The State of the Union

[Steven Hunley]

The State of the Union
by Steven Hunley

What I won’t do, for her love. I’ll try everything and I won’t give up.

Sometimes a man, a man who usually compares his life to a pinball, randomly banging back and forth between two chromium pillars, has a change of thought.

What was once chaos takes shape and form. That’s what’s been happening. And no matter how many times I consider it, I come to the same conclusion.

I can’t stand being without Barbara.


My problem before was that I had too active a romantic imagination. In the past, I’d fall in love with love itself, rather than the woman. I was the original pedestal man, so expert in the field of pedestalization, I even wrote a story about it called Between the Curtains.

Two men are talking.

“What have you been doing, Old Boy? It’s been ages.”

“Writing, as usual, and looking for the perfect girl.”

‘Ah," he said in a tone of complete understanding, as if he was familiar with the problem.

“But I don’t have much luck. Things start off with a bang, you know how it is. But then after a while they see your faults, or you see theirs, and you’re back at the starting gate.”

He cleared his throat like Caruso.

“It depends what you’re looking for. We make it hard on ourselves. We want someone who knows us inside and out, and even knowing, falls in love with our inner worth and forgives our sins. Someone who’ll accept us for who we are, no matter what malformations and scars we display. See us without the make-up, or with the mask, and cheer either way.”

“Someone we trust to bind our wounds,” he continued. “I’ve never found a girl like that either, God knows. Perhaps I’ve been kidding myself. There’s a good chance it wasn’t a girl I'd been searching for, it was perfection. Or worse, I might have been groping for a pedestal to place her on.”

“Pedestal?”

“Women want to be idolized, don’t get me wrong. But none of them care to stand on a precarious pedestal, no matter how costly or Grecian. It takes too much energy to maintain the balance between earth-mother and celestial mistress.”

“I suspect they find the pedestal too beneath them, along with the erotic garbage."

See what I mean? I’m the King of Pedestalization. I have it on my mind. It obsesses me and yet I don’t have a clue I’m doing it myself!

And another thing I notice about this piece. This thing about people seeing your faults and judging you harshly. Barbara doesn’t do that. Oh, she sees them alright, but gives you grace. That makes me feel safe, safely anchored in the harbor of her heart.

I used to wonder about that expression ‘you can’t love someone else unless you love yourself first’. What was that all about? Turns out it was me it was all about, never cared much for myself. After all, I was the guy everyone left.

You don’t want to be the only survivor of the Titanic. You want to go down with the captain, crew and steerage. Do your duty. Always knew I was due to drown. But now I find myself afloat in a different sea.

Barb and I are on the same lifeboat, like in Hitchcock’s Lifeboat. Like she’s Tallulah Bankhead and I’m John Hodiak.

She’s sophisticated and I’m as rugged as an old Spanish boot.

We belong together. For the entire voyage. There’s one way to cement my cause. It’s inescapable, it’s legal, and it’s for real and forever.

Now I’m convinced I’ve found the very best. Barb is off the charts. And I, for once in my life, am making a mature decision. I’ve been good, so I deserve the finest.

Like Dash Hammet, it’s “the stuff that dreams are made of.”

Marriage.


Did I tell you about Barb and I getting married?

Guess I didn’t, and along with that, the events that led up to it. It’s fascinating, scintillating, a twenty-first century exploration of society and its collective psyche, or at least a trip around our two psyches, which, when pooled together, are as dark as the Dark Continent, and as ravaged, when Conrad steamed up the Congo River.
On the other hand, parts of our marriage story, just like the baggage we carry around in our noggins, will be as bright and innocent as the children’s game Candy Land. These two extremes are ends of the same pole.

It’s hard to say exactly where and when it started. I’d almost been married twice. One never got past the licensing stage and the other one, past the first baby. With Barbara, it was two down and one to go. She admitted,

“You know, I’ve been married twice before.”

We were at the Morley Field area, parked by the tennis courts, at a cement table eating fish tacos. It was the only table in the shade. Looking southwest, the Spanish bell tower rose out of the stately Eucalyptus in Balboa Park. Its arched roof gleamed brightly in the noonday sun. You could hear it ringing like a cathedral down a narrow cobblestone street in Spain. The air was hot; not a leaf moved. I wondered if they ate fish tacos in Seville, and if Maugham had eaten any.

“That doesn’t bother me one bit,” I replied.

She wiped off her red lips with a brown paper napkin, leaned across the table and gave me a kiss while I gazed at her cleavage fondly. I took her hand and held it fast.

“Besides,” I said. “The third time is the charm.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Of course I’m not; I’m crazy in love, that’s all.”

She smiled in agreement and nodded her head.

We talked about it during dinner, while driving here and there, over the phone, while she was writing case notes and I’m walked in with a smoothie. We discussed it in short bursts and at great length.

One Sunday we go look at rings. It’s Robbin’s Brothers in Fashion Valley. They do nothing but rings. Once past the security guard, we see rings. Outrageous expensive rings. I see so many that after a while my head is spinning with rings. Some sales woman out of nowhere spots us and tails us like an emaciated coyote.

“I’m Tiffany,” she barks in a hungry insincere falsetto.

“Oh my God,” I think, “It’s a girl named Tiffany working in a diamond store.”

I wondered if that was her real 24 carat name, or if it was electro-plated. It may not have been for real. Then I wondered how it was I decided if our love was real in the first place- since deciding that our love was real was the first step to this place, this marriage-marker-ring-on-finger place.

There was the instant and undeniable attraction and it exerted its influence on so many important spheres it wasn’t even funny. The chemistry between us glommed us together like gorilla glue. We shared the same sense of humor, and, therefore, a similar gestalt. She’d have me laughing until tears ran down my cheeks.

At times, Barbara has such a pensive look on her face you’re compelled to hold her in your arms. She’s soft and warm to the touch even when her nose is cold. Her voice is the kind you want to listen to forever, like her face, so expressive with meaning it hurts. Her touch is like heaven, gentle as an angel’s wing or strong as a celestial storm. Her eyes only beggar description so that I’ll be able to write about them for years to come, and that’s exactly what I intend to do. I knew I had it bad for her from the start and for once I wasn’t afraid to tell her the depths of my feelings, because I was convinced in the way she treated me, that she actually had my best interests at heart.

