Guy
The 1960's arguably saw the most drastic shift in how music influenced the social and political climate of our times in the past century. Imagine being a young man, fixing your eyes on the future, but without worry because music eases your doubts.
You're invincible, for starters. Youth is on your side. The year is 1964. The Beach Boys have released the classic and timeless "I Get Around" with lyrics as careless as "I'm a real cool head," and "I'm making real good bread." It's silly. Borderline dumb. But who cares. It's fun. The melody and harmonies are there and hey, these guys are gettin' around. What's not awesome about that? The song is catchy. It makes you feel good. In fact, all the Beach Boys songs do. They don't write sappy love songs. Caroline No is probably as sad as it gets, but it's still a pretty song. I always thought it was "Carol I know" and it was a song about a man telling Carol he understood what she and they were going through. So it never seemed sad to me, 'til I listened to it again just now, but I still felt happy hearing it. So there. The Beach Boys write happy, feel-good songs.
It's also 1964 when The Beatles (introduced once on the Ed Sullivan Show as These youngsters from Liverpool), release "I Want To Hold Your Hand", and women everywhere (at least the ones that recovered from Elvis-induced heart attacks) become sex-crazed swooners at the thought of a guy wanting to hold hands. All of a sudden anything the Beatles say or do or wear (or sing) becomes the benchmark for sexy. And girls everywhere want it all. And if I remember middle school correctly, I know what hand holding leads to. It leads to sex. Not that I had sex in middle school. But it gets the ball rolling. Those butterflies in your stomach.
The Beatles changed the playing field for young men in the 1960's. Guys could get a mop-top haircut or learn to play guitar, or even better, learn a Beatles song to entice their lover. They could wear ankle-length boots with a fitted toe to school or a paisley shirt or pants with floral patterns to a party to look desirable or suit up in all white for a formal event and girls would flutter. Gone were my grandmother's days, when attraction came with poetry and bashful requests for first dates at the movies. Buying flowers, walking her to class, carrying her books - these acts became secondary. My mother even told me that she was disgusted by a guy in high school who tried to carry her books to class. She said what attracted her to my dad was that he ignored her. She found allure in that. And if you're curious what their marriage is like, 37 years later, not much has changed. The only thing they do is watch Fox News and fart on the couch together.
Old fashioned romance, even reflected in the music written today, started to become endangered. Now women wanted their ears tickled and their eyes hypnotized. Playing hard-to-get was taken to a new level. A sexual revolution sparked a sense of freedom for women and men alike to be with multiple partners, to engage in homosexuality with less shame, to experiment with hallucinogenic drugs. In a nutshell, people did what they wanted. Social and religious and cultural constraints loosened.
Geoff's father, a budding young professional during this time where women wanted it all, wanted to be a guy that could offer it all. His name was Guy, and he was raised by his grandmother, likely missing out on the emotional spoils a mother and father could offer. Later in life, material possessions and wealth became his love currency, which he shared generously with his family and extended family when Barbara brought others' children into their home, and even through their help in taking care of me when I was in a pinch.
Guy played Division 1 football out West before being accepted into law school. From there he built himself a successful practice and later in his thirties wed Barbara and had three children by the age of forty-five.
He told a story about a football player injury at the dinner table one night while the whole family was gathered round.
"One game, a player was taken out after breaking his femur bone. Does anyone know the sound a femur bone makes when it breaks? It's extremely loud! The whole stadium went silent. It was as if a very large tree snapped in half."
We all continued to chew our food, reluctantly.
"The femur is the largest bone in the body," he added.
Nothing seemed to bother Guy. Ever. He was trapped in a 60's mind mist. Still. After all these years. As if Don't Worry Baby still played on rerun in his mind. The morning fog that 60's music emitted must have generated a vapor only those who didn't witness the 60's could see from afar off. Like I watch these old(er) successful professionals with hippie mindsets and wonder how they balances work and play all their lives. I'm just sitting here feeling too agoraphobic to go check the mail most days, let alone get a job or have a social life.
I didn't grow up in such a hopeful, happy-music generation. I grew up with Kurt Cobain, Dave Matthews, and Phish. And those were the better bands. I'm trying to suppress Madonna, Mariah Carey, Boyz 2 Men, TLC, Ace of Base, Hanson, and Creed.
