Lucky in Love - pt I

He said "Son can you play me a memory,
"I'm not really sure how it goes
"But it's sad and it's sweet
"And I knew it complete
"When I wore a younger man's clothes."

Those words were being sung by Bill Joel the night my father kicked me out of the house, the first time, in April, 1974. He had taken umbrage to my growling at mom for having had the temerity to awaken me from the dead of slumber, lying on the couch in the family room. I growled because it was an assault to my senses to be so awakened -- for something as irrelevant as dinner, after a LONG night that found me taking Lavern Murphy, the bridge player home from Claire Blackwell's Wednesday night duplicate bridge game in Mount Prospect.

Back in the day, the hard-core bridge players / drunks would convene at a tavern to discuss bridge, get drunk, and enjoy the community of people hooked on the same past time. Lavern solicited me for a ride home. She gave the directions. About the time we blew past O'Hare Airport security, heading out to a runway, at 3 a.m., I begin to have reservations about her motives. The woman jumped my, on a deserted runway. Oh, another horny old broad trying to score a fresh-faced piece. An old story, one which I had encountered before. By the time a plane landed two runways over, had I but been aroused at the prospect of a horny drunken woman 25 years my senior trying to have her way with me, this would have been an ultimate example of coitus interuptus. But, for reasons I may one day blog, the scenario did not arouse my passions.

The plane landing offered her an excuse to "break the thing off", as it were. So she directed me to drive to a control tower where we could get directions off the property. "I'll take care of this," she assured me, as she staggered to the tower, met the guards, and came back with an exit plan.

We returned to her place, where she felt obliged to cook me scrambled eggs. I got to meet her very tall, very burly, 23-year old son (my age). I returned to my parents' place, showered, shaved, and went to work. In those days, I was dedicated to the corporate ethos.

The tone of my voice, in criticizing mom for waking me for dinner set of the reptilian recesses of dad's brain, and, in defense of the woman upon whom he has misdirected most of his frustrations, anger, and rage for the entirety of their marriage, he got to defend her, for a change. Funny how things look when it's somebody else being an asshole.

So I drove East to see Tinker Belle, in the city. Stayed at her parents' apartment at Kedzie Avenue, near Foster. Drank a LOT of wine with Borje and Miriam, her parents, and went to work in the morning.

When I returned to "home", mom told me, "Dad didn't really mean you had to leave."

"It's okay," I said. "I meant to tell you I've signed a lease for an apartment."

"Oh no," she almost wailed.

"I'm going to live with Tinker Belle (Linda)."

"Oh, I'm so glad you'll have someone to take care of you," she said, in total relieved sincerity, and total admission of her assessment of my ability to "take care of myself."

Tinker Belle took care of me all right. In a futile attempt to buy her affections, I blew my savings, plus all the money I made between May and October, 1975, when Tinker Belle finally decided she could bear living with me no longer. This was but a couple of weeks after the tuition check I had written for her cleared, and, the young lass (so cute, SO cute) who had wanted an Art Major, could begin her studies for a degree in psychology.

Tinker Belle had planned to major in art at WIU, where we were both enrolled as freshmen, in the fall of 1969. WIU offered no Art degree, so she decided to major in Home Ec. A straight "A" student in high school, she found the lures of booze and boys and fun times more attractive than her studies.

I was smitten by her, almost from the first day I saw her, wearing one of those cute wool plaid mini-skirts that were all the rage, back in the day. She was SO cute, AND short! Like I have said before, Tinker Belle to my Peter Pan.

I was painfully shy then, not so much any more. I plotted and schemed about how to get an introduction. She lived in the girls dorm across from mine. A synergistic opportunity emerged for the Psych 101 final. JP Shaddle needed a decent grade on the final to pass the course. I presented him with a pragmatic proposal. "JP, for the final, you sit in the row behind me, on my right hand side. I'm left-handed. You can copy my answers. I guarantee you'll get a "B". I'll finish within 30 minutes (for the two-hour final), but I want you to stay and get some information about a girl in class. Find out what floor she lives on, and then maybe I can get her name."

A convoluted plan, but with win-win prospects. The day of the final arrived, and JP and I took our positions and waited for the Ice Queen to arrive. "Where is she?" he asked.

"I don't know," I answered, a blatant lie. Tinker Belle had sat down right next to me. Misery. I couldn't point her out with subtlety. This opportunity had passed. Woe was me. I mourned throughout the long winter in Macomb, drunking my sorrows away.

One chilly March evening, as a group of guys from my dorm floor returned from the student union to the dorm, we encountered five young ladies coming from the other direction. Tinker Belle was one of them. Another of them was Terry Hurlihee's sister. My heart leapt.

After exchanging pleasantries, the groups parted. Once out of ear range, I bubbled to Bobby Grant, one of the twins from Palatine. "Bobby, Bobby, that was her! That was Tinker Belle!"