And I loved to be held by her, I do. There is nothing like that level of comfort and security in the whole wide world.

I can’t restrain my love. It started off a spark, but before I knew it, the relationship began to smolder, until it grew into a conflagration, then erupted into a raging inferno of untamed passion. Next thing I know it’s Krakatoa, east of Java, off the charts, and over the top.

To be continued…

©StevenHunley2014

http://youtu.be/waU9Sa3cORE Diamonds are a girl’s best Friend

http://youtu.be/XueSnvDOHRo Lifeboat 1944

http://youtu.be/hp7130Bjec4 The stuff dreams are made of-Maltese Falcon

http://youtu.be/TpCqRTG7ckg What You Won’t do for Love- Go West

[MANICHAEAN]

Stephen
Never did a title more aptly fit the story. I thought at first it was going to be all about preening politicians; posturing and pontificating (Too many "p"s unlike in the Madonna Hoskins film where it was too many "f"s) Anyway, most enjoyable in a way that a fellow romantic like myself can relate to.

Aunty might jump on any grammer misdeeds on your part, but I must mentor you regards your geography. The Limpopo arises in Central Southern Africa and flows east to the Indian Ocean. Conrad must have lost his compass.

Take care
M.

[Steven Hunley]

[QUOTE=MANICHAEAN;1269325]Stephen
Never did a title more aptly fit the story. I thought at first it was going to be all about preening politicians; posturing and pontificating (Too many "p"s unlike in the Madonna Hoskins film where it was too many "f"s) Anyway, most enjoyable in a way that a fellow romantic like myself can relate to.

Aunty might jump on any grammer misdeeds on your part, but I must mentor you regards your geography. The Limpopo arises in Central Southern Africa and flows east to the Indian Ocean. Conrad must have lost his compass.

Take care
M.

Oh, my goodness, what have I done??!! Man has caught me with my literary fact-digging pants down! Me, the guy who thought he knew Joe Conrad! Indeed! It's the Congo in the Congo! Strangely enough I'm starting Chance right now. Not too bad for a dude who didn't speak English 'till he was 21. GO JOE!

I regret my geography error and will revise ASAP.

[Steven Hunley]

There are places to scout and vows to write and rings to pick up and arrangements to make and licenses to file and all that and more and more and more.

“ We have locations to check out and vows to write and rings to pick out and licenses to file and need an expert,” I inform her, “we’ll use your expertise”.

I like using the word expertise, it sounds so official.

“I’m not an expert,” she replies. “The first time when I became Mrs. Coffee it was because I was doing it to spite my parents’ advice not to marry.”

“Oh.”

“And the second time it was because I was pregnant.”

“Oh. With me and Kristina, we filed for the license but she backed out at the last moment because her mother put pressure on her to do it. With Deb it was different. Deb was raised pure Catholic and I told her I was a Protestant. She had it in her head that a Protestant couldn’t marry a Catholic without a dispensation from the pope.”

“So you lived together for over twenty years and had all your kids.”

“That’s right. Elle first, then Sean and Nichole.”

“Wow.”

“Either one of us you look at, it’s the same. The third time is the charm.”

Barb looked at me tenderly. When she looks at me like that, I could be the toughest steak in the house and suddenly I’m Kobe beef, well-marbled, and can be cut with a fork.

“Anyway, Babygirl, I have a place we should consider, and we’re going to the Men’s Fashion Depot to pick up my suit. On the way back we can check out Presidio Park. After the affair Liz and I dissolved she found a guy named Bernie and married. I did their wedding pictures there.”

We make the run to Sports Arena Boulevard, pick up the suit and on the way back stop by Rubios for a fish taco. While stuffing a fish taco I make one hell of an admission.

“You know, Babygirl, I’d like to let you in on a secret. This is the first suit I’ve ever bought. The last one my mom bought me for graduation from San Diego High. For years after that I dressed the part of a Hippie and had no use for suits!”

She nearly chokes on some guacamole, and if you knew how creamy guacamole is you’d be surprised.

“Aw, Honey,” she says all kind-like. “That’s sweet.”

We hop in the car and head east a few blocks.

“See the Pines and Eucalyptus? See the American flag and the building that looks like a mission? That’s it.”

We make a left, wind up the hill and park in the lot right across from the museum.

"There’s the hill where kids slide down on a block of ice, but here’s what you’ll want to see.”

I take her by the hand and lead her around to the spot right under a huge cross made of bricks. The bronze statue of Father Serra is nearby in a glade. His head is bowed in contemplation and his hands are behind his back.

“It’s funny,” she said. “The hippie child was once here for a semi-synthetic spiritual journey.”

Barb looked up at me, so I continued.

“Now he’s here again for the return trip,” I said. “The real deal, the ultimate union, and buying my ticket with a diamond ring instead of five-hundred micrograms of LSD.”

We set up the Gitzo tripod, took a picture, and described it like this.

“His intended wore a long batik dress hand-made in Indonesia. The artist used a bamboo brush and fashioned the pattern in natural colors, so matched to leaves and twigs, that each brush stroke trembled in anticipation of their holy union.”

Somehow while putting the tripod back into the car I notice the screw head is missing.

“I’ve lost the head to the tripod!” I announce. “I have to go back and retrace my steps.”

I do, and find it. Then we motor up the steep hill to another part of the park, and believe it or not, I lose it again!

“This is crazy,” I shout. “It’s been with me around the world and I lose it here, twice!”

I find it again.

Then we went to Kohls for shoes. But diamond rings were the first thing we saw when we walked in. Before I know it Barb has me by the arm and leads off to the shoe department, because, as she tells me later, I’m telling the story of my life to the sales lady. On the way out I buy Barb a bottle of Liz Taylor’s White Diamonds. We eat ice cream next door at Baskin Robbins, and things are all right, things are OK, but by the time we get to the parking lot I’m gibbering like a maniac, which is to say, like Jackie Gleason,

“Humana, humana, humana.”

“What wrong with you?” she asks me.

“I’m getting married, that’s what. It’s a first for me. You’ve been through the process. You’ve been through the fire.”

