For as long as he and Cathy have lived in the Greenfield area outside the city of Dyer’s Ridge, Tennessee, they have never much been plagued by excesses of the climate, either by heat in the summers or frigid conditions in the winters. It is always a little cooler in July and warmer in December in Dyer’s Ridge than surrounding places, and they enjoyed that luxury. It gave them more of an inclination to leave the confines of home and venture out into the world when the weather was not so brutal. One or both would take the dog—their ancient spitz Ernie—on evening walks or maybe choose to go solo on a journey through the peaceful neighborhood to the main road of Palmer Place, where there were mom and pop stores open until early evening, an independent bookstore, a coffee shop, a used record store specializing in vinyl, and several restaurant/pubs where the neighborhood patrons assembled nightly.
It was book club night for Cathy and her group, and this month was Cathy’s turn to play host. This monthly gathering has been going on at least ten years by now, and Don Richardson was yet to greet its arrival with any kind of enthusiasm, mainly because he wasn’t enamored too much of Cathy’s club members, regarding them mostly as a bossy and gossipy group of women who had never been too appreciative of the company of men. The majority of these women were either divorced or widowed, while Cathy was the only married member of the group, although he couldn’t say if that was for certain or not, seeing how he’d always made it a practice to stay as far away from the festivities as possible and not be involved. On those evenings when the meetings were at their house, he opted to disappear and venture out for the duration for a beer and to have a solitary evening to himself.
He donned his newsboy hat and walked down the street for ten minutes until running into Palmer Place with its lights and retail outlets and neighborhood pubs, his favorite of which was John Kelly’s, where he stopped for refreshment.
He heard Joni Mitchell asking for someone to help her over the ceiling speakers when he walked in—Kelly’s was the kind of place where its owners chose some mysterious Spotify mix as the musical background so their patrons could sit and socialize and discuss the ebbs and flows of life while nourishing and fortifying themselves with food and alcohol. All the hits that played he knew by heart and was never going to forget no matter how close to the grave he was.
“A Guinness, please,” he told the familiar fellow behind the bar. He didn’t know this man’s name, nor did he know the exuberant, cheery girl next to him with the tattoos and the deep beach tan and the purple hair, or likewise the older man with the goatee at the other end of the bar who never seemed to move from his particular corner, the guy who looked like Peter Yarrow out of his element waiting for Paul and Mary to show up for their upcoming gig. He wondered if anyone else had noticed the resemblance?
He thankfully didn’t see anyone he knew and didn’t feel compelled to watch the international soccer match going on up on the big screen television above the bar, so he took his glass and migrated outside to the porch, where he could position himself in a corner seat and watch the traffic going by on Palmer Place and listen to the music from his past and the lyrics he could never forget. This was status quo as far as relaxing these days. He couldn’t seem to get far from memories of the good old days even if he was to board one of the space shuttles that hadn’t met with some kind of disaster yet and take off into space. He didn’t care to be one of those people stuck in the past by a song playing, but there’s not much he can do to avoid it when music is everywhere around giving him little or no chance to reflect on anything else. He finally just gives up and gives in and finds refuge somewhere else in his head.
He sets his glass on the porch railing and settles back on a stool. Kelly’s has nice stools with backs on them, so he’s able to kick back and people-watch. He can swivel back and forth and take in different views and keep from getting bored with the sights going on around him.
It takes maybe ten minutes before he finds himself taking glances at different people gathered on Kelly’s patio this April night. There are couples sitting at tables chatting and laughing, work associates out celebrating someone’s birthday, a series of tables put together to seat a dozen people, maybe a family, maybe a wedding party just come from a rehearsal for the next night’s ceremony, but what catches his eye more than anything else is that interspersed among these assemblages are couples off to themselves, several boy-girl pairings and here and there folks who might be gay, but it is the old classic romantic scenes that dominate his vision this night. It is like he is suddenly looking through a window of the past, and the familiar sight that takes precedence in his mind’s eye is a scenario he’s seen many times before, only not lately, he tells himself, not so much lately and not in this manner. It is almost as if he was being borne back in some sort of time machine that he wasn’t aware of boarding, but now as he is peering out the window the familiar, forgotten landscape he sees brings him a sense of wonder and awe for all he once took for granted and has forgotten about for some time without knowing it.
