That song brought it all back to me.
"How about a kiss for your cousin Dupree?" sang
Donald Fagan with his unmistakable oily sensuality.
I've loved Steely Dan since I was a teenager and it often
amazes me how their songs seem to parallel my life.
I've been Kid Charlemagne, watching my infamous celebrity fall
apart as I fell victim to my own addictions.
I've felt the alienation and anger and found myself screaming
along with "My Old School" as I drove around alone.
This song, however, made me laugh.
A drifting loser gets the hots for his cousin, who shoots him
down as soon as he opens his mouth.
It made me think of Julie.
Thirty years ago she was, for a time, the target
of my teenage lust. It
didn't bother me that we were cousins; we weren't that closely related
and I wouldn't have cared if we were.
Don't think we're a bunch of hill people with a shortage of
teeth and a heavy case of inbreeding.
Our family is well-educated, almost painfully smart and
uniformly odd. There's not
a one of us that's quite 'normal', but most of us do all right.
I've been told I'm quite smart; I would be lying if I said it
wasn't so. But I head off
any tendency toward a swelled head with the knowledge that I'm just as
odd as the rest of them. Julie
was different.
Her mother used to bring her to visit my sisters
and me when she was little. She
was quiet, kind of desperate to be liked.
I think she was pretty, but I don't really remember noticing.
I know she had long, brown hair and big eyes.
She smiled a lot. I
hid in my room and let her play with my sisters.
I was nine, three years older than she and way too cool to talk
to her.
Nine years later I was running wild.
My parents were divorced and I was confused, angry and looking
for trouble. One weekend
my sister and I deigned to join Mom on a rare visit to the family's
summer home in Cooperstown, New York.
We had nothing else to do.
There wasn't much happening in Cooperstown, either, so my
sister, Summer, and I spent most of the weekend in the parlor.
I played the guitar and my sister sang.
She had a really good voice.
One night there was a soft knock on the parlor
door. When I answered it,
this beautiful girl smiled at me and walked in. It was Julie.
She hadn't changed that much, and yet she was completely
different. She had all the
attributes you'd expect in an especially fine looking girl, but she
also had a shyness, an insecurity that made it clear this one was
delicate. She sat
down and I started playing
some chords while Summer sang. Julie
sat quietly until the song was over.
"That was gorgeous," she said softly.
"What was it?"
"John Barleycorn," Summer told her.
"It's a Traffic song."
"It's cool! I've never heard of them."
"If you like that," I told her,
"you'll like this." I
started picking the intro to "Any
World That I'm Welcome To". It's
a long song and kind of a downer..."Any world that I'm welcome to
is better than the one I come from."
She never moved. "That's
Steely Dan," I said.
"You guys are great! I loved it!"
"God, Julie, we stink!" Summer laughed.
"Well, I stink. Spike
is pretty good."
"I think you're both wonderful," Julie
said. I could tell she
meant it. It felt nice.
The three of us sat and talked that night while
the old folks visited on the back porch.
Julie was obviously pretty sheltered; she soaked up everything
we told her about our lives as though it was the most interesting
thing she'd ever heard. I
was amazed at her innocence.
"Your mother lets you go to clubs?" she
asked wonderingly.
"Sure. She's
not usually home anyway, and it's where most of our friends are,"
Summer told her. "Don't
you ever go out?"
"I'm only a sophomore." She blushed.
"I don't do much of anything."
"Give it a couple of years, honey," I
assured her. "You will."
She looked really pretty when her cheeks got all
red like that.
I
thought of Julie once or twice over the next couple of years, but she
was never in Cooperstown when I dropped by.
She lived about an hour away in Schenectady and her family
didn't visit that often. I
was pretty busy myself, going to college in Boston, making my mark
with the ladies at school and beginning to seriously explore the
exciting world of hallucinogens. I
found that I could easily combine my interest in music, women and
drugs by performing in the clubs around Landsowne Street.
One night jamming on stage hooked me up with girls and ganja
and a lot of other interesting pharmaceuticals.
I didn't have to chase the girls; they came after me.
I was decent looking, I guess, but I think the smoke and the
beer and the stage lights all contributed to make me a lot more
appealing. I didn't mind.
