STUDENT LOAN SHARKS | where the borrower is our chum
February - March 2007
HOW I SPENT MY SPRING VACATION part VI |
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SAM COOKE- Another Saturday Night
Friday night I was resolved to pre-packing duties and winding down the first leg of my adventure. I was on the phone for awhile with a friend who was just washed out and didn't want to head out for the evening. This is something of a trap I fell into years ago. Friday and Saturday are the traditional get out of the house nights. But as I have no social life of which to speak, rather moot, no? There is a resounding question and answer when observing the human ritual of dating. Apparently, prior to the 21st century, people got together for many reasons. The constant seemed to be booze. I was taken out of that loop and my inability to strike up a conversation with others has been painfully obvious. I can handle my own, obviously when it comes to the art of conversing. When a close talker indirectly decided that I need to analyze the number of beers he's had by his breath my first notion is to cower in shame. So how did I deliver so regularly and with such drive towards the ladies in my college years? I honestly have no idea. Girls just seemed to always be around. The thing was - I was friends of all those girls. I haven't had a lot of guy friends and so there wasn't a lot of contact initiated from that direction. Usually I had to introduce my guy friends to girls. Some decided they would call, "dibs". Gee, wonder why I hate hanging out with guys. I suppose there was a pattern to meeting these girls and eventually ending up together. There was no dating. I suppose the kids today would refer to it as 'hooking up'. Sure. But I never really had a one night stand. There is something of a badge of honor in reoccurring business and repeat customers in this area. Maybe I had no social life because I didn't go out on Friday or Saturday nights? This started when I first moved to Rocklin after escaping Redding in 1992. Look; I'm white, male and I am aware of my surroundings. I don't drink so 'dancing' just isn't going to work. I respect the concept that rhythm, for me, is resigned to other, more fluent activates. Repeat after me: I care, so there shall not be any waving of hands in the air. I went to the Punchline every few weeks when decent stand up comedians came to Sacramento. During football in the fall, Friday nights were spoken for so not a lot to go on there. Friends would visit from Chico or Redding or the Bay Area or Oregon (?). Maybe it's pompous to write this now, but they came C.O.D.; Chicks on Delivery. I didn't sleep with everyone, mind you. Just a few. But that's par for the course, isn't it? There's a mutual attraction and a natural curiosity to see if you are compatible with someone. If you go into the bedroom and all the parts fit with nothing leftover, great. Over time I found that the agreement was not taken seriously and there were things leftover. Feelings. Emotions are understandable. But feelings make me wince. Why would anyone be interested in me? Okay, the hair. I was in shape at the time. I was relatively intelligent. I think I had a decent sense of humor and timing. I didn't treat girls like crap and respected them. I did go macho every now and again and received the moniker - Studboy. Had nothing to do with the extracurricular activities. But why an interest in someone who was animate that he never wanted to get married nor have children for damn good solid reasons with sound logic and evidence to bolster that stance? What would be gained from venturing into a relationship with what I am; the human equivalent of an air mattress? Guests are comfortable to a certain extent. Relatively low maintenance. Easily deflated. Tucked away and forgotten. But when regular use is demanded - we should really examine the needs and wants of the situation. I generally went with a rule of lay:
From what I understand there were summit discussions about me behind my back and in other instances there were events of 'cockblocking', as the kids would say. The kids with their hip-hop and their compact discs and plaid shirts. Still. I didn't feel that there was anything to apologize for. Yet, I carried around an extra ton of guilt whenever it occurred. "We need to talk." "About what?" "About us." "There is no us." "I thought there was something between us." "There is an agreement. And that is it." "Don't you care about me at all?" "Yes, that's why we have an agreement." "Why are you being so mean?" "Because I'm being honest?" "No, because you're being an asshole." "Okay. Understood." It was a temporary relationship. Sex with the emotional safety on. The gratification was there. The fact that I cared about most of the girls I was with has to mean something. Very rarely was it a situation where it was all out pounding for pleasure and a quick goodbye - "I'll call soon". Sure there were those arrangements, too. But I still cared. Generally though there was a lot of simply meeting needs on a bunch of different levels. Full service attachment and intimacy. Speedy service done right. Check under the hood, filler up. Come back when you're ready for a refill. I was in my 20's. What do you expect? Was there a reason for all this? Why wouldn't I just get into a relationship? Why try to juggle so many girls at the same time? Why was I a man-whore? How can I claim to respect women when I went through them more frequently than scented air fresheners for your car? Don't psychoanalyze me. I know why. And you're not going to read the reason here. And I did become involved with someone. Alison was tall, funny, great personality, taught at a pre-school so she could enjoy me acting like an 8 year old at times. There was a disconnect when it came to the direction of our lives. Had her brother not died, tragically, things still would not have lasted. Or, worse, they would have. I would have plunged into a bad marriage and maybe even another life would be brought into the world and destroyed before it had a chance to make a decision. Simply because I was unable to detach and it was the 'easy' thing to do. Toward the end of our relationship things were hanging on by the memory of better days. I looked down at her hand in my hand one day and realized; that could be anyone's