Meeting Susie

it was the fall of 1994.
mary, debbie and i were in a cab going across manhattan from a bar to a club to see a band play, for work.
we had gone out to dinner a little earlier than usual that night because there were so many shows we wanted to get to.
and those two along with jo and denise had been drinking since before we even started dinner.

i always loved going to shows with these women because they had the right attitude.
the perfect combination of joy, experience and cynicism.
plus they all had amazing ears for good and bad music.
and they were never afraid to express their opinion.
loved, loved, loved that about them.

on this night though the whole way across the city these two were arguing.
no idea what about, but i was stuck in the middle of the back seat between them.
and their drunken state lead them to actually getting pissed off at each other.
i decided i didn't want any part of their wrath, so i totally stayed out of it.

we arrived at our destination and they practically fell out of the cab getting louder, leaving me to pay.
i was realizing that i didn't see them mad very often, but when they were mad they were not pleasant to be around.

so i left them right where the cab dropped us off and made my way across the street to a bodega looking for something to drink before i went into the club.
as i went through the cooler i came upon a legendary new york drink that i had never tried.
it was one of those goofy rights-of-passage type drinks to me.
"yoo-hoo".
the glorious chocolate water!
the drink of the ramones!
so that is what i got.

i went back outside and crossed the street back toward the club only to hear mary and debbie still going at it up the block.
as much as i didn't want to be a part of what they were doing, i didn't want to go in the club either.

the fate that awaited me inside was some shitty band that someone at the label had signed and very badly wanted us to come see perform.
why did they want us there?
so that they could justify the signing.
so we could verify this persons great taste.
so that the band wouldn't have to play to no one.
the person's mission was to get me and my cohorts to try and kick start this bands career.
but you know what, bad is bad, and from the few songs i had heard on tape without even seeing them i knew that this band was terrible.

i ended up stopping a little ways down the block leaning against a light pole drinking my yoo-hoo.
there weren't many people on that street or coming or going from the club beyond the doorman outside.
pretty soon though someone came out of the club and stood a little ways away from him.
it was a woman with short dark hair drinking out of a brown paper bag.
probably a beer.
very new york, drinking from the bag like that.
from a distance i thought she looked cute.

at some point i lost track of my friends and forgot about the club and just mentally drifted off into some other place.
it was nice.
a beautiful fall night standing on a random street in nyc.
this was a pretty good life i had.

then my daydream was broken by a voice.
it was a woman's voice saying hello to me.
i turned around and it was the woman who had been standing by the door of the club.
and my eyesight was correct, she was cute.
i guess she got bored of standing there by herself and decided to talk to the only other person around who wasn't working or arguing.

i liked this.
not every day did beautiful women come talk to me.
and she was even more beautiful then i had thought from a distance.
she was really smiley too.
she squinted her eyes almost shut when she smiled.

she introduced herself as susie.
she was from l.a.
she asked if those were my friends arguing up the block.

"Yup."

"They are annoying."

"They sure are."

this was pretty cool.
we started talking about where we were from.
she was excited to learn i lived in minneapolis.
she was a big fan of the bands husker du and soul asylum.

"They are all acquaintances of mine."

"You know those guys?"

"Yeah, its a small town."

i could tell immediately that she had pretty great energy.

we traded music stories.
live shows, fave records, jobs in the industry etc.
she worked for tower records.

we also talked about the thing that most visitors to nyc talk about.
how long we were there, and where we were staying.

she was staying with friends.
i was staying at a small exclusive hotel.
she seemed impressed.

she even knew someone who worked at our label.
she said they were old friends.

this was waaaaaay better than that crap band i was supposed to be seeing that night.
and like i said, things like this just didnt happen to me.

we talked for what seemed like a long time.
then someone came out of the club looking around.
it was actually my boss, jo.

