Heyday- Halfway done

1. # #

They met at the bistro near his condo where he had wine on the night everything changed. She’d have probably picked him up in her car if he asked, but then he’d have to go down the uncomfortable road of explanations as to why he no longer had a license. Somehow admitting that his daughter took it away, like I’m a dammed child, because she felt his vision had dangerously deteriorated wasn’t the best way to start off the evening.

Sarah wore a blue dress that hugged her figure in all the right ways, accenting her large endowments while concealing a slightly pudgy stomach. She let her auburn hair hang playfully along her shoulders, immediately drawing Rich’s attention from the normally conservative bun she kept it in.
“You look incredible.” It felt good to say something completely honest. “Absolutely stunning.”
The compliment didn’t pass without remark as the blush spread across her cheeks and upper chest; however, she merely smiled and graciously said a polite “thank you” in response.
The hostess smiled at the exchange. “Right this way” she said and took them to his “regular” table.
Rich never thought he’d be one of those people that became a regular anywhere. Life seemed too short to waste it frequenting the same place so often that the staff knew him by name. And yet, he now had his own regular table and could name every person currently working: by the front entrance was Jeff, the creepy manager who wore silky shirts and let his gaze linger a little too long on every young woman that stepped through the door; and Kristine, a career waitress who couldn’t have been any older than early twenties (prime Jeff eye candy); and the hostess, Crystal, who worked weekends to put herself through graduate school.
“Hey Rich,” Jeff said, “How you doing tonight?” As a manager he knew the right things to say, but in Rich’s opinion, that still didn’t make him any good. If it wasn’t for the slimy manager then he would’ve had no complaints about Cugino’s. Jeff let his gaze flicker briefly from Sarah’s face to a longer, lustier look at her chest, and then back to her face. “I see you’ve got company.”
There were moments in every person’s life when they needed to calculate the worth of certain consequences. Some people, usually those in and out of jail, acted on every impulse. Rich was more of the opinion that life was a game, similar to chess but far more complicated, and as he got older it became easier to calculate the best possible moves. In this case, Rich’s first reaction was to pull a Clint Eastwood and knock Jeff on his ogling ass. And in another age Rich would’ve done just that. But experience and time had taught him to instead pick and choose his battles. So he said in an even but brisk tone, “She does look amazing, huh? Now why don’t you go in the back and send out a bottle of your finest red on the house,” emphasizing on the house with a steely edge, “since you think she looks so good.” It wasn’t a question, just as it wasn’t exactly a threat, but it was enough to get the point across. Some words had the ability to slide beneath the surface of others in such a way that they were still able to cut, even if they weren’t easily seen.
It was now Jeff’s turn to blush and the color crept all over his pudgy face, revealing childhood pock marks that’d been concealed with foundation. “Of course, right away, my pleasure. Your server will be over in a moment.” He rushed away into the back kitchen with a little too much haste. It was noticeable he wasn’t in a hurry to just do his job. That’s right, you run you little acne-ridden pervert he thought menacingly. Rich was a regular. More than that, he was a good customer, and good customers always knew best when they paid everyone’s salary.
“You’re wicked, you know that?” Sarah said. A dangerous smile hung from her full lips. Suddenly, Rich wanted nothing more than to taste those lips. She had the type of feigned pout that said having sex in the men’s restroom was entirely out of the question, at least until a second glass of wine.
“Who me? Nah…”
“Oh, yes you are.”
“Really I’m n—”
“You are” she interjected “and I like it.”
The rest of the dinner went just as smoothly, both subtly and not so subtly flirtatious. Of course, the complimentary bottle of wine and chocolate covered strawberries added a delicious level of fun to the evening as well. Rich reveled in her youth and beauty while wondering what she possibly saw in him.
He used the pretense of enjoying the summer weather for why he didn’t drive, thankful Sarah didn’t snoop further, and she offered him a ride home. It wasn’t until they were parked outside his condo that he suspected what his appeal was to her.
“Can I ask you a question, and don’t take it as an offense?”
“Ask away,” he said.
The moon was full and shone brightly through the front windshield, casting an ethereal glow on the moment. Shadows danced and coalesced around Sarah’s face, making her both more exotic and alluring then otherwise possible. His momma always claimed that there was magic to be found in the night, if one only knew how to find it. Luckily for Rich, the memories of his childhood had stayed mostly intact. So he still recalled his momma whirling around the living room when he was no older than twelve, with her white apron barely tied on and covered in stains, a bowl of cookie batter in one hand, a mixing spoon in the other, singing Hey Good Lookin’ by Hank Williams like it was yesterday.
She’d sung songs before, many, and at times to the embarrassment of Rich when they were in public places; however, that song in particular acted as the collective ambassador of all songs remembered before and after. It was only sung in the evening and was always the prelude to something momentous. If it meant good tidings, she’d dance and sing it loudly enough for the entire world to hear. “Shaking the rafters of God” she’d say. That was the memory he most often liked to remember: Momma with her red hair, not yet turned gray, whipping about wildly, smiling with all the untamed joy in her heart and sparkle in her eye.
She’d sung with the spoon to her mouth like an impromptu microphone while Rich laughed until he cried and then laughed some more. Afterward, she mentioned for the first time the difference between the dark and the night, and “sometimes,” she said “you only need to let it hear you.”
But when she’d sing it softly, barely louder than a whisper, and usually when she thought she was alone, he knew to brace himself for whatever storm was approaching. The last time he’d heard her sing was in the wash room of their old house just before pop died of a stroke. It was cold and rainy in late October, her hair was now gray with only hints of the fiery red that’d been her staple, and she stood smelling one of his shirts, quietly singing to herself. Although Rich couldn’t make out the words, he knew the song. It was a lament to the night. Momma’s instincts were better than any crystal ball.

