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My Real Memoir
My girlfriend Dar and I had had too few opportunities to be intimate. So we moved in together. I’d been hired to install Sensormatic anti-shoplifting devices, just as Dar had landed a job at the admitting desk of a local Emergency Room. For the first two weeks, she cried constantly over the suffering she saw. But then her skin thickened, and she started sharing end-of-the-day happy-hour meals with her hospital friends.
Meanwhile, my boss Dell whisked me off to my new territory in the high plains. In Denver, we rented a muscular station wagon to hold our tools and gear and hurl us from city to city. We installed devices in Rocky Mountain resorts, and in Wyoming, Nebraska and South Dakota shopping malls. Along the way, Dell proudly showed me photos of his wife and daughter…and his Denver girlfriend. When I balked, he laughed:
“It’s The Code of the Road, buddy. You’ll see!”
Things had changed at home. Dar and I no longer shared the same circle of eccentric friends. We’d become satellites in unsynchronized orbits, and the intimacy we sought had turned into a rare and awkward spacewalk.
Nevertheless, the night before I left on my first solo trip, Dar moaned sensually in her sleep, waking us both up. What followed was the most passionate moment we’d shared since we first started dating.
There was a wistful look in her eyes when I left for the airport the next morning.
I botched my first installation at a suburban Denver clothing store, and had no idea why it failed. So I dismantled it, started from scratch, and then had no idea why it worked.
Later, I called Dar from my hotel room, and told her I’d been thinking about our previous night together. There was a long pause. Was she crying? She finally choked out the words, “It wasn’t you I was dreaming about.”
“Well…we can still make it work.”
“No, we can’t.” She’d already started seeing that doctor she dreamed about.
The next day, I arrived in Aspen, weepily warbling “Dar” to the tune of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Claire,” and checked into the Hotel Jerome. In the bar, two good-looking strangers next to me knocked back their Harvey Wallbangers, and headed for the elevator. They had the room next to mine, and acted out the last name of their trendy cocktail all night. All I could think about was O’Sullivan’s other best-known song, “Alone Again (Naturally).”
One interminable week later, I met a pretty redhead named Roni at a Denver laundromat. There were sparks, and we ended up in my hotel room. Later, she told me she’d never had a one-night-stand, and asked if that was all this was. I told her it wasn’t, even though I lived a thousand miles away, and asked for her phone number.
Was she my Code of the Road girlfriend?
I was always faking it with love, it seemed, just like I did with electronics. I’d assemble the parts, then turn it on and hope it worked. But if something went wrong, I couldn’t fix it. Because I really didn’t know…
How love worked.
My Real Memoir is a series. To read the next one, click here.
Isn’t that how it goes for so many? Good insights in there, Mitch. God bless!
Yes, I believe it is. And thank you, Nancy, you too.
Just wondering how long it took you to reach that realization, Mitch.
A LONG time, Annie.
Good story, Mitch.
Thank you, Mary.
The timing for your relationship with Dar to end appeared to be at the right time for both of you. 🙂
Thank you for your honesty, Mitch, including the not-so-wonderful episodes in your memoirs. I suppose millions of people have tried the Code of the Road, but in the end it leads nowhere, except to heartache and disappointment. To borrow from other lyrics of that time, “When will we ever learn?”
Indeed, Nancy.
The small glitch possibly is that assembling a device is a one way affair, whereas relationship is two ways. Device cannot fix us but if wanted then other’s love can.
Mitch,
Love gained and lost. That’s life. Help us to protect the ones we love. Thank you. Gary
Gary Avants Forbear Productions * *garyavants66@gmail.com garyavants66@gmail.com
As we said back in the day (60s), that’s heavy man. What it was is what it is, you made the right choices, even though at the time, they made you a mess. I’ve been there and done that, well sort of….good recount Mitch.
Thanks, Phil.
Once again, you have captured perfectly how and what I was thinking all those years ago. I had similar experiences and the same questions.
Beautiful story! Well shared 💐
Thank you, Priti.
💐
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Why does it seem that our deepest insights in life have to come from our most painful experiences? I would like to try to learn just as well from the pleasant moments, but that just never seems to be the way it works.
Good, insightful stuff here, Mitch. Thanks.
My privilege, Russell. And, oh, do I know what you mean.
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