Just the two of us ascended in the tiny elevator car. I had stepped on in the basement, having come
in from the street through the waiters’ locker room, stamping the season’s
first snow off my cheap shoes. He got on
at the first floor, headed for the private dining rooms on the third floor
while I continued to the fifth. We spoke
not a word. He hummed something while I cleared my throat. Just as the elevator stopped at his floor, I
said, “I must tell you something, ♫I Left My Heart In San Francisco♫.
The doors opened and he stepped
out without acknowledging my attempt at conversation. He may not have heard me.
I was twenty years old and from a
small city farther upstate. I knew a
little piano, but never thought to ask Mr. Bennett if he needed an extra accompanist
who could play just about any Chuck Berry song in the key of C. And not much else. It might have been time for
the aging crooner to consider updating his repertoire. If he could do ♫Sing You Sinners,♫ he could certainly include Chuck’s classics
like Maybellene and Roll Over Beethoven.
Forcing his voice up to the key of C should have been no problem for a
professional.
Frankly, I’d probably work for
free. And carry his bags. I could even try to transpose to A.
I wasn’t very realistic at age twenty. It’s a wonder I ever got any work done. On that morning, the most important thing
rolling around in my mind was not whether I could remember the wiring circuits
that controlled the little magnets that pushed down the long thin blades just
in the nick of time to send a punched car to the correct pocket on the sorter
machine. I was ♫Younger Than Spring♫ and my
mind kept wandering to the snow falling on the streets of Manhattan
and how pretty it looked.
To some people snow is not
pretty. I have to say I began to lean in
that direction as I got older. But in my
early adulthood … a period I now more honestly label my late childhood … snow was gorgeous. It would bring to mind a pretty girl with red
cheeks sitting on a toboggan wearing a pink scarf and tight jeans. My thoughts jumped to later, sheltered from a
snowstorm in a dimly lit café, hunched over mugs of cinnamon-laced hot cider,
her blue eyes and flaming red hair tugging on my heart as I sat in ♫The
Shadow Of Her Smile♫. Still later, a dark sky arched high above a
street lamp shining down on the snow covered sidewalk as our feet crunched
along, bodies shivering inside our clothes, anxious to get to her apartment to
enjoy each other’s warmth. ♫For
Once In My Life♫, I was in love.
♫Where Do I Begin?♫ It is probably true that the last person you would
expect to make a mature decision about a potential lifetime mate would be an
unrealistic older child of twenty who couldn’t remember whether the little
magnets that sent a punched card to the correct pocket were powered by a pulse
from the cam contact or the detector switch. More alarming, I didn’t care about
cams and switches and detectors that morning.
I went back down the elevator and out into the middle of West
52nd Street to build a snowman. But of course there is absolutely nowhere you
can build a snowman on West 52nd Street,
except perhaps on the roof of a parked car.
♫Just In Time♫, I
stopped myself from making a mess on top of a very plain late model automobile
when I realized I was approaching an unmarked police car.
What I remember best about the
girl is she was nice to me. Most young
women I met at age 20 looked right through me as though I was a sheet of glass,
like the door in the office building they pushed aside and went through each
morning. To get upstairs to a job, to
earn money, to buy pretty clothes, to attract a man like me. But not me.
In our twenties, most boys and
girls were unaware we were simply at the age for chasing after someone else’s
life we wanted to share. ♫That
Old Devil Moon♫ had a simple reproductive battle plan that demanded we couple soon, while we still
might live long enough to raise human children to the age of their own coupling. We humans had no better game plan than a ♫Firefly♫.
Most of us ran around and tried to
look smart, pretty or handsome. We hoped
to meet the one who would serve our fancy, and maybe even our needs. ♫I May Be Wrong♫, but I probably had no idea what my real needs were.
One definite need was to eat, so I
went back upstairs to my job and ♫I Got
Rhythm♫. I finally came to understand the music of the
spheres, the interposer magnets and how to set 8 thousandths of an inch adjustment
on the card feed blade. ♫Maybe
This Time♫ I would remember to turn off the power before probing the circuits.
For many of my friends, their one
true love or a reasonable facsimile eventually showed up. Or they got tired of searching and settled
for companionship or sex. Some gazed with new eyes over old ground that held past partners.
And if their old lovers were now spoken for, one could certainly find the
old personalities wrapped around new candidates. Some of my friends hoped what didn’t work in
the past would work now. “♫They
Can’t Take That Away From Me♫,” they said. Many were disappointed to
find you unlearn a good lesson at your own peril.
Evidently all of us believed five
or six dates at the movies or tucked into a booth in a quiet bar were enough to
form the basis of a lifetime commitment. Some of us were right.
Biology pounded at the door and
families, parsons, chapels, gown makers, formal attire renters and honeymoon
destinations coaxed young lovers toward cementing their union. One
of ♫My
Girl’s♫ friends had already
married a boy who sold hot dogs downtown in an office building to earn money to
buy her pretty clothes that made her attractive. ♫But Not For Me♫. I wanted the girl who
promised she’d sail away with me on a ship called the ♫The Good Life♫.
“For us,” I told her, “it’s ♫A
Time For Love♫.”
“♫This I All I Ask♫,” she
answered, “♫I Wanna Be Around♫.”
“♫Because Of You♫,” I
said, “I will never walk that ♫Boulevard of Broken Dreams♫.”
“♫The
Best Is Yet To Come♫,” she said.
Tony Bennett may have said the
same each of the three times he married.
I still feel that way after nearly fifty years of marriage. And if Tony and I met again on an elevator, we
might agree that for us, the birds, the
bees and the marriage industry, ♫The Music Never Ends♫.
.copyright 2013
by David Griffin
