Sadie

It wasn't that she said she wouldn't be with me that ruined me. It was seeing her a few months later with someone else that left me so devastated.

I really liked this one. Sadie was different. Totally her own person. Quiet, seemingly naive at times, but strong. And the most sensual being I had ever encountered. Dark quiet sexuality. So amazing. Brooding. She had moved here from Connecticut on her own. Very different from midwestern girls. I really liked that part of her. She did and said things that I as a full blooded midwestern boy had never encountered. And extremely likable if she let you in.

And nearly 5 years after I first met her, and was instantly intrigued by her, she had let me in. But there were also those times when it felt like she was reticent to have made that move. One minute she was with me all the way. The next she wasn't anywhere to be found. Most of the time it didn't matter, because for one thing I was constantly on the move in those days traveling for a job, and for another it was that good when she was in my life. It was so good that I was all the way in on this one. I opened up and gave it all to her. When I say I really liked this one, I'm lying. I loved this one. That's not easy for me to admit now, considering how it ended.

- - - - -

A few months after Sadie told me that she refused to see me any more I was out to see a band and very unexpectedly saw her in the club. She never went to see bands. What the hell was she doing in this club?

She had not seen me there yet but I couldn't take my eyes off her. As she got closer I noticed that she had a distinct look about her. One I recognized. This probably sounds crude but it was that fresh fucked look. Then I saw the guy standing next to her. He had the same look. And I knew him. He was a fucking loser. A tobacco chewing, slobbering, do-nothing, say-nothing, know-nothing, lump of a human. And I sensed immediately that they were together. I was blown away. It was a horrible feeling. These two had just fucked. I could tell. Now they were in this club to see this same show as me. She was with him. Oh my god no. I was gonna be sick.

We made eye contact. We locked eyes. It burned hard. And Sadie knew that I knew. She looked embarrassed. Probably not embarrassed that she was with him, but that I KNEW she was with him. Embarrassed that she knew that I knew that fresh fucked look on her face. I had loved that look. I thought she used to wear it oh so well. But now it was the most grotesque mask I had ever seen.

At that moment it literally felt like the ceiling caved in on the room. I had never been hit that hard in my life by anything. I was so stunned that I could not do anything. I could not breathe. I could not cry. Like torture I could not think about anything else. She was with HIM. Holy shit. I was sick. I was destroyed. At that moment I could not imagine anything worse than her with someone who was not me. The most I could do was turn and look away from her. I could not even force my feet to head for the door.

And events from a few days earlier suddenly made so much sense.

- - - - -

Late in the week I found myself at home for what seemed like the first time all summer. I got a call from Jay asking if I wanted to go to a minor league baseball game. He and his friends had a bunch of tickets and some interesting people would be gathering for a tailgate party before the game.

Yeah. Why not.

It was the kind of thing I didn't do very often.

Sure.

It was a Friday night. Beautiful weather. I walked around at the tailgate talking to people who were already there cooking some food, enjoying cold beverages, and then greeting the new arrivals as they joined in. At one point I looked up and saw that Sadie was there. It made me pretty uncomfortable.

Yes, she was friends with this group but it never crossed my mind that she would be there. I had not seen her in months. I had spent the summer immersed in some huge projects trying to forget her. I was trying to scrape her from my memory. It was going ok too. But here she was and I was going to have to deal with it.

Who was she with? Turns out it was her old boyfriend. The one she had left to be with me. Or did she leave him? That was always in dispute between us. Or at least my dispute with her. Hers with me was that I was cynical and poisonous.

I had never met this old boyfriend she was with, but surprisingly I recognized him. He was part of the music scene that hung out at a club downtown that I frequented. From the little she said about him I had pictured her ex to be much more of a normal sorta guy. She had said he was a cook, not a music scenester.

Its no exageration to say I was a little shocked when they walked right over to me and Sadie introduced us. She had ice in her veins.

This is Matt.

