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The adventure begins! I started writing this in January 2023 on a Storyline time frame starting May 13, 2023! Editing now to May 10.
Could it come true? (It didn't; damn it all!)
It will change. I continue to edit. But the story is complete, perhaps a satisfying read as of Winter Earth Day, January 22, 2023.

Love is. It just is.


"Baby, Get To Me", copyright January 14, 2023, by Gary E. Andrews.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. Another Saturday Night...And I Ain't Got Nobody. May 10, 2023.
2. Working Pains...Six Dollar Ice Cream. Wednesday, May 24 2023.
3. The Price Of Being Pretty...Showdown At Grimy Gulch. Saturday, June 28, 2023.
4. House Guest..."Come On, Baby!" The Elder. Saturday, July 8, 2023.
5. Mrs. No. The Barricades. Saturday July 22, 2023.
6. Ill-At-Ease...The Case of the Exploding Phone.
7. And Your Little Dog Too! Sunday, July 23, 2023.
8. Midnight Slammer...Rounder.
9. Church...Sweet Baby Jesus Revisited.
10. Ain't It Gonna Be Wonderful When We All Get To Heaven...Biscuits And Crazy.
11. Biscuits And Crazy...Parent Two-Fer Blue Plate Special Free-For-All.
12. Table Manners...Table Matters.
13. Buy-In's Remorse. Monday.
14. Getting Over Poison Ivy...True Confessions.
15. Hidden Talents, Has Our Ileace.
THE...BEGINNING:


"BABY, GET TO ME"

1. ANOTHER SATURDAY NIGHT; May 10, 2023.

"Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody..."

I can't remember anything else in that song. It's an old one. It keeps popping into my head, coming out of my mouth as I walk along. It keeps popping; I keep singing. It's Wednesday; not Saturday.

It's warm tonight. I didn't need this raincoat. The National Weather Service weatherman out of Wilmington said it might be cool, and rain late. Ohio spring in 2023 is a weather smorgasbord! Hot one day; cold the next, and in between the next. Hot days; cold nights. I figure I can cover my guitar case with the raincoat if it does rain. I could get wet but it's not far between the open mic at Cubby's Hole and my house. Three blocks. That's why I'm heading home though. It's only 8:30.

Eight-thirty on a Wednesday night, and all I want to do is go home, eat some soup, read my book, go to bed.

I don't have television. I do have a DVD player, single unit with a small screen, and a bunch of dollar discs I bought, used, pig in a poke. I don't know what most of the movies are, who the actors are, just bought them on spec, speculation that they might fill a couple hours. Dollar discs. I don't have a smart-aleck phone. Nobody calls me. I don't call nobody. I have a land-line. It's 2023 and I have a land-line. My internet comes through that line.

So that's who's walking down the street tonight.

The Open Mic at Cubby's Hole was fun enough. Some talented kids, older folks; others, not so. I couldn't understand the words to their songs. I don't know if it was them not enunciating, or me losing my hearing. It doesn't matter. Did I understand the cover songs because I already knew them? Or had the producers and singers already worked out the enunciation and the cover singers sang them just like the record? I don't know. People applauded like they thought they were good. I applauded just to be nice regardless of how well they performed.

I like to think I got more than the polite applause some of them got, a more... spontaneous clapping. I get a little... wired when I play. Maybe I'm reading into it something that's not there. A couple people took the initiative to tell me they liked my songs though.

I think about dressing better if I go again. I just wore a pullover shirt and my cat hat tonight. Old blue jeans. Old blues jeans. I'm gonna put on my raincoat. I'm tired of carrying it draped over my arm; feels... clammy. I lean my guitar case on my groin, accomplish my task, walk on.

"Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody..."

I worried about bringing a guitar out in the weather, possible rain. I brought this old Yamaha I... inherited.

The sky is clear. If not for the streetlights I could see more stars. No moon. It was out late last night. Not up yet tonight. I'll check it out from the back yard before I go to bed. I like the moon. It's... singular, remote and perfect. I love the moon. And the Big Dipper! Elegant monster constellation! I like to see it, miss it when I don't. Overcast weather this winter, and into spring blocked out the Big Dipper as its handle pivoted on the North Star, Polaris. That pivot hides it about half the year. Fog rises out of the warm rivers, the Scioto and the Ohio, blocks out the night sky. But when the Dipper comes back on a cold clear night, it is so rewarding I suddenly appreciate what I was missing the times I didn't get to see it. Funny. Ya like what you can't have.

