Increasingly, I am looking forward to closing out DC. I have been here a long time, but I think I am feeling that the run is done. I have lived in Big Pink longer than I have lived anywhere in my life (albeit in multiple units) and discussions with my brother in the rented Rav4 only strengthened my resolve to figure out what is going to be next.
I don’ t know where the ultimate destination might be; I am open to several venues, including just hunkering down at the farm, where life is quiet and real.
I got a note from my faithful correspondent in Baja this morning, and my mind drifted off to the gentle sound of surf en Española. Everything is on the table, and I even mentally tried on placid Indiana during the trip for size.
There is a lot of interesting stuff going on in my ersatz family as others in my circle punch out. Lovely Jamie hates the term, since she insists there is nothing artificial at all about our little group, though of course she has been spending more time down in Woodbridge than at Willow with her new beau.
Van Dyke and his bride Donna have already fled the capital and decamped for the Villages, a development for mature couples south of Ocala, FLA. Old Jim and Chanteuse Mary are edging toward the door as I type. I can feel a draft from the opening and it makes me a bit uneasy that I am going to be left behind.
Jim left the Willow bar early last night to return to his residence up the street without explanation, an unsettling development, since it left just JPeter and me at the apex of the Amen Corner. We filled the strange vacuum with a discussion about elegant Satchel’s earlobes, since that was the latest odd thing to occur and unlike everything else, had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with what matters in life.
“So,” I said, “My phone went off when I was attempting to dock the police cruiser at the curb outside. I couldn’t get to it, since it was on my hip under the seatbelt, and I was in the middle of the critical maneuvering phase of the parallel docking and there were no tugs available. I got to the phone once the lines had all gone across and I was walking to the parking kiosk to buy the slip for the land yacht’s berthing fee.” I paused to take a belt of my vodka-and-diet-tonic. It being the first one of the day, it had the remarkable taste of optimism.
“I looked at the phone, thinking it was Jim, since he sometimes calls to remind me that it is time to start drinking, and was startled to see Satchel’s number on the screen. I have been enamored with her since we first met at my old office, and often tell her that she would be in trouble if I was only forty or fifty years younger.”
“She is an attractive young woman,” said JPeter, taking a sip of his Happy Hour Red. “She hasn’t been around here much lately.”
“I know, and I have missed her. But there is so much turmoil in everyone’s lives these days. So, I mashed the button and called her back to see what was up. When she came on the line she sounded agitated, and I asked what was up. She said she was going to get her ears pierced and wanted confirmation that it wasn’t a big deal. That took me aback, and I was surprised that she had not done it years ago. I told her the lobes were not particularly dense in nerve-endings, and I knew from personal experience there were things much more sensitive than that and she said that is why she had called.”
“That is surprising,” said JPeter. “I thought the ladies got their ears pierced when they turned into teenagers.”
“Me too. But she said she knew that I knew about how much things hurt, and wanted assurance that it wouldn’t hurt that much. I looked up and saw legendary baker Kate Jansen walking up the street from the Willow, and I put the phone on speaker. I told Satchel that I had a veteran female available for consultation, briefed Kate on the issue, and she spoke with the voice of experience. By the time she had described the procedure, the numbing and the ease with which it was done, Satch seemed to calm down a little and Kate handed me the phone back. Then I gave her a kiss on the cheek and she walked across Utah Street to her car, saying that now she was thinking about getting another piercing herself.”
“Wonder where?” asked JPeter thoughtfully.
“Dunno. She didn’t say, but it is intriguing, isn’t it?” I got back to processing alcohol into my bloodstream and we talked about North Korea, and the latest on the debates, and the war on whatever, and we were startled when Satchel herself appeared next to me where Jon-without usually sits, pulling out the stool and swung her long, elegant legs over the seat and rested her elbows on the bar. Brilliant- and large- diamond studs glittered on her ears.
“Holy smokes, those are beautiful!” we exclaimed in unison, and brought the attention of Brett the bartender down to the Corner. He agreed that Satch had done the right thing.
“Still hurts like hell,” she said. “You lied.”
“Of course I did. Are those stones real?” I asked.
Satch looked thoughtful. “Yeah. Michael got them at Tiffany’s a couple years ago, and he didn’t know I didn’t have holes to put them in.” She ordered one of those dark beers that comes presented in a snifter, which Brett deposited in front of her with a flourish.
“You still with him?” I asked hopefully.
“Yes. We are getting married.”
I am happy that they are taking things to the next level, Michael is a good and reliable fellow, and the date for the wedding has been set for November. That was the third bombshell of the young evening, and it sparked an evolving discussion of life events, and contingency planning to accommodate them. Do the ceremony in Greece? Maybe in the ancestral village? Or at the Army Navy Country Club with the honeymoon in the Aegean?
The animated discussion of preferred islands, the dump that is Athens, and whether or not the family would all fly over there drew in a young wife from down the bar who had recently done the same thing, and a long consultation over the images of the event in the gallery folder of her smart phone.
We beat that one to death, and I offered to show Satch around the new ANCC clubhouse, which is elegant as shit. That, in turn, morphed into a long rambling conversation about marriage and babies and grandchildren, and tears came. This was like the fifth remarkable event of the lengthening evening, since Satchel’s mother was a Marine Brigadier, and her father a Leatherneck aviator.
I am much more accustomed to sardonic stoicism from Satchel than the waterworks. Hell, she even deployed to The Show as a contractor in Afghanistan when we were still trying to win the war there.
This is an unusual demonstration of vulnerability, and I realized this normally analytic and intelligent woman was bathed in emotion coursing through her veins.
JPeter announced that he had to go over and deal with his mother, who was in the rehab wing of The Madison where our pal and mentor Mac Showers used to live. “You ought to have a martini if you are doing that,” said Satch, and JPeter agreed, waving at Brett for assistance.
“It is time,” she said, dabbing her eyes gently with a napkin so that her mascara did not smear and leave her looking like a raccoon.
“Yes it is,” I said, finishing the third or fourth drink and tapping the glass when Brett slid the dirty martini in front of JPeter. “Go with it. You will never feel like this again in your life. It is the way we work as a species. Enjoy the ride. This is about life, and it is about starting your own family.”
She cried again, in bemused happiness when we parted outside the bar. I walked back to the police cruiser, musing on the marvels of life and its patterns. Me. Jim and Mary. Van Dyke and his bride. My son, who will be done with his stint in the Far East for a couple months specialized training before returning to the mid-Pacific for a few years.
I slid behind the wheel of the Crown Vic and fired up the V-8. I can’t wait to see him, and the new grandson again in a few weeks
Life. What a frigging miracle.
Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
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Twitter: @jayare303