Women's rights in the 90's were more about abortion than equality and political wars were more about trading blood for oil than liberating oppressed countries. Not to say Vietnam was completely pointless. I guess all decades have their meaningless wars. But the 90's were so apathetic compared to the 60's. No hippie love. Just cancer and suicide and instant messenger to replace human conversation, tapered jeans to make the tops of my legs look extra fat, and lots of cigarettes and anorexia to combat those tapered jeans. If my memory serves me. I got gypped.
But the 60's cloud that followed Guy well into his later adult life kept him up in the air on some kind of unnatural high. A trance-like haze that even closet hippies walked through unknowingly and got trapped in. Maybe they didn't see it, but what a beautiful blindness. Growing up in the 60's distorted the reality of what really was going on in the world. Truly 60's songs served as escapism music, even if many reflected the political climate or used it to inspire people to be more kind. And people needed this. They needed an escape from the horrors outside our borders. I would have lost myself in it, too. The feel-good music. The feel-good generation. But instead I'm a product of the damage it created. It created an American dream delusion. The idea one could live on borrowed money. Do what you want. Go after your dreams. Now look what happened.
Suddenly Guy's generation had everything. Things that my generation now has to pay for. Few generation X's I know will get beyond student loans. Forget owning anything. All we own is our parents' debt. And if we're lucky, college debt. Then comes credit card debt. And if we're really lucky, and qualify, a home mortgage.
I digress. Guy has paid his loans. But other products of the 40's, 50's, and 60's have not. Which is why children today will have a very hard time even dreaming.
The only downfall I really saw to Guy being a bit stuck in the 60's was his wardrobe.
I've seen him wear corduroys straight out of a Syms or Klopfensteins likely purchased fifty years ago, since it was cool to wear worn down corduroys then. His informal and dated style of dress provokes one to wonder if he is not only stuck in the 60's but believes at all times it is Sunday afternoon.
Guy also has mixed priorities when it comes to caring for living things. He needs to snap out of the do what you want mentality, at least when it's dinnertime. On more than two occasions I witnessed the underhanded serving of handfuls of sirloin and other fine cuts of meat to the family dogs that sat drooling beside Guy at the dinner table while sophisticated humans ate with napkins in our laps. This was appalling, to say the least. And this coming from someone who lives in Tupper Lake!
I not only thought of starving children around the world when this happened, but of my father at home who would have lit up like a Christmas tree if I'd brought him home even a scrap of one of those fine pieces of meat, and to hear his big stinky dogs swallow those pieces whole without even taking the time to chew and enjoy the meat one bite at a time? What a waste! Why not throw the meat straight into the compost! It made me so angry, but the anger dissipated quickly when I took my next bite of steak dipped in mashed potatoes, gravy, and green beans, and followed it up with a sip of Shiraz.
Road trips with Guy and Barbara were always fun. I enjoyed Guy's childhood spirit which always came out on family vacations. Guy kept the tunes rolling and always sang along. If we weren't listening to Carol King or The Carpenters or The Drifters or The Supremes or James Taylor, it was most definitely the Beach Boys. February 2002, the middle row seat of the Ford Expedition Geoff and I sat, Sophomore and Junior in college respectively, on our way to Montreal, listening to Guy belt out "Barbara Ann" seemingly more to annoy his wife than to enamor her, as she slurped at a fountain soda. We all had snacks in our laps. It was a rare moment Geoff's family went without food at arms-reach. But in-between the slurps and burps and stories and songs, Guy would take a moment to educate whoever cared to listen about whatever was on his mind at whatever given moment.
"Exciting news Geoffrey. The APA has recently approved the construction of cell phone towers in the mountains of the Adirondack Park so long as they don't jeopardize the Adirondack scenery" (chuckles). How do you suppose the map surveyor on that team will fair at those approval meetings?
"Oh, yeah, he'll have to think creatively for sure!"
"I hope he is prepared to draw up several drafts!"
"Oh, for sure, a whole bunch."
"Talk about job security. Approving this policy approves everyone's wallet for the next 5 years."
