3

I felt down and a little sad thinking about all the things gone past. They had been some good times… I wanted to filter out all the bad and keep just the good. Have it on demand just when I wanted it.That’s what I really wanted to do… save the good. But, it just isn’t that simple.
The conversation at the table now came back into my ears. They were ten feet away and I could only hear the guys talking. It was the usual banter of New Brunswick… Buses, the stupid buses, they are so cold in the winter and so hot in the summer. Did it matter? Divestment from South Africa, what could I person really do? Tuition increases… Building a new football stadium while there weren’t enough classrooms for everyone?… The university had it easy. Most students were only there for four years. By the time they got active, they were usually sophmores or juniors and they’d only have a year or two left in school. Many would drop out somewhere along the way and stay in town and try it that way, but generally it was all temporary. The school had been around for 300 years, a bunch of students carrying signs wasn’t really going to change anything.
That was the band too in some ways. Business, a lot of people would go to benefit concerts, regardless of the cause. There was some group I can’t remember which now which would show porno movies and donate the money to some radical cause… freedom for the Contras in El Salvador, something like that… and they’d pack them in… the business of the protesters was attracting attention really.
Personally, I didn’t really care at the time, and I cared even less now. Activism wasn’t really my thing although the band had done a number of environmental cause benefits and as one point I had even written a song about acid rain to the tune of Purple Rain. Once I wrote a letter to the school newspaper about student protests. The point is that the band some how became the main attraction at many of the parties and assemblies and benefits that were held to raise money for all these causes. And we did so many gigs in a short amount of time that it solidified our local following once and for all.
But, this was when it all distilled out, for me, myself, and the promotion of the band. I had my own personal problems and concerns, and the band had its own agenda. More so, I hadn’t picked up many girls demonstrating outside the Old Queens building trying to convince the Board of Trustees not to raise tuition. But playing benefits… everyone is so thankful. “It is so nice of you to be here, is there anything we can do for you”. “Well now that you mention it”. Maybe I was just selfish. Maybe I had my own agenda. What’s the difference, nothing ever changed from the protests and the benefits. The University did not divest in countries that did something with South Africa. The whole thing now seems like a passing fad.
The girls appeared to watch attentively as the guys talked. Probably some engineering talk or something like that. ‘yes you see the parabola reflects the ultimate arc of the scalar vectors and that is where the source point is…’ at least that’s what it sounded like he was saying. The other two nodded in agreement and the girls drank their drinks sort of looking at them, sort of looking around. One yawned. And one was really cute, beautiful infact, and I found myself staring at her …
Just as I thought I was making eye contact with her, she got up and went over to the bar to get another drink. My eyes followed her all the way to the bar. She was awfully nice to look at. I caught myself and glanced over at the table to see if they noticed. They didn’t seem to care. The second girl was talking about the correct way to steam rice. They laughed.
“What a party!”, one of the guys yelled.
“We’ve done it”, his friend bellowed. The girl at the table hugged them both simultaneously. The girl at the bar looked over and looked back and yelled “Easy”. The guys laughed some more.
“This is a great party.” They banged their bottles together and drank.
New Brunswick is a big melting pot, although still fundamentally a small New Jersey city. It’s reached down to the most basic level of heterogenity here at this table in this cafe. That is what I thought.
When I finished my master’s I put on one of the biggest most protracted parties I’d ever seen. Four straight days anyone and everyone who wanted to stopped by the house to pay their regards. Just don’t show up empty handed. And the collection of intoxicants that passed through the house and my system those 96 hours was a virtual pharmacopoeia of recreational chemicals. Lots of relaxing. Lots of a lot of things. Very little true recollection of any details. But still, infinite volumes could be written about that lost long weekend, but never were and never will be. The only thing significant now is that it was the first time that I played the guitar and the keyboards in the same gig with the band. It was also the first time we played “Road of Life” – my biggest ‘hit’. We played it at the third day of the party in the back yard while people milled around and no one really listened. I passed out in the hammock in the back with Shari. My arm fell asleep so completely that I lost feeling my my entire arm for 3 hours…. But that was a another story.
So I looked over at their party, and well, it the party as they were throwing it just wasn’t cutting it by these standards. But these were different times. And these were different people. I would have taken a celebration up at lest a few levels.
After I finished setting up the wires on the stage and it was time to do a sound check. Hey ladies and gentlemen, test 1-2-3 check 1-2-3 click click… so annoying to the audience, so essential to the performer. The grad students looked up and noticed. No one else did.
“Anything you’d like to hear”, I asked them, “soundcheck time.”
At first they didn’t say anything. They were heavy into their conversation now. Something about the welfare system, I don’t know. I asked again, this time into the mic. The sound system had a lot of reverb on it and the want to hear…want to hear…want to hear echoed a few times.
“D’yu know Brown Eyed Girl? You know, Von Morresun?” the Indian guy said with an Indian guy accent.
They broke into a chorus, “Yooooo – oooo my brown eyed girl”, laughing. Maybe the alcohol had more of an effect than I thought.
I knew the song and after some fiddling with the electronics, I started playing. I did most of the chorus and they sang along. The girls with the parents looked over. They didn’t seem all that happy about a table of five graduate students, all drunk on 2 beers, all singing off key and disturbing their dinner. They looked at me unappreciatively. The grad students were having a good time. Of course, none of them knew all the words and by the middle of the second verse it fell apart, and I went into the chorus again and finished.
I stood up and waved my hand at them, summoning the non-crowd to show their appreciation. Like when a famous guest star comes on stage for a cameo appearance or when the conductor directs the applause to the audience.
The two girls and the parents barely looked over. At that moment they were quiet, after a second, they went back to what they were doing, which was probably discussing the daughters student loan, or upcoming exam, or something serious and academic.
The table in front of me clapped and yelled among themselves. They were partying now. I was glad, I wanted to meet the girl with the great walk..
“Sound OK?” I asked. They nodded.
“Oh yes. Very nice”, the Chinese girl said.
“Staying for the show, starts in about an hour.”
“Must be going, have a party to go to.”, said the American girl I wasn’t interested in anyway. She was putting on her coat. A winter coat in fact. It struck me that today was one of first cold days of the fall., chilly and windy. It reminded me of playing soccer in high school and the first chill that you felr when you took off your swear suit right before running out onto the field just as the game was about to begin. It wasn’t that cold, but too cold to be out without a coat, and certainly a sign that it was going to be a while before it was 85 again. A lot of the frat boys would still wear shorts and be manly, but the girls, ah, it would be while before I’d see my next bare midriff walking down College Avenue.
The other girl was so cute, and the ski jacket looked nice on her. As she stood up I noticed her overall look. Guatemalan pants, a dark pattern, a cotton shirt, a pale yellow, which as quickly as I noticed it, she covered with her jacket. . She had long dark blond hair and as she tossed it over the collar of her jacket, I noticed her earrings. I had a friend who made earrings and I asked her where she had gotten them.
She had gotten them at a craft show somewhere that she didn’t remember. I told her about Suzy (the earring and bead maker), and she said she’d like to see her work. I told her Suzy’d probably be back at the show selling (which was true). Her friends were waiting for her at the door by now, and ever so briefly we made eye contact. It was only a split second, but it was long enough for me to have my first look into her blue eyes. As she walked out she gave me some hope…”Really enjoyed your song, maybe we’ll come back later.” She waved. “See ya…”
Of course I didn’t expect to see her again, or any of them. It was a standard remark, like saying you’ll be back to buy something in a retail store. I mentioned my tapes for sale, and again maybe when they came back.

A haiku for U

If it were easy
to say things that I felt for
you, i would do it.

Share on Facebook