Cry For Something that Might've Bean

They were on 1-95 somewhere, munching on Ramen Noodles (dry) and cheese sticks, when it came on.  Even the DJ was making fun of poor Frank.

A disco version of some hit of his. He was trying to keep up (keep upright), while disco lights swirled around him.  You could picture him in the center of the dance floor, looking embarrassed.  The agent/adviser would be asking him to pose like Vinnie Barbarino in a minute.

"This is every singer's nightmare!"
"It's not so bad. You can hear the bones of the song," she had loved that phrase when she heard it and tried to work it into as many conversations as she could when trying to be Smart about music.

"Please.  When you see me, up on a stage, trying to update my music like that.  Just shoot me."

She refused to say the oath out loud and just nodded.  She had no idea how to tell him that that's exactly who he was.  A 45ish over-the-hill former semi-rock star, the least popular member of a 4 person band, the band she still had to explain to people.  And everyone still mistook him for Ringo. Popular for 2 years, and then HE was the guy who left first.  Little did he know that was as good as it would get.
And the act, last night, and then this afternoon, at bars, at rodeos and farm festivals, when she was only one of 5 people in the audience.  He was on stage, trying SO HARD, for jokes, for laughs, for attention.  She loved him in all his efforts, still smiled at every bad joke.  Tried to warm up the audience by making friends with them.  Tried to act as if she wasn't his intern from a different job.  Tried to act like an audience member.

But last night, he was Sinatra doing disco.

"The song does have great bones.  I should dig out his earlier recordings of it, "

But just as the DJ had been making fun of him before, he put on the recording from the 60's, a decade earlier.

"That's a guy who has just had a one night stand with a girl who he wants to marry in the morning.  He's trying to play it off, and he knows that she's much too free, or something like that.  But he wants her.  Wants the whole she-bang."

And then, his first recording, solemn, lots of strings.  Slowly, the strings taking to flight.  He'd rather say no, because you are driving him crazy.  He'd rather die a lonely old man than be just one of your followers.  And it's breaking his heart, because this is the ultimatum, he's laid his heart at your feet.  But he can walk offstage proud.  That's an actor!!"

At this monologue, she knew that he was being won over.  She loved the corny songs. The "Standards"  the Broadway show tunes.  And he did too, sometimes.  individually, not as a whole.  She imagined it was like segregation.  You professed to hate a whole race, except for a few exceptions-the people you knew.  And then, before you knew it, all your friends were black and you were happy.  The End.

Taller Than the Tallest Tree Is

"Poor Van Gogh. During his life, he only ever sold one painting"
"And I think that was to his brother"
"Claude Monet was more successful. He figured out how to sell his stuff. In fact he was so good at it, they named selling stuff after him."
"Named it after him??"
"To this day! They call it Monetizing!"

She noticed that he started stealing the joke from her, at first when he was mad or wanted to get a rise out of her.  She knew he first loved her when he used it onstage.

For the first few weeks, and for much longer than she suspected it would last, her heart would jump whenever he walked into the room.  2 months in, angry, annoyed and fed up with him, she'd still react like the 8 year old who fell in love with him on TV.  No matter how awful he was, he could be incredible in new ways. He'd make a joke, a small kindness, in lieu of apology. And she'd feel blessed to be his sole audience.  Inside those moments, she began to love him as a human. And it was this Love that surprised her the most.  The residual glory day stuff, the second hand glamour, that was superficially easy.

But he was letting her IN. And for that, she'd always be grateful. To peer into spmeone's soul, a true gift. The Persona melted away, and he became Himself.  And soon, that was the larger part of who she knew him to be.  After that summer, her heart leap for the man who was playing the role, burdened with The Persona.  Like living with the Grand Canyon. Soon you stop taking in the vastness, and focus on the crevices and path directly in front of you.  But early on, that vastness took her breath away. And all he had to do was laugh at himself.

Later, during his "difficulties", she'd try to get back to this place.

He was delicate about how he reciprocated this worship, especially looking at her in later years. Her loyalty, his only sense of having made a lasting impact on the world. Not just an audience, not selling one album at a time. But someone who shared and stored his memories. She took his breath away by taking care of him.

That last Fall, that Lost Weekend, that Lost Year(s). She cooked for him. Went out of her way to find Tab, even after they stopped making it.  When nobody else would.  She was always kind to him, especially when he didn't deserve it.  He took her for granted like the forest behind The Farmhouse. The oaks were Old Growth, and always seemed to tower over him. Unpredictably large, like a surreal dream. Strangely tall, he was surprised every time. She was there. Like the trees.

Frank Sinatra's All The Way