Vic Socotra

15 October 2009

Re-Union

(“A”- “L” at the 40th Reunion)

After I exercised my cell phone lifeline to my pal Muhammed in the parking lot, I steeled myself to do what needed to be done.

None of my asshole buddies were going to be at the 40th reunion- only the person with whom I had been closer than anyone in my life, and with whom I have been engaged in a bitter legal struggle for almost a decade.

I had almost not come for precisely that reason. The last of these gatherings I had attended, thirty years before, had started that relationship and it had endured for two decades. Now it was over, but the memories hung close, mingled in a jumble in the time fugue.

I shrugged into my letter jacket, the one with the numerals “69” sewn on the sleeve, and walked back into the hotel.

As it turned out, the gathering of old farts off the lobby was for a wedding, and it was a comfort that my former classmates did not promise to look so old. Those people in the formal clothes might have been Class of ’66.

You know. Old.

I heard that from some women who had just checked in, and the letter jacket was the beacon of certitude in an uncertain world. Candy and Sharon both looked hot. Divorce and early widowhood and remarriage, in that general order, I understood, though I could have had it wrong.

Sally was still Sally, one continuous narrative, and Lisa and Margo and Ann were all in the swirl.

I had a tie and a jacket upstairs, but decided I needed a drink. I headed down to the bar and that is where I lost control of the evening. There was a huddle of people down there, peering at one another and suddenly synching up the fuzzy outlines of memory like the contrast on an old television set.

Sharon was the only one who still smoked, besides me, and that was unusual for a yoga instructor. We vowed to be smoke buddies when things got too intense, and a couple drinks and several “Oh, my God’s” later, found myself still in jeans and jacket in the ballroom.

We were issued little name-tags that had our Senior pictures on them- you may recall the sort. They were airbrushed to perfection back in the day, and none of them looked a bit like the real kids we were, only stylized representations.

Looking around, I did not see Dudley or George or Sunny or Jim. I knew Muhammed wouldn’t be there. The others were the only ones who would have understood. George’s ex-girlfriend Robin was there, a widow now, and still the best-looking woman I ever knew.

The Ex walked in, looking great, and I made a point of talking to her and trying to be pleasant. I think we talked about the kids, and then I turned to other things.

I haven’t danced that much since knee surgery several years ago, and there were people who I once had feelings for, and some I discovered I still did.

Vivacious Lynn was the one whose narrative resonated the most. At the top of the game, she had been bounced from her morning drive-time gig, 6th in the Arbitron ratings, and the loser replacements the station hired never had cracked 16th in the slot.

“Outrageous,” we decided, and schemed to get her team on the dial in Washington, DC.

There were some other things that penetrated the increasing vodka fog. I realized with a start that Larry and Bob, two of the coolest of us all, had become one person in my memory. Having them both present was disconcerting, causing a schism in my memory.

For the record, Bob now resembles a younger Jack Nicholson with Hollywood frames on his glasses and a stingy-brim hat. Larry looks exactly like Mephistopheles, with spiky hair and the same maniacal gleam in his eyes he had back then.

Joe was there, too, now tall, not the willowy young man who went off to Africa after Band. We talked about that, and I reprised my version of a life story that generally speaking I really like.

There were a couple Social X-Rays, too. The women looked exactly like the term Tom Wolfe coined for Bonfire of the Vanities: women who had burned off every trace of fat, and now radiate an almost atomic aura in their exquisite thin dresses.

My personal favorite was Ron, a star wrestler back in the day. He was tall and elegant, with a rugged Sam Elliott moustache. I knew him only vaguely then, but he was a good guy, so I marched over and re-introduced myself, telling him he had aged well and was one of the better-preserved guys here.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’m not surprised you didn’t recognize me. Ron couldn’t make it, and since he paid for dinner he asked me if I wanted to come instead. I wasn’t doing anything, so I did.”

I congratulated him, nonetheless, and wandered away wondering.

One of the X-rays walked by from the buffet table with a plate covered with enough food for three. She couldn’t have weighed ninety pounds, so I wondered what was up with that.

Most people seemed to be doing just fine. Keith was there, elegant with his bride, and Jim and Sue and Paul and Lisa and Sarah and Jodi. I went to elementary school with Jodi, and so we shared K right through 12. She is in Midland, a widow in the Tri-Cities.

And Scrope and Thad, my college frat brothers. Scrope has been married to Barb for 34 years. My God, I thought. The frat house to here, uninterrupted.

Others, more distant, circulated. People I didn’t know then but knew me. Eerie. And too much information on some. One recently tried to take his life, I was told, and was drinking even more than I was.

Around 12:30, the room had thinned out. There was a hospitality suite upstairs, run by you know who, and I could have gone there but I had a few hundred miles to cover the next day in the Bluesmobile, doing my best to imitate a Higgs Boson particle on the accelerator of the Ohio Turnpike.

Sheri passed me as I was sucking down a last cigarette before bed. She has hair right down to her butt. She told me I ought to quit, and I agreed. Lynn was leaving as I was headed up on the elevator. She is headed out for Abu Dhabi, where her husband is teaching. Evrybody has to work, you know, and I wished her safe travels.

So I guess you could say the reunion was a wash. A couple dozen successful adults and a-half dozen losers. That was the assessment from another old pal, whose views I trust implicitly.

My pal said: “Makes you wonder about the six hundred that didn’t come, doesn’t it?”

I had to agree. I did a couple bounces between the twin beds when I got to the room, and when I discovered no one had trashed the car, or poured sugar in the gas tank, I was thankful that was all that happened.

Roaring south, past the ruins of old Detroit, I thought we ought to get together in another 40 years and see how we did.

Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsoctra.com <http://www.vicsoctra.com>

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