Death Interrupted - Part IV

Some of you read about Maybelline in my Gifts of Forgiveness article here on AC. Okay, now she's back. The last time I'd spoken with her was on the phone from Hawaii in 2004 and that went okay. So far, her technique has been to pop up out of nowhere, be friendly, write emails, and make belated confessions--"I'm still looking for love in all the wrong places", she said in a 1999 mail. I had been guilty of the same and at that time was still a fool. Fast forward to May of 2009and here we are again.

had just gotten out of the hospital after my second round of chemo. I'm out of money and I'm hungry. A big-time show biz DJ friend offers to take up a collection and bring me some food money. I can't work and I'm not eligible for unemployment so I accept. I could apply for food stamps like a distant step-niece in Texas condescends to suggest but I'm too sick to even go downtown--happens to the best of us. The DJ never shows up or calls.

Maybelline calls me at Westmoor and offers to send me some kind of potent powdered food, full of antioxidants and other incredible green stuff. Also after I send her some of my recorded music, she said:

"I wanna play bass again. Would you pick out a bass for me?"

"Sure May, I'll put you in touch with the store and you can pay for it over the phone. No sales tax since they will ship out of state," I said. I'm not anxious to see her, though I have no more hard feelings or malice.

"No I'd rather come down; I'll pick you up and we can go to Guitar Center," she said.

"Yeah, it'd be good for you to pick a color and make sure the action is right. . .do you want a 5-string?"

"Do you think I'm ready for that?"

"Well, you have talent, and that makes you ready for anything musical. Folks like getting to the low notes these days," I said.

"You are the master, if anyone would know, you would." she offers.

"Well, like Poppa said when I went off to California in '79. "Just wanna have one last look at cha," I said, to further break the ice. She had always enjoyed quotes from T. J. Flanagan.

"Also you need some antioxidants," she says with low pitched authority. "We have a natural foods store on our campus where we all take turns working. I will pick out something for you and send it to you."

"Sure, I'll accept that," I said , with seasoned caution.

Of course I assume she wants to see me after we've sequestered ourselves for 11 years following a divorce after 28 years of ambivalence. So to be congenial, I send her letters bringing her up to date on my journey and attempt to mend some old fences, however, I have a mate now. Though 3,000 miles apart, we're committed enough to be content in this way until we can come under one roof. Neither one of us can relocate but being the humanitarian 'my D' is, she has always encouraged dialog between Maybelline and me without knowing it is trying to mix olive oil with Worstershire sauce.

I do not want Maybelline back, even mentally--just want peace in the valley. After the conversation about the bass and food, a week goes by and she doesn't call. Then characteristically, the bomb drops when I get a call. I can tell by the ring. No one ever calls me at 3PM. I see her name in the caller ID. Watch out. She delivers her speech as if it's being read. I recall she had been a "lister" and a "sloganist" so this is a correct assumption.

"I changed my mind about the bass. I played bass with you because that was something you made me do. I'm doing what I want to do now and I'm not sending you the food. What we had was a co-dependency relationship and I don't want to be suckered back into that psychosis," she said, with dramatic inflection on the last word. She had rehearsed.

"I understand," I said. "With that lifestyle of yours, I wasn't sure you'd find time to. . . ."

"To practice?" she interrupted.

"Yeah," I said. "But that's fine, I understand. I'll be fine. Things always work out for me. Are we cool?"

"Yeah," she said, seeming rather relieved I didn't react in kind. I could have fought her tooth and nail (forgive the cliche), but in my old age, I allow myself to pass on getting riled up by the provocations of other humans. I even have to fake anger sometimes. Anger is suicide according to blood pressure meters. I told her I wanted to be friends, she ignored it and said:

"Alrighty then."

"Until we meet again," I said, with a sincere smile in my voice hearing her grin just a bit and we hang up.

I'd taught her to play string bass when she joined me as a dependent in Germany while I was in the army. We had a blast playing in Heidelberg, Kaiserslautern, Mannheim and at private gatherings. That was the happiest time of the marriage and prior to now, the happiest most carefree period of all my days.

After getting out of the army we had several bands together and made a little cheese (money) to get us by and just a little high (reefer only). She enjoys the compliments and the unique status of being the only female bass player around the whole music biz during the early 70's. She was naturally talented and playing in bands with me contributed to her self-esteem. Our relationship was better when we played together.

We got a deal with Polydor Records in 1975. . .so her bass playing was hardly forced labor. In our conversation I decided not to get baited into an argument by saying "I never had a pistol to your head while you played--psychologically or otherwise. She quit when she was ready to hang it up and I don't blame her.

She had better things to do with her brilliance. She'd been a straight A student all through school, graduated out of the 11th grade, majored in Slavic linguistics at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin and went on to get a masters in Government Administration. She scored 98 on the Georgia State Real Estate Exam. She was a registered genius. We had incredible discussions and disparate mutual interests. . .for a time.

Maybelline had unplugged her amplifier, hung up the Fender bass, and jumped head-first into corporate America eventually attaining a vice-presidency in a major corporation. After we split, she chucks it all and moves to a compound to be with a new age community under the guidance of a charismatic lady who I'll call Lola Forrest. One of the reasons we cracked is because I didn't want to tune in and drop out like that. Gurus are for people who cannot think for themselves. Period. That is not an axiom, just my arrogant opinion. There are many among us who rely on others to order our lives. Different steeples for different peeples (sic).

Gurus and self made messiahs became popular in the mid to late 60's when people were losing their minds to LSD, left and right, up and down. I remain the guitar playing hippie I've always been so there ya have it. I'm still a hippie, sans drugs. No drugs for ZaZa unless you want to refer to Cabernet Sauvignon as a 'drug,' and if you do, such judgment hardly registers in my guilt bin. I have average two small goblets per day (but not everyday) with bread dipped in virgin olive oil mixed with Worstershire sauce.