But after a while the girls and the drugs began to blur
together. I woke up in
strange beds with warm, female bodies I didn't remember and didn't
want to stay with. It was
a relief when school ended for the summer.
I decided to spend a month with Nana in Cooperstown. I was
twenty years old and terrified of where my life was headed.
I needed to think.
"Julie's been around a lot," Nana told
me as I sat watching her make dinner. Nana had her own kitchen in a
little outbuilding just big enough for her appliances, a small table
and four chairs. When a
bunch of us came to dinner, it got very crowded.
"She was here almost every weekend last summer. She's a
really nice girl." Nana
looked at me.
"What?"
"She
always asks for you." Nana
looked at me again. Those
brown eyes of hers could be pretty sharp sometimes.
"So how is she?"
"She's all right, I think."
I kept my voice light, not too interested.
"Do you expect her this weekend?"
"Spector."
Nana was the only person who ever used my real name. "Be
careful."
I opened my mouth to say I didn't know what she
meant. I closed it and
nodded.
Nana turned back to her cooking, obviously
satisfied that I understood. "Spector,
would you get out the lettuce and make a salad?"
I did what she asked.
I spent my first few days in Cooperstown getting
back on a reasonable schedule. I
was in bed by one and up by ten. That
was a far cry from my Boston schedule, which often involved no sleep
at all. In Cooperstown, I
had a little bungalow all to myself.
It was just big enough for two cots and was about fifty yards
from the main house. I
liked the privacy. I could
close the blue gingham curtains and shut out the world.
I started to feel clean again.
By the first weekend, however, I was getting
antsy. There was nothing
to do and nowhere to go. How
many times could I walk up and down Main Street counting the number of
middle aged men with baseball shirts stretched over their paunches?
I walked down to the lake, which, as far as I'm concerned, is
Cooperstown's only attraction, and sat on a dock.
"Hey,
mister, those docks are private," a soft voice said.
I turned to make a blistering retort and saw my
cousin Julie grinning at me. I
grinned back.
"How long you been here?" she asked.
"Here or at the house?"
"Both. And
how long are you staying?"
"Awhile, in answer to all those
questions."
"Cool. Mind
some company?"
"Love some."
I moved aside to make room for her.
She was tanned, about a head shorter than me, with dark hair
falling in her face. She
was wearing a yellow t-shirt, blue jeans and leather sandals.
"How you gonna get a tan in that outfit?"
"I manage."
She folded her legs and sat next to me, Zen-style.
"Did you bring a suit?"
"It's at the house."
"So you're staying tonight?"
She looked down.
"I thought I might."
"Cool."
She looked up and smiled. "Let's
go get that suit and go swimming," I said.
Julie ended up spending the week in Cooperstown.
She had a small bedroom at the back of the house which her
grandparents were happy to let her use.
We went swimming almost every day.
We went hiking and driving around the countryside.
We got to know each other.
I didn't tell her the details of my life, but I told her enough
that she got the idea.
Julie was exactly what she seemed to be - a sweet, sheltered
girl who was aching to break out and live dangerously.
I guess I fell in love with her.
I didn't know it at the time.
Our grandparents were probably keeping an eye on
us, but we didn't notice. We spent the long, hot days together and sat
together, hip to hip, watching the sunset from the still-warm concrete
walkway behind the house. We
ended each day with a tall glass of cheap white wine over ice.
"Spike," she said dreamily one evening
as the sky turned a breathtaking mauve.
"Can I ask you a really stupid question?"
"Julie, love, you are incapable of asking
stupid questions. Fire
away."
"Ever notice this pulse in your
stomach?" She pulled her t-shirt up enough to show me the soft,
brown skin above her jeans. A
small pulse beat softly there and I caught my breath.
"What is it? Does
everyone have it?"
I took a long drink before I answered.
"Everyone has it, but you can only see it on thin people.
Now, if you don't want me to ravish you right here in front of
our grandparents, you'll put that shirt back down and behave."
She looked at me then, and everything around us
disappeared. "You
mean you want me? Really?" There
was such pain and hope in the question that I almost took her in my
arms, but I knew our grandparents would be watching.