Barb understands and holds my hand. Sometimes in life a little understanding goes a long way.

Ain’t Nobody like Barbara. Like Chaka Khan says, “Ain’t Nobody.”


http://youtu.be/Tyj1uLacxtg Through the Fire

http://youtu.be/SvPZo52X5vo Ain’t Nobody

To be continued…

©StevenHunley2014

[Hawkman]

Hi Steven,

I wonder if you could find a more elegant opening sentence?

There are a couple of other things about the first instalment that bother me a bit. Firstly there's that jarring tense change, about half-way through, into present from past and then back again. Secondly I'm not sure that "gestalt" is the right word either. A gestalt is something other than the sum of its parts. It is unclear as to whether you are referring to the couple as a gestalt entity, in which case they would form a gestalt, but being both constituent parts, would not "share" it. The word appears in the context of a shared sense of humour, a way of seeing the world, which can be shared, but this, in itself, does not constitute a gestalt.

The increasingly frenetic narrative voice, as we proceed into part two, coupled with the figurative elements of the tripod, a device for maintaining stability, which has a loose screw and repeatedly loses its head, is rather fun, I think. Doesn't bode well for the coming nuptials though :D

Live and be well - H

[Steven Hunley]

Hawk,

Your suggestion is noted. The opening is re-written. Gee wiz, I'll get a new tripod head! And one for me own noggin too. That will add some stability. Thanks. Hawk, your eyes miss nothing. Last of the Mohicans.

[Steven Hunley]

Out of the Closet

When you get a tap on your shoulder at three AM and it isn’t for sex, you know you got trouble.

“Which one of us were you most attracted to at the very beginning? Me… or that witch?”

“What?”

I said it all stupid-like, as if I were Jethro Bodine of the Beverly Hillbillies. Drew the vowel sounds out for all they were worth. I didn’t need to squint my eyes, I already couldn’t see sh*t-like I said, it was three AM.

“What was I wearing when you first met me?”

Again, the ‘what?”

“I mean, she was wearing high heels and a blue dress.”

This is getting stranger by the minute. Madam X was wearing a blue dress when we met, and high heels, but I’m so sleepy it doesn’t dawn on me yet that we’ve never discussed it.

At this point I don’t know what this is about, but I decide to be honest. I know Barb likes me to be honest, so I say,

“I don’t remember what you were wearing.”

She was sitting on the bed up to this point… but now she gets up.

“I knew it, I just knew it. I’ve had it,” and gives out a great huff, like the wolf in Three Little Pigs.
The words are confused but the tone is quite clear. She’s pissed about something.

“What’s the matter?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I went in the kitchen, made Chai tea and opened a box of animal crackers. Then I sat on the leather couch and went on Litnet to read some of your stories. You can find out a lot about a person by reading their stories.”

“Oh, Jeez,” I’m thinkin’. “This is the part when the sh*t hits the fan. I can smell it coming.”

“And the bath. The tea-candles all around the tub. None of it was genuine, nothing, nothing new.”

“You read “The Bath” and what else?”

“Everything else.” Close Encounter” too.”

“The train-ride north, no one was there, it was dark out, poor dear! The she appears in a puff of exhaust. “Devil with the blue dress, blue dress, blue dress, devil with the blue dress on. The one with the plunging cleavage."

“Barbara, she was really flat. I faked her voluptuous curves. You’ve got the cleavage I crave.”

Now I’m getting uncomfortable. I didn’t plan to have it happen this way. She’s looking on my Litnet back pages and finding old stories. I’m in an awkward position and my past is about to haunt me, and bite me on my bottom. And to make it worse, Barb looks sad.

“I mean, I go on Litnet to read a few stories and I find these. I can’t do this anymore.”

This sounds ominous. I don’t like the direction this conversation is going.

“With me the beginning was slow, a spark became an ember, then a fire, but with her it was like this!”
Barb snapped her fingers, “Right off!”

“Uh-oh,” I figure, “This is going to get ugly.

“But I explained she was a long-distance relationship. The seriousness of the situation was magnified with all the comings and goings. I was more in love with love than in love with her.”

“That’s just an excuse. I can’t sleep and decide to have a reading adventure and it turns into an S and M experience. I can’t do this anymore.”

Nothing I say is right. Nothing will please her. So I get defensive and jump out of bed and begin pacing.

“You’re looking for an excuse to bail out of this relationship,” I wail.

She ignores me. I don’t like it when she ignores me. She acts as if she’s on a different track.

“Why are you such a liar? You even lie to yourself.”

Now I’m nervous as all get-out and she’s agitated like crazy. The tension builds and builds. At this point you’d need a rock-saw to slice it.

“And the name Babygirl. You called her Babygirl, too. How many times did you call her Babygirl? I told you my father called me Babygirl.”

“ Honey, I stole it from the TV show “Criminal Minds”. You’re the only Babygirl, the real Babygirl.”

Now our voices are rising in nasty crescendos. This whole thing is getting downright operatic.

“I can’t deal with this anymore, get out!"

But there’s a break. She has to go pee pee and storms through the double doors and into the hallway and whoosh, into the bathroom and slams the door.

It’s panic time in Scripps Ranch. There’s no way out and nowhere to go. I take a look down her mirrored hallway to the big bathroom. There are closets behind each mirrored door, and plenty of them. I slide one open and duck inside. Sweeping a Prada purse and three pairs of Attilio Giusti Leombruni flats aside, I hunker down.

I’m butt up and head down next to the wall with my neck covered just like in Jefferson Elementary in the second grade during a Civilian Defense Drill. I’m waiting for the bomb to go off. And here’s what I hear in my ears, with the echo effect you hear in a cheap movie. I dunno if it’s Vietnam or World War Two.

“I’m having none of it. No can do. I can’t take this anymore. This isn’t working.”

It sounded like the end of the world to me.

I can hear the bathroom door open and footsteps in the hallway. The bedroom is reconnoitered and I hear this, ‘no can do’.

Then it’s footsteps out to the family room and I hear ‘I’m not going for this’.

The kitchen and living room, the upstairs and garage, I can almost hear, ‘This just isn’t working’.