We shook hands and he was warm toward me. I was numb. He thanked me for recommending a Thelonius Monk album to her one time as a gift for him. Wow. What did he even know about me? Was I just a guy she knew who had told her to buy him a great album? Could he really not know anything about what had gone on between me and her for over half a year? Or was he just cool about it all? Shit. I would like to be that cool. I was feeling lucky for once in this whole mess between her and I because I would have understood if he had been a complete dick to me. On the other hand I was suddenly feeling quite guilty and could barely look this guy in the eye when talking to him. My discomfort grew by the second. I had been with her. He had been with her. I figured that I had probably caused a lot of hell between them. But now what was going on?

And there she stood with a natural smile on her face. It was jarring for me.

I made it as simple as possible for myself and probably confused him, as I eased my way out of there.

I headed across the way to see what was up with this other guy in the group who always seemed harmless enough, but really your basic loser. It seemed like a safe zone.

Jack was drinking watery looking beer and cooking gray colored burgers. Sittin' there on the edge of the trunk of his old clunker car. He had the stereo blasting some run of the mill 60s garage rock. He was the singer in a run of the mill retro garage rock band himself. He had mediocre written all over him.

The second I walked up he set his cup of cheap beer down inside the trunk of his car so he could flip his burgers. I sat on the trunk, not knowing the beer was in there causing it to tip over and drain its contents onto the floor of his trunk. He flipped out. Not angrily, just kinda spastically, trying to sop up the beer. It was gonna smell bad in that trunk for a while.

When Jack finished cleaning up as best he could I noticed that he was a nervous wreck around me. He could not look at me, and could barely speak. I should have known he wasn't my type of person. So I just split that scene too. So much for safety.

I went over and got my game ticket from Jay and headed into the stadium.

A packed house and we had general admission seats. The good viewing spots were already gone when I went in, but it was minor minor minor league baseball so it wasn't really about the game. I ended up standing way down the left field line along the fence.

Different people from our group began to gather along that fence too. They came and went and we all chatted as the game progressed. I was having a decent night despite the earlier weirdness. Several interesting people to talk with.

Late in the game someone came up on my blind side and gave me a sharp hip check. It was her. Sadie. She was a little drunk. She was smiling real sweet,

Hey, how are ya.

To this day I can still hear her voice. She looked and sounded like a young pre-superstar Jennifer Aniston with black hair instead of blonde. She was a little thicker too. And being a life long dancer she had strong legs. She really was beautiful.

We talked a little. But I couldn't do more than small talk. And really not much of that either. This was the first time I had seen her since she said it was over. I got quite mad back then and she resented me for it. For not being more mature about it. Fuck mature. I had no say in that break up. She was leaving me and all I could do was stand in her exhaust fumes. She couldn't understand how I couldn't understand why she had to end it. I never did get a reason out of her. It was just over and I could piss off.

So what was I really going to say at a baseball game with people we both knew standing all around us? People who had always wondered what our relationship was about. Did she really break up with Matt the old boyfriend to date me? Or not? She was here tonight with him. But she was talking to me. And this was months after she made it known that it wasn't happening anymore for us.

Apparently she was back with him. Or was she STILL with him? And improbably he had no problems with me! What an odd scene.

She told me that she was going somewhere with someone for something out of town the next day. Madison maybe? I didn't really hear her. I wanted out of the spot I was occupying yet again. I had spent too much of the night leaving one uncomfortable situation for another. Cruel irony.

I decide mid-sentence to just leave her just standing there and walked away. I tracked down the guy I had come to the game with.

Do you want to hit the road?

Yeah.

- - - - -

So Sunday came around and I headed to a club in Uptown to see this little band from Columbus, OH. A guy I knew named Jimmy who worked at a great record shop was the singer. He was a wiry, angry, funny guy. Full of life. Totally genuine. A cool guy with a bite to him. I liked this guy. And I was really looking forward to seeing him perform.