hand. She wouldn't really care if it was my hand or not. She just needs someone. Eventually she gave me the ultimatum; "either we get married and have kids or..." "Or. You knew the first night we met that I didn't want to get married or have kids." I actually said that the first night we met. "I don't want to get married and I don't want to have kids." Again, it was my mantra. It was my cop out. Crutch. Easy access detachment procedure. At that moment, though, it was absolutely the right move. The semester after we met I took every class Alison took and she made the Dean's List. Prior to that she either enrolled in class and didn't attend or didn't care and usually got a 'D' or worse. I was going to be transferring to a four-year school for college and I definitely couldn't meet her needs with football, school and all the rest as priorities. That would not have been fair to her, me or anyone else. And so it went for years before Alison and for years after Alison. Perhaps I paint too rosy a picture. But it is my picture we are discussing here. Maybe I don't have a lot of friends, but I have had a lot of experiences with people. That is to say girls. Girls who were friends. Who I occasionally had sex with. I never slipped one past the goalie and I was incredibly lucky with "Like in the age of Chlamydia". Many of those girls got married and later some were divorced. Some had kids and while they love their children, there is that tone of resentment that maybe they wanted just a few more months before entering motherhood. The comedy for me, in this case, and the tragedy for others, is that when I came back from college, some of the girls wanted the agreement back. Married or not, they wanted the agreement. I had slept with married women before. Well, two that I know were married. Others probably had boyfriends. When you make a decision like that there's a lot of consideration. It honestly made me feel very sick and disgusted with myself. They made their decisions. But I altered their life with my terms of attention, affection and emotions. I had all that other stuff they wanted in their life without the bills, the dishes, the rent or mortgage, the realization that their man wore tennis shoes with jeans. I was constantly throwing more guilt and shame over my shoulders. There's your relationship and commitment. Why did I do that knowing the other person was in a committed relationship, or at least, a discernable relationship? Because. It was sex. And sex was a detachment from everything else for me. It was something I was relatively good at and generally that was the consensus. Technically proficient at times but well above board. The high scores come in the overall thorough performance, courteous coitus and feel great nature of the experience. I was able to make girls feel safe, secure, worthy of the affection, attention and emotion they deserved without having to hear me ask for another beer a half an hour later. They could talk about things that would otherwise hurt their relationship or undermine the commitment. It was truly friendship ruling the evening. Everyone knew about everyone else and though the 72 hour rule came much, much later, it was always in practice. Most of the time. Some of the time. Every so often there were early evening calls with one and then later evening calls from another. Usually on Fridays and Saturdays, as it turned out. Saturday brought a new sort of adventure. The sunburn was throbbing that morning and it only threatened to be worse that afternoon. I was meeting Jay, Christy and Little Girl Kate at the Muni for the Cubs vs A's. It was a sell-out and I grabbed standing room only tickets at Christy's bequest earlier in the week. Pointless, it seems, to have a seat for Kate when she's going to run everywhere in the park except round third and head home. I arrived as the gates were opening and marked our territory in the shade down the leftfield side of the Muni. I laid out a blanket (very, very special blanket) and I tossed some water bottles to keep it down. Today was going to be sunny and windy. Hooray for chapped, burnt flesh. Luckily I had the Scout Straw Hat and spray-on sunblock. I even decided to wear my long sleeve light A's warm-up jacket. I decided that the 5-8 degrees of heat was tollerable to limit the searing heat of the burn. I wandered to the Team Shop and picked some stuff up for Kerry. If you're an A's fan you should find a Nike outlet in Northern Californa. Most of the apparel in the shop had the swoosh logo on it. Meaning that in 4-6 weeks there will be a lot of unsold merchandise on the rack in an outlet near you. I went back to the car and dumped the stuff in the trunk. The last thing I wanted to do is have beer or child beverage all over the stuff I just bought. The atendee at the gate on the way out was a nice old lady. I write old lady because she was in her 80's and there was a secondary guy in his 20's who was really doing the work. She was really just greeting folks. Even though that was mainly used as an after game exit rather than an entrance. I think that's really cool. Everyone wants to feel useful and earning a paycheck for a few weeks in the Spring is great. Easier to tip the Easter Bunny. I started in on my third bottle of liquid on the day. Water when I woke up, Vitamin Water while I was getting ready and water on the way to the game. I was pounding water. My internal organs needed it in order to poach themselves. I started snapping pictures of Little Girl Kate as Jay and Christy were wheeling her up. It was windy and she had a beret on one side of her head. Her sunglasses were keeping the debris from her eyes. But she was more concerned with her hair. She kept one hand on her hair for the first 15 minutes she was there. She's two and a half and she's concerned about her hair. Does everyone realize why I think this kid is G-R-E-A-T? Jay and Christy are cool as people and even better as parents. To the untrained eye Kate is a handful. Really, it's corralled very well. Jay and Christy allow her to roam while still keeping her in check. Once Kate was out of her stroller she plopped down with the stuffed elephants I got her. The A's mascot is an elephant. It goes with the theme of the day. I later explained to Jay and Christy that I'll give Kate stuffed animals when I see her for the next two