Tying of Loose Ends Part Two--the clean version

There are many things in our lives that we remember for a thousand years. We have selective memory, all of us, that we use from time to time. Let's suppose one day I'm driving along and I see that you have a flat tire. I get out of my car, and I loan you my jack and together we fix your tire.  Then the very next week, I borrow your garden house and well, I lose it. Well, everytime you see me now, I'm not the guy who fixed your flat on the highway, I'm just the dumb ass that lost your garden house.  Life is kind of like that. And so let me apply some selective memories to a few things, beginning with the final tales of our star crossed lovers, Mandy, Bruno and Zenith.

The story I heard is fanatastic and made me laugh.  It appears that when Mandy told Bruno that she loved another man, Bruno went off, found himself a 21 year old bar wench. Their first night together, she took off her shirt and his 56 year old heart promptly blew up.  He collapsed onto his little bar wench, who I am told had to dial 911 from under his now dead body.  The paramedics broke down the door to  their love nest and after laughing, cleaned things up and transported Bruno to be cremated into ashes.   Now as for Mandy, well, thanks to a well thought out insurance policy, she was now worth $5 million dollars.  Mandy promptly sold her house, bought a big giant mansion and opened up a small bakery, just to keep herself busy. She called it Baby Cakes.  But what of Zenith? Well, as the story was told to me, Mandy hated love, it caused all sorts of problems for all involved,she wanted to be alone, allowed to make her own decisions. But she still had needs,  so she had a parade of lovers, but none of them were Zenith. So she grabbed Zenith, locked him in the basement with a TV, fridge and some video games and it was said that she would take him out once a month and on his birthday for a romp in the tall grass behind the mansion. The last I've heard, Mandy, old and grizzled eventually passed on but she finally got all she wanted out of life, a bakery, a chance to live on her own terms, no one to love and no one to love her.  Neighborhood kids have said that on occassion, when the air is humid and still, you can still hear Zenith cry out. Oh, and one last thing. . . Zenith got all the day old bakery items.

The year was 1986 and I was sitting in a blistering parking lot someplace in middle America. Me, Monster, Steve and Hil, along with this kid named Dean and another named Bump had travelled for three days to get here. It was the last night on the Grateful Dead's Spring tour and then we'd all have to move on, admit college was finally over and become adults. As we sat in the parking lot, various fluttering waifs would fly buy, offering to sell you hand-woven bracelets, tye died shirts and magic grilled cheese sandwiches. Realizing she needed the money to make it to the next town, I bought a grilled cheese sandwich.  In one hour, I saw God, the next hour I was God, and then I awoke and was in the back of a pickup truck in a truck stop in Mississippi.   I have no memories of the show, and that included no ticket stubs, no shirts, no friends. I did however have two things. . . one of the braclets that the smelly hippie chick made and the crust to a half eaten sandwich.  Did all this happen? Selective memory again, for I am told that it was not Mississippi but Austin Texas and my name was no longer Steve but legally changed to  Sunshower Supreme Love God. Selective memory indeed.

When I was around 12 or 13 I lived in the well scrubbed and quiet world of North Haven.  I had everything I wanted, including a real garage to keep my new ten speed bike in. But there was one thing I never managed to accomplish and it was right in my own yard. Between our house and our neighbors was a small hill. But to me it was a hill right out of San Francisco, Lombard Street perhaps. And in the middle of this hill was a path that my next door neighbor Mike fashioned after burning all the brush to the ground. So right smack dab in the middle of this "hill" was a small stump, no bigger than a paint can, but rumour had it, well, Mike claimed that he jumped it on his bike and jumped all the way over his house and into the street below. Being 13 and believing things like this could happen, it was now my time, but this time I decided that I was gonna do it different. Long before Jackass ever hit TV, I found myself in an old shopping cart from Woolcos. The ramp was set by Mike himself, and me, I had my old midget football helmet on(Go Tigers), the one with the broken chin strap.  People heard about this daring stunt, neighborhood kids lined the sides of the hill. There I was, perched in the cart. Mike gave a push. Faster and faster I went and at the last moment watched in horror as Mike kicked away the wooden ramp.   I woke up two days later, unable to recall the events of the past two days.  I am told I flew over the garage and landed in the bedroom of the beautiful new neighbor girl across the street, cart and all.   In reality, I am told many years later that I went three feet down the hill and veered off the path into a small patch of thorns and other assorted bramble. . . once again selective memory.    The plus side to this story is, it appears that as I flew through the air, I saw Mandy on the street. Or perhaps it wasn't Mandy. . maybe it was just a tree.

We all have certain things in our lifetimes that we want to forget, like the first time you asked someone out on a date, the first time you kissed someone, the first time when Officer Astorino banged on your car window, where, inside you and some now forgotten kisser were having a grand ol time.  Those things stick with you and as life goes on, they change with the times. In the years since, I have been in a truck in the park with my then girlfriend, or, I was on the football field with a dog, a sheep and an Indian chief.   Or I was in a pizza parlor being waited on hand and foot by a naked waitress who called herself Mandy.    All of these things happened, or perhaps none of them happened. I don't even remember what Mandy looked like.  And I'm pretty sure I never saw the Dead in Providence that following week with Bruno and Mandy. You know, the show where Jerry Garcia invited me up to play banjo.

Now next time, same bat time, same bat channel I will present the good and bad of North Haven as only a former insider could know. I worked for that fine town for 20 years and boy, I got stories. . . until then. . . .let's all have good selective memories!