A car, fancy-smancy car, silver, full-sized, four-door, big but sporty, pulls in at the parking lot by Offnere Street down the block ahead, in front of the strip mall stores. They're all closed. Their display windows and the street lights cast that other-worldly dim yellow night light on everything, contrasting with the dark, wooded area across Offnere Street, deep shadows, and the light from the convenience store next to it over there. Litter, weeds, broken glass, cigarette butts, the sidewalk, parking curbs, parking lot. It doesn't look as dirty in the evening pastel orange twilight as it did when I walked down through here earlier this evening. I keep walking.

A girl gets out of the driver's seat, leans up on the fender. She looks small next to that big car, young. 'Daddy's car,' I think. She puts her hands on the fender beside her, lifts herself up gracefully to sit on the hood, scoots back, spins around, cross-legged, lotus-fashion, practically on the windshield. I don't think Daddy would like that! I do. She looks good in those blue jeans, even at this distance!

I can't see much detail about her yet. Blue jeans, black top, off the shoulders, bare belly, short dark hair. A kid that young, a car that sporty. Maybe she's not young. Maybe she's some guy's wife, bored and out looking for something to do. I can be something to do. I'm a dirty old man. Today's my birthday. I'm twenty-eight. To escape the guilt of imagining adultery I go back to 'Daddy's car' in my imagining. Lusting after 'Daddy's little girl' seems more... socially acceptable.

I get to the side street, cross, closer. She's looking my way, looking away, another look, and away. I keep walking. Close enough now to speak, so I do.

"Good evening." I touch the bill of my cat hat with my right hand, as if to 'doff' it. Yeah. I'm old fashioned. I keep walking. She's pretty! She's young.

"Play a song for me," she says. Quiet voice. Nice voice. Unemotional... voice. 'Okay if you do; okay if you don't,' voice.

I stop in my tracks pretty much right at her left front fender. You ask a song writer to play you a song, he'll play you a song. It's what we do. No matter the time; no matter the place. We'll play for you.

"Why, darlin', every song I play is for you," I say, setting my case down and snapping it open.

"Don't be rude," she says, quietly... a pleading tone, but... authoritatively.

I feel... reprimanded. I'm a little insulted but figure I'll still play. Song writer.

I raise up, take off my cat hat, hang it on the head of the guitar, slip the strap over my head, around my neck, put my hat back on. I usually get my hat back on crooked, feel like a jackass when I see myself in the mirror behind the bar after standing up in front of all those people to play. It looked okay after I played tonight. A cat hat can be a little off center and still work.

First time playing there. I like the place. I'm not sure about that name though! LOL!

I wonder if I had my hat on right while I was playing. I'm careful about putting it on now, try to center it on my forehead. I'm sneaking glances. She's pretty!

"I'm sorry," I apologize, perfunctorily. "I didn't mean for that to be rude."

"What did you mean it to be?" she challenges. Ooh! This one wants to fight!

She sounds bitchy. I figure she's just not happy. Lots of young people aren't. I wasn't sometimes when I was young. Listen to me; "When I was young." Twenty-eight ain't old... is it? Well, compared to her. I decide her... attitude... has less to do with me than her. I'm searching for an answer to her question; find one.

"I meant it to be clever," I say, "and flirtatious. That's how old men flirt."

She doesn't smile. Looks away across the street, up the hill. I'm gonna play anyway, little witch.

As I begin an Introductory Movement for a song, she interrupts, says, "You don't sound like you're from around here."

"I was born here," I tell her, "lived here all my life. But I just got out of the Air Force, actually, last April. Last year," I clarify. "Three years and ten months away from here, ya probably start to talk differently." I watch her face. She looks away. I figure she's done talking. I play a song. She doesn't talk while I'm playing. I finish.

"I never heard that song before. Did you write that?" she asks.

"Yes. I'm not much into cover songs," I tell her. "Now I've got so many of my own, I seldom play anybody else's. Just at the house for my own pleasure. I never did really, play other people's songs, I mean. I had a... small... repertoire of cover songs, but when I play out with other people listening, I figure I'm wasting my time playing other peoples' songs when I should be promoting my own. I'm not a musician; just self taught. I don't... figure out songs, how to play them anyway. Some people can hear a song first time and play right along with it."

I'm rambling, slightly embarrassed by it. She didn't ask for all that information. Look on her face is still blank.