And for years he’d always thought her comments about dark and night were one of the sillier things she’d said, since of course anyone could find the dark. But as he watched Sarah, almost a completely different person at this point, perhaps who she really was when the magic of life wrapped itself around her so tightly in the late hours, it finally dawned on him what his momma meant. There was a distinct difference between the dark and the night that he never fully grasped.
The dark was just another term to describe what happens when the sun set. But the night was an altogether different beast, alive and feral, hungry and desperate, cruel and kind, traveling in between the recesses of what we see and what we think we see. The night could stroke your ego into believing just about anything was possible. It is as dangerous as it is beautiful Rich thought, and then again wished he could paint, for this was another of those moments that he wanted so badly to preserve and didn’t trust his addled memory.
“How old are you, really? I mean it’s just that the first time I saw you…” She trailed off uncomfortably.
The question wasn’t a complete surprise. So she likes older men. Seventy-three was on the tip of Rich’s tongue until he swallowed it back. Clearly, she didn’t see seventy-three and he wasn’t about to “rock the boat,” as his momma would say.
“I guess the question is how old do I look?”
She pushed auburn hair off her shoulders in a nervous gesture. “If I had to guess I’d say, oh, fifty-ish?” Her face held the hope that she was right. Fifty-ish was clearly her cut off. She liked old but not ancient.
Rich tapped his nose with an index finger. “Bingo,” he said smiling. I didn’t lie…not really.
“I knew it! You look incredible…” she licked her lips “for your age that is.”
Call it instinct, call it desire, call it hormones, call it fate, call it the night, call it what you will but Rich had no choice but to lean in and kiss Sarah. It was long and it was passionate. With his heart racing, palms sweating, senses on the verge of exploding, Rich thought this is living. This is the power of the night.
They came up for air after what felt like an age and Rich mumbled, “I feel a bit like I’m in high school again.”
“Mmm,” she breathed into his ear, nibbling and licking. “Only I don’t think you’d have kissed a woman quite like that in high school.”
“Er…true, I suppose not.” An uneasy cramp formed in Rich’s stomach that had nothing to do with the dinner. He thought of Linda and glanced briefly at the clock radio. Quarter to twelve.
Linda was gone. He knew that. She was about as gone as the six feet of dirt buried over her remains—had been gone for thirty-four years. He knew that. Just like he knew that the voices he heard on the boardwalk at night, voices of another age, and recently, Linda’s voice, were all imaginary byproducts of a broken mind. Things like that just don’t happen. He knew that. And as much as he hated to admit it, any youth and vitality he felt was probably the result of the gym and healthy living. The fairy tale he’d so carefully constructed in his mind was just an old mans wish, a desperate clawing to reclaim his heyday. He knew that.
And I also know that I miss Linda too much to be doing this.
She may have been gone physically, but her memory, despite all the other holes in his past, hadn’t been fully forgotten. In a way Rich attributed that to the fact that it’s impossible for a body to lose itself, and Linda was his other half. A soul could be cleaved in two but it would always remember that it was once whole. Without her he just didn’t feel right, and he’d grown to accept that however grudgingly. He’d remarried, hoping life could have a semblance of normality, and all he’d achieved was divorce. Claire wasn’t Linda, something she’d thrown in his face right up until the day she moved out. Rich just nodded in those situations, thinking to himself you’re right, you aren’t Linda, and you’ll never be Linda.
It wasn’t right to treat Claire as second place. The runner up deserved more than just his respect and devotion—she deserved love, his love. And Rich did love her, of course, as the mother of his two daughters and as the great person she could be; and yet, he could never, would never completely give himself to any other woman. More often than not, he wished he’d died that day on the boardwalk, killed alongside Linda and everyone else. Life was a fate worse than death when he woke from the coma to find he was utterly alone. He used to say after a few drinks to anyone listening, “sometimes life just isn’t fair,” and Claire always knew what he was referencing. It was the last thing he’d said to her after the divorce finalized; that, and a heartfelt apology.