"What are you guys doing out here?"

she was not happy that debbie, mary and i were at the venue but not inside watching this band like we were suppose to be doing.
i told her i would be right in.
then she gave an earful to the other two and they all went back in to the club together.

susie asked me if that person who just talked to me was who she thought it was.
i was surprised that she knew who my boss was.
but she told that me that in l.a. everyone (especially other women) knew the women who had jobs in the biz with actual authority like my boss did.
that was nice to hear.
my boss was amazing.

i told susie that i was going to need to go inside.
she said that she'd go in with me.

the band was even worse then i thought they would be.
a few of the toadies who worked with us were acting like they loved it.
all i wanted to know was how soon before they are done?

besides i had planned to get out of there the minute they were done playing.
there were other bands around town that night that i was dying to see.
i had to get a move on.

and while it had been cool talking to susie, for whatever reason it didn't occur to me to exchange phone numbers or anything with her.
looking back that was more than a bit stupid on my part.
good looking women like that hadn't given me the time of day in years.
and yet despite my low self-confidence something different had happened that night.
she had approached me.
stop the presses.

so a few of us left the club together and susie walked out with us.
i didn't even introduce her to anyone.
we quickly hit the street looking for cabs.
susie and i stopped briefly and told each other it was pleasure meeting one another.
then i just turned around and jumped into a waiting cab with mary, who was still drunk, but no longer angry.
and off we went.
never to see susie again.

mary started excitedly asking me all kinds of questions.

"Who was that?"
"How do you know her?"
"You just met right there on the street?"
"Did you get her number?"
"You didn't?"
"What is your problem?"
"I know you're an idiot but that is ridiculous."
"She's hot!"
"How are you going to track her down?"
"What are you doing in a cab with me going to see another band?"
"You need to find her and take her back to your hotel room right now?"
"Why didn't you at least invite her along?"

i told her i had no answers for any of those questions.
i really hadn't considered any options.

again mary demanded to know how i met her.
i said that with her and debbie going at it i just walked down the block to hang out by myself.
susie walked outside the club and probably would have talked to anyone standing there.
it just happened to be me.

mary reiterated that i was an idiot.
she had seen the way susie was looking at me - all excited and giddy.

idiot was right.
and dense too.
that was me.

then mary proposed a bet.

"$20 says she calls the hotel looking for you."

i took the bet.
there was no way this woman was going to do that.
someone who was in town for a couple days on business wasn't going to track down the phone number to my hotel and call me
she wouldn't even remember the name of the hotel

but i was wrong.
the next evening when i stopped by my hotel before dinner there was a message for me at the front desk.
from susie.
she said she was leaving nyc early the next morning and not going out that night but she left her l.a. phone number and told me to call her.

i did.

and mary got her $20.

Nancy

He had only turned 19 a few weeks before they crossed paths for the first time.
And he had had only one real girlfriend prior to that.
He was a virgin.

Its hard to recall how he met Nancy, but she lived in the same building as some guys he had met in class and one of them dated her roommate.
Throughout the Spring he saw her around and they talked a bunch.
They eventually went on a few dates too.

She was a nursing student.
From a small town.
That much he remembered about her years later.

That Summer they dated a bit more and one Friday night she had a party at her place.
He worked late and arrived even later because he knew he wouldn't know hardly anyone there.
Her friends and his didn't really mingle.

He walked through the doors and the place was packed, the Clash album London Calling was playing.
Looking around he didn't have much luck finding any people he knew.
He didn't see Nancy anywhere either.
Across the apartment he saw this real sleazy dude named Tim who was calling out "Nan-cy, Nan-cy" in a sing-song way and wiggling his finger in a luring manner.
He looked to the other side of the room and there was a drunken Nancy laughing, crossing the room and suddenly following Tim out the door.
That didn't make him feel too good.
This guy Tim was known for sleeping with anything that moved.

He hung around for a while but she didn't come back.
So he left and decided he had had enough of her.
Besides that he was having luck meeting a much better standard of women lately anyway.

A few weeks later he was back in that building hanging out with some other people and as he left he ran into Nancy.
He had barely talked to her since the night of her party and she knew that he was unhappy with her.
She asked if they could talk.
He was not sure that was what he really wanted to do.
But he said Yeah OK.

The two of them sat outside on a nice late Summer night laying it on the line with each other.
She said she really liked him and knew she made a big mistake with that guy Tim.
It was not the first time.
Tim always used her and then treated her like shit.
That didn't make him feel any better.
But she was really sweet to him that night and after a while they kissed.
She asked if he wanted to go upstairs to her apartment.
And they did.

That night he lost his virginity.
And there is little chance that it could have been worse.

She literally just lay there.
On her back.
With her legs barely spread apart.
He had no idea what he was doing.
Experience wise, he was just a kid.
She was 6 or 7 years older than him so he let her take the lead.

