Roger Zee Memoirs
Sandy 11/06/20
Back in the late Seventies, I rarely went out to bars or clubs on a holiday night because I found that most women stayed home then. But I made an exception one Thanksgiving and that's when I met Sandy. Welcome to another excerpt from my memoirs, "Life And Times of a Pandemic Musician."
I always spent Thanksgiving with family at Mom's sister Rhoada and husband Morty's home in Hicksville, Long Island, NY. I usually walked the ten blocks to Penn Station from my apartment and took the Long Island Railroad. But this year, my uncle, Ira Kuhlik, the world's largest gold trader, offered to give me a lift if I met him at his huge apartment overlooking Central Park. How could I refuse? I adored him. He lived the Playboy lifestyle -- always out and about with beautiful ladies who made a sport of trying to take advantage of him, but not in a good way! Interestingly enough, we navigated the trip by listening to a cassette tape from his telephone answering machine where Aunt Rhoada had left him the directions, LOL!
Despite the immense traffic, we made it there with no major issues. Their small house in a mass-produced Levittown-inspired neighborhood had to fit my three sisters, Karen, Lisa, and Liz, as well as Aunt Rhoada and Uncle Morty's four children, Susie, Barbara, Richie, and Joel, and of course my Grandma Hattie, Grandpa Jack, and Uncle Ira's wife Eileen and three kids, Barry, Laura, and Iris. In addition, each year included family friends and kids, many of whom whose connection I never really remembered but enjoyed anyway! My Aunt served the food buffet style and we all jockeyed for seats in either the kitchen, dining, or living room. But the second you got up to refill your plate, good luck getting your spot back, LOL!
I'll never forget one Thanksgiving sitting in the living room finishing off my plate when my Grandma, a heavy set, short woman, sat down on the couch across from me, nonchalantly lifted up her skirt, pulled down one stocking, and gave herself a shot of insulin in the thigh. In hindsight, I shouldn't have acted surprised when later in life my doctor called me in a panic after my annual checkup to inform me that blood tests showed serious Type 2 Diabetes. Of course I didn't believe him. How could that be? I'm a martial artist in perfect shape - tall and thin. Duh!
I always found these visits very stressful. Everybody bragging about their recent successes and wanting to know about mine. Pushing thirty, I hadn't achieved much in life. I lived in a tiny studio apartment in Manhattan with my parakeet Louise, played in mostly unsuccessful bands, skipped from woman to woman when I could find one, and worked as a temporary secretary. My parents made it very clear they viewed me as a massive disappointment.
So after Uncle Ira dropped me off, I knew I couldn't stay home. Sometimes I feel like a massive shark, incessantly swimming through life in order to grab enough oxygen to stay alive. I dub it the "Theory of Maximum Exposure." The more people I meet, the better the odds of connecting with the right person. So I took a chance, grabbed a subway a short way uptown, maybe to Doctor Generosities or farther north, where I managed to lasso Sandy, a tall, prim and proper, dirty blond up from Washington, DC, visiting family. Don't know how I did it, but I convinced her to ride the subway with me back downtown for a nightcap. Ah, the gift of gab!
So I brought Sandy to this charming Jazz club on W23 and 7th Avenue, just around the corner from my apartment. She loved it. We listened to music, chatted amiably, and one thing led to another. Ended up spending the weekend together. Lacking real money, I took her down to W 14th Street and bought her bright colored gloves and a pink beret among other things. Then I introduced her to Cuban Chinese food on W 13 Street between 9th and 10th Avenues. We settled on a schedule of making love in the morning, again in the afternoon followed by a nap, and then of course at bedtime. During the evening, I took her around to all the live music clubs.
That Sunday, I walked her up to Penn Station and put her on the train back to Washington. It left me with a huge hole in my heart and not much to fill it with. We wrote, called, and made plans for me to spend a long weekend at her apartment. She introduced me to Washington as we settled in to our usual routine.
A month later, I went down to visit her again. But by the end of my stay, we both felt the passion and thrill fading away. So we let it go gently...
Back then, the shark always found fertile feeding grounds. Clubs and bars come and go, and after all I resided right in the middle of the greatest city in the world! But now in the midst of the Pandemic, this shark's got nowhere to go except getting ghosted online. So on this beautiful Indian Summer Friday, as the Pandemic surges out of control and the presidential election interminably winds down but still remains too close to call, I dream of Sandy and the wonderful NYC holiday magic we shared. Then I pick up my Mexican Fender Jazz bass, take two Aleve to ease the pain in my arthritic fingers, and learn the bass parts to Daryl Hall & John Oates' classic "Abandoned Luncheonette" album. One <3
YouTube - When the Morning Comes - Daryl Hall / John Oates
©2020 Roger Zee