Some local Twin Cities record label guys were there and I knew that they were having discussions about making a record with the band. That excited me. I sat in a booth and talked with the label guys for a while.

Then I saw Jimmy from the band and he introduced me to the other guys. They all looked pretty awkward and sorta weird. I liked this a lot.

It was getting close to show time so I moved in to the other room and made my way up toward the stage. A nice crowd actually as the headliner later in the night was quite popular. I stood there by myself waiting for the band to go on. I said Hi to different people I knew in the crowd. It was a friendly night.

Then it happened.

Sadie was there. Standing next to that guy Jack who's beer I had spilled into the trunk of his car. The do-nothing guy.

Huh? This made no sense at all. What about Matt the ex? She was there in the club with the idiot who was all nervous around me at the tailgate? Is this who she went to Madison or wherever with? They were TOGETHER?

Yeah I knew they were together. And I could tell that they had just had sex. He turned her on? I was instantly beyond nauseous.

My mind was trying to comprehend what I was seeing: I wanted to be with her - And she was with him - I thought very little of him - What did that make me?

The roof of the club/my life caved in. I was horrified of them. Of me. Of the position I was in. By myself. I went deep inside my own head. As the building/my ego collapsed I found myself trapped in the heavy rubble in my own brain cells. Oh God it was bad. This guy Jack knew every little thing about me and her, didn't he? Of course he did, that's why he was all freaked out around me at the baseball game. Oh fuck. And now he was with her. This was the worst kind of rejection I could ever imagine. Her breaking up with me was one thing. Taking up with another though, someone I had no respect for, was a whole other seismic event. I might have just run out the door, but I could not even move.

Then, with what had to be the best timing a band has ever had, they took to the stage. In hindsight it was a miracle. I am not kidding. Anything to take even 1% of my attention from Sadie and Jack standing there freshly fucked was a god damned miracle.

As they launched into their first song it was like the band gathered up their own ugly, skinny, pathetic anger and harnessed it to my putrid embarrassment. That phrase is not strong enough. My massive self-loathing. More. My complete and utter self-hatred. This band had the ability to somehow lash that all together. They grabbed it with both hands like they grabbed the strongest power line in the entire city, and with the wild surge it created they just exploded on stage.

I had not anticipated this at all. It was pure genius. It was an awful howl. It was unconscious. The single most unconscious performance I had ever seen.

Straight up in the air as high as they could go, then crashing like lightning bolts straight back to the ground, but not on their feet, on their knees. Ram rod straight onto their knees. Like the harshest contrition. The pain must have been excruciating. Full-on subjugation.

When your heart has been broken over and over again, and you feel inadequate in every way, and it seems like you are ignored the most by that one person whose attention you crave more than anything, that type of excruciating pain feels amazing. It lets you know you are damn well alive. I mean really alive. Screamingly alive.

Next song. Same power. Again Jimmy the singer and Johan the guitar player were straight up in the air as high as the energy of the music would lift them and then smashing back down to the hard ground.

Electrifying.

I had been watching bands play every single night for years on end to earn my paychecks and this is exactly what I lived for. The rare insanity that took my head clean off.

The songs were fast, short, angry, sad and scream at the top of your lungs glorious. Perfect for a night like this. Up there with the best drugs I ever took.

- - - - -

I got hurt by a woman like never before on that night, and fell in love with a band like never before on that night.

A true Love-Hate night if ever there was one.

Sadie had made me feel so low that I have honestly never fully recovered. Some things broke in me that night that have not all healed.

That band will always be associated with her, and she with them, in my heart and mind.

I went on to make a record with the band and had some great adventures with all of them.

Years later though Jimmy the leader of the band died unexpectedly and I found myself spending a lot of quiet time thinking about him.

That always brought me to thinking about her.

Jimmy and I had had a falling out in the years between and I never got a chance to make up with him before he died. But I will always have the sheer beauty that he brought to the world inside me.

Sadie... well, I still have those broken bits inside me too. Not nearly as broken now, but still there.