It was weird and definitely not wonderful.
She continued to just lay there.
No emotion, no movement, no sounds, no nothing.
He could only remember one other element of that sex.
He did not wear a condom, and he ejaculated inside her.

It was horrible.
And he left very confused.

Over the next few months this happened a couple more times.
Why? He had no idea.
There was no pleasure in it at all.
Fucked. Up.
The only two words to describe it properly.

At one time she had been engaged to be married.
And the guy dumped her just before the wedding.
Does this matter?
Not really.
Its just something to put out there.
But would you marry someone who had sex like that?

Again, why he ever went back for more is very strange indeed.
All of this was happening right at the time when he was hitting his stride as a male for the first time in his life.
He was meeting lots of really nice, very cool, beautiful women.
And there were all passionate, or at least lively, women.
Not that he was having sex with them.
But he did make out with a handful of them.
And that was always more satisfying then sex with Nancy.

Sex. With Nancy.
Could it even be called that beyond a technicality?

Sometime later in the Fall they went to a concert and then spent the night together afterwards.
More heartless sex with the dead.

Over the next few weeks they began disagreeing about everything, and finally the both had had enough and went their separate ways for good.

What took him so long to move on from her is a sad mystery.
Years afterward he couldn't remember anything that went on between them beyond the very weird lifeless sex.

* * * * *

Six weeks into the new year he was hard at work on school projects.
He was doing really well with his studies and for the first time in his life he was enjoying being in school. It wasn't hard, but some of the classes were at least cool.
One night he was writing a paper that was due the next day when the phone rang.
The phone was for him.
It was Nancy.

He had not talked to her in quite a while.
She sounded very nervous and out of sorts as she started talking.
Where had she been? He hadn't seen her around.
She said she had moved out of her apartment and was staying with a friend, but that things were very messed up in her life.
He asked her why she was calling now and what was really going on?
She said, "I'm pregnant."
(silence)
And "I'm going to have an abortion tomorrow."
(silence)
"I need you to take me to the doctor.
Its yours."
(silence)

And she wanted him to pay for the abortion.
It had to happen the next morning.

His mind was reeling.
He never saw that coming.
This woman has been out of his life for nearly 3 months.
He didn't know anything about the details of pregnancy and abortion.
He was really scared.
And realized he was really an idiot.

Why the next day?
She told him that you can't have an abortion after the first trimester of pregnancy and it had been 3 months.
The doctor had told her that they may not even do the procedure.

Now he was scared to death.
And angry.
With her, but of course himself even more.
What was his responsibility?
Why did she wait so long to contact him, to sort this out?

She eventually broke down crying and couldn't answer any more questions, so her friend had to come on the phone.
The friend was calm and polite.
But firmly said that he needed to take care of this the next day.
If he didn't help Nancy out she planned to go to his family and tell them about it and ask them for the money.

What a fucking mess.
And she was going to punish him.
While the whole time he knew her he was never once cruel or mean to her.

He and Nancy's friend sorted out the details and he told the her that he would be by in the morning to pick Nancy up.

The paper he had been writing was due for his first class the next day, and he had to get it done, so he stayed up all night writing.
No doubt it would be a very badly written paper.

At 6:30 that morning he went to school slipping an envelope under the professor's door apologizing for missing class, saying he had a medical emergency, but here was his paper.

He drove to the address that Nancy's friend gave him and around 7:00 he pulled up and honked the horn.

For some reason he couldn't even get out of the car.
He was really nervous and upset.

Finally the door to the house opened and her friend waved at him.
Then Nancy came out the door, looking like hell, all bundled up in a winter coat and large blanket against the cold.
She got in the car and they exchanged strained greetings.
He didn't even know what to say.
No doubt she didn't either.

He asked her where to go and she gave him directions.

They drove to a clinic on the west side of town.
The parking lot was pretty empty when they got there.
As she started to get out he realized that he did not want to go inside with her.
He said he would stay there in the car.
She mumbled an Ok.

It was cold outside and sitting in a car, with the engine turned off, with no heat, was going to be really tough.
But not nearly as tough as going in there with her would have been.

He watched her walk inside.
She had left the big blanket that she had wrapped around her, so as the temp dropped in the car he covered himself with it.