Then I don’t hear anything for a few minutes and now I’m getting worried. I pick myself up and wander into the hallway and see the front door is open and there she is on the walkway. She’s looking harried and wearing her funny Cat in the Hat slippers and pink terry cloth bathrobe, the one I wrap her in just after her bath. Tender memories always get to me and elicit true confessions.

“I was in the closet.”

“Where?”

“In the closet.”

Her jaw drops and she gives me a soft look. By now it’s nearly six. Dawn is sneaking over the horizon in light pink, and the French windows, with their lace hour-glass curtains, make it easy to see. She recognizes fear on my face. It’s pathetic.

“Come in here,” she entreats me, and we go into the family room and sit down on the leather couch. “I have to tell you what happened tonight.”

She snuggles up close.

“My father came to me in a dream. Only it wasn’t a dream.”

“You mean a vivid dream, like the one where my dad came to me just after he died?”

“Yes, like that. And he told me to never trust anyone who didn’t trust me. You don’t trust me now, do you? Why don’t you trust me anymore?”

She’s calm now, and I take a minute to sort through my thoughts. It isn’t easy when they’re so jumbled up.

“Because you were saying it was over. You said you couldn’t take it anymore. You said it wasn’t working. And besides, you wanted me out.”

“I just said that because I feel like we didn’t plan this. I feel like you moved in as matter of convenience only and that disturbed me. But I don’t want us to break up.”

I sigh a great sigh, the kind they refer to in dime novels as a ‘sigh of relief’, really!

Then she takes both my hands in hers and rivets my eyes with her ojos.

“I’d never leave you. Never, never, never ever leave you.”

With each passing minute the light is growing inside and out. The false dawn, and California’s June Gloom has ended, and pure unfiltered sunlight is taking its place. I can see the shelter I need is back in her arms.

As a personal note just in case. In case she can’t sleep again and wanders over to Litnet I have a message to deliver. Steven loves you dearly, Barbara, and don’t forget that. Anyone else is just dusty history, and of no further import.

And you, only you, are the true Babygirl. As Ricky Nelson sings, “There’ll never be anyone else but you for me. Never ever be, just couldn’t be, anyone else but you.”

To be continued…

©Steven Hunley 2014

http://youtu.be/R3rnxQBizoU Gimme Shelter

http://youtu.be/vOfJj3Zv3MY Never Be Anyone Else But You

[Steven Hunley]

We have a chance at seeing others do it. By ‘do it’ I mean tie the knot. Her cousin’s daughter is getting married. It’s supposed to be at a basilica, whatever that is, but I suspect it must be big.

St. Peter’s in Rome is one, isn’t it? So it must be big. I can’t wait to see it.

We’re off to Phoenix where they race us through the airport at break-neck speed make our connection to Minneapolis in record time and go to dinner with the intended couple the night before the wedding and it’s at a posh restaurant downtown.

I don’t know almost everybody so I’m nervous as all get-out. It’s not that I’m totally empathetic to people’s plights, but rather that I grew up an only child and believe the world revolves around me. I figure they’re feeling nervous because I’m feeling nervous and I believe everyone is exactly like me. It’s not Copernicus, it’s not Galileo, It's me the planets revolve around. It’s my Me world working against me, the self-serving arrogant bastard that I am.

We arrive late and find our names at the family table and me? I’m sitting directly across from the bride. And she’s radiant. I don’t know her from Eve, but she’s radiant.
And I deduce in true Sherlock Holmes fashion that she’s nervous. But unlike Holmes I don’t trust my self-centered deductions, so I ask.

“You must be nervous. Are you nervous?”

I admit to myself that I’m nervous on accounta all the people and on accounta her mom's patent leather purse is there on the table right between our plates and if I make a miscalculation with my mashed potatoes they’re gonna get shoved off my plate an onto her shiny new purse.

“Not at all,” she replies. "I knew from the moment we met I was going to marry him.”

Great F. Scott Fitzgerald! Modern women anyway! Well… I never! Their self-confidence and determination offends my male chauvinistic old-fashioned-outdated sensibilities! What’s the world coming to anyway?

But that’s my problem, not hers. And this is the bride’s memorable evening, the groom’s too. The world, for one glittering moment, is going to spin on the bride and groom’s axis, and I’m not about to spoil their fun suggesting something is there when it isn’t, especially a bad case of nerves.

I smile, get a grip on my manly butterfly innards, and say nothing.

The next day is H hour.

And St. Mary’s Basilica is a modest Notre Dame so solid and ancient and humungous they had to build the freeway around it.

Inside is like Europe revisited, or a scene from Becket, or something medieval, I don’t know what. And folks, being late like we always are, Barb and I get a front-row seat. During the ceremony the priest’s voice echoes between the stone columns. I notice that way up near the ceiling there are statues of people. Statues way, way, way up near the ceiling, and I wonder how hard it is to dust them and why the monks don’t fall off the ladder when they do. I believe in heaven and all I just don’t believe in going to heaven over dusting some statues. I count eight statues from my angle and figure the side I can’t see probably has four more. Hey, that’s twelve dudes up there altogether! They must be apostles!

And now the priest’s voice is echoing all over the place and another priest is singing and rays of colored light are coming through the stained glass windows and it’s driving my imagination wild and crazy. I imagine that the domed ceiling is going to open up like a nuclear missile silo or that phony volcano in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice.

But James Bond isn’t going to rappel down and kill all the bad guys. Instead, angels from heaven are going to fly down on luminous gossamer wings and sit between the apostles and sing Halleluiah.

I wait a couple minutes and nothing happens. Steven takes a bag of his favorite jelly beans out of his pocket and pops a few in his mouth. I’m thinking celestial thoughts and Barb is all teary-eyed and pressing my hand and Steven is eating his favorite jelly beans. Looks like we all bring different things to the table, even jelly beans.

It’s a picture within a picture and it’s making a full circle. Here we are, Babygirl and I, an older couple, watching a young couple getting married, with all the hoopla, all the bells and whistles, full of dreams and grand expectations. At the same time we’re planning a quiet ceremony, after lives filled with wrong turns and disappointment, but still full of hope. Both young and old are still willing to go the distance, for love…and for each other.

