"It is what it is...."

And it's hot. Steamy. Not the romantic, sizzling, bacon kinda steamy. The "Oh my God, I'm so f'n hot", dripping, melting, Florida kinda hot. I jump up every 15 minutes or so and wander down the hall to slam the thermostat down another notch.

And then I remember.

It went out with a boom.

The AC.

Nadah.

I twirl my hair up and shove a pencil into my crown, crossways. 1950's style. "How long until winter?" I wonder. Dreading those gray days as I utter the words. I love the heat. The sun blistering my cheeks. Ice cold beer melting, daring you to drink it before it warms in your hands. But I don't wanna be hot at night. I don't like to camp out.....

I'm whining. Pop open the windows and a cold beer. And then I smell it. The faint reminder of 1976. Wild honeysuckle on a fence, my jeans tearing as I clear the pickets. Lights flashing. Giggling. And then 1977, gagging, fumes intoxicating us. "Open the damned window!" And three of us falling into a heap on the floor....the newly painted claw footed psychedelic aquarium air drying.....home to stray fish for twenty something years after....As we gasped for fresh air ....giggling even in death.... with the honeysuckle winding her way through the dirty screen, saving us from certain tragedy....

And now....

Drenched in Monday night sweat. Waiting on winter.

Accidental perfume.

The perfect gift.....

Sweet Friend of Mine....

It was a ten speed. Spray painted by thieves, and then, unclaimed, sold at the Sheriff’s Auction for ten bucks. We scooped it up and I had wheels.

They brought me here kicking, screaming, pouting, listening to “A Horse with No Name” on the staticky AM radio. I wasn’t impressed. The cobblestone roads, before I fell in love with them, were just bumpity and made the little Toyota we had inherited by chance, sound rattley and cheap. Piled in the front seat, with Skinny sandwiched between my legs, I watched the fancy yancy houses go by, the “isn’t it just beautiful?s” and cringed. I hated it here.

The evening of the Sheriff’s sale, I took off, spiked pedals piercing my flip-flops, blonde hair flying, cigarettes stuffed in the back pocket of the too-tight peanuckle cut-offs. I didn’t have smoker’s cough then, and I flew. Around Brewer Hill, and down, and down, and down to the water.

They were standing, shirtless, at the end of the drive-way,leaning up against a cheap little car, smoking. Just down below. Two guys with long hair billowing, lounging , blowing smoke rings, and laughing at the sky. Stoned probably. I fidgeted my fanny on the seat. The electrical tape wrapping the seat, transforming it from orange to black, stuck to my upper thigh. With my right hand I yanked the bent and crumpled pack of Kools from the thread bear pocket, poked one in my mouth, and dug deeper for the lighter.

Closer.

Faces coming into focus.

In the wind, flying, I tried to light the cigarette. At sixteen I was cool enough to do this, and maybe, even, flirt, on the fly by.

And so of course, I crashed. A mangled heap of stolen goods and a skinless chin at their bare feet. They barely even moved. “I’m Christian” he said. “Nice to meet you”…..

We spent years playing driftwood in the ocean, floating until we washed up, sun burnt and stoned. I giggled with him through his affair with the next door neighbor, Mrs. Robinson . I painted his bathtub in psychedelic colors and we planted fish there. We danced on tables and hung from balconies together. He taught me to drive a car, we traded poems back and forth and stuffed them in a manila binder…. “Our book”…….

He proposed to my best friend , beer-giddy on bended knees. We toasted. I stood by him when he called off the engagement and told the truth that sent her heartbroken, into the fast arms of a passing Navy Base Boy. I was there when his Father poured a scotch on the rocks, and his Mama, the one he gained by chance, stirred the drink she had been nursing since noon, and held her husband’s hand. I was there for the announcement, the Hush that blanketed the house, their hearts, their dreams. I was there, when in acceptance, they celebrated all he had become, the circle he had created…..

I don’t know how many years it’s been, I don’t know the date, the anniversary of his leaving me. But I know I miss him. And in the quiet of the walls tonight, I felt him here. Today, Orhan reminded me I had guardian spirits visiting ….And he’s not kidding…..

