He was once not a guy who could hang around the home fires night after dreary night. A better man would’ve read more books. Or written them.
From January 25, 1989. – JDW
Barker Ajax is fond of saying, love is like a shark. When it stops moving, it dies.
Makes sense to me. So, I was almost prepared when I came home to find Norma Louise at the door. Standing there with a notice-anything-different-? expression and that big-toothed coquettish smile that always reminds me of a little girl who just got a new dress and she wants her Daddy to say she looks beautiful.
I pretended to ignore her.
As I went to hang up my coat, she slipped into the closet and closed the door behind her. Delaying what I hoped would be a torturous moment, I slowly opened the closet and sure enough she was standing there with the same expression on her face.
I looked into her eyes and I saw the message scroll across like a reader board. Don’t push it, buster.
Most of the time you can tease Norma Louise. It heightens the anticipation which intensifies the result. I’ve pretty much figured out when I can tease her and when I’d better not. This night, I knew to be gentle.
She’s been to see GeorgeAtTheHairZoo. To the best of my knowledge, that’s his actual name.
“You look beautiful,” I told her, wondering if Cheryl Tiegs with dark hair would look like Whoopi Goldberg.
“Really?”, she asked, demanding I both protest my sincerity and up the ante.
“Honest, you look really nice,” I said. “Just swell.”
She’s pirouetting so fast, I start to get dizzy.
“I had it changed back to my original color.”
And all this time I thought she was a natural redhead. I don’t want to talk about it.
As certain types of trauma can be deleterious to a relationship, Norma Louise decided it would be in my best interest if we spent some time apart.
It was January. It was Oregon. Pardon the redundancy, it was raining. She went to Arizona for two weeks. Such a little trooper.
I decided to console myself in her absence, so I went to the basement, crawled under the stairs, moved half a cord of firewood. With a crowbar, I shoved aside the not-so-loose bricks and pulled out a dusty, plastic-wrapped package. My little black book. A moment of silence, please.
Since somebody – I’m not making any accusations here – had used White-Out to obliterate and obscure all the female names and their phone numbers, I called some old buddies.
The Dangle Brothers, Billy Bob and Billy Bob were glad to learn I hadn’t died. As rumored. Some things are greatly exaggerated.
We decided to go to the Shanghai Lounge at RiverPlace. Before Nancy Reagan’s “Not Tonight, I have A Headache” AIDS awareness campaign, I had spent more than a couple of nights at the Shanghai, looking for a woman in a silk blouse who didn’t chew gum. Or smoke. (Ex-smokers chew gum.)
More than a couple of nights. But that was long ago. Honest.
As we walk into the bar, the bouncer, a black man, an African-American as Jesse Jackson would now have us say, blocked the door like a total eclipse.
“Jack D. How’s it goin’?” Took me a moment.
“Big John?” I asked. My memory always been shot.
“Sure,” he answered with a smile and a laugh. He held out his right hand, which I ignored to give him a hug.
I couldn’t reach all the way around. John is bigger than I remember. He’s six-foot-three in his new haircut and weighs, as he puts it, in the mid-threes. We’re about the same height and he’s literally almost twice my weight. Now I know how I’d look if I was three feet high.
John is wearing a bright white shirt, a very big, very bright white shirt, you could show home movies on. A savvy advertiser will consider renting space on John’s chest.
I love this man. I don’t know why exactly, except perhaps he remembers my name after three years and he has a heart as big as Josephine County.
Some bouncers, like the Hell’s Angels at Altamont, communicate a sense of unrest. They are the antithesis of their responsibility.
Big John, on the other hand, exudes calm, like the river that flows past a few yards away.
The place was DOA.
Which really didn’t matter all that much to us, but the musicians deserved better. The Bigg Bangg Band was playing, and they’re good.
When they finally took a break, we headed for Key Largo.
Two hours after Maria Muldaur was scheduled to start her second show of the evening, she was still on stage from the first. GeorgeAtTheDoor – no relation to GeorgeAtTheHairZoo – agreed a gratuity would gain access.
“Here,” I said, handing him my last dollar. “It ain’t much, but on the other hand, it IS all I have. Which is everything.”
Ms. Muldaur, a little hoarse, was giving the blues her everything. The band was tight and she was sizzling. The crowd was enthusiastic. The beer was cold and Billy Bob was buying. I was having fun.
Let’s face it. Tony Demicoli knows how to run a bar. He knows how to grow a great moustache. He’s a renaissance kind of guy.
Another night. It was a Saturday, about ten, when I walked alone into the Dandelion Pub in the Uptown Shopping Center.
I paid the three dollar cover, thinking Badly Bradley must have improved some.
I reminded myself local musicians need something more substantial than applause to survive.
I sat down at a table with two burly, beefy guys in plaid shirts, crinkled jeans and water-stained boots. Late twenties. They acted like they’d never seen attractive young women before.
Turns out they hadn’t. They were from Fargher Lake, Washington. The home, they insisted, of twenty-two-year-old male virgins.
Strategically stationed with a view of the front door and the path to the ladies’ facilities, the two Mikes were happy campers.
Unless they remembered they’re more than a little late getting home.
Unless they wondered if their better halves would believe the pickup broke down. Again.
A truly lovely brunette asked me to dance. Both Mikes were impressed. But no more than I was.
Badly Bradley was playing “Take Me To The River, Drop Me In The Water.” With Big John, I’d dance to this song.
As we exited the dance floor, the bouncer walked up to my partner and asked her to leave. She hadn’t paid the cover.
Tell me, what kind of tavern throws out an assertive, good-looking woman at midnight?
What kind of business mind makes that decision? I ask you.
Buoyed by my example and a half-dozen beers, one Mike walked that long walk. That long walk that all men dread like public speaking in the nude. Mike walked that walk and asked the girl in the red suspenders to dance.
She shot him down like he’s a Libyan fighter jet over international waters.
I went home. It’s way past my bedtime. I really miss Norma Louise.
Oh. One last final word of advice to the love-lorn: take your camel to bed.