"Why don't they bury them underground?" I interject.
"They have to be out in the open air - we did an experiment at school." Barbara replies.
"Geoff did you cover the wood pile and ever get around to putting air in your mother's tires?"
"Yes-"
"Because if that tarp is not securely fastened and flies off that wood pile and we get that storm all that wood is good for nothing-"
"I covered the wood and fastened it!"
"And mother's car is not for you to borrow unless you can be responsible for it."
"I put air in the tires!"
"Changing the oil. Checking the lights. Fluids. Gas. Insurance. Lots of responsibility-"
"Dad."
"...You see 'em wearing their baggies, huarachi sandals too, a bushy bushy blonde hairdo, surfin' USA..."
Geoff's dad didn't quite reach the falsetto of Brian Wilson but made an effort that fooled the listener into thinking he did. He was quite brilliant at fooling people this way. Accomplishing the task at hand with autoschediastical fervor. The way he told stories, he could have convinced a conspiracy theory skeptic that Bigfoot existed and that he'd personally nursed him during his military training days in Madison County, Illinois. No questions asked. This is the effect Guy had on his story-telling listeners.
Sometimes I think Guy convinced himself that his big fish stories were true. But even with potential embellishments the ends always justified the means when everyone enjoyed a good story. And the stories were always believable. It was the kind of stuff that couldn't be made up. There were no Bigfoot stories. But these incredible accounts were worthy of being pitched to Hollywood execs. The setting and character depictions and plot details and climax were all there. All the elements of a good fiction. (Or non-fiction. Creative non-fiction to be fair).
One time Geoff and I went to see a movie called Big Fish. It was about an older dying man who told incredible stories. And one story was about catching a big fish, if I remember correctly. But what I remember most about the movie was how similar in appearance and demeanor the main character was to Guy. The way he told stories - there was no room for interruption. Let alone a sneeze. Stories that captivated you one moment and made you roll your eyes the next, and left you wondering at last which parts, if any, were embellished. Also the character's jowls, the roundness of his face, and rosy cheeks, and how every part of skin on his face moved: from the muscles beneath his fleshy cheeks to the bulges of his eye balls to the lines on his forehead, his entire face told the story, one detail at a time, each one carried word by word with its own energy. Nothing was dull or irrelevant. This character resonated with Guy so well. It was as if the producers and writers of the film had known Guy personally and based the character on him, it was that uncanny.
Apart from being a storyteller and lawyer, Geoff's dad was a drill sergeant. He wasn't appointed by the military with such ranking, but rather gave himself that role at home when he was board.
My father, being a pastor, always said "The truth shall set you free." The first time I told this to Geoff, Geoff told me his father said "Work shall set you free." Since Geoff was the oldest son, and his little brother went to a boarding school far away, and his little sister was a delicate flower, Geoff became the bearer of his father's command. He often had work to do at home.
One summer it was excavating a driveway. Guy told the entire neighborhood he was putting in a stone driveway. Then when the time was nigh he handed Geoff a chisel and some other tools and told him to get busy. Since Geoff's reward would be a Jeep Cherokee, Geoff obliged. Barbara, feeling sorry, offered lemonade (the spiked kind) to Geoff's friends when they came to offer a helping hand. That driveway got beat up with chisels all summer and pieces of pavement got carried away. I watched my boyfriend become thin as a door-rail, chiseled as his chisel. He amazed me. Guy struck me as a hard father. He ate sandwiches and sat in an Adirondack chair and watched Geoff and his friends and sometimes Barbara burden themselves day in and day out, drenched in sweat clear into mid-September. The only sweat that exited Guy's body was a few drops from his temples where the warmth of the sun struck his face as he sat and drank iced tea while watching the work get done.
I tried to kidnap Geoff from his driveway job on Sunday mornings so he could come to church with me. This was a constant battle throughout our decade-long courtship. We never had outright fights about attending church but I always knew that Geoff preferred not to go. But this summer he seemed more than willing. Obviously as an excuse to get out of slave labor. We'd go to church, grab a couple beers at a bar, then return to his house and he'd put in a half-ass 2-3 hours of digging. He actually started listening to a Tool song called Dig that summer and he said it helped him to dig faster and harder. I think the beer drinking helped his digging too. And I'm sure church helped. I know when I go to church on Sundays, my whole week just turns out better.