Rest in peace, sweet friend….
I hear you knockin’…..
And I'm listenin'....

And then.....there was Disco....

And the silver glittered shoes....

We didn't trade our tattered levi's and Rolling Stones for anything, but we snatched a little "oooooooooooh, ahhhhhhhhhhhhh" "do the bump" and melded it into our week-ends. We added sparkled belts and wore blue mascara. We hit the clubs.

On Friday nights, we'd pile into Million's van and do the drive-in thing, cheap wine or expensive beer on ice....B-rated movies on the screen. We'd wander from car to car, an open air party. Admission: $2.00 a car. In our world we were hippies.

On Saturday night, we'd trade in our flip flops for platforms, and join Christian and his boys at The Palace. In Christian's world, we were movie stars.... The dance floor was an ever changing Twister game, smoke seeping from it's edges. The disco lights flooded our late night faces with pelting prisms. It was a bottle club. Bring your own. Buy the cup, the ice, the mixers. Tip the pretend bartender well......

"Riunite on ice. That's nice" I loved the commercials. The color of the wine. And the sound the ice made clanking in the glass. We tipped the bartender well......

Last night, we danced in the kitchen....

Turned the disco light on....

Traveled.....

We danced through my 8th grade birthday party, an all nighter at Peace Creek.....We swayed through my Senior Prom, and went low for Bob Segar.....held up our lighters and waited for more.....

We swished the Riunite (yep, they still make it!) and prayed we wouldn't have headaches today....

I wore the silver shoes....

Jonah crashed the party. "Guess what I got, Ma?" "A tattoo".......He made fried egg sandwiches and drank beer in the kitchen.....John Travolted across the vinyl floor. We laughed. And he did it again.

We lowered the music and lull-a-byed him to sleep.....

And danced in the kitchen.....

Last Call

Sorry guys, I had to go here. I have a stack of LPs , tattered cardboard corners, and covers I used to croon over, in the corner of the living room. A collaged heap of CDs tossed randomly on the floorboard of my car (front seat passenger side). An ever growing, ever reminiscent collection of sound. That I like to play LOUD. And sing to. And yes, dance to…

And sometimes the music is new and noisy and grindy and great, and sometimes, it’s just old school. The stuff that memories are made of. For whatever reason, I started thinking about certain songs and how you can remember the EXACT moment when you heard it….. felt it....banked it forever into your memory.

So here it goes….

Smoke on the Water, Deep Purple…
Million’s van, flying down Drewer Hill, well we were rolling really, but it felt like flying…blue lights dimmed behind us, just watching, And finally, I threw up

Just the two of us
A champagne and caviar party resulting in the first of many endless nights at The Entertainer, (now, a topless go-round) dancing in circles. And then, what the hell, getting married. I have since given up Champagne, and the husband

Aquarius, The Fifth Dimension
Getting kicked out of PCS Christian school. Age: 13 It was on the radio when my Father came to fetch us Filthy little sinners! How dare you have a pool party (on your own time) and invite mixed (boys and girls) company to bathe (swim, play Marco-polo, float, dive) together while listening to Rock and Steal your Soul (The Beatles) music? Ummmmmm…..It was my birthday?

Red Rubber Ball
Christian’s funeral. The procession. The absolutely ridiculous words ringing tin-like out of the radio. And how prophetic they were.

Moon River, Andy Williams
Ohhh, I shouldn’t be sitting right next to my Mom on this couch listening to this in the state I’m in.

Tainted Love…
The Palace. You were there SLB.

The Kiss, Tom Jones and The Art of Noise
Dancing, gliding, dreamily off the deck and into the pool, satin dress parachuting up to the surface…..
Plop, splash, splish, slip, swoosh…..a sea of wedding-goers joining us. Pool party anyone?

The Letter, The Boxtops
Soldiers. My soldier. Yellow envelopes. Homecomings

Pink Cadillac….
Rumors! The Other Side. I still do NOT know how to do the electric slide!

Private Dancer, Tina Turner
Tami on the mike, belting it out at Fitzgerald’s. No Karaoke. Just a mike and her voice filling the room. She‘s 12 years old and we have her at the bar drinking Shirley Temples! Our parental instincts were always ….proper?

