The clickety-clank of the weights and sweat dripping into my eyes didn’t render me blind and it certainly didn’t stop the kid next to me from noticing my eyes follow someone across the room.
“Dude, what would you do with a 50-year-old woman?”
“Things your 21-year-old girlfriend won’t ever do to, for or with you because she is not comfortable with you and you don’t know what you are doing in bed anyway.”
“Dude, you probably have trouble getting it up, not to mention you’d pull a muscle doing anything kinky.”
I waved at him to come closer and told him I left my tape measure in the car and said if he was willing to take it out and wave it around I was game.
“Dude, I don’t want to embarrass you.”
I winked at him and said in a mocking voice, “Dude, if I unzip my pants you’ll hear a loud thump and then wonder what hit the floor. My mohel didn’t cut, he added.”
“Mohel, what the hell is a mohel?”
“Don’t worry about it. Fifty isn’t old and I am not 50.”
This time his eyes grew more thoughtful and he went silent so I pumped out another set.
Age Is A Number
It turns out the kid is 33 and his girlfriend is 26.
When I told him 21 and 26 sounded the same to me he said no way and asked if I was serious.
I told him I know there are distinct differences but at this point the age difference between them and me is so great I am not sure the conversation would be all that good.
He responded as I expected and said conversation was secondary on his list and asked me again if I was serious about older women.
“Age is relative. Almost every woman I have ever had a real relationship is closer to 50 than 40. If you have the right connection it is a whole different ball game.”
“Dude, you know how to talk. You make it sound like back in the day you had a good time.”
“I was just an average Joe. Loved and lost a little bit. I tasted life.”
I Tasted Life
I didn’t see the kid at the gym for a while and forgot he existed.
That is what happens when you get pulled so far out of your comfort zone you don’t remember what it was like to relax.
Apparently he remembered me because two weeks later he made a crack about the old life taster and made fun of my jump shot.
That didn’t bother me because I didn’t have much of one when I was 25.
He called me dude again and I told him that I expected to hear that in LA and not in Texas.
We went back and forth for a while and then he asked me to tell him what it meant to say I had tasted life.
“I had experiences that turned me inside out and upside down. Some were simple and some were with other people.”
“Did you ever have a woman make you crazy?”
“Don’t they all?”
“C’mon man, you’re old and you don’t know me. I need to know if it’s worth it.”
“I can’t tell you what to do, but I can say I have moved heaven and earth to try to make things work. I have danced with the devil in the pale moonlight and unlike Meatloaf I said I would do anything for love including that thing he won’t do.”
And then I felt my age because he didn’t know the Batman reference and said he had never heard of Meatloaf.
Told me his dad had said something about going to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show but he hadn’t ever watched it.
So I pulled up the video below and told him to watch it sometime.
The Commitments
It is relatively rare that I have trouble sleeping but lately sleep and I have been at odds.
Most of the time I have put on headphones and listened to music or one of the books on tape that I have loaded on my phone.
But like Meatloaf sings some days it don’t come easy so I put on Netflix and turned on The Commitments.
I always liked it, saw it in the theater when it came out and probably watched it a time or two in the years since.
Afterwards I started wondering what happened to the guy who played the lead singer and looked him up online.
Didn’t take long to discover he and his fellow cast mates look pretty damn old now and that made me laugh.
The movie came out in ’91 and many of the actors are roughly my age meaning that when it came out we were all fresh faced twenty-somethings and today…not so much.
****
In a moment I am going to wrap this up and go to bed.
Tomorrow is going to come far too soon and bring with it a reality that I am less than pleased with because I have to deal with trouble I didn’t create.
That makes me crazy.
Why?
Because I am adept at getting myself into trouble and if I am going to have to pay face the consequences off a particular action I’d like to have enjoyed earning them,.
But I’ll handle it because I am not a fresh faced twenty-something and I have earned the lines on my forehead and the few gray hairs that are trying to build a home on the side of my head.
I always liked Bowie, was never my favorite but there are a few songs that touch me and this is one.
Some people prefer this version, but I think I am ambivalent.
But the lyrics, well there are a few lines that I catch my ear.
I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing, will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be heroes, just for one dayAnd you, you can be mean
And I, I’ll drink all the time
‘Cause we’re lovers, and that is a fact
Yes we’re lovers, and that is thatThough nothing, will keep us together
We could steal time, just for one day
We can be heroes, forever and ever
What’d you say?
We can be heroes, just for one day and sometimes that is all you need.
Good night, wish me luck because tomorrow I’ll try to be a hero.