It is a trio of familiar panoramas before him, and his first thought is how each one seems stranger than a circus sideshow. He knows he has seen similar sights before, and yes, been a part of them in his own right too, yet they come across at this perusal as something alien and mystical, as if all he sees once existed but, then again, maybe they did not. Maybe what he’s familiar with has been nothing but a dream for so long, vivid but never making a whole lot of sense and probably never telling the complete truth either, the way strange dreams tend to do.
He surmises that the man and the woman at the table to his left are young professionals out for an evening drink after work. He begins creating a fictional world for the two almost as soon as he spots them; soon he has assigned them names and is well on the way to creating a lifestyle for them both to follow.
He is already half in love with the woman after his first sip of his Guinness—she was nice looking enough to start up a fantasy over—and he paused long enough to attempt to memorize her for when he wants to think of something pleasant later on. She had a short, almost boyish haircut for her brown hair that was in style for women these days, and though he was one of those from an earlier generation who preferred longer hair, nonetheless his attraction for her continued to grow until it was difficult to give much consideration to her partner. He gave the man a few seconds perusal and decided he was probably a nice enough fellow. It was a sign of his maturity that he didn’t immediately begrudge the guy for being fortunate enough to be in the company of such an attractive person as the woman beside him.
The man was speaking of something and the woman was smiling. He used his hands the way a good storyteller does to emphasize his words while she followed along with her smile and her eyes. Don Richardson wondered if she was like some of the women he’d known in the past, if she was actually listening and enjoying herself or if she was merely going along for the moment faking her attention and delight at where she was and who she was with. Most women are great actors, he reminded himself. But whether her devotion was true or not, he still envied the young man giving his all trying to make a positive impression. It was difficult to tell whether this was a first date for the two, for because of his own prior experiences with women it was impossible to tell if the lady’s reactions to the young man’s entertainment attempts were pleasing to her or not, but no matter which way that was, he still felt a rush of envy for the man having the chance to tell his stories and being able to pause long enough to gaze into the woman’s eyes and study the contours of her features. Don found himself wishing he was not the one observing this dalliance but was instead the man sitting across from the pretty stranger who worked somewhere in the city and had accepted this invitation for a drink at Kelly’s because she had tired of all that had come her way until now and was hoping for better things down the road, perhaps coming her way in the form of a new romance.
Don wanted to be the man who brought such a possibility her way. He wanted to make her laugh. He wanted to pique her interest. He wanted her to want him.
The thought of this almost makes him want to laugh at himself for imagining something so ridiculous at this stage of his life, so instead of considering the ludicrous bent of his thought waves he looks around the room to see what other images there were to study.
“Maybe I’ll have one more,” the lady on his left told her companion.
She wasn’t as old as himself, but she was no spring chicken either. He didn’t know that if he passed her on the sidewalk or saw her shopping in Publix if he might be prone to take a second look at her. It wasn’t that she was unattractive, not in the least. He supposes it is just that he is older now and certainly more restrained in flights of fancy, so he doesn’t tend to gape at every female that enters his orb. Maybe what it takes these days is to be away from his usual grappling with everydayness and placed in an observatory position such as here at Kelly’s, where attractive women pass by like a contest was being held. He supposes this is why he took notice of his neighbor, she in her early fifties, he presumes, and him some two decades ahead of her. He takes it to mean they are both pretty much up there in years but they aren’t dead yet, so there is still hope for both him and her. It is a stupid way of thinking about a total stranger who had no idea she was being regarded in such a fashion, and he wonders if by any chance at an earlier glance she had momentarily thought the same thing about him.
While her gentleman friend was gone to get her a second offering of whatever she was drinking, he resorts to clandestine observance techniques and looks to see if she wore a ring on her finger, as if it mattered either way in their eternal separateness. There was no ring, only a wristwatch with a silver band and a small face where someone would have to don reading glasses to see what time it was.