He closed his eyes and tried to drift off but obviously that was not going to happen.
He tried as hard as he could to not imagine what was going on in there.
What was being said? What was being thought? What was being done?

It felt like hours went by, but it was about 45 minutes.
The door to the clinic opened and there she was coming out.
She looked even worse than before.

He drove the car up toward the entrance and picked her up.

They couldn't do the abortion there.
So they were sending her to a hospital in the city.

Oh fuck.
Just what he didn't want, more time in this nightmare scenario.
He wanted it to be over so he could start burying his guilt and begin forgetting about it as quickly as possible.

Again she gave him directions and they drove without speaking.
But it wasn't silent like last time because she was crying most of this trip.

They got to the hospital and he drove up to the main entrance.
She got out and went inside alone again.
This time he didn't say anything.
She said she would come back out in a minute and tell him what was going on.

After a few minutes she came out and told him that they were going to do the abortion, but it was going to be about 2 hours.
She asked him if he was going to wait out there.
He said that if she got him a phone number then he would call in about 90 minutes to check on her.
So she did.

As she went back inside he drove off.

It was not even 8am, so where was he going to go?
Again, not in there.
He was so pathetic, but also confused and angry, not to mention overwrought with that guilt.

He parked a block or so away in another fairly empty lot.
He had time to think now.
It was the first time since the phone rang 12 hours earlier that he could think.

What was he going to do now?
Sit there in the cold with this blanket?
With the windows steaming up?
What was actually going on here?
Lots more questions washed over him.
Was this even his child?
He had not seen her in months and he figured she had been with other guys, like that fuckin creep Tim.
Why had he been such a moron this whole time with her?
No condoms? Really?
Even a naive stooge like him should have known better than that.
But she had insisted it would be OK.
Did she really?
What the fuck was his problem?
One thing that was probably true was that he was the most decent guy she knew, which meant she also knew he would be responsible and help her out of this awful situation.

Finally, enough time passed that he drove around until he found a pay phone.
He called the number she gave him at the hospital.
He asked how she was.
The person on the other end was not friendly as she told him that Nancy was done with the procedure, but she was in rough shape considering what she had been through.

They asked him if he was the person coming to get her.
He said Yes, and they said Then you should be here.

He hung up and drove back.
He actually went inside this time, but stayed in the lobby, calling the department again to tell them he had arrived.

After a while two very unhappy looking women came pushing her toward him in a wheel chair.
She was really out if it and looked bad.
The hospital women gave him very dark stares, and then some instructions for taking care of her.
He made sure it was all in writing, because he knew he wasn't the one who was going to be with her.
They didn't need to know that.
As far as he was concerned he was a ride home. Nothing more.

And what a wretched ride home it was.
Grueling silence.

He dropped her off at her friends house, not even knowing if anyone was there.
He carried her things to the door, putting the stuff inside on the landing, and then left without saying anything.

She had paid the money for the abortion that day, but demanded that he pay her back
$300.
He didn't have that kind of money around at one time, but over a few months he paid her the whole amount.
She would call him every couple of weeks and he would get her $75 or $50 or whatever he had.
By the time the next summer started he had given her even more than $300 because she said there had been other doctors visits.

And then it was over.
He may have heard from her once more.
But not more then that.
Not ever again.

He wouldn't say that he was ever haunted by the experience.
But it was a painful and humiliating memory.
Not something anyone would want to spend time thinking about.
Denial helps but only in the short term.
But there is just no way it could not have left a deep psychic mark.
Things that serious and heavy always do.
He also knew that he should never have been in that position to start with.
And its a situation he made as close to 100% sure that he would never find himself in again.
It was a very tragic lesson learned.
And he had only just turned 20.

This House

The day I got the keys to this house,

I opened the door,

Walked inside,

Closed the door behind me,

Turned around,

Put my back to the door,

And slid to the floor.

Safe at last inside my own four walls.

I have rarely gotten up from the floor since that day in June 2000.

The 9 months prior to getting my house I was literally homeless.

Luckily I never spent one night on the street or in my car.

But i was millimeters away from that on more than one occasion.

And the shit that happened in the 20 months leading up to that were the worst in my life.

I doubt that I have ever fully dealt with it.

I had left my dream world in the record business.

That was my whoooooooooole life.

It was everything I had ever wanted in life and I had achieved it.