Build me up Buttercup
The 6th grade. Ronnie Beasley and a valentine too big to slide under the desk.

Mr. Lonely, Bobby Vinton
Pale blue carpet in a long long living room. Stereo at the far end of the room. Furniture lining the walls leaving the center open for a plushly padded dance floor. Mom and Dad on Friday nights, Martini’s on the coffee table. Kimbies and I, long legs dangling, parked on the couch, watching them dance in rhythm, in sync, in love.

Funeral for a Friend, Elton John
Dancing on the tables. Kim’s living room. Birthdays. Slumber party. (We had to have a slumber party, we couldn’t drive home)

Queen, anything Queen
Our first apartment. “We are the Champions”. Throwing BYOP parties just to stock the bar ...aka... the dishwasher…top rack glasses…bottom rack bottles. Loading the tub with ice and beer. Sleep walking in the window.

Creep, Radio Head
The radio cannot play this loud enough. Reversing all the “I’m a creep’s” to “You’re a creep’s” ….. This would be my all time favorite Rant song. And I’m not even gonna say why.

To be continued….
On another reminiscent night….
And oh yeah, I just did the spell check, and I do make up words!

Sometimes you sing
Sometimes you dance
Sometimes you just go backwards

One Million Seven

I drew maps today. Intricate little cross hatches on scraps of paper dotted with circles(lakes) rectangles (houses) dashes and arrows (This is the way we went) and X’s (it happened here). I can’t remember what flippant remark got me started on the neighborhood thing, but I grew up there (well actually I was already a teenager, but isn’t that when you really grow up?) and I was compelled to set everyone straight on the geography of my childhood . BECAUSE they absolutely cannot understand how all these little bungalows on these bumpy broken brick streets could be worth millions now.

Well, I can.

I, of course, can’t afford to go back and live in my memories, but anyone with a buck in their pocket that wasn’t brain fried from the 70’s and therefore CAN’T remember the magic of those roads, would be 40 something now and nostalgic for “that place”. So gotcha! Prices have skyrocketed and it’s a phenomena and the “address” to have….

But anyway, this is how I remember it…..

Flying down Grove Terrace, bumpity bumpity bump on the bicycle my Mom bought from The Sheriffs sale (stolen bikes spray painted, confiscated, and never claimed), blonde hair flying behind me leaving trails, flip flopped feet embedded into the spiked pedals…..Can’t wait to make it half way around the lake, past Paiger’s little friends house, to light this cigarette! Now I can! It takes two hands, one to flick the bic, and one to shield the wind, I’m going down hill, looking down, on a bumpity bumpity bump brick road!

The road burn was instant. The elbow and hip thing came later. The smell of my hair, scorched for a fleeting second hovered throughout the introduction. “Wow, you crashed, dude”. I stared at them. My eyes were running. Away. I’m 17, tanned, thin. Two beautiful guys are crouched next to met, splat, on the road. They’re older. 20 at least. I’m dying. “Hey, you need a light?” I laugh.

Best Friends.

30 years later they bulldoze Christians house to build three more. One million seven.

God, didn’t anyone remember we danced here? We painted the bathtub in psychedelic colors with Saturday night hands and turned it into an aquatic rescue unit. People would wait in line to sit on the toilet and watch the fish swim. We painted the glass panels of the French doors psychedelic too, embedding little peep holes into the glow in the dark menagerie…..The better to see who had rambled up the rod iron stair case onto the balcony. It was never the cops. Not in our world. Where Terry would sit on the third story roof and play the harp with the sky. Where we would all sit, blue jeaned legs dangling through the railing, toasting the angels that came out to listen.

And then, like little soldiers, we would straighten up our eyes. “Must be the stiff wind” that made them that way. And pile down the steps to the real house. The big house. One million seven.

And we would dance in their kitchen. And toast to their stories. And give them gray hair. And they loved us. And we loved them.

And they’re gone now.

And the house with the first swimming pool in town is gone. And the 47 cats that lived under it are gone. And my name, carved in a door frame, next to 32 others is gone.

And Christian is gone.

One million seven.
And worth every dime.