And something else romantic is happening here. I come to the conclusion I’ve seen a variation of this theme before. It’s the wedding ceremony in Best Years of Our Lives. While witnessing the ceremony between Homer and Wilma's wedding, with the now-divorced Fred as Homer's best man, Fred and Peggy watch each other from across the room and exchange meaningful glances. Volumes are said with glances. After the ceremony, Dana Andrews walks over and holds Teresa Wright, telling her that it will be a struggle before they become comfortable. She smiles, and they kiss and embrace. The silver screen is only a reflection of reality.

The same thing is happening here, only the setting is different and we’re not screen players, but players on the stage of life. At the end Barb and I smile, kiss and embrace, and here’s the reason why. We’re committed to success and know our hearts are finally tailored true. We discovered valuable nuggets of wisdom by bleeding them out of the black matrix of our mistakes.

And we were ready to commit to mapping out our existence together. St. Mary’s Basilica was the perfect place. Since everyone else’s eyes were fixed on the handsome young couple, it left Barb and I alone, holding hands, lost in private prayers, with God as our intimate witness.


HTTP://YOUTU.BE/HS8UYXTJ530 YOU ONLY TWICE

http://youtu.be/pJlFAcSaoSY Halleluiah K.D. Lang

http://youtu.be/cLDBiSPKgKI Best Years of our Lives

To be continued…

©StevenHunley2014

[Steven Hunley]

Forever Loops

Around three o’clock, just before class let out, my phone went off and I glanced at the number. It looked like an LA number but wasn’t familiar, so I ignored it.

“Probably some jerk trying to sell me something,” I figured. Or, “Maybe the Department of Education tracked me down about that ancient student loan.”

The loan was so old, it was petrified. Cavemen wrote it up. I was fool enough to sign it and take the money. I can’t even remember what I spent it on, it was so long ago. I looked out the window down at Broadway and saw a shirtless scarecrow solicit spare change for a cigarette and two Brazilian students smoking with two Saudis. San Diego had finally turned autumn and I was wearing a long sleeved shirt and tie. I’d jettison the tie as soon as I left the building.

I was off in twenty minutes and would be calling Robbins Bros about the ring. I’d plotted the whole scheme out on MapQuest. The territory was unfamiliar and even labeled as a Hazard! Hazard Center was what they named it. I didn’t like the sound of it.

“Even so, a name is only a name and this should be a walk in the park.”

I decided to do something different, something to insure that our love was unique, something over the top and past all limits to convince her of the depths of my love. After all, I was serious as a heart attack, and I wondered if the ring was symbolic enough, or if it would take something more?

Did Barbara need a grand gesture? I just couldn’t figure out how to pull one off. I’d read about grand gestures once, in a story posted on Lit Net called ‘Dude Dreams of a Grand Gesture’. It made quite an impression and I still remember it word for word. It was so black, so bleak, so noir, I couldn’t help it. It was about a down and out loser who suffered from attacks of romantic imagination while being locked up.

Dude Dreams of a Grand Gesture

Dude didn't fight fires all the time. In the night the men slept. Here's where the inmates took their true recreation. In their dreams they made their escapes on a nightly basis. In the morning they'd return their night-wandering consciousness to the camp. So Dude did his share of dreaming.

Another thing was what he planned to do with money. He got it for the girl, that's true. But once he had it, what exactly was his plan? How was money the solution in his small brain? How would the money make the difference in his state of affairs with the girl? Just this: the money would make him her equal.

These two things, the money and the dream, were to fuse while he was in camp. In truth, being a fan of film, Dude was planning a grand gesture. It was a combination of film with happy endings and his flair for the dramatic. It would be grand, on an epic scale, and all for her benefit. So this grand gesture was what he dreamed of, even now locked up, even so with the money run out. He no longer had the girl, or the money, but he still had the dream. Sometimes for a man the dream is enough.

On Monday and Friday nights he dreamed this:

His pockets bulging with bills he proceeded up north to her town. The drive was sumptuous and the weather perfect. He would pull up to her shop, run inside, grab her by the hand, toss a roll that would choke a horse to the owner, and snatch her away and off into the sunset, that's what he'd do. That was the up-front in-your-face version. It wasn't a cinematic triumph, but it would do. He dreamt that one frequently.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night when his REM sleep was longer, there was this version:

He'd drive up again in a wonderful shiny car, the chrome flashing in the sunlight, the music playing something triumphant, like the theme to Rocky in stereophonic and Dolby sound, eight channels. The road, quite straight in southern California would grow curvy and tortuous with each mile it progressed farther north-east to Ironwood. But not to worry, the car, usually a Porsche 911, would only laugh at the roadway and negotiate every turn with ease.

He would wear sunglasses and a leather bomber-jacket, it had to be a leather bomber-jacket, the ones with the map of Europe printed on the lining, and he'd pull up and stroll into her pasty shop. Naturally, she wouldn't recognize him. Then he'd engage in some clever repartee full of hidden innuendoes. He'd try to seduce her with his words only to find out it was ‘no can do’ because she was enamored with some guy with a disreputable past that she had lost touch with but had never given up hope for his return, kinda like he was in the foreign legion. Then he'd remove the glasses and she'd faint dead away. He always liked it when they fainted dead away, it seemed so lady-like, and he'd take it from there.

Long shot, profiles in silhouettes kissing in the sunset, black construction paper cut-outs, lip to impassioned lip, that sort of cinematic thing.

Variations on these themes were his nightly companions. In the morning he'd wake up to find himself alone in his bunk, no woman, no car, no freedom and no money. It wasn't much of a way to start your day, but it was all he had. Kind of discouraging isn't it? Always measuring our narrow pathetic lives against the width of the silver screen. But we're Americans. That's what we do.

Dude was the King of Wishful Thinking... that’s all. Everyone wants to be the King or Queen of Something. Without that, life just isn’t worth living.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, “There is nothing more common than the desire to be remarkable.”

I wasn’t sure what it would take, but decided Barb deserved a grand gesture to assure her she was the only woman in my life, and that she was never second best. She got this second best impression on Lit Net. She’d read all the old stories concerning Venom, her pet name for a woman I’d known earlier who lied and then dumped me…twice. They were written when I was exercising my theory that writing, as a form of communication, but without body language and gestures, was poor communication and lacking. Therefore the writing should always be over the top.

