Alex Chilton’s Blues Revisited

Those who choose to ignore the lessons of TV history are truly doomed to repeat it. On November 13th Felix Unger was asked to leave his place of residence, this request came from his wife..so goes the opening of the TV version of the Odd Couple.

Fast forward thirty years and on November 13th I’m standing on the corner of New York Avenue and Main street in Huntington NY (that’s on Long Island) with a girl in one hand and a diamond ring in the other. She is mine and the ring is hers or at least it was soon to be hers. This has all happened by surprise, we shouldn’t be standing here together on this day and I had no plans to do what I’m about to do. She had left Los Angeles a week before, gone home to see her family, my being there was a surprise intended to take the edge off of the fact that I would be gone for the next two weeks. A few days earlier I was informed that I’d have to take a last minute trip per my job’s request, arrangements were made to stop in NY first and on Saturday November 13th were walking happily down the street shopping together. I don’t think we’ve been this happy in a while, it’s been a stormy affair since I arrived at her door at her invitation. I’ve known her since I was 16 when I was a shy, sad boy and she was a boisterous, wild, and awe inspiring girl; this is a second chance for us that’s slipping away.

There’s a moment in a good tragedy when you feel that there’s a chance, just a small chance that the people make it out OK. I sometimes imagine an alternate ending universe where Butch and Sundance get away and Sonny Corleone has E-Z Pass, because I want to believe that good things can happen against great odds. It was this kind of optimism in the face of adversity that has put a ring in my hand on November 13th. To quote Big Star:

I’ve been built up and trusted

Broke down and busted

But they’ll get theirs and we’ll get ours

Just if we can

Just, ah, hold on

Hold on

I suppose I was trying my best to hold on long enough to figure out what was going wrong with me so I could figure try to figure out what was wrong with us. Why have I stopped leaving the house except for work, why am I drinking so much, why am I crying for the first time since I was a child, why are we drifting apart. Back in New York none of these problems mattered, we found ourselves back home together for the first time in over a year and it seemed like a few days of sleeping in her old bed at her parents home along with the fall air would bring us back together faster than anything because we were having fun just like we used. We talked about our problems and ways to work things out.

It was during a hopeful walk down a familiar street that we saw in the window a classically crafted, beautifully understated diamond ring. We stood outside in the cold and I told her how beautiful it would look on her and she, who never wore jewelry, told me how much she’d love to get a ring like that from me someday. Maybe it was the hope that we both had or maybe it was the way her eyes lit up when she tried it on and it fit perfectly like she was born with it on. Whatever it was I walked out with a ring in one hand and her in the other and when we crossed the street to sit on a bench and I took her hand I remembered the date and said:

“We can’t do this today it’s November 13th, on November 13th Felix Unger was asked to leave his place of residence. It’s a bad day to get engaged”

Unfortunately she didn’t see the significance in this piece of TV history because he looked at me with her doe eyes and told me that the date didn’t matter and I relented and we were officially to be wed and I was ecstatic because I couldn’t picture my life without her.

Like the eye of a hurricane, the calm we felt was a misleading indicator of things to come. It seems like the problems I was experiencing were more than I was up to at the time and I refused to help myself or let her help for fear that if she knew the depths to which my heart and hopes had sunk she’d surely be gone. While she held up most of her part of the bargain to keep things working between us I became more and more withdrawn, I drank more and more until I did little more than that around her. I stopped talking and she responded to my silence with equal silence and then anger until we had drifted so far apart that we no longer could look at each other and smile. Ironically I had accomplished through silence exactly what I hoped to avoid. It came as no surprise when I found once again her in one hand and a ring in the other only this time she hugged me and said goodbye.

I was alone, which is all I was afraid of and also the only place I felt comfortable anymore.

It’s been four years since that November 13th and three since the she left and in that time I’ve changed a lot. I’ve learned to not drown my feelings and also to express them in a positive way. I no longer hide behind drinking and silence and I’ve tried to make amends as best as possible to the girl in this story. As for the girl she is doing well and we both recognize that our engagement was probably not our best idea even if we did it because we desperately wanted to make it work.

With the passing of time I’ve accepted and learned to appreciate the things she and I went through and although I’m fully aware of how things end I’d still ask her to marry me, I’d probably wait until the 14th though. It wouldn’t change the outcome but it might have resulted in less heartache. Plus, I wouldn’t think of Tony Randall whenever I thought of how close we were to being married.

I doubt she’ll ever read this but I’m thinking of her today and wishing her well. Thanks for helping me grow up and learn to live.