Met a German guy at a karaoke bar. Dimples. Not the German guy. The bar was named Dimples.
He sat next to me at this celeb-fave bar in Burbank. Burbank, California.
He leaned over my arm and pointed to #135 in the song list book.
"Neil Diamond, yah? 'Forever in Blue Jeans'? Yah?"
I looked up into the brightly squinted blue eyes of who I would come to know later as Dennis.
Dennis Dennis Full of Shame
That’s what I call him now.
In a German accent and stilted laugh, we took turns picking out songs for each other that we’d never sing. We threatened each other with Phoebe Snow songs, pitched our own bravado with Lynard Skynard trivia, and high-fived when we both saw Neil Young’s’ “Old Man” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” at the same time.
Dennis Dennis Full of Shame.
I knew you in 4 songs or less.
"So your accent?"
He said he’s here because he likes the weather and is enjoying American culture. I told him he was cute. He countered with a shy smile and started picking at the label on his beer.
"I’m strange though."
How strange?
"Trust me. Strange. I think these dark thoughts."
"Well, you are German."
And he laughed the bright and innocent laugh of a shy boy who just got poked in the ribs by the loud, laughing girl in the class that he’s been wondering about.
It was so soon, so inappropriate – this conversation. The place, this barstool, the friend I came with and was ignoring because the cute and warm German guy with the dark thoughts is talking to me. I trust him. He’s coughed up something he’s ashamed of already. He’s warning me, testing me. Can she handle me/it/that/them? Can anyone?
So he’s taking himself too seriously too soon.
"What kind of music do you like?" I cut the moment a different way.
He said "dark, mostly electronica."
And I saw him in the paned shadows of moonlight invading his white, starkly decorated Ikea apartment. I saw him standing staring into his opened closet full of darkness and things that only he could see, things he showed no one because no one’s capable of keeping their retinas from detaching in the light of such easy and simple truths that only exist in the otherwise palatable human heart.
I loved him harder and longer and more passionately than any woman, even his mother, could in that one moment. All because he hung his head telling me about the music he loved.
"I’m strange that way."
"How strange? What’s strange?"
"Ask my friends. They’ll tell ya."
I did. And they didn’t. They were drunk. They laughed at me, and they laughed at him. They laughed at him for talking to the girl that would ask why he was strange.
The more I pressed, the more nervous he got. With an empty beer bottle in front of both of us, he crossed his arms and held himself at the bar.
"I think darkly."
"So do I," I coughed up.
He shook his head. "No, I believe in dead people."
And I felt my first wave of hot hazard. Was it because I was stuck in an unscripted M. Night Shymalan script? Was it because he wasn’t at all joking? Was it because he was German, and he would never have thrown that kind of joke around? For any number of reasons?
Hell, I talk to dead people. Every day, at work, at the gas station. Dead people, they're everywhere these days ...
"Do you talk to these people?"
He looked up at me and nodded softly. The lousy drunk karaokers squealed in the background. This freckle-faced, red-headed wide square face looked so odd shielding this shame. He was so bright and sunny on the outside.
"That’s cool."
…
He continued to hold himself tighter. His eyes began to dart ruthlessly around the bar. He feigned a distracted interested in the Lohan-alikes singing “Bloody Sunday” at the mic.
"So are those people – are they evil?" This was a test question.
"No." Simply, no.
"You’ve lost people in your life? That you’ve loved."
That soft nod again. His eyes wide open with feeling and 'is it okay?' A black hole of a pain so seductive, elusive and gorgeous in its simplicity and rarity.
I touched him on the arm. Any words would scare him away. But I wanted him to feel me, in some way, and maybe some spark of my infinite sadness scraping against his conversation with dead people would relieve him, and he’d order another beer, and we’d share more laughs and sorrows at this karaoke bar in Burbank. Burbank, California.
He drew himself away, motioned to his pals he was ready to leave. They gathered all their girls for the evening, packed them up and headed towards the door. I gave him my email because I wanted to stay in touch, send him my little book of pain when I got around to writing it, let him know he’s not alone in the dark. I shook his hand to pass my email to him.
It fell to the ground. Whatever love I had, whatever you want to call it, was laying on the grimy, sticky karaoke bar. He had criminalized my concern, my unrequited concern, by dropping it carelessly. And all of a sudden we both were in this accessory moment.
Dennis Dennis Full of Shame was danger to me now, as I was to him. I loved him until he saw it. I felt him until he felt him. I lost him just when he started to land. Something … something scared him. Was it me?
That night, Dennis Dennis Full of Shame walked out the door, into the night. He left me alone in that stupid bar in Burbank. Burbank, California.
He’s out there. I don’t know where.
I don’t know where …
I don’t know where …
I don’t know where …
But I’m out here too …
~~~
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