“With you and her,” she once told me, it was like this!”

She snapped her fingers, and then continued.

“But with you and I, it was first a glow and then a spark and finally a conflagration. Why was she so different?”

“I exaggerated. It was a long-distance relationship with dozens of comings and goings artificially inflated with drama.”

It was a weak explanation. I was embarrassed to discuss the relationship because I was uncomfortable when admitting my lack of judgment about Venom’s true character. It was one of those “I don’t want to talk about it” items.

I didn’t know how to mend the situation. But I had more pressing matters at hand. I checked my phone again and called the unknown number back just in case it was one of my kids.

“Hello, Robbins Brothers of Torrance.”

OMG it was them, the ring people, and it turned out they connected me to San Diego and the ring was ready! And I could have it engraved too, but due to the slim design they couldn’t make the B in Babygirl a capital B, it was too narrow!

Barbara and I picked it out together. The narrow loops of diamonds complimented the loops in her mother’s wedding ring and matched. Forming an infinity sign, they symbolized a connection to her mother and a love bound with precious earthy minerals to last forever, a promise wrapped around her finger.

And besides, I intended to be her forever man.

I should have picked a wider band! I should have picked a bigger diamond too. The Hope! The Koh-i-Noor! Something from the Crown Jewels. I check my wallet. No Can Do. So I make a command decision.

“Use a small b.”

Now we’re in business.

©2014 StevenHunley

To be continued…

http://youtu.be/BGlRG44WSDc King of Wishful Thinking

http://youtu.be/eSJ6Tw5xC0o Forever Man

[Steven Hunley]

This Babygirl thing became a thorn in my side when we had the ‘discussion” only one week after I picked out the ring and decided to have it engraved.

“You have to stop calling me Babygirl,” Barb said, while she was putting on her face and getting ready for work. In was in her personal Versailles hall of Mirrors, the one’s I hid out in earlier until the coast was clear but now I was caught with my pants down out in the open. I was putting on Wrangler shorts from Wallmart while she was applying Chanel from Neiman Markus.

“What?”

“I read in the letters you called Venom, Babygirl. You called her that in letter after letter.”

“Yes, Babygirl, but I just called her that after running out of terms of endearment.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, there was Darling and Dear and Baby. Sometimes I called her Honey. I called Kristina Honey too. I like the term Honey.”

“Yeah, I know. You call me that too.”

There’s a tone in her voice and it’s leaving me puzzled. It drives me mad when she does this. Simply mad, I tell you, mad. Victor Frankenstein mad because I know something’s coming if I don’t nip it in the bud before it blossoms. So I get out my repair sheers and slice a sweet one.

“I used Babygirl simply because I watched Criminal Minds at the time and stole it. Some agent would use it when he talked to this computer geek fat girl. It wasn’t really Venom’s name. But it really is your name, one your father used. So I’m still calling you that and you’ll have to get used to it.”

By this time I’m cinching my imitation army web belt and pulling down the X large T shirt she got me. I gave her a long hard look.

“You’re worthy.”

Then I give her another long hard look and allow her to watch my wheels turn. She is worthy, supremely worthy, and Venom lacked the meaning. Barbara was prettier, a better mother, more of a scholar, nationally recognized in her field, a harder worker who saw potential in me where Venom only saw limitations and faults. Barb was worthy of my service in true Cavalier fashion, and worthy once again of my love. Barb’s character was sterling. With her I felt better about myself and about my future.

Just now she was putting in contacts, all the better to see my potential with. Then she looked up.

“OK, you can still call me Babygirl,”she said demurely, and put my heart to rest.

I sighed what they referred to in English penny dreadfulls as a ‘sigh of relief’. The ring would be engraved as ordered. And my life would be engraved by this woman, once and for all, by this smith of sterling character, and once and for the better. I adored her.

There were several factors that led me to the long-distance relationship with Venom. It started on a now-defunct website called Eons. I had a couple of pictures posted and she responded. The timing was perfect. It was shortly after Debbie’s death and I was starved for love. I was famished. Anything that appeared on the event horizon was perceived to be water. And not just any water, an oasis with date palms and shimmering pools of precious cool water. Any woman who gave me attention would be greeted with enthusiasm. I’ve always been a fool for attention, and self-validation was beyond my kenning. Any pat on the back would spur me to work harder and harder, and Venom was the ultimate back-slapper. A ridged iron fist clothed by a deceptive velvet glove, and I didn’t have a clue as to her true identity.

The differences between the two women couldn’t have been more pronounced. One was a schemer and always jealous of those who had more. The other was sure of her beauty and position and always on the lookout for those who felt slighted or had less. One could only talk the talk while the other was able to actually walk the walk. One was always deceptive while the other couldn’t have managed to be more up front. There was never any comparison, not even apples to oranges.

There was so much dishonesty in the relationship with Venom, and it was my lack of maturity, in addition to the long-distance that kept it alive. Now things were different and it was the real deal.

Instead of phony and staged greetings and partings in public places like the Sacramento Airport there was the real-life drama of the House of Death in Oceanside and my witnessing the slow drawn-out death of Barb’s mother Edythe.

There was real drama there and you knew it. Love and Life and Death, the three big variables we all have to deal with, and none of us can handle.

This time there is no inflated drama with pre-plotted scenes worked out weeks before hand, like amateur romantic novels that follow the same old pattern.

Venom never cared for her mother much, and found her self-centered and uncaring. In the end her story was like mother like daughter. Uncaring and loveless begets uncaring and loveless. I have fond memories of my own mom, as tough as she was. And I always looked at a woman’s tie to motherhood and how she viewed her kids and kept in touch if they were away.

Yet I chose Venom. At the time, there was no explanation but maybe the fact I was the neediest jerk in the cosmos.

Barbara taught her own kids the best way she knew how. She modeled good behavior, strength of purpose, academic prowess, and taught them the importance of learning. She was the ultimate woman in my book and at this point and with her guidance I found out what good knowing Venom did me, the fact she dumped me, and how to make something positive out of the experience.

“We all make mistakes,” Barb told me one day, “to err is human. Your last mistake is your greatest mentor.”