At the time I was inches away from being a major success story.

My parents grew up on dirt poor farms and moved to the small city nearby (population 25,000 at the time - bigger then a town, but not much of a city) to take entry level jobs with glorified High School educations. (They graduated because if you showed up you got a diploma not because they learned anything.)

Yet somehow as they raised me and my brother we found the arts.

There was no art in our house.

To my parents Art was a nickname for a guy named Arthur. (I stole that line from Andy Warhol.)

How we found music first, then books and movies and then fine art I will never know.

We didn't have a an older sibling or a relative or a neighbor or a friend with an older brother or sister to turn us on to any of this.

Yes we played all the sports too and did all the things that normal kids do.

But for both of us by the time we were at our senior year in high school the arts and and especially music was everything to us.

I began to have this dream of rock n roll, and living in that world.

I didn't have the foggiest idea how one did that.

There were no role models for that.

At 17 I walked into a new little record shop that was opening and begged for a job.

A few years before that I had discovered another little record shop in town and had my mind blown by the music.

(The albums that changed my life were Easter, and Horses by the Patti Smith Group, and a compilation of local bands - I had never heard of a local band. Every band I saw either had a hit and played arenas or played covers of the hits of the day in bowling alley bars. In my world no one wrote their own songs and played at local venues.)

Before that we bought our 45s and LPs at the department store.

I had loved buying records since a young age but it was just the top 40 drivel.

As I got to 13 or 14 my love for rock n roll began to creep in.

Before I got that job at the new record store I, like every other kid, had a shitty job in a restaurant 3 blocks from home.

But this record store was "downtown."

It was me breaking free.

My parents were furious with me when I told them I got a new job and quit the old one.

"How will you get to work and back home? You can't walk. Its too far. We will have to come and pick you up and we don't have time."

They were not wrong about any of that, but I didn't care at all.

Really they were just scared because their kid was about to step into a world that they knew nothing about.

They could relate to the shitty job in the restaurant, and it was so close to home that I just walked back and forth, worked with other kids from the neighborhood, and mom & dad knew where i was all the time.

Now I was about to venture off into the unknown.

And boy did I ever.

That was December 1979, and from that point on, until I went to work at the college in Oct 2000, I never once applied for a job in the music biz, never had a resume, never even looked for another job.

Jobs came to me.

One after another.

People came to me offering me job after job.

I went from the new kid at the record counter to an executive at the biggest coolest record label in the world.

The home of some of the greatest musical artists of the last 40 years. (The list is gigantic.)

(Also tons of amazing artists that almost no one knows about cuz the sheep are too stupid to know good music when it kicks them in the face. The list of those artists we worked with is even more gigantic than the popular one.)

The label was so awesome because they never went out looking for teen pop.

They never signed the one hit wonders that every other record label signed.

We had no time for Whitney Houston or Brittany Spears or Justin Beiber shit.

We made real records for real people who loved music.

Everyone who worked there loved music.

We worked with artists not pop stars.

It was beyond anything I could have ever dreamed.

And it all ended in a giant ball of fire.

The ending story for me is not that big of a deal.

Nothing dramatic happened.

The world of the music business began to change dramatically in the mid 90s.

The corporate structure was taking over.

The stock holders demanded instant return on their investment.

They brought in new bosses.

Those people were idiots.

They didn't know anything about real music, real artists.

Really talented people had made 5 albums before they had a hit.

Those days were over.

Now you had to a have a hit on day 1 or you were out.

So I was out.

My contract had run out in the summer of 98 and a lawyer spent 6 months trying to work a new deal for me.

One day after many horrible months of trying to convince horrible people that I knew what I was doing I called the lawyer and said stop negotiating a new contract.

Negotiate my way out.

The moment my boss heard that he called me to his office and fired me on the spot.

You want out? Then get out.

That massive loser couldn't even look me in the eye as he handed me a huge pile of money to go away.

I literally flew-in one morning working for the greatest record company of all time and by noon that day I was unemployed.

I went straight back to the airport to catch the next flight home.

I remember standing at a bank of payphones and calling my brother and just sobbing.

He new.

I didn't have to tell him that it was over.

I got offered lots of other jobs.

But they were shit compared to who I was or what I wanted or demanded.

They were all horrible record companies who made the worst music on earth.

