I was a "republican" at the time and therefore
experience had no value, I was looking for assets or impressive tales. So I invented one:
Lynda Berg. I told everyone on the face of the earth that I had this girlfriend named
Lynda and we were engaged and she was killed in a car wreck and so on. I built up a whole
world around this nonexistant person until I started to believe it myself. Then, one
night, I went to this concert and was dancing with this woman and she turned around and
looked at me and looked exactly like my mental picture of Lynda Berg and I about exploded.
So that was about 10 years ago and I outlined my deception to world and self in J. LeRoy's Progress back in 1988. So I thought I had exorcised all that. Now the maid-of-honour looked nothing like Lynda Berg and I really don't think that this was a LB inspired attack of nerves, but it did feel quite similar. It is possible that somewhere in the detailed LB mythos I created there was a similar situation, but I don't know.
In a few minutes it passed. Later, I danced with Lynn for a long time and we had a really very nice conversation. I wanted to spin over to the MOH, but by then I felt too awkward.
Simon had no home. All weekend people had
been asking him, "Where do you live?" and Simon would be forced to answer,
"Nowhere." He had just received his Master's in Journalism from Northwestern,
had no job, and was just sort of drifting. So he lived nowhere.
The wedding reception was winding down and we stood under the stars, wondering what to do next. A little girl named Jade walked up to us, sizing us up. "How long is your hair when it's not in a pony tail?" She asked and I made a motion with my hand. "About this long."
She looked at Simon. "Your friend is tall," she informed him. "We noticed that," Simon replied.
Again she addressed me, "How old are you?" "Twenty-eight," I said. "How old are you?" she asked Simon. "Twenty six." "So he's older than you?" "Yep. Pretty much." "He doesn't look older than you." "Oh, well, thank you."
"Where do you live?" She asked me. "Seattle," I smiled at Simon, knowing he was going to have to give her a really detailed explanation.
"Where do you live?" came the inevitable question. "Well, that's sort of hard to say." "What do mean, you don't know where you live?" "No, it's just that I really don't live anywhere right now." "You have to live somewhere." "No, really, right now I'm just basically living out of my car. You see I just graduated from college and haven't moved anywhere yet."
"Well, you need a house, like
him." She said, motioning toward me. "Oh?" Simon said. "Yes," she
went on, "you need a house with a bedroom and a sink."
Later I wrote to Dave, telling him that the only way that I would ever have a child is
if I could get a guarantee that it would be like Jade. Dave wrote back, telling me that
Jade has 10 rules for entering her room, one of which is: If you cannot behave in a
reasonable manner you will be asked to leave and you will not win a prize. BVI
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