But soon he finds himself taking occasional glances at the wrist and the small exposure of forearm. Her arm was freckled and appeared to be almost bleached-out. It was as if this portion of her had finished taking in the sun’s rays and was staying covered by clothing these days, as if her arms were being hidden from view because she doesn’t want the eyes of the world to see what time and age were doing to her. He looked at her and knew he wasn’t seeing the real her out on public display at Kelly’s. What he sees is a face she wants the world to see when she comes into view, a face touched up and altered and disguised by varieties of blush and conditioner and shadow and rouge, a thin trace of lipstick doing its best to maintain some form of lusciousness on lips that others had kissed down through the years. How many lovers were there, he wonders? And what did this woman actually look like when she is home behind closed doors and not going out in the world on some sort of date or appointment? How did she look when she wasn’t taking pains to make the world see something else, some other side of her that came from a bottle or a brush or a jar? And how long could she keep such a ruse going? Did she know already that the day was coming when she could conceal her true self beneath beauty aids no more? Or was she a woman who didn’t care about tomorrow or next week? Did she accept what time could do and had decided that when that day came for her she would simply fall back on her other qualities, her mind, her wisdom, the lessons she had learned throughout the days of her life? Was she one of those graceful creatures who would always find her place on the earth despite time’s ravishings and withdrawals, a woman who wouldn’t have to hide her essence from the eyes of the men around her, because what they thought or saw mattered little to her in that particular stage of her life?
It was one more of those things he would never know. Every day revealed a new facet of this lack of knowledge about what made the planet spin in old and new ways, and was especially true when he tried looking into the mysteries of others, people in the midst of their lives who were strangers to him. If he admitted it and thought about it long enough, he is nothing but a stranger too. It is not like he is able to look at his own life and construe its meaning inside and out. No, not at all.
He is here on the patio where he has set up his command post. There is a courtyard area down the steps of the patio where patrons can sit at tables under the open sky and enjoy the sunshine at lunch and the moon at dinner. Tonight there is no humidity building or insects making appearances, so outdoor seating is popular. He wants to go out and have a seat under the stars himself, but all the tables are taken and there is no place for him to sit. Besides, he would be out of place and stick out like a sore thumb if he chose to impose himself on the scene. It is, after all, a spring night meant expressively for lovers, those who are in love or are on their way to being so, and he would not fit in. He is not like any of these couples out in the night wrapped in romance beneath the soft glow of Japanese lanterns. He is not in love like they are, nor is there anyone present or any opportunity for him to be included in that select company.
Off to the right in the farthest corner of the fenced area a young couple sit escaping the conversations of others. He studies them a moment, noticing how they have successfully shut off the people around them and are in a world of their own. It is as if they do not care if anyone sees them or knows who they are, for they have found this place in time where they are beyond that kind of scrutiny. Whatever the remainder of creation is involved in doesn’t matter to them; the only thing of importance is they are together.
Don Richardson knows all about them.
He sees them smile at each other, not as though someone has just told a joke that is a real kneeslapper, but because they are together under the heavens this night. Whatever problems beset them in their separate daily lives are gone now, and Don spends an instant inside his head recalling when he had ever felt this way. Was it once or twice? He wonders if the couple—they look to be of college age, perhaps a little older—had once been entangled with troubles and circumstances that threatened to keep them apart, but that now they were at peace and all their problems were gone and that is why they smile and look into each other’s eyes. He wonders if the love songs playing over Kelly’s speakers are songs these two love, lyrics that remind them of each other and the magical places they have been together, starry nights they have seen while wrapped in the other’s arms. I wonder if their lovers’ vows have been verbalized yet, or if this night is when they will be spoken.
He thinks of his courtship with Cathy all those years back, how at certain times there had been music playing and stars twinkling for them too. He remembers how that time had seemed familiar yet enchanted then too, how he had seen the stars and heard the music before and it was back to him again and it was all new and charmed now. It was like he’d had a ticket to a fairyland where love came around to him like a gold ring on a children’s carousel now and again, and all he had to do was put forth his fingers and latch on to it and he could possess something wonderful for a period of time until the moonlight and the stars vanished and the music drifted away on the wind. It had happened with Cathy almost the way it had happened before. Perhaps it had come along in different ways, but it had happened so that it wasn’t altogether foreign when it appeared. Love was like an old acquaintance come to call again.
He remembers the girl in high school. Teresa was her name. She had given him his first kiss when he was a sophomore. They had been to a sock hop after a football game. The kiss had happened on her front doorstep and he was consumed by it for weeks. He wasn’t certain she felt the same, but it had been real for him. It had touched him and he knew he would never forget it. But it had not lasted forever. She had turned him down. She had started dating someone else, and he spent a lot of time grieving after it was done.
There was the girl he met in French class at college. She was just getting over a breakup with her boyfriend of two years and was hesitant to go out with him. She’d relented, and for a time they too had moments in the magical moonlight. He’d been there for a time and felt it take him over. But her old boyfriend came back, and then she was gone.
