To Searcy

“You’re 40 years old and you still sing along to Descendants songs?” the girl in the red dress asked me. We were sitting in a field waiting for the Lucero show to start somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Arkansas. The Descendents’ “I’m a Bear” was playing.

“Of course,” I said. “The day I stop doing that, is the day I’m dead inside, so I might was well die on the outside.”

She smiled and reached into her purse. She pulled out a flask, took a swig and handed it to me.

“Why thank you lady,” I said, taking the flask and putting it to my mouth.

“We’ve pretty much kissed now,” she said with a laugh. I took another swig. It was smooth stuff.

“What kind of whiskey is this?” I queried.

“Redbreast,” she said, putting her hand out to take her flask back.

I handed it back and then reached into my pocket, pulling out my flask. I handed it to her.

She screwed the top off and took a long swig. An impressive one. While doing it, I saw a tattoo on her shoulder for just a second. It said “For Tommy. It was fun while it lasted.”

After she was done she smiled.

“Redbreast!”

“Yes ma’am,” I replied. “My buddy Josh got me a bottle for Christmas last year. Been a steady drinker ever since.”

“Steady, huh?” she said.

“Well, until a few of those go down the throat.”

“I hear ya,” she said, handing me my flask back.

We both leaned back on our hands and took in the scene. A flowing river was off in the distance. A small town behind us. Somewhere off to the left, the sounds of acoustic guitar filled the air. Then the estarted up again. “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up!” We both looked at each other and smiled. Moments like these don’t last, I thought to myself, so don’t forget to enjoy it.

I did.

The wind died down just at that moment. The girl in the red dress sighed.

“Where are you from?” I broke the silence with that lame question.

“Searcy,” she said, as if I was supposed to know where that was.

“Searcy, huh?” I said.

“Yep. What about you?”

“Originally? I’m from Hopewell, Virginia. Now, nowhere in particular. Just kind of looking for a place to stay. A place to get old and saggy and such.”

“Have you thought of Searcy?” she asked.

I laughed, but I don’t think she was joking.

“Where is this Searcy?”

“’Bout an hour south of here. You should stop in sometime.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“Well, I’m not the mayor or anything, but yeah, consider it your key to the city.”

“Thank you kindly, my lady,” I said. I took her hand and kissed it. She blushed.

I took a swig from my flask. I looked over as I wiped my mouth. She was watching me. Her eyes were green and her hair was red. I knew right then I was in deep, deep trouble.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked at just the wrong moment.

“You,” I replied, honestly. I cringed a little on the inside with that one. I felt 14 years old at that moment.

“Me too,” she said.

I smiled. She smiled.

I still didn’t know her name. She didn’t know mine. It seemed like the best thing.

The Descendents finished their playing and the crowd started to howl.

“Opening band’s coming on!” she shouted, grabbing my hand.

A surge of people were rushing the stage. This girl knew how to maneuver through them, however, and by the time we stopped we were standing next to the stage.

The next six hours were filled with singing, sweating and shouting. Yeah, it’s what the song says, but it happened. We put our arms around each other and held on. Four bands came and four bands left. Then Lucero took the stage and the singing and sweating and shouting took on a whole new meaning. I was glad I had three bottles of water in my pockets and she had our two flasks in hers. By the time the sun set, we were deliriously drunk and exhausted. When the band finally left, we went back to our spot by the gazebo in the park and collapsed next to each other.

Someone started up their car and with it, their stereo.

“What’s your name, little girl?” Ronnie Van Zandt decided to sing at that moment.

We stared into each other’s eyes. We knew that at that very moment we either answered that question to each other, or we just kept going without it.

“Hey,” I said finally. “Let’s get out of here.”

“OK,” she said. “There’s a good bar a couple blocks from here. They have The Replacements on the jukebox.”

“Works on so many levels,”

“Ha, they have Level 42, too!”

We picked up my old blanket and threw it in the cab of her old pickup truck. She asked what kind of car I drove. I said “in my mind, it’s a Celica. In reality, it’s a Hyundai.”

“I won’t judge you,” she smirked.

“Yes you will,” I replied. “Yes you will.”

We walked a couple blocks and entered the bar. I ordered a couple of Lone Stars and we sat at the bar.

“Come with me,” she said about 15 minutes later as we finished our third beers.

“Where?” I asked.

“To Searcy.”

I put my finger on her lips. I really wanted to kiss her at that moment. But didn’t. I never do the first time I want to. I ordered two shots of whiskey.