"Skogs!?!" he snorted, almost in derisive disbelief. He knew her. Everybody knew her. Except me. Introductions were arranged. I got drunk and phoned her for a date. She accepted. Kegger at Lake Argyle (The Lake). Had a great time, beer, blackberry brandy mixed with coke a cola. Played games, had fun, laughed. She was pleasant, amusing company, and got along well with my friends. She had another date that evening.

Charlie Stuckey, JP's roommate, and a pragmatic friend said, "Mark, if you ask her right now, she'd blow the other guy off."

"I can't do that, Charlie. It wouldn't be right."

Once upon a time, I had a misguided sense of fair play. I've outgrown it.

And so Tinker Belle and I whiled away many hours, drinking black berry brandy and coke in the dorm room, listening to 45's on a cheap turn table. 45's that brought back memories of happier days, when my Uncle Jim had been alive, and the war America was waging upon the Vietnamese peasants was but blurry dots of shaded light on a black-and-white TV screen, when I was inured to the war.

Fast forward five years, I was dating the biker chick. At Christmas, Tinker Belle sent me a card. Her family had moved from the spacious confines of Glen Ellyn to an apartment in Chicago, nearer her father's work. She'd had an interesting five years. Not liking Home Ec program at WIU, she transfered to Northern Illinois University. One afternoon she and two of her girl friends were hitch hiking and were picked up by three guys in a van. Wonder of wonders, the van guys would be attending NIU and were looking for room mates. Same for the three pick up gals. The deal was struck and they become one big happy family.

Didn't hear from Tinker Belle again until Christmas, 1971, my junior year. She had left NIU and was back with her folks, now attending Columbia College in Chicago, majoring in photography. She had a job in the city. Hot damn. During Christmas vacation, I'd awaken at 4:30 every morning to drive to the city to pick her up, and take her to work. It was fun. Her folks had plenty of coffee, orange juice and donuts. Tinker Belle had become a vegetarian.

Didn't hear from her after that interlude until the Christmas card in 1974. She had lived for a couple of years at a commune in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, contracted hepatitis B, (unsanitary living conditions) and was recuperating on Kedzie. I dropped the biker chick like a rattle snake, and started seeing Tinker Belle. In her recovering state, she only was dating one other guy, a Cat Stevens afficiando.

I had always wanted to live with her. Until recently, hadn't really come close to understanding why. Assumed it was that infatuation of falling in love the first time you're flying solo, at college, with no monitors, curfews, or limits. A glimpse of the adultery, er, adulthood to come. I now feel that no small part of the attraction involved her former Glen Ellyn residence, same home town as my Aunt Louise, Uncle Jim's widow.

Tinker Belle liked me well enough, (she liked everybody -- always dated at least two other guys every time we were going out or living together -- but did she ever love anyone? I once asked her if she loved me; she replied, "I live with you, don't I?") and she was cute (I've dated cuter), and mildly interesting (I've dated WAY more interesting), but the Glen Ellyn connection was something that kept my Uncle Jim alive for me, so I didn't have to feel guilty about not crying at his funeral service, or about my physical cowardice. The 45's we invariably ended up listening to, Elusive Butterfly of Love, Bend Me Shape Me, Green Tambourine, Mr. Tambourine Man, Daydream Believer, all recalled memories of Christmases in Blue Island, Il with my Uncle Jim. A way to deny his death, a way to keep him alive, at least in memory, at least in heart.

Or maybe, it was just the black berry brandy mixed with coca cola was numbing.

By March of 1975, she found living with Borje oppressive -- not even with all the valiums she guzzled could inure her to his criticisms. He was SO strict. When she dropped out of NIU (where she was majoring in Russian Literature), he cut off all further funding of her college. Two strikes, and you're out. Borje was a pragmatist and a realist. I probably enjoyed Borje and Miriam's company at least as much as Tinker Belle's. THEY were interesting people, and substantive.

Tinker Belle and I spent weeks together looking at apartments. Couldn't find one she liked, and she had lived in lots of them, and was wise to the ways of apartment dwelling in Chicago. One afternoon, I went solo apartment shopping. Found the perfect place. New brick building, fire place, carpeted, in the the trendy Lincoln Park neighborhood, near DePaul University, not far from the Earl of Old Town and a number of very fine venues for folk / country / pop singers -- John Prine, Steve Goodman, Bonnie Koloc, Linda Ronstadt, Judy Roberts. I signed the lease, without even getting her approval. I was THAT confident.

I called from a bar across the street to tell her the news. "You WHAT?" she asked. "Without even letting me see it? What were you thinking?"

"Just let me pick you up and show you the place. You'll love it."

Did she ever. I have a universal guy failing. I'm not sentimental, and I pick crappy gifts. But for some bizarre reason, this was NEVER a problem for me with Tinker Belle. "This is REALLY nice," she said. Sold American.

We moved in. I had an actuarial exam the first week. I was studying at the dining room table drinking coffee, around 6:00 a.m. I looked up, out the one window, across the street, to see a lovely young lady looking back from her window, her bare bounteous breasts propped up on the ledge. WOW! Summer in the city. I didn't stare (too long). She didn't turn away.

