Sometimes luck just
isn’t with you. On any given night fortune in general may be riding
you but situational luck not so much. On a foul weathered evening in
1982 late fall the dice just did not roll my way and they were dice I
had so prayed would fall my way for so many years it was
heartbreaking.
Years ago in
mid-autumn I was underemployed. I was a lawyer without a paying job,
hence the underemployed reference. When you leave law school they
tell you that if you pass the bar you are a lawyer and that in most
cases you will remain so. The money may not come but you are a
lawyer. Graduating from a mid-level law school with mid level grades
in the midst of a big recession was not the career starter it might
have been.
My roommate was also
underemployed. He had a great voice and he used it to good effect
most of the time. But every now and then what came out of his mouth
came out at the wrong time and in the wrong tone. He was a
broadcaster who had told his boss to piss off one to many times.went
on a spur of the moment tour of North American by sports arenas.
Often we just lay on
the couch for hours stoned out of our gourds debating the hierarchy
of fast food, McDonald’s vs Burger King vs Taco Bell. The nuanced
discussion was scintillating. Once in the middle of this we had seen
a blurb about one of the old hockey barns being razed or was being
considered for destruction. My roommate had been a denizen of
Olympia where the Red Wings played. He loved the old hockey halls.
Well we so totally
and quite completely under-employed and we decided to head off in
search of America via basketball and hockey venues. Damn we thought
we have to go. Having seen the imminent threat to whatever rink it
was we decided we had better see some of these classic places before
they are all gone. Off we went. The trip was grand.
It wasn't all hockey
rinks and civic centers. You might not believe this but we had
breakfast at the White House. But that is another story. We saw the
Leaf’s play the Blues after breaking into Maple Leaf Gardens that
too is another story. And we saw the Sixers with Dr. J. play the
Pistons, again another story.
We began our journey
by heading off to New York City for some ungodly reason. I don’t
know what it was for sure. I think my friend had a line on a
possible radio gig. My memory is that we had dinner at some
overpriced Manhattan bar with his contact. The job thing didn’t pan
out and we needed someplace to be for a day or two. Well that was
simple, my brother had a couch and how far could Vermont be from NYC?
A phone call was made and it was all arranged.
Off we headed off to
Bennington Vermont to where my oldest brother was living. He was an
instructor at the college there and he had rented a house up in the
hills. Vermont was right up his alley. He had left the swamps of
Jersey and spent most of his time after in the area around
Schenectady and Albany New York. These were the years prior to his
divorce from his first wife.
I had gone up to New
York a couple of times when marriage one was still intact to see him.
He tried to be the cool brother. While I was there for a couple of
weeks one summer (in Schenectady) Rosemary’s Baby came out.
It was 1968 and I was twelve years old. He took me to see it.
Rosemary’s Baby had tits in it. My brother was an instant god to
me.
Well that marriage
had crashed and burned. He had lost pretty big in the divorce. From
out of the ruins he took some jobs that turned out to set forth his
future path in life. Whether it started just before the marriage
ended or just after he had gone into marketing rustproofing. He
worked fore Ziebart and when he came out to Michigan to their
corporate we would meet up. Ziebart's headquarters was about 5 miles
away from my apartment.
These get togethers
were happening when I was going to law school. If he was in town we
would get together. We would go to some quirky buffet and eat all
you could eat frog legs. Eventually I graduated into the big
recession and was thus unemployed. Thank you Ronald Reagan. He in
the meantime but had somehow swung this teaching gig.
Anyway after the
quick phone call was to make sure he was home we headed up to
Vermont. The roads were winding and wet as we tooled on up into New
England. Eventually we met up with him in his cabin up the mountain.
As brothers are wont to do we had to celebrate.
Celebration was not
to be as easy as I thought. There was about a fifth of a bottle of
scotch at the house, not enough, nowhere near enough. The bars and
the liquor stores were back down the mountain. We had pulled into
his place mid darkness. Still we were at the house only a few moments
when the trip down the mountain was decided upon. We took his car. I
think my brother had an old BMW at the time.
Back down the
winding road we went until we finally pulled into an Adirondack kind
of bar It was a real log cabin and had signs that glowed neon green and
said Genesee beer. Being on an adventure my roommate and I wanted to
drink, and drink a great deal. After a few rounds my brother who had
a prior DWI decided he had to call it quits and headed back up the
mountain. He offered us a ride but we declined claiming we would
find a way back up on our own.
With my brother gone
the drinking got serious. We were pounding back pitchers of beer.
The bar maid thought we were interesting or at least humorous and we
thought she was cute, well I did and that was before the beer goggles
were on. We talked, we flirted, we glanced back and forth as she was
pulling the tap and filling frosted mugs.
About an hour before
closing time the barmaid offered me the option of staying at her
place. Was I in heaven? In all my life a good looking bar maid had
never offered me a shot at going home with her. Even with the
ancillary offer of a couch to my roommate things were looking good.
Bubbles burst.
Balloons pop.
Brothers return.
My dear brother
worried about my fate had given himself to sober up. He decided
leaving me down in town when the weather was turning (and it was
starting to sleet) was not the thing to do. With just a few minutes
before I was going to get the girl for once he walked in and said,
“Hey I am here to save you”. Like a balloon with a slow leak I
deflated. My roommate just kept muttering obscenities so only I
could hear it. I looked at the barmaid and she just smiled. Her eyes
had that look that said without question, “Hey he made the trip all
the way back down here to make sure you were safe you got to go
dude…”
Who knows maybe she
was a psychopath ala Sharon Stone or Glen Close. Who knows maybe she
was the “one” although I seriously doubt that. But truth be told
I never got that close to taking home the barmaid again.
Fortune was with me,
but luck was not.