And I turned them all down.

In my last months at the label I had discovered this very talented new kid and so after I took a month off to recover I tracked him down, told him who I was and that I wanted to work with him.

Over the next 13 months he went from a kid who could hardly get a gig, and couldn't give away his cd, to being King of the Scene and rapidly taking over the whole region of the country.

We sold 10,000 cds. (At $10 a pop that was a cool quick $100,000 in our pockets.)

We turned down 4 out of every 5 shows offered to us because they were the right one for us.

Sold out big cubs.

Sold out 4 nights in a row at small clubs.

Artist Of The Year on local radio.

Cover of the weekly culture paper and winner of the best new band.

None of these people had given this kid the time of day for the 2 years he struggled before that.

But we did it all, took the city by storm.

And then after 13 amazing months he fired me.

He said I was bitter and angry and scary to be around.

Just before that went down with him the house I had been renting at the time was sold out from under me and I had no idea where to turn to.

I took everything I owned and moved it into a long term storage garage.

I went from couch to couch wearing out my welcome.

Creating a trail of people hating me.

And then a new story began.

The forest had been burnt to the ground.

It was all gone.

But new life eventually sprouted and here i am today.

11 years later.

The time flew by and I spent a great deal of it deep inside very safe walls that would keep out the powerful demons of broken hearts and destroyed careers.

Luckily during all of that I stayed sober.

I know that if I had been drinking alcohol or using drugs during that time that I would not be alive today.

Too many people I know died.

People close to me.

Literally dead from abuse.

And it runs deep in my family too.

That tree is littered with bodies (dead and barely alive alike) from abuse.

That is the one thing that saved me,

Being sober through it all.

I probably felt the pain a lot more intensely because I never self-medicated but at least now that I am finally healing I can use the memories of the pain as character and something to build on.

I just hope its not too late.

I hope I am not too old to give it another try.

That scares the hell out of me as I write today.

I lost a whole decade.

God damn, an entire fucking decade.

Melissa

it was my last day at the job and a woman who worked there approached me in what i thought was a fairly bold manner
it was unspoken but it was bold
she used the old "we should hang out some time," line

she was very good looking
but a little too goofy and suburban for me
with very mainstream tastes
nothing that attracted me to her in a cultural sense

i remember one time she was laughing hard because the winter cap i was wearing was inside out
she found that so funny
but in a laughing at me way, not laughing with me
no one she knew would ever do that she said
who would commit such a faux pas
the tag was on the outside

i couldn't have cared less about little shit like that
i've worn shirts inside out to work and didn't care enough to even change it once i found out

to put it mildly i did not respect her
but i went out with her anyway

the first time we went to a mediocre chinese joint
then under the pretense of watching tv or some shit like that we went to her apartment
we sat on the couch and turned on the television set
she tried to bring me around to her way of thinking on the show "friends"
she thought it was very funny
i thought it was quite lame
those characters either bored or insulted me

but soon tv was irrelevant
we were doing what we really came there for
it began by touching each other as we talked and laughed
then stroking
finger tips gliding over skin is pretty damn cool
(i love the slightly dreamy-woozy feeling you get in your head)
not much longer and the kissing started
and then hands were going everywhere
the clothes started coming off
we headed to her bedroom to have sex

it was decent
it could have been better if i had tried a little harder
thats all it takes is a little effort
but i was only interested in getting mine, not hers

over the next six months or so we had a sex a couple more times
we didn't bother with excuses like tv shows after the first time
one of us would just call when we wanted to fuck and i would drive to her place and we would have sex
it was usually good enough to pretty good
occasionally parts of it were great
especially when it wasn't "the usual"

i never spent the night
she never asked me to

of course it got old
and one night as we lay in her bed i simply couldn't get it up
it wasn't frustrating or embarrassing
it was just the ultimate sign that this relationship was done
we both knew it
neither said it

i got dressed and went home
that was the last time we were together

i saw her in public a couple times after that
once i completely ignored her - which was mean
another time i ran into her and she was with a nice simple suburban guy who i happened to know
and you could tell that they were together
as a couple
i was happy for her
she had found a guy on her level

i never saw her again after that
but they are still together
i am friends with him on facebook and every once in a while a picture of them pops up
they have a cute kid too
its great for them
they seem really happy

its good when things work out the way they should

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.