Roger Zee Memoirs
Debbie 10/17/20
Just read an article on Facebook about situational relationships blossoming during the Covid pandemic. Someone more than a friend but less than committed. Not perfect but good enough for now. Hey, that's been my life story, LOL! But I keep waking up thinking about Debbie. Welcome to another episode of the "Life and Times of a Pandemic Musician."
I've always gone for situational relationships. You meet someone who makes it easy as long as you ignore the obvious red flags. You say to yourself, "Nobody's perfect. It's not forever." How I handled Debbie's something I'm so proud about, though.
Back in the late 70s, I worked as a temp all over Manhattan transcribing doctors' medical dictation and answering phones -- hospitals, offices, you name it. The jobs ran anywhere from a day to a month. Like many other gigs I worked, these no longer exist! Doctors now dictate directly into a phone connected to India where it goes into Microsoft Word. And who writes down messages with the advent of answering machines. Not to mention that no one one can read my hand writing anymore, LOL!
Back then, these gigs allowed me the freedom to chase my music whenever something good came up. On one Tuesday, I got a call from a friend who just scored a gig at Max's Kansas City the next day after a band cancelled. So I took Wednesday off to rehearse with his group. We killed it that night at Max's! On days I couldn't get work, I found myself with a lot of free time on my hands. So I used to take advantage of the dollar, second-run movie theaters in Times Square, cheap foreign movies at The Quad Cinema on West 13th Street, or the inexpensive movies at The Waverly on 323 6th Avenue in the Village.
One afternoon, I remember feeling very lonely and decided to walk down from my apartment on W22nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenue to check out Neil Young's movie, "Journey Through the Past." Once I entered the theater, it appeared quite empty. But I did notice a rather tall, striking, casually dressed brunette with shortish hair sitting by herself in the middle of a row about halfway to the screen. Feeling desperate and more aggressive than usual, I sat down one seat away from her with some popcorn. Using that as a ploy, I managed to strike up a conversation. Turned out that she lived in an apartment building directly across from mine on W22nd Street. So I walked her home and we exchanged phone numbers. I called her the next day or so and set up a date for drinks. I found her easy to talk to, intelligent, great body, but what we used some call a "butter face."
I didn't let that bother me at first. We had so much going on. After drinks on our first date we ended up a my place and she spent the night. She felt so good but when I looked her in the eye in the morning I felt trouble on the way. How could this work if I couldn't look at her with love in my heart. But I figured out a way, much to my detriment.
So we started dating. I even invited her out to my parents house on Long Island for an afternoon on my mom and dad's 30 foot sailboat. I almost never did that because my parents always proved ruthless in their criticism -- not that I felt particularly deserving of anything at that struggling time in my life. I don't actually remember them saying anything negative about her but maybe that's because they finally realized not to say anything, LOL.
After a while, much to my disgrace, I treated Debbie as a "Booty Call." I would go downtown looking for women and if nothing came up, I would phone her at midnight and ask if we could get together. She usually said yes. But I found it hard to live with myself so I stopped doing it. After a few months, I reached out to her again in a moment of weakness and she surprised me by telling me she had just gotten engaged! I congratulated her profusely. I really wanted to love her but I just couldn't make it happen with the lights on...
So on this brisk, Fall pre-election, Covid-19 spike day, I once again castigate myself for not going the full distance. One more situational relationship down the tubes. Now caught in my personal lockdown, I can no longer can go out to meet new people - my old old standby saving grace. Sure I can go on dating sites, but find myself mostly just getting ghosted. So instead, I watch my friends on Facebook posting photos of themselves partying with no masks, no social distancing, and no thoughts of the peril. I just shake my head, grab my Mexican Fender Precision bass, and attempt to glom the fantastic bass lines to the epic Bruce Hornsby album, "The Way It Is." One <3
YouTube - The Way It Is - Bruce Hornsby
©2020 Roger Zee