years. Then it will be books. I imagine it will be books for the next 50 years. Jay went in search of pizza and I snapped more pics of Kate. The powers that be had better be appeased. I take enough pictures now with the new camera, I don't need to be cajoled and hassled into taking more. Though, I did miss my chance to have my picture taken with Kate. By the end of the 7th inning she was a flopping salmon at spawning time. Kate's next venture was the wrought metal fence in the grass area. About elbow high for the average adult. Just high enough to make parents with toddlers nervous. After about 5 minutes of Kate climbing - other kids in the area came over and started to join in. Trend setter. After that it became time for Jay to discover Kate's latest move; as he went to pry her off the fence she pounced backward into his arms. It became her game. Now, Jay's a pretty coordinated guy. He can handle that catch and still keep a beer in his hand. Many years ago some might have questioned what Jay would have considered more important. That's worth writing, but not a consideration in the realm of possibilities. Kate became quickly agitated by the ill-mannered need to keep her from getting hurt on the fence. At one point, Kate muttered to Jay over her shoulder in a back-of-the-hand manner, "go play with your friends." She's two-and-a-half and she's got passive agressive snarky down cold. Earlier in the week she displayed her, "whaaaaaaat?" when asked a question she clearly new the answer to. Usually something that she had walked off with or in the midst of making a mess. The game went by relatively uneventful as Spring games should. Jay, Christy and I talked baseball and the like as we do. Well, Christy got about three words in and then went on patrol. She did come back later after having bought an A's hat. A Yankees fan wearing an A's hat. Cool. This was after we had discussed the deity that is Cap'n Jetes. Eventually the Payne's headed back to Queen's Creek and I was left merely watching a baseball game. Jay and Christ are wonderful people. Funny, smart, intelligent, self-deprecating and generous. The two of them raising a child is just brilliant to watch. When I was in Arizona two springs ago I watch as Baby Kate flopped on the grass with her little helmet on. She wasn't, "the cutest thing ever." Kate was just cool. Any little kid can play the cute card. Kate's got better things to do. They clearly were on top of their situation. Some new parents aren't. They are too busy maxing out credit cards to have 'Ralph Lauren', 'Guess' and 'the Gap' on their accessories. By accessories I mean the children they spawned. Jay and Christy always take things in stride and don't force Kate into your face, pinning you to the ground and force feed you videos and pictures of their miracle child. It was more subtle, "yup, that's Kate. She's cool, huh?" She really is. And now things seem even paler. A few months ago the topic came up. Just popped up in a conversation. And my mantra didn't seem so relevant. With her. Getting married, that's still a stretch. But having a child? Yah, as it turns out, it sounded like something to at least consider. With her. Living together and having a child? Maybe I could do that. With her. I absolutely could do that. With her. Starting tomorrow? No. But the fact that the thought was even considered shook me to my core. And it became something that I lost control of. Being in a relationship, living with someone, talking about the idea of children - this was virgin territory for me. Everything became a question mark. I was running things up flagpoles. What about pets, how many are too many? Can I make the commitment to one person for the rest of my life? Could she make the commitment to me? Would I marry her if she could make the commitment to me and not the marriage? How would that work with a baby and pets and books and giant TV's and Suicide Girls and Oakland Athletics baseball? Would I marry her if she was 9 months from giving birth to a super-genius with the most tremendous hair ever and destined to rule the universe? If I was going to buy a house in the next two years should I start thinking about more than three bedrooms? Should it be a lower-end house and then upgrade or mortgage to the hilt out of the gate? What about my retirement plan and how soon could I start budgeting for college? What about soft schedules for work; could we both work fewer hours at the office and spend more time together? What about venturing into consulting? Will American employers catch the European work patterns? Can you win the lottery without actually playing? That would help a lot. Those questions and the ideas that allowed them to exist were put up on the shelf almost as soon as they appeared. But the answers lingered and grew more disturbing. Across the room at times I would look at her. I couldn't think of anything that meant more to me than being with her. She doesn't look at you the way she looks at me. And she's got a smile that makes you want to chew on bricks. Because of that, just being around her - it all fell into place. Everything just made sense. Yah. This could happen. It's possible. Really, it's possible. It kind of makes sense. Everything up until that point between wasn't supposed to happen - and we did everything we could to see how far it could be pushed. REALLY far, as it turns out. Then I did something stupid, and I did it stupidly. I don't know what I was doing. I don't know what I was trying to get across. I gave her a key to my house a few days before that. I wasn't trying to end things that night. And I don't want things to be over, now. But they are. I guess. For now. Because I can't fathom it any other way. If there was something I could do other than wait, I would. I know some were thinking in my best interest. But that doesn't mean trying to keep me from being hurt. Some tried to convince me that there was something I wasn't considering. It wasn't real. There was someone else - I wasn't the only one. It was just pillow talk. It was the thing to do and say at the time. That I needed to get over it and move on. Somebody else would be better for me. There were other women out there who weren't a trainwreck. She's the only trainwreck I want to be with. And nobody's going to tell me who to love. . . . Continue to Part VII . . . |