When the truck delivery came with all the stones in mid-September, you would think only the Grand Pontiff could maneuver these pieces of earth. Yet somehow they were miraculously strewn about in just the right places when all was said and done. And Geoff got his Jeep.
Exciting improvements were always happening at Guy's household. One winter he put in an outdoor Jacuzzi. Geoff and I frequented it during blizzardy college weekends. Later on he purchased a vacation home in Rhode Island, and we eventually moved there. At some point in between, Guy bought a motel restaurant business where I tended bar and waited tables while Geoff entertained patrons with his singing and guitar playing. Sometimes I brought my keyboard and played songs, too.
We truly felt like family during those times. Me and Geoff's family that is.
I don't know that my family ever felt like they got to know Geoff like Geoff's family got to know me. My family never had all that much to offer Geoff in way of entertainment or spoils. And that was pretty obvious to me by way of how often he chose not to visit.
Guy was also able to be more generous to me than my parents were able to be to Geoff. When I first graduated from college and was doing graduate work at Plattsburgh State, Guy bought some condos up the road from his home, and let me live there rent-free for over a year. I worked my first teaching job, and saved enough money to play Party-Poker and eat expensive cheese like there was no tomorrow. Times were good. Geoff still lived at his house, but slept over at my place a lot, and came over when we had friends visit. He even put the electric bill in his name since my credit score was bad. When I got behind on my electric bill, Geoff's credit score was affected. We had a big fight about it.
The electric eventually got turned off. I couldn't pay it. Out of the apartment I went. Back home to my parents' house. Found a homeschooling job. Good money. Private pay. Did save money this time. Paid Geoff back. So Geoff and I agreed to move into a house together back in his hometown, just down the road from his parents', not far from where I was living before. Our hopes were high.
It was a fresh start after a very bumpy year. While I was living at home, I'd become depressed. I abused amphetamines to get through my second and final year of grad school and also found myself drinking shots with patrons while tending bar at a golf club. On two occasions within 6 weeks of each other, I was arrested for DUI. I spent a night in jail each time. I had to strip squat cough, the whole works. The severity of having two offenses should have really destroyed me. I should have served at least 3-6 months in jail and paid thousands of dollars in fines, but Geoff's dad got me out on a technicality.
Barbara, I should add, even marched into the police station after my second offense and from the temporary cell I was being detained in, I could hear her in her Rhode Island accent hounding the cops who arrested me:
"You couldn't give her a break? The girl's gettin' her degree and she blows a .08 for Christ's sake! We live right up the road. She said she'd walk home! All this over an out tail light? You gotta be kiddin me! This is ludicrous. A downright shame."
I'll never figure out how she in her right mind could defend me after I'd blown a 1.5 the month before and driven straight into a telephone pole, taking out an old lady's stone wall and totaling my parent's vehicle at 3 a.m. I'll never figure out how her husband could go to court as a retired, unpaid lawyer to bail out a girl who was clearly not good enough for his son. I was from the other side of the tracks, so to speak. He should have told Geoff to head for the hills.
When I ended things with Geoff many years later, Guy finally did tell Geoff to head for the hills. He bought him a membership to an online dating website. He told Geoff it was unacceptable for him to remain friends with me, after learning we were pursuing a friendship long after our break-up. Geoff shared this with me during one of our walks down Westwind Road in Wakefield, RI in 2012, one year after we'd split.
"My dad thinks it's weird we still hang out."
"Do you think it's weird?" I asked.
"Well, we are broken up. My dad offered to buy me a membership on Match." Geoff laughed in his typical way.
"But we still love each other." I reached out and tried to hold Geoff's hand. He resisted.
"My dad's right. It is weird. This is weird. Going on a walk with you right now is weird. Holding hands is really weird."
"It's hard for me to think of you dating other people. I can't even imagine dating someone else right now."
"Well at some point we both have to move on. You're the one that didn't want to get married."
"You didn't want to get married long before I gave you the ring back."
"I don't know what you want me to say."