"I've just wrote a song," she says, glancing at me, and away. "It's not finished. I'm writing it."

Her assertiveness seems to... falter a bit.

I think about how she said, 'I've wrote...', decide not to play Grammar Police tonight.

Pretty eyes; brown. Words for a new song come into my head, "She's a Brown-Eyed Girl! Just about this tall! I saw her today, out in the hall! She stopped my heart! She made me fall! I need to find that Brown-Eyed Girl"

"Do you play guitar?" I ask.

"A little. Just enough to... ", she searches for a word, finds it, "accompany my words," she explains.

"Me too," I say. I ain't lyin'! She says,

"No, you've been playing a long time. You're good at it."

"Well, thank you. Yeah, I started when I was about fourteen," and me being me I joke, "about your age."

"I'm not fourteen!" she says, a little more defensively than she needs to be. Kids don't get jokes any more.

"I know," I tell her. "That's me flirting again."

"You're not very good at it," she says.

"Playing guitar?" I ask, stumbling through my... comprehension of what's going on here.

"Flirting," she says. "Have you been drinking?"

While I'm sorting my feelings at that... insult to my flirting she's looking away. Damn! She's pretty!

"Yes, ma'am," I confess; feel like I'm confessing. "I had a margarita at 6:00, and another one at 7:15. I never drink more than two of anything, mixed drink, or beer. I don't drink very often at all. Alcohol is dope, just like any other dope. No future in it."

She interrupts or I'd give her my whole spiel about how alcohol devalues everything we value about being human. I kind of want to... teach it to her. I think if only someone had taught me... when I was a kid... I'd have more brain cells and more money... fewer mistakes to regret. You value intelligence; alcohol makes you say and do stupid things.

"How do you know what time you drank them?" she challenges. She seems to doubt the sincerity of everything I say, picks up on details, challenges. I like her in spite of herself! LOL! At least she's listening.

"Because I pay attention," I tell her. "If I have to drive I make sure I know when I drank what, and have some idea of how much time I need to spend before I drive. I'll leave a bar and go for a walk to make sure I'm kind of recovered before I drive. I don't get drunk; don't... deliberately intoxicate myself."

Rarely do, anyway. A pretty girl in a bar makes me want to stay longer. Doesn't seem to make any difference though. I have a drink or two. I don't see many girls I'm... interested in.

"Often when you decide one thing you're deciding other things at the same time", I tell her. "For example, if you drink, knowing you have to drive, you're inviting... you're deciding whatever trouble comes after it. I don't like trouble. Got enough trouble in my life. Don't we all? I knew I wanted to enjoy a margarita tonight so I walked down to Cubby's Hole."

I point back down in that direction. It's off on a side street.

"They have an Open Mic, Open Microphone," I explain, "second and fourth Wednesdays each month, six-thirty to eight-thirty. Bunch of people played tonight. Not enough to go to 8:30 though. They do Karaoke after the live stuff. I didn't stay for that."

I start to tell her this was my first time going there to play but she keeps the conversation in a different direction, saying,

"I don't like drunk people."

"Me neither, baby," I say.

She says,"Don't call me baby," kind of quiet, like she's not really talking to me, crosses her arms, looks across the street. I feel reprimanded again.

Strike two! Her on me and me on her. I play another song.

"Do you wanna play your song?" I ask her, lifting my hat, starting to take the guitar off.

"No," she says. "It's not finished." Hat back on.

"I'd like to hear it," I tell her. "Put me on your list to hear your song..." She looks sideways at me. "...when it's done," I add. I feel like there was something wrong with what I said but don't know what it might be. She's such a... so... I don't know.

No response. I say, "I don't like to play a song for anyone else until it's done. Seems like the song tends to freeze up there and never get completed if I play it for other people before it's done."

Another car pulls in the way she did, leaving an empty space down beyond hers. It's a couple. They get out, lean on the front of the hood. She glances at them, looks blankly across the street, scans the convenience mart, the woods. It's like she's looking for something. Since she's not looking at me I get to look at her. Pretty. Love that black top; those bare brown shoulders, that belly button. I start playing another song.

The girl from the other car moves around her boyfriend to their left front fender. He does too then, around her to further back on the fender. They watch me closely. They're not talking to each other while I play. The girl on the hood stretches her legs out straight, is looking at the back of her hands, fingernails. When I finish, the couple speak quietly to each other, girl does a handclap, kind of miming it rather than actual applause. I take hold of the bill of my hat with my right index finger and thumb, give a little bow-nod, mouth "Thank you!" She mouths, "You're welcome."

