Tom, Cheryl, Kim -- Coffeeshop Therapy 8

Pat and I despised him, which, I guess, is a hint that everyone I was to become friends with was first to be a nemesis. Lanky, Italian-curly-haired, with his arm always in the air so that he could be first to answer Mrs. Trocano’s questions in English class,Tom was sociable and appalling.
I didn’t talk to him for the longest time, until he mentioned that he played guitar. I assumed he didn’t play very well, but I asked him about it. He said he was just learning to play some jazz; his Dad was a jazz drummer. This latter bit won him some points with me. And by the time school broke for the summer, I was intrigued with Tom.
High school began in the fall for us. Brush, with its graduating classes of 500+, was imposing but thrilling.
Of course, I began to hang out with Tom. We would get together and play jazz standards out of his father’s “fake books”. Tom was quite good with jazz chords; I knew a lot, but not as much as Tom. Neither of us could solo worth shit, but he was way ahead of me in this respect.
We recorded ourselves on my 8-track cassette player, played at my house on the patio and played a little for our parents. We were a regular little jazz duo. The thing I liked most about Tom was his emotional depth. He, like Stan, was a brother to me.
***
It’s odd that the girl with whom I went on my first date, with whom I had my first kiss, I did not ask out again. Cheryl was in my Spanish class, and I was infatuated with her, her full mouth and the moist, dark circles under her eyes which led me to empathize with her (she was one of the few kids in 10th grade who had a job, and she must not have gotten enough sleep). I guess I feared she wasn’t interested in me, although she showed no sign that she was not. After that date, she was as friendly to me as before. But my first assumption and fear was abandonment, so I did the job for her and let her be.
Kim was a different story. Although I wasn’t as attracted to her as to Cheryl, once we went out, I continued dating this tall, quiet girl.
Kim was friends with Tom. Our relationship was fraught with intimations of the two being interested in each other, with her displeasure with my being much shorter than her, but most of all with my clingy attachment to her and my jealousy.
Our dating ended with me in tears when she broke up with me while we were studying for a Spanish final at the end of the freshman school year.

Memorial Day 2012

so many shades
of blue and green
and mist and forgetfulness

so many paths
across the lake
on the seer-sainted water

the white blurs of motorboats,
in a fury of wanting,
rumble across the already streaked surface

the breeze is on me
like the hand of a nursemaid
on a child's feverish forehead

and the stinging flies
hope for moments away from their hell
in the pinpricks of blood
that erupt over their mouths

and my hopes
of a happier Memorial Day spent alone,
decades dead in Syria,
cannot keep down my life,
shifting indiscriminately
underfoot
for future generations
to solemnly
dis(re)member

Beatles -- coffeeshop 6

Steve Rowe was an object of ridicule from at least the time I met him in 6th grade camp. I remember him being ordered to run 5 laps around the track because of some prank; all the kids laughed gleefully. But a year later, when the story went around in school that a kid had caught him “whacking off” in the boys’ locker room after gym class, Steve’s fate was sealed.



Personally, I had never known Steve to hurt anybody. And, incidentally, his presence in school was instrumental, if indirectly, to my finding my way through adolescent life.



“You listen to NCX?” he asked while we were working on a lab in chemistry class. He was referring to WNCX, 98.5FM, a classic rock station in Cleveland.



“No, not really.” Although I had taken an interest in playing guitar, I wasn’t much of a fan of any radio station.



“You like the Beatles?”



I had to think about this, as I had never put thought into what music I liked or didn’t like. The summation of the Mannheimer family music collection was the awful pop and disco music my sister bought for our stereo and two reel to reels my Dad had -- Sousa marches and a recording by Hispanic folk-singer, Trini Lopez.



WNCX, as Steve informed me, was going to be playing 24 hours straight of Beatles songs beginning at 5PM. I decided, out of sudden inexplicable intrigue, that I was going to listen.



I ended up putting about 4 hours of the show on 8-track tape and listening to it over and over again for the next couple of weeks.



In the next year, from birthday presents, to Hanukah and whenever I could talk my Mom into treating me, I collected most of the Beatles major albums, bought a fan book and attempted to learn some of their songs to accompany my white-haired, old-school guitar teacher, Mr. Guzzo.



I read an interview in the fan book between a news journalist and Beatles George Harrison and John Lennon. They were talking about the band members’ use of LSD and the ensuing “psychedelic experiences”. I didn’t get what they were talking about, but it sounded fascinating. From this was born a secret longing for a taste of whatever they had experienced.