“I can’t do this,” he blurted into the still air.
“Hmm,” Sarah murmured into his neck, “you can. Just lean back…let me do the work.” Her hands started to work the clasp of his pants.
Rich was as torn with desire as he was indecision. But in the end he was a creature of habit, and pride was one of those habits. He prided himself on always doing what he felt was honest and true in the face of all adversity, no matter how enticing. “Really,” he grudgingly moved her off him, “I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
Indignation replaced shock and settled on outrage. It cut an ugly slash across her face, pulling her mouth into a rictus sneer, further polluting whatever had just existed between them beyond recognition. “What’s your problem? Doesn’t work right or somethin’?”
It took Rich a second to put together what “work right or somethin’” alluded to and it was now his turn to be insulted.
“I assure you everything works just fine,” he said with as much umbrage as he could muster given the circumstances.
“Then show me.” There was nothing sensual in the words. It was a challenge. It was an attack directed below the belt. It was a blow that pushed beyond age and struck at the very fabric of the male existence. He was tempted to show her just how well he worked.
Just how damn well I work!
Although a creeping hesitation seized his testes in a stranglehold that she might’ve been right. It’d been so long since he’d operated the oil rig that he half-wondered if the equipment wasn’t yet outdated. But what her venomous words really proved was that even if his package wasn’t outdated, he was. However old he may look or seem to the world, the truth was that he was a seventy-three year old man who’d long since seen his heyday come and go. He’d seen one wife buried, another remarried, and his kids had kids. Rich was a relic from an extinct era struggling to survive in a vastly different world from the one he’d known.
But for Sarah, and many girls her age, sex, especially on the first date with a guy she’d already come to know, wasn’t at all uncommon. In fact, he realized, by doing what he thought was right, by respecting her, it was actually seen as an insult, as if he were personally rejecting her.
This is the world we live in he thought with disgust.
Glancing again at the clock, sensing even more strongly that it was time to leave, he bit his lip and set his resolve. “Sarah, you’re an incredible person,” he began, not shying from the crossness besieging her face. “I like you…a lot, a real lot, and if this was any other time in my life, if I were younger, truly younger, then who knows.” She seemed on the verge of winding up and striking him until he added in a breathless whisper, “But the truth is that my heart was already taken by someone else a long time ago. And I miss her.” His voice cracked at the last part. “I miss her too much to let go. I’m sorry.”
Rich’s words worked Sarah over, tenderizing her sympathies with well-aimed low blows. A woman could stay angry at a man for an age and then some. She could hold that anger throughout history until it turned to an oft repeated legend of pain and heartache, cackled from old crones in the courtyard to impetuous and hormonal youths, educating them that there was no fury like that of a scorned woman. But love, on the other hand, was one of those things that had the power to transcend through anger, hate, and simple misunderstanding. Love, true love, was an excuse Sarah had to grudgingly understand, and maybe even a little admire.
He looked at her for a long, tense moment and then broke the silence, hoping she’d hear the words for what they were. “Sometimes life just isn’t fair.” Surprisingly, she nodded sympathetically, clearly not completely understanding, but as if in that car, in the night, in the moment, in everything they could’ve been but would never be—Sarah saw him. She saw a tired old man, lost, lonely, and still in love with a memory. Without looking back, he left the car and slowly made his way to the boardwalk, accepting that it was more than just a date he walked away from.

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Tags:

fiction, heyday, old, retirement and short