But alas, I'd been set up by her, like this before. I was expecting a reversal so I'm unmoved, though disappointed in her. What an unfortunate creature to have so much hatred and she lives with a guru who orders her life and teaches the development of "Heart Qualities." Hey May, if you are reading this--take it from me, the teaching is having no effect and the spittle has dried and rotted away.

I'm absolutely sure Lola Forrest and perhaps her elves helped her with this ruse, just like the last one because Maybelline seeks their counsel regularly--no way they missed this one. But the whammy didn't "take." Maybelline is a literary name I made up as to not impugn her. You may remember that name from Chuck Berry record:

--"Maybelline, why cain't cha be true? Ya done started back doin' thangs you use to doooo. . . ."

Neither one of us will ever be beatified nor canonized. For a few good years, early on we beatified each other and those memories are stirring, blissful, and heartwarming to me. I won't allow the ugly subsequent years to deprive me of whatever love we truly shared.

So you may ask, what did I do to deserve the deception? "The biggest flaw of a human being is to not be flawed." I think it was Thomas Mann who said something tantamount to that. We were both rather dysfunctional--may still be in some ways. How about that? But these dialogs occur during a time when I'm sick, real damned dizzy from the hospital chemicals, mentally zapped just a bit, mind freaked out from the ordeal of fighting the Reaper and watching my skin burn with at least a billion little blisters and rashes off and on for three months. At least she could have sent me some hemlock. Here is a pertinent rewind. . . .

Early on during the initial course of my treatment, when I was closer to death she called and asked for forgiveness for past dishonesty, which I'd been aware of. It was easy to oblige her tough I was looking at R.I.P.

Knowing her, in her private mind of minds, the girl is deeply sorry for the reversal, but she is severely dichotomized. I wouldn't've eaten that food anyway. No way. I hold a sacred kind of love and regard for her that's beyond her physical existence and our failings. My act of forgiveness shackles all the jinns and devils.

The very next day one of my dear friends Joulles Wright (not a lover nor former lover) calls me and takes me to the Farmer's Market, Kroger, and Publix. .

."Get whatever you want, she said,"--even gets a rice cooker for me.

She spent $228 on food for me that day. My cell phone expired. She loaned me money for a new one. When I was in the hospital for the first round she brought me Red Rock Ginger Ales and a "coupla hunnerd" as she enjoyed calling that cheese she laid on me. I paid her back whatever she would accept and I am forever grateful to her--wonder if Maybelline would gloat over that. No, she'd assume we're having intercourse. But finding Joulles was looking for love in one of the right places.

On one fine Thursday afternoon prior my being hospitalized, a young boy of maybe 13 years of age asked me to give him money for food as he passes along in front of the Westmoor house and I'm trying to get into the red truck. He looks as though he's gotten pumped up on some kind of substances or other, breathing with his mouth open and looking about, wild-eyed.

"Hey . . .what time it is?" he asked.

"What time do you want it to be, dog?" I answered.

"Ah man, don't f*** wid me dog, I need some money, I'm hongrey. I need fy 'dollahs," he said.

Like an idiot, I take out my wallet and give him a buck. He stares at the wallet until I put it away. There are maybe just $5 more in there. All he has to do is snatch and run. I can tell he wants to--easy to read that. But my size: 6'5" / 280lbs is always noted in these circumstances and I'm a pretty good fighter too, at least I was in my 20's up until maybe 55 or so. I was trained by Hong Shik Chung for two years when I was a tender 25.

A back-swing kick is no match for a Glock and I have respect for anyone brandishing a knife or straight razor. I'd best grab a long fat stick, if it is available, for any 'razor boy' and plunge him flat-on into the solar plexus. The fool. But that was the trend of a lost empire, razor toters, that is. These kids have pistols. Still, according to cops I've asked, if you use excessive force against an assailant, the DA and jury will 'can' you and pity the mugger. If you break their bones or knock anyone out, it's a felony.

I was advised by yet another policeman, a former Vietnam Veteran who killed a man in the line of duty. After the shooting, he quit the DC police force--said it impacted his life in ways he could never predict. He told me:

"When you buy it, you have affirmed that you will kill someone with it. If you wound them they will sue you or come back to get you, or send someone to finish you off."

As my student Andre said in Bombs Over Baghdad: "Don't pull that thang, unless you plan to bang." I'm further assured by the former DC cop that if I ever use a weapon in self defense or not, I would never be able to return it to the holster, psychologically speaking.

I bought a .38 when I was being stalked by a subsequent 'ex' in 1998 after I had to put her out on the street with a brand new suitcase I'd donated; she was wearing a $600 outfit she'd charged on my Citibank card without my permission. Subsequently, she stole the card and gave it to her son who was a fugitive from his parole officer in California. After parking her, she'd return and hide, laying in wait for me in the stairwell of The Darlington. My raw rage was enough to encourage her to flee. No gun. No injuries. Gone.

That story is in my memoir in progress entitled: Walking On My Hands. We have no room for that story here and certainly there are some who wouldn't care to read it anyway. But if you like conflict, adventure, show biz, romance, tales of travel in far off lands, failing, overcoming the odds, succeeding, and facing death then it is a good read . Yikes, that sounds almost like a query letter.

After a month I take the pistol to the same pawnshop I bought it from and sell it back to them for $50. I'd paid $250 for it. I was also afraid I'd shoot myself, accidentally or intentionally, though I don't acknowledge Thanatos, (death wish).

References: Quote from Thomas Mann
Lyrucs quoted from Maybelline by Chuck Berry
Lyrics quoted from Andre 3000/Outkast- Stankonia CD - Bombs Over Baghdad.