My alone feels so good, I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude. – Warsan Shire
He was looking into the hallway mirror, he didn’t look all that bad. Young, he was same size as Muhammad Ali in his prime, six-foot-three, two-oh-five. Old, he was back down to his marathoning weight, one-seventy-three. Of course, the skin had loosened a little. Seventy winters now, what do you expect.
People said he was handsome. He had newspaper clippings, that crazy whack job slander sheet in Northwest Portland had called him ‘strikingly good-looking.’
Never believed it himself, not for a minute, never. He realized for a couple of decades gorgeous formerly unattainable females seemed to end up in his bed, but he never actually thought success with the ladies had anything to do with his looks.
Damn sure wasn’t his money.
She had said he had a big head and later she said he was developing jowls. He had grown a beard and then his beard had jowls.
She had loved him because she said he looked like somebody who needed lovin’ in the worst way. He hadn’t known he had looked that pathetic.
But his first wife had run off with a Nike shoe salesman and his second wife, he hadn’t seen since she chewed off her restraints and joined PETA.
So, okay, he might’ve been lonely for a hug from a girl.
And after ten years together, didn’t seem right for her to die. Whole point of marrying a young woman, was so he could go first. And there’d always be someone to program the phone and download the audiobooks.
She had said he was getting too skinny and he had asked her not to screw the lids back on so tight.
He didn’t even grasp the concept of delivery pizza and now she had left him alone.
***
Been alone before. Happens when you have a wandering eye and your birthday is Christmas Eve.
Then there’s, you know, your vagaries. Like the time he’d left his wife and was living in a motel off Canyon in Beaverton. The new woman, a buxom marketing executive for PepsiCo – met her at the National Championships in Purchase, but that’s another story – gets snowed in in New York and he ends up at Stuart Anderson’s Steak House. By himself. For Thanksgiving.
He had asked the hostess, hot and half his age, for a back booth in a quiet section. The restaurant was packed with families, generations gathering. Felt like everybody was looking at him. Pathetically. Wished he could just disappear.
Then an announcement blasted from overhead. “Jack Welch, Jack Welch, party of one.”
He had used an alias, but still stung when he heard a little boy say, “Grandma, Grandma, is that man all alone at Thanksgiving?
“Doesn’t he have a family?”
Shhhh, was all Grandma said.
Fast forward a decade. One of those Christmas Eves. Alone again naturally. He was sitting in a downtown PDX bar, much wood-paneling.
Place is deserted. Bartender thinking he might just close early. Once his lone customer stopped celebrating.
The lone customer had maybe thought he imagined he might’ve seen a dark shadow move from the entry, then forgot about it.
She came from his left, luckily his best side, passed half a dozen empty stools and sat down next to him.
Dressed all in black with the pale skin of a pale lass in winter. Said she’d have whatever he was having. Which was a cold pint of dark beer with a double shot of ouzo back. Not for beginners.
Her twenty-first birthday and she was determined not to spend such an auspicious occasion home alone. He ordered another round.
They celebrated together. And dated for maybe six months. Sweet girl. Sweet. Which is why he chose Catch & Release.
A few years pass, he was again at some swanky event, doubtlessly prospecting for a date or a job. Often looking for both.
Feels bad just to think about this so many years later. Standing there talking to the Mayor and the Police Chief. Tall timber.
And the same woman, still young, still sweet, more grown-up, sidles up alongside him, coming from the right this time.
She seemed expectant, perhaps looking for a date or a job and he was standing with two community leaders. Certainly, an introduction at least.
And he forgot her name. Blanked out.
Beverly Blume, I am so sorry.
Valentine’s Day one year, he was single, probably tired of it. He’d read aloud romantic, erotic, xxx-rated material at Elephant’s Deli.
Room was packed and everybody was bundled up.
He remembered because he had refused to explain Kim Addonizio’s “Heart.”
That Mississippi chicken shack.
That initial-scarred tabletop,
that tiny little dance floor to the left of the band.
That kiosk at the mall selling caramels and kitsch.
That tollbooth with its white-plastic-gloved worker
handing you your change.
That phone booth with the receiver ripped out.
That dressing room in the fetish boutique,
those curtains and mirrors.
That funhouse, that horror, that soundtrack of screams.
That putti-filled heaven raining gilt from the ceiling.
That haven for truckers, that bottomless cup.
That biome. That wilderness preserve.
That landing strip with no runway lights
where you are aiming your plane,
imagining a voice in the tower,
imagining a tower.
Sad thing, best looking woman there asked the question.
***
Valentine’s are different alone. And with someone you love. And he loved her. LOVED HER A LOT. Meant it.
One Valentine’s, he had gotten her a power sander. Which she wanted. Another year, an annoying adorable Sheltie puppy named Lily.
Who was noisy. Still have that dog. She’s still noisy.
Think it was a Valentine’s Day he had told her – the wife, not the dog – the third marriage is the best.
Good, she replied. Then I can hardly wait for my next one.
Dead three years now. Didn’t seem like just yesterday, seemed like, still felt like, this morning.
Might make sense for a man alone to go out on Valentine’s Day.
And hope to find a woman alone who thought it made sense to go out by herself on Valentine’s Day.
Only one way to find out.
And only one thing for certain.
When he does go out and he does come back, the dog will still be there.
Still noisy.
This is a work of fiction.
I am not alone.
My wife lives on as does our love.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
The young redhead wants all to know she is alive and well. With only 259 days until retirement. Which she can do standing on her head. Happy Valentine’s Day.