I took her hands instead.
"Julie, you are so gorgeous it is killing me
to keep my hands off you. If
we were anywhere else I guarantee you I wouldn't.
Is that what you wanted to hear?"
The smile on her face was answer enough.
"Tell you what," I said.
"Why don't I take you out to dinner?
We've been dutiful grandkids and stayed with the old folks
every night. Let's go out
tonight. Want to?"
"Oh," she breathed, "I would love
to."
Julie ran upstairs to change and I told our
grandparents we were going out. Nana
looked worried.
“Spector," she began.
"I know, Nana. I heard you."
"Make sure you remember," she warned.
Julie and I jumped into my ancient BMW, turned
Steely Dan way up and hit the road.
We headed to Oneonta and found a small cafe that served tall
drinks, cheap food and played good music.
I told her stories about my nights in Boston, at least the
stories I thought she'd enjoy. She
told me about her social life (She didn't have one, particularly) and
her dreams (She had a lot of them).
"I envy you, Spike.
You live your life the way you want to.
You make your rules. I
feel like I have no control; I just do what everyone expects me to
do."
"Well, sweetheart, maybe it's time you
surprised them." I grinned. “But
you can be pretty damn sure that if you do what I have in mind, nobody
but me will approve."
She laughed out loud, a merry, shocked and
pleased sound that gave me some answers, but not all of them.
Just as quickly, she got thoughtful.
"Spike," she said slowly, "I don't think I have
the nerve." She
looked at me. "Do you understand?"
"I can't say I do, completely.
We're coming from very different places.
But it's okay, babe. I
won't pressure you." I
paused. "Much."
She laughed again.
"Fair enough." She
put out her hand to shake mine, and I flipped her hand over and kissed
it, very softly. Her eyes
widened. I slowly licked
the three lines on her palm. She
didn't pull away. "Oh,
you cheat," she moaned.
"Whenever necessary," I agreed.
The rest of the evening was spent playing the
game: I seduced and Julie
resisted, but not too much. By
the time we were outside leaning against my car, pressed against each
other with hands and mouths softly exploring each other, I figured I
had her convinced. She was
obviously willing.
"So," I said as I ran my fingers up her
sides, "are you going to come visit me in my private chambers
this evening? I’ll be
glad to leave the door open for you."
She shivered.
"I don't know," she sighed.
"You know I want to."
She moaned as I rubbed myself against her.
"But if we got caught - oh, God, Spike, it would just kill
my parents. And let's not
even talk about my grandparents!"
"No, let's don't," I agreed, and gently
grabbed her lower lip between my teeth.
She melted against me. I
kissed her softly, increasing the pressure until it felt as though we
disappeared into each other.
"Come to me tonight," I said softly,
then pulled away and opened the car door for her.
She made a wordless cry of frustration and got
in.
We didn't talk on the way home. I knew she was
thinking and I figured if her hormones were doing the same frantic
dance that mine were, she'd be in my bed before midnight.
I didn't want to talk it to death.
Once home, she paused before getting out.
"Will you understand if I can't?" she pleaded.
"Baby, I don't know how you can stop
yourself. But you make the
decision." I ran my
fingers underneath her hair and gently rubbed her neck.
"I'll be there, waiting," I promised.
She put her hand up and grabbed my hand, holding
it on her neck. "Oh, God," she said softly.
Then she went into the house.
I went straight to my cottage.
I showered, turned down the sheets and waited.
And waited. And
waited. And finally fell
asleep.
Morning came and I woke up, still alone.
I couldn't believe it. My
first impulse was to jump in the car and leave.
Screw her! But as I
sat and thought more about it, I knew she hadn't meant to hurt me.
Julie wouldn’t. She
was just afraid, terribly afraid.
We spent that day on a sailboat on Otsego Lake.
She explained how she'd lain in bed the night before, longing
to get up and come to me, but knowing that the stairs would creak, the
ancient storm door would screech, some noise would give her away and
our entire family would gather around her, asking where she was going.
Our opportunity was lost; she was going home that afternoon.
"I am sorrier than you will ever know,"
she told me.