I went to pick up one of my buddies who was taking the part III exam with me. Knocked on his door, and was greeted by a totally naked red-headed freckle faced guy toweling off his long hair. "Be right with you, Mark," he said.

With all that naked inspiration, I passed part III of the actuarial exams (my second sitting). Three down, seven to go.

Tinker Belle got worked for Bernie at his TV store. As a receptionist, she took in more than I (he paid her by cash) made as an actuarial student who had passed three exams, plus a promotion. My salary had increased 50% in two years and I was by then making more money than my college math profs. Bernie, obviously, had lascivious designs on Tinker Belle. She eventually figured it out, and proudly announced on evening she had quit. I was pleased. We went to dinner at a Greek Restaurant she enjoyed - enjoyed so much, she used to regularly date one of the waiters. Sheesh. Greeks are notorious for pouring their passions into SHEEP! WTF you thinking, Tinker Belle?

She invented an excuse to leave me the night we took her father and mother to dinner at the Greek Isles (oopah!) to celebrate Borje's fiftieth birthday. Her girlfriend Linda had taken a train to the city to join us. The girlfriend stayed the night, originally sleeping on the couch. After a while, she knocked on the bedroom door. She said, "Don't take this the wrong way, but I thought you might like to have someone to sleep with you tonight. You have to understand, it's not about you. It's just Tinker Belle."

I accepted her kind offer, and we held each other like high school teen aged virgins, fully pajamaed, all through the night. The only time I ever held a woman in that bed, in that apartment all through the night. Tinker Belle had this thing about space and didn't want hers encroached. A shocking development for me.

But, at least Tinker Belle read in bed and so did I. A life long habit. A waste, however, of a warm safe place for a man and woman who allegedly are fond of one another.

The night she left, she went out with her drug guy, probably got stoned (she had drunk a lot of Roditis), and ended up moving back in with the despotic Borje and the gentle Miriam. So, how low could I feel, knowing she'd rather live with her oppressive father than me?

Thank heavens for the State of Michigan, which had promulagated health insurance regs that BL&C, the health insurance company that paid me all the big bucks, took quite seriously. I put in hours and hours of overtime. Was scraping to get by, what with the $260 / month rent, the $95 / month car payment, and the evaporated savings account which I had poured into Greek Restuarants and a vacation with Tinker Belle out to the State of Washington.

Things got so low, I even bounced a $ 4.74 check to Commonwealth Edison. No, things got lower than that. I had to call my folks and tell them I couldn't afford Christmas presents. I would come home, but PLEASE don't give me any presents, I'd just feel too guilty.

They almost honored the request. The last package on the floor was for me. I felt miserable. It was a black and white small TV. Company. Tinker Belle HAD taken her TV, but had left the damn cats. My sister Marianne has told me that I was crying on the couch, holding the TV on my lap, rocking it back and forth like a little bitty baby.

On New Year's Eve, the exhibitionist across the street had a boy friend over. They danced close and slowly together. My attention drifted from TV to dancers. After a while, she closed the curtains. Okay, things actually COULD get lower.

For some reason, I turned to the PBS station, channel 11. New Year's Eve Live from the Earl of Old Town. Onto the stage came Steve Goodman, singing a tune I had never heard before, but have held closely in my heart ever since. It's the song I want someone to be able one day to sing about me, and about the one true love of my life. The one I will end up married to (or cohabitating with), monogamously and sober, forever and ever. The one who will love me long past the time my senility has been evidenced, and my quirkiness becomes a standing joke amongst family, friends and neighbors.

Are you reading this, my love?

The Dutchman's not the kind of man
Who keeps his thumb jammed in the dam
That holds his dreams in,
But that's a secret that only Margaret knows.
When Amsterdam is golden in the summer,
Margaret brings him breakfast,
She believes him.
He thinks the tulips bloom beneath the snow.
He's mad as he can be, but Margaret only sees that sometimes,
Sometimes she sees her unborn children in his eyes.

Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuider Zee.
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me.

The Dutchman still wears wooden shoes,
His cap and coat are patched with the love
That Margaret sewed there.
Sometimes he thinks he's still in Rotterdam.
And he watches the tug-boats down canals
An' calls out to them when he thinks he knows the Captain.
Till Margaret comes
To take him home again
Through unforgiving streets that trip him, though she holds his arm,
Sometimes he thinks he's alone and he calls her name.

Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuider Zee.
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me.

The winters whirl the windmills 'round
She winds his muffler tighter
And they sit in the kitchen.
Some tea with whiskey keeps away the dew.
And he sees her for a moment, calls her name,
She makes the bed up singing some old love song,
A song Margaret learned
When it was very new.
He hums a line or two, they sing together in the dark.
The Dutchman falls asleep and Margaret blows the candle out.

Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuider Zee.
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me