"Nothing. There's nothing to say."
A month later I packed up what was left of my life in Rhode Island and moved back to New York to live with my parents. I told Geoff I'd always love him as I collected the last of what I could fit in my car from his parents' vacation house where we'd accumulated so many things. I told him I'd be back within a year to get whatever was left. I blew him a kiss and he just stood there and waved and smiled. I think he was relieved to finally see me go. He needed some closure.
I spent the remainder of 2012 and all of 2013 with my parents. I visited Geoff once in the spring of 2013 to collect the rest of my personal belongings. We met at the Chophouse Grille, which used to be a place we frequented under the previous name Casey's, just to grab an appetizer and a beer. We had a humorous yet bittersweet conversation, which ended all too soon. As I went out to my car to leave, he helped me load boxes into my trunk and beckoned me to stay a minute more.
"Isn't there anything else to talk about?" he asked.
"No, I don't think so." I replied.
"Oh," he frowned.
"But if you think of anything you can call me..." I said.
I drove away. He stood outside his car watching. I cried but it was just a couple tears. He never called. Well, about 8 months later he did. To wish me a Merry Christmas.
That was the longest 8 months of my life.
And the following year was the longest 12.
Presently we have no meaningful communication. It's probably a good thing. There's no way to have a healthy friendship. I re-experience the breaking of my heart just thinking about him. No sense in trying to communicate.
Speaking solely from my own experience, I'll say that letting go of someone you love is like putting a piece of your heart into a drawer. Shutting the drawer and never opening it again. You know the piece is in there. You'd like to open it, look at the piece, hold it, massage it, maybe even someday put it back in your body. Feel complete again. Even for a moment. Maybe longer. You see the possibility.
But alas. The drawer is closed. I'm sad again. Sad for even dreaming.
You're never quite right. Fragmented, sad, broken. Just a few words to describe it. The feeling of knowing you're incomplete. Your shattered pieces exist outside of you. You are simply incapable of putting them back inside, let alone together, the right way, the way they used to be. You can never go back to who you once were.
You don't just get over someone. You don't just pick yourself up and move on. You and somebody else exchanged parts of yourself with one another. When you split up, you don't get those parts back. They're gone. Forever. Parts of your heart. Your heart even beats differently. It's been shown scientifically that living creatures can and do die from loneliness. Breaking up is beyond hard to do. It's deadly.
All the memories I've lost, too. Many I've forgotten, just because I have a poor memory, and don't have access to all the pictures Geoff and I took. I've lost our memories. A decade's worth. Which makes writing about our relationship even more difficult. I've lost a friend. A family. The security of feeling unconditionally loved by a person in this world that isn't obligated to love me, but chose to do so.
As for Guy, I hope if he were able to conjure up some empathy for his son's runaway bride, he'd have sat me down and consoled me like he did Geoff. I never got any pity or counseling from his parents nor mine. I just went on solitary midnight drives to scream my lungs out after the break-up. That was what I resorted to. If I could go back and have a conversation with Guy and Barbara, I'd tell them first Thank You for all they did for me, and apologize for not being a better girlfriend to Geoff or better friend to Geoff's sister. I'd apologize for a few other things, too. I'd also say good-bye. It never really occurred to me that I'd never see them again. And to face that reality without any real closure has been unsettling to say the least.
I'd also tell Guy I'm sorry for never amounting to anything. My best excuse maybe would be that I just wasn't made for these times. I'd ask him to tell me about the 1960's and help me to imagine a better world, where people did dream and did get jobs and have marriages and families and have decent lives. I would ask him if he ever had to break up with a girlfriend. What was his secret to happiness? He had so much wisdom and I had so much more to learn from him. Wouldn't it be nice to have more answers? Guy always had all the answers. And if he didn't he made them up. I miss talking to Guy. Or rather listening when he spoke.
I'll close with a more happy and fitting memory of Guy. When I first started dating Geoff, Guy made me try escargot (a snail!) at a fancy restaurant and I firmly objected but he more firmly insisted so I plugged my nose and swallowed one whole! And that's a memory I'll definitely never forget! I'm really glad I tried it. I think he was proud of me for doing it.