Then there was the girl he’d sat beside in his Psychology of Teaching class. He’d asked her out to lunch after two weeks and they went to a restaurant where there were miniature jukeboxes at each table, and he’d dropped three dollars’ worth of quarters in the slot playing all the Rock and Roll hits she loved. She had a lot of favorites and he wanted to make sure she was happy. He wanted them to be happy together, like that Turtles song. He spent days and nights making her smile, doing his best to lure her into a love affair. And she had loved him for a while; he was sure of that. It was intense. But they graduated and she took a job at an elementary school thirty miles away, and he couldn’t keep up the pace after a while. He learned that the love dreams and visions he possessed couldn’t hold up long after time and distance kicked in. She eventually became engaged to a teacher at her school. He never knew if she’d married the guy or not. It hardly mattered after he knew she wasn’t his and he didn’t stand a chance of making her smile anymore.
But it had been nice, hadn’t it? All those affairs—is that what you call them? —had been wonderful. He had seen that thing called love blossom. He had been in the middle of it. It had not stayed but he still remembered it. He had seen it up close and it had been his for a while. At that time, it had been enough. Now, maybe not so much.
But he missed it.
His inclination is to be jealous of the two people he sees in the courtyard. A part of him wants to begrudge their love. For an instant he wants love to go wrong just so the two of them might see and feel what he once experienced. But the jealous moment goes away as fast as it arrived, and taking one last look at the boy and girl in their moment of being in paradise together, he lets it go and finishes up his drink and walks over and sets it on the bar. He does not need one for the road.
He decides to take the long way home. He wants to walk a while and maybe when he gets home tonight’s book club meeting will be over.
Any bad thoughts he had are gone now. He finds peace with what he’s witnessed this evening.
The fact is he has seen six people during the past hour who were in or were about to be or were trying desperately to fall under the spell of love. Perhaps they will all achieve their wish, he thinks, and maybe not. Love, after all, is a roll of the dice or the luck of the draw, a shuffled card dealt out that somehow ends up in a particular player’s hand. Sometimes it happens, and sadly, most times it does not. It doesn’t show up or opportunity doesn’t knock or winged Cupid takes aim with his arrow and misses.
Them’s the breaks. Don Richardson knows all about that end of it.
He takes the sidewalk leading back to his house. He tells himself not to get there too fast, and negotiates whatever turns there are and strolls along parallel streets and out of the way lanes. He takes his sweet time.
There’s nothing to go into a funk over. He tells himself he is not alone. He has Cathy. They are happy together after all the years. Content. There are no storms or bad omens on the horizon. He thinks how he is better off than all the potential lovers he encountered this evening at Kelly’s, for they had all been embroiled in the turbulent state of wishing or hoping or trying to find and keep or falling rapidly into the dark canyons of love, and he is different from them. He has been through all that already. He knows all about it. When it comes to love, he’s a pro. There’s nothing he doesn’t know about it. There’s nothing he hasn’t seen. He is the guy who’d fallen so hard in love he wanted to die. He’s the starry-eyed fool who wanted to jump for joy when he was in love and believed it would never go away. He remembers the days and nights and the frustration and confusion and failure, those instances when love had left him high and dry. He recalls the quests and schemes and plans and his efforts to keep what magic was with him from vanishing like cigarette smoke on a windy day. Moments and images had come and gone; his visions had maybe happened but perhaps had all been in his mind. Sometimes the past was like that, and he wonders who exactly he’d been back then and what had truly happened.
But it had happened. He was sure of it. Love. He had seen it. He’d been right in the middle of it. It had been wonderful and horrible and joyous and sad, and whether it had been real or false he can’t truly say. But he loved those times when he was in love, when he was there living under its spell. It had been the time of his life. Love had sent him to great heights and then let him fall and crash. He had been up and down and high and low, and there were times when he had wished he’d never been part of any of it, never been born to live through all the pain and agony that came his way.
Not really.
He misses it. He wants to do it over again. He would pay to go through it again, to be young like he was, to have his blood race and his heart beat like a hammer once more. Because, man, what a ride it had been. It was a trip.
He is home this night but love has taken him for a flight and now he is back to earth again. He is grateful for what he knows and all he remembers, happy he has been where he’s been and seen what he’s seen. He’s been there. There are people in the world who never have, who can’t say the same.
He is a man who is always going to be in love with love.
Hallelujah, he thinks. Being in love is not a bad way to be.