“He kissed her until her knees buckled and she felt like a swimmer taken with a cramp, sinking helplessly under buffeting waves, sinking deeper and deeper to the point where it no longer mattered whether she surfaced or not.”

Thank you Rosemary Rodgers. That little morsel is from Wicked Loving Lies—a story of tumultuous passion, impetous desire and searing love. I found it in the common room at the Fort Bragg Harbor RV park yesterday. This common room is also known as the bathroom, laundry facility, anonymous-stuffed-black-trash-bag depository and nightmare storage. Why am I reading such smut? Smart money is on me living alone in a trailer far away from home. But tonight, I’m on a stake-out and needed some good, ready material.
Currently I am parked out front of 45080 Main St, Mendocino, CA, better known as Dick’s Place. Dick’s is my current Destee-Nation t-shirt crush and I’m not leaving town until I talk to the manager about bringing this shirt to the world at large. This watering hole is a good tee-shot from the Pacific and like a church to the locals—a church that’s branded with the smell of beer and the melodies of Hank III. This place sees a steady stream of patrons from open till close. Some of them more than once a day. And I should know. I’ve either been on one of Dick’s bar stools or curbside, five feet from the front door, for the better part of two days waiting for the manager, Yula, to get back from vacation. And I want everyone to know that we’re going to sit here, me, Sue, Streaker and Don Pedro Arteaga; the dark faced and magnificently dressed plantation owner from Louisiana who is in love with the beautiful, golden haired Marisa; waiting patiently until she does. Waiting patiently for Yula, the manager, that is, not Marisa. Although Marisa seems nice.

Some people will go to great lengths for what they want. In my case it happens to be a t-shirt with a line drawing of the front of Dicks, kittywompus inside a Martini glass replete with swizzle stick. Now that’s a wicked and loving design. I can see where some people might see this single minded pursuit of a t-shirt as psychotic, or at least medication worthy. Fair enough. But to understand this impetuous desire and searing love for the t-shirt and its story, one merely needs to substitute “t-shirt” for the current object of their blazing, unquenchable passion and my behavior will start making more sense.

Obsessions, like Furies, have long been misunderstood. Take stalking for instance. What I’m doing right now could be considered stalking, but instead of feeling bad about it I simply like to ask my self the question, “Do I enjoy doing this?” Because if so, how can it be wrong? Stalking has been typecast as illegal by the judicial system. Whereas, I loosely define it as the first stage of unrequited love and/or the third and final stage of the breakup process*.  Stalking is second nature to the human animal; an adaptive survival mechanism inherited from the jealous single celled organisms vying for busty and easy dates to the primordial prom. It’s baked into our DNA, and once triggered, you’re no longer driving your own bus. If she has caller-ID, use a payphone. If she’s seeing some other guy, follow him home and flatten his tires. If the manager’s out of town, pull your trailer onto the sidewalk, get yourself a good trashy novel and put on some Moody Blues.

When pondering life’s questions on what is “right” and “wrong,” I think of what my former high school basketball coach once said, “It ain’t illegal if the ref didn’t see you do it.” Thanks Coach Hancock.

It’s dark now and I’m approaching the end of Chapter Thirty Nine of Wicked Loving Lies. The trailer creeks as someone enters Dicks Place and I’m strangely taken to the heights and depths of intoxicating passion and desire for a t-shirt…beyond time, beyond forgetting.

From somewhere out there,
Gabe

* The first being celebration and getting blind drunk with your friends, and the second begging for her to come back to you. If the second stage doesn’t take, stage three is inevitable.