The girl sitting on the fancy-smancy hood sees me, looks in time to see the other girl's response.

"How long have you been playing?" Miss No asks, turning back to me. Her tone suggests she remembers I already told her, but forgot.

I've named her; Miss No. 'Don't be rude.' 'Don't drink'. 'Don't call me baby.' 'I'm not fourteen!' Yeah, that's all 'No. No. No.'

"About five minutes," I joke, or try to, looking at my wrist, where there's no watch. When I look back at her she looks like she doesn't like that joke either.

"Since I was fourteen," I tell her, remembering, myself, that I'd already told her. Too late; attitudinal tone,

"I mean how many years!" Petulant.

"Uh, that makes it fourteen," I tell her. "Half a lifetime." I don't tell her I just turned twenty-eight today, May 10th. And I suppress the urge to say, 'A whole lifetime in your case!' She didn't like the 'fourteen' joke the first time. I pat myself on the proverbial back for not trying it a second time. I may grow up after all! I can see now she's older, eighteen or twenty... something.

There's silence. I play another song. The guy at the other car moves to get in the car toward the end. The girl stays where she is. He waits until the song's over to open and close his door and start it up. He waves, yells, "Thanks, man!" His girlfriend waves, as she rounds the left front fender.

I yell, "Open Mic at Cubby's Hole!" jerking my thumb back down the street. "Second and fourth Wednesdays of the month, six-thirty!"

They both wave, drive away, down to the exit, cross Offnere Street to the convenience mart. I watch them get out and go in.

Fancy smancy car girl's quiet.

Here's the next song I play;

"Baby, Get To Me" copyright January 5, 2023 by Gary E. Andrews
D XXO232 XXOO3O
G 32OOO3
A XO222O XO22OO

(Verse I)
Come on, baby!
(Chorus Refrain)
Get To Me!
Don't, keep me waiting, any long-er!
Come on, baby! Let it be!
I'm waiting here, waiting to hear your song.
Come on baby! Baby, Get To Me!

(Verse II)
Come on, baby! Get To Me!
Girl I'm not, getting any, younger!
Come on, baby! Can't you see?
I'm wanting you, wanting you, so hurry!
Come on baby! Baby, Get to Me!

(Bridge)
Get me by my hand! Get me by myself!
Come on, baby! Baby, Get To Me!

(Verse III)
Come on, baby! Get To Me.
The stars are yours! Come on, give me the moo-oo-oo-oon!
Come on, baby! Get To Me.
You're the one, who laid the spell I'm un-der.
Come on, baby! Baby, Get To Me.

(Coda)
Come on, baby! Get To Me.
Come on, baby! Baby, Get To Me.

"Did you just make that up?" she says.

"No, not just," I tell her. "I wrote it back in January."

I know because I just looked at the Lyric on paper earlier this evening. Despite the repetition it's sometimes hard to remember so I needed a refresher read. I played it at Cubby's; and still got it wrong. It's... poetry, a bit... obscure. It's not typical in Rhyme-Scheme. I think the repetition, although a bit excessive, makes it work. I'm wondering if the 'baby' lines offended her like when I called her baby before. Kind of expecting Miss No to express a dislike for it. I make it worse, in spite of my misgivings, saying,

"It's a... a second song I wrote with that same, 'Come on, baby' line, same chords. The first one's got a little more tempo but..."

I don't know what I was going to say. "I usually play them together in a medley and..."

A loud car with loud music, comes under the trees up the hill, roars louder as it comes down fast. I hear the raucous chaos of loud boys' voices, men, yelling over the music and the motor, even at this distance. Passing here the driver blows the horn, five quick blasts in succession. Early 1950's; Chevrolet. They yell stuff. I don't know what. They keep going. I turn enough to watch them. Down toward Twelfth Street I see a silvery flash, see and hear an empty can hit the gutter. I keep watching, hope they keep going. They do. I turn back to her.

She's so pretty. She's wearing jeans, and this elastic-y bunched black top that comes down almost to her waist, flat belly, belly button, is off her shoulders, short sleevetops in line with the straight neckline across her chest, sleeves down past her elbows. Half-inch wide straps go from little silver rings up and over her shoulders, close to her neck. It's open in a short v down her chest. Very becoming. Tasteful. Down to a certain level is cleavage; beyond that is... titties. She just shows cleavage. Tasteful.