“To Searcy,” I said, clinking her glass. We shot the stuff down and left the bar. Never to return.

again and again

“Have you ever tried to let yourself love again?”

It was a fair question, really. She’d known me now for three years. We’d started out just drinking away our misery together, like so many other women I’ve known over the years. But unlike all of them, I didn’t fall in love with them. Or at least fall into bed with her.

“I did. Once. And it ended worse than the time I really was in love,” I said, slowly tilting my half-empty bottle of “Distillery” Jameson. A bottle I got while on a trip to Ireland that someone else paid for.

I looked at the whiskey in the glass. A nice shade it was. I’d been carrying this bottle around with me, move after move, taking one shot at each stop. There was Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. Then there was Raleigh, North Carolina. By that time, I was ready to finally give up on North Carolina. The state that stole my heart, twice.

So I drove to Arkansas. Never planned on staying. Ended up being there two months. A little while in Fayetteville. Then a short stop in Little Rock. After that, Memphis called. I wanted to try and live in the Arcade Hotel for a month. But, I knew it was long, long gone. But still, I went. Sat under the train bridge that Joe Strummer filmed a scene with Steve Buscemi long, long ago.

I felt sad. So I left. Immediately.

Drove to Paris, Texas. Thought maybe I’d see Harry Dean walk by.

He didn’t.

Into Oklahoma I drifted. I saw a lady I’d met on the Internet. She liked that I liked Level 42. I always wondered why she actually added me. This was in the Myspace days. So I drove to her town -- Durant – knocked on her door, and just asked her.

“Because I was lonely one night,” she said, her red hair glistening in the hot, summer dust.

We’d stayed in touch over the years. I wondered many times if we’d try to spark some kind of relationship. But as time passed, it became obvious it wasn’t going to happen. When I showed up that afternoon, I knew she wasn’t lonely anymore. She had her daughter. Now 12. She had her organic garden. And her boyfriend.

“Not getting married again,” she said. “Just don’t see the point.”

I smiled when she said that. Gave her a hug and thanked her for being a friend. I tried not to hear those words in song form. But damn if “Golden Girls” hadn’t driven it into my head forever…

Next, I just drove. Three days and nights. Stopping in small towns as a drove closer and closer to the border. There was Medicine Lodge, Kanas. Next was Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Two days later, Custer, South Dakota. The next night it was Carrington, North Dakota . I only remember them because I took pictures of signs in each town I slept in.

I didn’t talk to a single person on those days and nights. I listened to the same albums, over and over. Of course it was Lucero. Of course every song reminded me of a woman I’d once known. I often wonder if I should have told each woman after the next about that certain part of me. The “can’t let go” piece of me that holds on to the remnants of the past like they’d kill me if they could get out of my grasp.

Even women I’d met and been dumped or dumped or just passed in the night – naked – got a song. Wasting all of that effort was nothing new.

I used to write down the names of girls who just spoke to me. I stopped one day when I was 24. Living in Arizona, trying to “find” myself in the way middle-class wimps like me do – in college.

Her name was Denise Ragu. I figure if I spell her name correctly, she’ll see this one day. Just like every other lady that put their real name down. We had geology class together. Or some kind of earth science.

She must have marked me as a smart guy – good mark – and started talking with me. We teamed up in lab and I really dug her. She laughed at my awful remarks and my long hair.

One day, near the end of the semester, we got to talking about social things. Yeah, I’m kind of slow like that. It was on a path. I was on my bike, she was walking. We said hello, and it turned to going out on the town stuff. Pretty soon, I started to work up the courage to ask her out. Right before I did, her demeanor changed. She was a smart lady, after all. She knew where I was going.

“Well, I’ve got to go meet my boyfriend,” she said.

“I froze for just a second. Stuttered something about cool, see you later.”

I watched her walk away. The sun was high in the sky and it was hot. Nothing remarkable about that.

I went home and got drunk. Drank 12 Red Dog beers. The beer with a Red Dog on the bottle and a different saying under the twist off cap.

We saw each other in class the next week. She smiled, but sat down on the other side of the room.

The next time I saw her, she didn’t smile.

Pretty soon, the semester ended and I never saw her again.

I stopped writing down names soon after.

I wonder if it was because of her, or because I started dating a girl – what would become three years and lots of booze and fights and fun and travel and angst.

“What the hell are you thinking about now?” she asked.

“All the reasons I don’t want to fall in love. And all the reasons I do over and over.

“Again and again.”