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by UPKE I love Randy. He listens. I mean.......he REALLY listens. And he's forever asking questions that force me to re-examine my words in such a way, that even I myself am surprised at their meaning. The last time it happened, I was standing in the kitchen waiting for the water to boil, while soft country music played on the radio. "That's a real Honky-Tonk tune, isn't it?" I said to Randy, who was sitting at the table looking through a magazine. "What's a Honky-Tonk?" he asked. "You know......a bar." "What do you mean.....one of those yucky small-town bars?" "No......a Honky-Tonk.....haven't you ever been in one?" Randy shook his head. "If I have, I guess I never knew what it was......what makes a bar be a Honky-Tonk bar?" The water was boiling. I prepared 2 mugs of coffee and brought them to the table. "Would you like some cake?" "No. This'll be just fine. Sit down......explain the term Honky-Tonk to me." "I'm not sure that I can......I just assumed that everyone knew what it meant." "I don't," he said. "What's the special something that keeps it from being an ordinary bar?" "I don't know. I don't go to ordinary bars. I really dislike them. But I love Honky-Tonks.......some of the happiest moments of my life were spent in a Honky-Tonk bar." Randy looked surprised. "What was the thing that made you so happy?" "All the conditions were probably right." "Conditions?" "Yes......you see......it's a kind of fantasy-world of mine. I've got to be alone......I don't want to have a conversation with anyone there, because that would break the spell......and this alone-thing combined with a gentle sadness "about" being alone......that's the essence of the fantasy. It's a sweet and melancholy feeling......" "Isn't there a contradiction in finding your happiest moments when you're alone and sad?" "Not for me. Being alone and sad would be totally depressing in an ordinary bar, but not in a Honky-Tonk. Maybe it's the music. Because there must be country music......that haunting sound of a sliding steel guitar......" My words came slowly, haltingly, so I could understand them myself. "Country music is peaceful and honest......they're songs about pain and loneliness and having the strength to survive it all. They're about the American character......the solitary farmer......the small-town woman stuck in a trailer......the married couple, each of them wanting to fall in love again......" "But you're none of those!" "Yes, I am. We all are. Behind all that worldly activity, we're just lonely people in search of a dream......" I smiled and shook my head. "No. I may be sipping on my one and only beer, but I never get drunk, and even if I did, that would not be the thing that was making me happy." "Then what is?" "Perhaps the fact that my sad and lonely feelings are OK here. Because everyone else is sad and lonely, too. I think that in most other places on earth, being alone is avoided at all cost, because people think that it's the worst thing that could happen to you......and if you confess to it, you are admitting that no one needs or wants you......that you're unloved, and therefore, a failure as a human being......but in a Honky-Tonk, everyone is alone, it's all right to be alone, and so I feel that I belong. Don't we all create a fantasy of that one place on earth where we are at home?" "Yes......but most of us choose a place where people "No." "Is there Country music in Europe?" "No." "Then how did someone born and raised "There's a lot about this country, that I experience as being totally wonderful and exciting. Stuff that people who were born here, don't even seem to notice. Country music contains some of that. It makes me proud to belong......even though the reality of most individuals I meet, makes me prefer to be alone. Not sad-alone, but a strong, Clint Eastwood kind-of-alone......so I can sit in a Honky Tonk and listen to the bikers talk, be with a 6-foot Apache Indian who's dancing with a tiny little blonde, and watch two cowboys play a friendly game of pool." "And that's what makes you happy?" "Yes. Most of the time, people exhaust me. They're always talking. Not "really" talking to each other......just talking. As if they were afraid that a chasm would open up and swallow them if they ever stopped. And there's so much dissonance......I can't remember the last time I spoke with someone who was peaceful and happy. So instead of being with people I know, I satisfy my need for human companionship in the fantasy-world of a Honky-Tonk bar......" We sat in silence, for a while. Across the canyon, a large, magestic Then the others returned from their shopping trip in town, and my livingroom became a sea of opened packages and crumpled paper. Randy's wife stood behind him and circled his shoulders with her arms. "What did the two of you do, all this time?" she asked. "Not much," Randy answered. "We just sat around and talked." "About what?" she inquired, straightening up and looking at me with a shadow of suspicion on her face. I turned away, went to the kitchen, and started to wash the dishes. "Nothing special," I heard Randy say. "Just small-talk." A flock of maybe 30 little birds were dancing above the deck outside. I felt a strange kind of gratitude towards Randy, for keeping that which had been said between us, not a secret......but the private conversation it had been. I smiled, picked up his |