I feel a drop of rain! The stars are gone! I see little wet spots hitting the neck of my guitar. I turn my left palm up, feel more.

"Starting to rain," I say. "What kind of car is that?" I ask. I don't see any emblems.

"Why do you wanna know?" she says.

There's that... defensive... accusative tone again.

Well, that's about enough of this, Miss Attitudinal No. I take off my hat, take the strap from around my neck, put my hat on and bend to put my guitar back in the case. Snapping it closed, I take off my raincoat, put it over the case, pinch the handle through it, stand up, and say,

"No reason. I thought maybe you'd take me for a ride in it some time."

I'm not sincere in that, just the first words that pop in my head and fall out of my mouth, crash on the space between me and her, shatter like winter ice on the glass-littered concrete, among the litter, the butts, and the weeds. I have no expectation of ever seeing her again. I live a... a 'linear' life. I just... pass through... other peoples' lives. I don't... keep 'em.

"I'm busy," she says. "I stay busy. I've got a whole list of things to do."

"Well, put me on your list," I say. I turn to walk away. "Nice talkin' to ya!" I say, feeling like it wasn't nice talking to her.

"Is that you flirting again?" she calls after me. I don't get why she says that.

I turn, push my hat back on my head, keep walking, backward, stumble, catch myself before I fall, say, "Only if it's working!"
I turn and keep walking. Good answer! Point; me!

She doesn't say anything more. I'm across the exit and down to the corner of the last exit from the parking lot when I hear the car door shut, the engine start up. I look across Offnere Street at the convenience mart. Out of the corner of my eye I see her fancy-smancy car backing up. The headlights make me cast a long shadow up the sidewalk ahead, then turn onto the street. It's quiet. Internal combustion. For some reason I thought it might be electric. Nice car. Daddy must make good money. I didn't hear it when she pulled in. She must be going the other way. I don't hear it any more. I don't look back.

I keep walking. The raindrops are rare but cold when they hit my face and arms. I don't look back. My apartment's near, up the hill, in the wooded area. I want to look back; I don't. There are houses and apartment buildings among the trees. It's been a real comfortable neighborhood. I smell the trees. Dogwoods, redbuds are in bloom, but fading now. The air's cooler, still warm. Nice breeze. It's been cold and hot this spring; it's warming up. The trees are getting full of leaves. At the top of the hill I turn into the parking lot. My gray Malibu's in front of my apartment, dirty, dappled in raindrops. It's good to get home, isn't it?

As I go up my sidewalk I hear the loud muffler, the loud music, the voices yelling. They go by on the street. It starts to rain, a hard downpour.

Opening my door I step in, set my guitar in the corner behind the door, by the stairwell. I take it upstairs at night, have it on the bed so if I wake up I can play a song or two in the wee hours. I have other guitars, down here, up there. I pull my keys out of the lock, close the door and double lock it, doorknob, deadbolt. I express gratitude for a door to lock, a bed to sleep in, food... still being alive after... all the... [naughty word removed]... I've been through, in twenty-eight years. Happy birthday. Yeah; I'm happy. Happy enough.

I took Mom a hundred dollars on my lunch break. It's her 'birth day'. She handled it all. All I did was get born. She took care of me for the next eighteen years, and still does. She mail-ordered me flannel-lined pants, sent them to be in Korea after I wrote home about the cold winter there. LOL! Moms will always be Moms.

I look in the refrigerator. There's my homemade vegetable soup. I need to eat that last bowl or two before it gets away from me. Cold fried chicken. I keep chocolate in the freezer door. Nothing appeals. I'm tired. I go back, pick up my guitar and head upstairs for bed.

It was hot in Cubby's Hole. I worked up a sweat walking there, waiting there, playing there, walking back. They let me play three songs. I take a shower, replay thinking about how I told the Master of Ceremonies some of them were short songs, hoping to get to play a couple more. I was the last act at seven-forty-five. He said it was a 'workingman's open mic', for working people who needed to get home so they could get up tomorrow. We had another half hour. He ignored me. I took it personally but... accept my fate when other people are... running the show. I have to get up tomorrow. It was a nice little workout, there and... with her.

I liked playing... for her, better, out on the street, fresh air, the spring night. She let me play as much as Cubby's did. Little witch.

After the shower, I feel like a brand new man, crawl into bed. The brand new man finds sleep is easy to get to.

I feel the point where my consciousness clicks off, brain and body shut down, and sleep... gets to me.