Caterwauling

“Prince of Tides” time. I don’t even have to look up the quote to nail the closing monologue word for word …

We spent our last hours together at the Rainbow Room, dancing a slow dance, just like in my dream.

I held her in my arms, as I told her that it was her doing that I could go back. Six weeks before I was ready to leave my wife, my kids.

I wanted out of everything, but she changed that. She changed me.

For the first time I felt like I had something to give back to the women in my life. They deserved that. So I returned to my southern home and my southern life, and it is in the presence of my woman and children that I acknowledge my life, my destiny.

I am a teacher, a coach, and a well-loved man. And it is more than enough.

In New York, I learned that I needed to love my mother and father in all their flawed, outrageous humanity. And in families there are no crimes beyond forgiveness.

But it is the mystery of life that sustains me now. And I look to the North and I wish again that there were two lives apportioned to every man and every woman.

At the end of every day I drive through the city of Charleston, and as I cross the bridge that will take me home I feel the words building inside me.

I can’t stop them or tell you why I say them, but as I reach the top of the bridge, these words come to me in a whisper.

I say them as prayer, as regret, as praise.

I say, “Lowenstein… Lowenstein…”

I think I’ve mentioned Mom’s psychic-ness. And she dragged out a name from my five-years-ago past out of the blue this week.

Later that day, I heard from him.

How does she DO that?

She said she thinks I broke his heart. I had to give that one some thought since all I did was protect mine.

The whole mention is timely because my self-defense mechanism is in high gear. Not *as* high, mind you. There are some chinks in the armor after years of use. And, I didn’t think there were any real stakes back then.

I wonder if Mom was right about that after all. Of course, she’s right about everything.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was up for anything. After a fight, I became willing to be wooed. I was 100% ready to do whatever he wanted. And when it came time to head for the door, I almost forgot my coat on the way out, literally — that’s how quickly I sprinted.

If anything made him miss me, it had to be that. That I wanted nothing from him. That I didn’t give a damn about his money or the power or the life that went with it.

I wanted to see inside and know the person no one else did, and I was OK leaving with those secrets.

It’s still my secret. And if you guess, I will deny it.

In any case, I never romanticized it or him. I just wonder now whether that’s a blueprint to use again and again, or whether doing the arm’s length thing with an iron fist hurt me instead.

I didn’t give him a chance to hurt me. But I wonder if I also didn’t give him a real chance to please me if that might have been what he wanted to do.

I guess we’ll never know, although the universe has a funny, funny way of making sure you tie up those loose ends.

And if it does so by creating more, well, I’m going to make a big bow out of them and hope for the best.