“I’m embarrassed about my lack of judgment,” I replied sheepishly.

“Don’t be ashamed. Wear it as a badge of pride-lessons learned.”

“Well, I’d like to think I’m more mature now.”

“Look at it this way. You’ve aged like fine wine and improved your taste.”

I like her attitude about this, it’s so positive and all. And besides, this is the real me talking now, the fella with boundless enthusiasm.

“I’m not going to make any more mistakes.”

Barb gave me one of her trade-mark therapist looks and gently objected.

“Oh no! You’re going to make plenty of mistakes. That’s how we mature, how we grow. Folks often need to give themselves permission to be human. Perfectionism sucks. Perfectionism screams ‘Like me because I don’t like myself’. But it’s a fake posture. Your position will be real, and full of all the mistakes that made you a human being.”

Who wouldn’t love a woman who’s so understanding? When you look in a dictionary under ‘kind-hearted’, I betcha there’s a picture of Barb. I have no doubt, in fact I’m certain. Barb is a new and exciting happy ending in my life, and I embrace the idea as easily as embracing her in my arms. We’re so close we complement each other like formal black and white.

So close sometimes, it’s like that old song by Sinatra, ‘I’ve got you under my skin’.

I can’t say enough, and coarse words are poor substitutes for tender feelings. But I’ll give it and Gershwin a chance. Go ahead George, light another cigar and compose yourself.

Barbara is so tenderly embraceable it’s like Nat King Cole’s Embraceable You.



©2014 StevenHunley

To be continued..

http://youtu.be/_XCVnV5CGh0 I’ve Got You Under my Skin

http://youtu.be/Eo5X54WXvNM Embraceable You

[Steven Hunley]

I get off and cross the tracks and climb a few stairs and find myself next to a Barnes and Noble book store. A huge poster of Hemingway’s For Whom the Bells Tolls sits in the window right next to Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and the Damned. I feel comforted and take a picture. That’s one thing I do if I see something beautiful or ugly, dull or interesting, disquieting or comforting. I take a picture. I’m an English-teaching photo-taking fool who writes like he was on fire if only to illuminate the darkness of his mind.

No one is beyond describing, no place is beyond my descriptive powers. Nothing is out of bounds for this writer. Beware friends of mine. The world is my pen fodder.

My only problem is I have too much imagination. I became aware of the problem when I read Typhoon. Of the two main characters the first mate has imagination and the captain doesn’t. So one suffers because he can imagine all the various ways the ship will go down same as in Lord Jim. His imagination disables him.

Then it’s past the beer place and across the street to Robbins Brothers, in through the door past security with the panache of Bond, James Bond. I’m here to take care of things and collect my booty with the same enthusiasm as Long John Silver searched for Flint’s treasure.

“They called me about the ring,” I told some Vietnamese woman. She wore a conservative grey suit with a slit on one side like in the World of Susie Wong. But I was certain she was Cambodian or Thai or Vietnamese or something. She was five foot worked up to five foot eight with heels. Her calves resembled a python that had just ate lunch, or Sylvester Stallone’s biceps, I couldn’t make up my mind, I was too excited. She wore a cruel countenance. I decided to call her Dragon Lady, and pretend I was in Terry and the Pirates on accounta Pirate Girl was a pirate too. On accounta I loved her and all, and wanted to get married. It wasn’t all my doing, and I had faith Kismet was in on it.

I’d had a sign, you see? I’d had a sign. While reading Joe Conrad’s last book I came to the last page of The Ferndale, a chapter of Chance, his last book and experienced one more manifestation of synchronicity.

“The captain continued after a slight pause.

‘You will be surprised, no doubt, when you look at it. There’ll be a good many alterations. It’s on account of a lady coming with us. I am going to get married, Mr. Franklin!’

Now as you know, I have a habit of using ‘on accounta’ and I’m going to get married.

But I’m not on a grand adventure by Conrad, I’m only going to deliver this engagement ring and certainly that will be easy. As a matter of fact, I’m going to celebrate by dining at Jack and the Box just across the way before I hop back on the trolley to get to her office. And there the fabulous Robbin’s Brothers are, waiting to take my money. I can’t wait, but I have to, my diamond engagement ring is hidden away with King Tut’s Treasure Trove down the vault somewhere and Dragon Lady has to go get it.

While I’m waiting they offer me a candy bar and water or coffee or soda. I’m telling the truth, when you’re buying a diamond ring they treat you like a Caliph or a King of Somewhere or Something. It was a small candy, a Miniature Snickers, but I liked it. The water didn’t do a thing for me.

Out pops the closer with a bag and a box. The bag is big in case you’re picking up the crown jewels or something. My box looks itsy bitsy in the gargantuan bag. Like it was the Incredible Shrinking Box or something. But now the closer gets all high-tech and clever.

“Monsieur would want to see it?”

He takes out the little blue box and checks all the angles like he’s setting up a magic trick or something. Sometimes I think I say on accounta and something too much. Then he lifts the lid.

OMG! OMG! OMG! It’s like a star explodes in my eye balls. Like a Nova, whatever a Nova is.

It glimmers! It gleams! It sparkles like crazy! The Queen of Sheba should have these diamonds but she doesn’t. They’re for My Babygirl, the One and Only Babygirl. On accounta she’s my one true love.

After my eyes recover from the atomic blast I ask the closer, “What’s going on?’

“There’s a tiny light, right here in the lid.”

And sure enough, there was. Very modern technology meets up with very old stones under great pressure. The humans relieve the pressure on the stones by wrenching them from the matrix. In return, the stone provides a symbol of eternal communion between a couple, something solid, pure, and unmutable. It will be that way for us, solid, pure, unmutable.

I’m out the door with a ‘good-bye', a flash, and a whoosh, and across the parking lot to Jack in the Box. I’m celebrating like crazy and order a Bonus Jack with cheese, and a Coke and French Fries. I text Babygirl that I have a surprise for her and then hesitate a second and make another command decision and cancel the message.

“If I text her and tell her where to pick me up she’ll know I’ve been there, she has to pass it on the way. Besides, this is Babygirl, she’ll never find her way here, not in this century anyway.”

So instead I decide to take the Grand Gesture tack.

