Another story from my dreams, kinda sappy but loving.
My daughter, Candice, was married last Saturday. The wedding was at noon and reception at 3:00. By 7:30 that night, we were saying goodbye to our daughter as she left for a weeklong honeymoon. They received a good rate if they left that night and came back on Friday.
My wife, Bernie (short for Bernice), and I went up to the room we obtained for the night to change into more comfortable clothes. I brought my tux and both Bernie and Candice dresses and put them in the back of the SUV that was backed into the side walk just outside the entertainment doors.
I was to wait for her there. After a couple of minutes of waiting impatiently, I turned on some music to pass the time. It was about five minutes later I noticed her coming down the sidewalk. Then the other women who were at the wedding ambushed her. I was standing at the back of my SUV with the tailgate up, just waiting. Then a song I had not heard in many years came on the radio. The words of the Letterman song stream through my head:
“You're just too good to be true . Can't take my eyes off of you.
You'd be like heaven to touch. I wanna hold you so much.
At long last, love has arrived And I thank God I'm alive.
You're just too good to be true . Can't take my eyes off of you.”
Each word came to mind as the music played as if this was the number one song on the charts today. I started thinking about how Bernie and I met. She was best friends of the bride and I was cousin of the groom. Half way through the reception we dance and have been together ever since.
It was a little more than six months later I realized she was the one for me and I loved her. It was the next day after I had the epiphany that Bernie enlightened she was pregnant. I told her that we should get married and that started our first fight. It was not our last and it was not the biggest, but it is the most memorable.
I was staring off into space, and mouthing the words to this song barely audible in a dry and distant manor. My hands were hanging above my head on the handle on the SUV tailgate as it was still up from putting the suits in it. I was oblivious to the whole world. Then, out of nowhere, I noticed a young woman. She was dancing in front on me to the music on the radio and the words from the Lettermen who could sing and me. There were parts of her body glancing suggestively against mine.
I was startled as if she woke me from a dream. She was about 30 and pretty, not gorgeous, just pretty. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Bernie staring at us. I told the girl “If I were you, I would leave and leave quickly.” She had a beleaguered look on her face and I continued “My wife is coming over here.”
She snorted, “Of course she is” and started walking away, she voiced out “freak-a-zoid.” She starts dancing like that with a stranger and I am the freak-a-zoid?
With that I decided enough waiting and I turned off the music locked the car and headed down to the after party. John, my partner in a construction company arranged it.
The Hotel has a banquet room for the reception, a ballroom and a dining room. The ballroom is a night club where the locals go to do their dancing. The dining room is where guest in the hotel have supper. The weekdays are busier than the weekend when the business people stay and have dinner. On a Saturday night things are usually slow.
Seeing John and some others from our crew hanging around a table, I stop at the bar and ask for a beer. The skinny bartender in a heavy Middle Eastern accent says, “I have no tears.”
“No, I want a good beer what kind do you have?”
The bartender with a straight face said, “No deer allowed.”
Now, I am starting to get frustrated and demand “A cold BEER.” At that point anything would do. To this bartender reaches into a cooler and brings out a tray of Popsicle spears used in a specialty drink.
John comes and stood next to me and states, “Give me a beer” and in plain English, the bartender said, “Here you go sir.” Then John tells the bar tender to grab me a beer. The bar tender opens me a beer, my favorite beer.
Apparently, they do not normally carry this beer, but John arranges it. The bartender has half a $100.00 bill and receives the other half as long as I do not spend any money there that night. I am not even to tip the young man.
Getting my second beer, Bernie shows up with the rest of the women. I am expecting a comment about not waiting. John meets us at the bar and introduces Bernie to the bartender. The Bartender pulls out a bottle of wine and says it was hers and it is paid in full, tip included. All she will have to do is signal him, and he will pour her another.
Just after starting my third beer, a young man sits beside me. He asks if I was dancing with his sister. “No, I was minding my own business when she started dancing on me.”
This younger man gave me the impression he is annoyed at me and possibly wants to start something. I explain to the kid, “I am a little old for bar fights, but you see my daughter whose wedding was today, also has a brother. He has four years of Marine Corp training and Marines love to fight because they rarely lose.
If by some miracle you are able to beat him, across the table are a bunch of construction workers, who will not let me buy them a round even though I sign their paychecks every week. I figure if you are good, you might be able to get one or two before that beat you silly.” With this he left without saying a word and defeat in his face.
I start for another beer. The bartender congratulates me on my daughter’s nuptials as he returns from pouring my wife another glass of wine. “Why do I have to get up and she just waives.”
“She prettier than you” he replies with a smile on his face.
I have no argument but tell him “Twenty years ago I would have eaten you and spit you out. Now I think you are a good guy.”
Eleven is the normal closing time, but John talks the bartender into staying longer. Along about midnight, a few beers past my limit, and two hours past my bedtime, is getting to me.
I look over at Bernie and her eyes look as glassy as mine felt. Yet, there was something in those eyes. I start reminiscing about earlier that night when I heard the Lettermen. In those eyes, I can see the bright young thing I fell in love with all those years ago.
It was if God himself was coaching me. The piped music started playing:
“I’m Goin Out Of My Head –
Yes, I think I’m going out of my head”
So, I asks the girl to dance with me again. Only this time we went back to the hotel room together.
I loved him. At age twelve he touched my heart with his music. At age twenty he captured my heart when our eyes met as he sat on a stage and sang Four months later, he fractured my heart with his refusal to allow us to stay together. At age seventy
A search for the ghost of a chorus girl chorine haunting a costume designer’s Manhattan apartment leads to an encounter with an eccentric, mischievous witch with the ability to send folks back through time…in this case, the 1919 Ziegfeld Follies.
