Tumbled Short of Dreams

"There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams, not through any fault of her own, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store in his ghostly heart...".
--"The Great Gatsby", F. Scott Fitzgerald

"When you cycled by/ there began all my dreams/ the saddest thing I've ever seen/ And you never knew/ how much I really liked you/ because I never really told you/now, did I..."
--the smiths

You know, the sum of my day was amounting to a near-perfect total. Got off work. Went to a restaurant with Ann and drank cocktails and ate chips and talked and laughed peccantly at pain and Pekingese-owners. Went to dinner at Serafina, which was perfect (creamy Italian rice with roasted duck and grilled fruit). The two cute guys on the makeshift stage played defunct jazzy tunes and they were intense and clever. They actually played the mellow version of the Muppet Show theme. Went to Neighbors to see a benefit put on by Carol Channing herself and her chorus of fit & perky men and women. Had VIP seats VIP at Neighbors, now seriously.

And when it was all over, I was kind of wandering around, drinking a beer. Looking out on the dance floor I saw the cutest guy: small with straight hair, round gold-rimmed glasses, white t-shirt with shorts, and his sweatshirt tied around his waist. He was dancing, step-touch-step, to a rib-rattling extended mix of Rock the Casbah. He had a beer in his hand, dangling at his side, the cool of it touching his bare leg. Man, did I get sad quick.

What was up with that? What the hell was that all about?

He reminded me of Cyrus (the man of whom Ann had become enamored). And then I got it. I got the whole of it. And I said, perhaps even audibly, "God, if you like me in any way at all, please do not let me meet that guy."

I didn't. You know, meet him. And still when I think about it, I get sad.

So I stand there, head swimming with beer-inspired thoughts and the screaming voices of The Clash, knowing that I am seeing someone very near to perfect. And it is all I can do to just watch him from across the pounding, mirrorball-lit room, doing his near-perfect dancing thing, knowing in my gut that he probably reads books, he has an acerbically self-deprecating sense of humor, he smiles broadly with mansuetude whenever he sees me, he is touchingly passionate about the blues. And I think about the awkward couplings in my past, about the men who never knew and were never interested in the books I read so needfully, who ordered horrible things in restaurants or who never even took me out, who left me in a blankly cruel way, closing the door with a quiet click and without a note of goodbye. And I imagine that this near-perfect, literate, funny, bluesy guy rocking the casbah on this warm night would never treat me like they did. I know I would die if he stopped dancing and came over to say hello, I know my mouth would be full of just-swigged beer and bad adjectives that I suddenly could not swallow, and I know that my insides would turn to creamy rice (much like my earlier meal), and that I would need to quickly pray for an earthquake.

This kind of sadness always feels much sadder with the heat of July nights, the languor of sun-infused sleepiness, and the thick pall of beer-smelling air drifting through midnight like cheap cologne.

And I think, here is how he stood, a small man of Cyprian beauty: His round face shone bright the moon; chin elevated, and breathing just below the canopy of men, a suffocating laurel hedge overgrown and unkind; eyes transfixed on a video screen illuminated with the geometry of a manta ray sailing peaceably through outer space, illustrating graphs and coordinates and logs and rhythms; shoulders slack and round organically pulling him to the wooden ground; the faint ring around his wrist -- where he wrapped his watch willy-nilly in a self-repaired knot -- exposed and glistening; waist skirted by a faded reminder of team sports and education; legs with minds of their own calculating bass and space.

And me hating my brain. You know, the part of the brain that works the best. The part that at that moment can only think of the deafening lyrics to And I Know I'll Never Love This Way Again.

How will I ever fall in love in a way I have never done before?

Why couldn't he have been eating blackberries on custard and humming themes and drinking coffee with me?

Why does this all have to be so different and painful?

Why do I have to have such a great time on a beautiful night?

I suppose that had I and the man of wanton splendor indeed shared exquisite berried desserts and small white cups of strong coffee, he may very well have talked of his reading of Cider House Rules, the disappointing decline of the New Yorker, his collection of pre-war Chicago piano blues, and how he is loving sharing all of this with me at a tiny round table in a clean, dim cafe with so-close-together straight backed chairs (so close that I can smell his didn't-come-from-a-bottle beautiful scent of warmth and rain), and he may have then smiled broadly, exposing a crescent of white teeth with a smear of blackberry obliterating one tooth from an otherwise perfect set. "This is so lovely, Chuck" he may have said jack-o-lanternly. And then, as my heart began leaking bitterly, I may have noticed that several of his eyebrow hairs stuck outward feeler-like, that the random way he took his glasses on and off throughout the evening made me wonder if he really needed them at all, and the way he said "hmmm" after my contributions to conversation sounded dismissive rather than appreciative.

Anyone can tumble short of my dreams, I guess. I guess, if I want to wreck things enough, I can.

Copyright © 1995, Chuck Phillips.