“If I get on the trolley and ride it a couple of stops I can get off, trek across Mission Valley and show up at her office unannounced! It’s the ultimate surprise!”

Looking back at this episode I think that Jack’s Secret Sauce was affecting my thinking. Eating Jack’s Secret Sauce has been found by the FDA to make you feel heroic. Too much imagination doesn’t help either; it gives you an inflated image of yourself and your abilities.

Out of Jacks forthwith and straight to the trolley. It’s later now, and it’s cooler now, and I wish I’d brought my Calvin Klein jacket. I used to be Mod Man and understood fashion. Calvin designs jackets. We get along. That’s the inflated name-dropping, big-speaking, self-promoting, me.

You have to notice, while looking out the windows, that it’s completely dark outside. Inside is safe and warm and lighted and outside are the remains of Mission Valley, in its depleted way, still wild and untamable.

“Sh*t like this always gets my imagination to thinking."

I ponder, the trolley creaks and wheezes, snaking its way up the dark valley, inland, to the next stop, which I calculate should be close to My Babygirl’s, as close as possible.

I hop off in the middle of nowhere on the wrong side of some monumental hotel. It’s so awesome and gnarly I figure the Egyptians might have built it, it’s so stylized and all. And just like the Egyptian layout, just beyond the mighty buildings, lies the Nile, what’s left of the San Diego River. It waits for my crossing.

Her office, the Promised Land, is on the other side. I call it The Promised Land because a marriage is a promise of fidelity forever. It’s epic in its proportions.

Barb is my Zipporah and I’m her Moses. I’m her Charlton Heston and she’s my Yvonne De Carlo. Cecil B. DE Mille should make a movie chronicling our love.

©2014 StevenHunley

To be continued…

http://youtu.be/Cf4fk3fl8q4 Moses and Sephora

[Steven Hunley]

It was time to jettison the safety of the trolley tracks and get to the final epic trek. Of course I’m exaggerating; it won’t really be epic, more like a walk in the park.

But funny, the first thing I notice is that it’s a longer journey than I calculated and I should have worn my jacket. Her office is nearly a mile away, and that’s not so bad, but you notice right off how dark it gets out here after you leave the safely of electric lights and pavement.
Civilization gives way and nature takes over. What hides in the shadows is decided by your imagination and for me that’s not good. The darkest of dark is what’s left of the San Diego River itself, snaking its way down the valley of ominous shadows.

I can see reeds growing out in the water and that reminds me of the bull-rushes scene from the Ten Commandments. I wonder about such things. Like West Nile Virus and all. I mean we’re in the West, right?

I know there are mosquitos here too. The reeds are crawling with the little buggers. Hope they don’t suck my blood, the mean-spirited little insect villains! Alexander the Great was possibly knocked-off by West Nile Virus and I don’t want to share the same fate. Remind me not to be Alexander. But I trudge ahead anyway and proceed down a ramp towards the water. I have to make it over the bridge and to the other side.

The air is colder than I expected, and even so I’m sweating. I hear mosquitos buzzing near my ears and know they’re attracted to carbon dioxide, so I’m considering holding my breath until I cross the water. In the meantime my body is going through changes. Change is always a monster. I’m hot and sweaty, then I’m cold and clammy, and my toe aches, and my nose runs, and, well, I don't want to admit this... but... I want my Momma!

The corn I’ve developed by wearing Reeboks that are too small is giving me trouble. Alexander never had trouble like this, I betcha! The Greeks wore sandals! I have no sandals! Don’t care much for sandals. And it’s really, really, dark! I can’t see one foot in front of the other.

What to do? What to do?

OMG, OMG, OMG, this dangerous expedition is getting out of hand.

I take out the little blue box and pop open the lid. Pure white light beams off Barb's engagement ring and illuminates the dark path. The grand trek recommences. This grand gesture thing isn’t as easy as expected.

Finally, with Herculean effort, and the help of my twenty-first century light source, I reach the bridge over highway eight, breathe several pounds of car exhaust, take a picture of the traffic zooming below through the chain-link fence, and finally arrive at the foot of Texas Street Hill.

It’s a turn east and following Camino del Whatever to her office. I see her car in the parking lot. I’m early but I expect her call asking where to pick me up any minute. Inside, her door is closed and that means she’s shrinking someone’s head, stripping someone’s conscience bare, or doing a Bowenian Therapy dance on their noggins, I’m not sure what, but it works like magic.

I say magic because I think it’s the same spell Barb worked on me. It’s Bowenian, it’s Witchcraft, and it doesn’t matter, it works like a charm. That’s why I undertook the epic trek. Sure, I didn’t plan for it to be epic, it just turned out that way. That’s what life and love do sometimes, and it’s the times you don’t plan it. You have no control and no clue. They go epic. My love for Barb has gone epic and I’m forever changed.

I read a copy of Diver Magazine and listen to the piped in music. It’s Happy by Pharrell Williams. They always play it here. When I first met the Barbster they played it three times an hour, now not so much. Fame and a number one hit aren’t for always. My love for Barb is. I’ll have my ring engraved with ‘always’. She found it in the dressing room at The Sports Authority. Kismet provided her with it. It’s missing a diamond but I’ll have it replaced. Then it will be complete, just like I’m complete with her.

It’s a minute to eight and her door boldly opens. A nondescript couple walk out and she’s behind them, seeing them off. When Barb is in any room that I’m in, everyone turns nondescript. Brad and Angelina, as pretty a pair as could be, would be nondescript. I like the word nondescript, it’s so descriptive.

Then they’re out the door and she turns around to go back in and spots me. I could say her eyes went as big as saucers but I’d be underdescribing the phenomenon. Plates, big dinner plates, were more like it. And with that natural phenomenon came another that complimented it and added value. Marshall says never to add value. But it did just that.

It was hard to describe, but it was like an upward-curving brilliant scimitar that cuts through crap with joyous precision.

A smile.

The biggest smile I’d ever seen.

http://youtu.be/LIZIBm2QGaM Witchcraft Frank Sinatra

©2014 StevenHunley



To be continued…

[Steven Hunley]

Your dry wit mixes with brilliant autobiographical insights that would intrigue the most selective reader. Bravo!