Ships that pass in the night Jan. 18, 1986
Looking back, I realize now the year 1977 began for me with a kiss.
And that edgy, debauched behavior that Rock & Roll
always generates, even on the level of bar bands in the 1970s, more than a little
depraved, and more than a little attractive.
The kiss came at the moment when one year ended and another
began, when a dark-haired lady I had never met before picked me out of the
crowd of partiers to celebrate the change of time.
She must have watched me for hours, and like a fool, I never
picked up on it, sitting on the coach like a wall flower, paying more attention
to a scandalous conversation taking place in another corner of the room, where
two of the girlfriends of the band members, were instructing a naïve young girl
how seduce yet another member of the band, a conversation broadcast over and
open microphone the band had let remain live after playing a set of music
earlier. I heard it all because I still had the headphones on after doing the
sound.
The whole event was designed to seduced Pauly into rejoining
the band as its lead singer, holding this New Year’s celebration in the basement
of John and Linda’s house, letting Pauly sit in on some of the songs, while
trying not to let on to the old lead singer that they sought Pauly to replace
him.
This wasn’t going to happen overnight. The band would later
invite Pauly up to sing at gigs and eventually have him singing more and more
songs until the other singer was no longer needed – especially because Pauly
tended to be more versatile, capable of playing bass, acoustic guitar, even
some keyboards when the old singer could not.
Lynn, who had her heart set on John and Chris, her sister,
eyeing Bob the base player, were particularly adamant that night, dressed to
the nines, and doing their best to undress the girl (they claimed as a virgin)
so she seemed more appealing, cheering her on with language so outrageous I
blushed on the other end of the microphone even though no one knew I was
listening in.
Later, when I got to know both of those women better, I came
to understand they were not the vamps they appeared to be that night, though
even I didn’t know at the time that the whole event, the music and their
conversation was being recorded. Someone later would likely get some kicks when
they listened to that portion of the tape.
I later learned both Chris and Lynn were wounded women,
desperate to find someway to heal, and much later – when I was working a
seasonal job at Toys R Us, I would get to see Chris even more deeply wounded,
when Bob dumped her for a more sophisticated New York lady – he and the rest of
the band (with the exception of Pauly) were caught up in image, regardless of
the emotional wreckage they left in their wake.
I remember the pain on Chris’ face, which recalled some of
my own pain from year’s earlier, and how helpless I felt to help her, although
I was tempted to go find Bob and punch him in the face.
Lynn was more successful at keeping her man, managing to
marry him and convert him into someone more responsible, pushing him to
eventually get a real job rather than living off rock & roll.
Although he did spend some time with me on campus, where he
took up computer study, and cautioned me not to tell Lynn about his flirtations
with some of the undergraduates, he was never able to resist his urges.
For me, the one night with that one woman on that one New
Years never amounted to much. I never saw her again; I don’t expect I ever
will. Just too ships passing in the night.
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