"So am I, babe.
I think I'm going to be sorry for a long time."
I kissed her gently and we headed for shore.
The rest of my vacation in Cooperstown is a blur
now, a quiet time spent wondering what it would have been like if
Julie'd made it out the door and to my cottage.
I went back to Boston and slowly slid back into the life I had
escaped for a little while. I
went to just enough classes to graduate, continued to play guitar in
clubs, and made a nice bit of change on the side dealing.
I didn't think of myself as a dealer; I had scruples.
I only sold to college kids and people I knew.
I didn't wonder who they might sell to.
All the girls I met seemed so old, so jaded.
I used them and they used me.
I decided love was bullshit.
I heard about Julie from Nana once in a while.
She'd gone to college. She
was studying psychology. She
had a boyfriend.
I hit rock bottom about four years after that
week with Julie. My business was dead; somebody had been hospitalized
after smoking some shit I sold them.
My reputation was shot.
I was sick, curled up in the middle of some chick's bed,
shivering and wondering if I was going to die.
I don't know if it was the pills I'd taken or all the vodka I
drank, but my body had had enough.
As I passed in and out of consciousness, I remembered Julie,
her eyes alight with admiration. "I
think you're wonderful," she'd said.
Some wonderful I'd turned out to be.
I promised myself if I lived through this, I was going to clean
up my act.
That promise wasn't easy to keep. After some
false starts, I finally made my way to a psychiatrist, who listened to
my story and said she was amazed I'd made it this far. She said I had
a lot of family baggage. I
had to laugh. I put my
college education to work and got a job with a bunch of old hippies
who had a new software idea. I
told them how to make it actually work.
They thought I was God. It
was nice to be admired for my brain and not my stash.
I steered clear of the clubs.
It was going to be awhile before I was ready to deal with the
pressures that came along with the music.
I'd been clean for about six months when I got a
call from Nana.
"Spector?
It's bad news. It's
Julie."
My stomach lurched.
"What happened?"
"A car accident." Nana started to cry.
"Her boyfriend was drunk.
He hit a tree. They
were both killed." I
heard her blow her nose.
"Oh, shit."
We were both silent.
"The funeral is Wednesday," my
grandmother said. "Will
you come?"
"Yeah."
I felt dead, too. "I'll be there."
There was a long pause.
I had nothing to say.
"I love you, Spector.
Are you all right? I
know you two were very close."
"Yeah, Nana.
We were. Love you,
too." I hung up on
her. I sat still. I didn't
move until I had to go to work the next morning.
All night long I replayed as much as I could remember of my
time with Julie. I remembered her smile, the color of her eyes, the
smell of her hair, the feel of her skin.
I tried to remember everything.
I wanted to remember it all.
I wished there was more to remember.
The funeral was about as tragic as you can
imagine. Her friends were
there, crying and carrying on. Our
family was there doing the same. I
sat alone in the back, stone faced.
I couldn't believe the girl was gone.
She was too alive to me to be dead.
I wondered how much living she'd actually done, or if she’d
still been waiting to find the courage.
As I sat there, dry-eyed, a thought popped into my head. I mean
it popped...I didn't feel like I thought it, it was just there.
You live!
It was weird and I don't know where it came from.
Maybe it was Julie, maybe it was just the part of me that
wanted to survive. But as
a fat, balding priest said prayers over my cousin's coffin, I decided
to live. Maybe Julie
didn't get her chance, but, for some unknown reason, I did.
If I loved Julie, and I knew then that I had, I owed it to her
to live a life I could be proud of.
I owed it to myself. I
wanted to be as wonderful as she'd believed I was.
This is no fairy tale.
I didn't live happily ever after and my life hasn't been a
stunning success story. But
I have found a kind of peace. I
met a girl who thought I was as wonderful as Julie had.
I told her about my cousin; not everything, but enough.
She said she was glad to know I could love someone that much.
We have made a life together.
I don't think about Julie often, but when Steely
Dan put out their first new album in years, that song about the skeevy-eyed
cousin with the dreary soul brought it back again.
The difference is, Julie didn't shoot me down.
She held me up.
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