KDX 500

A year or so ago, I met again the one girl who ruined me for life, D'Arby. She's called D'Arby (by me only) because she always reminded me of Patti D'Arbanville from Chevy Chase's movie “Modern Problems.” So out of nowhere, I received a phone call and from it piped, “Ronnnnnie!” I knew exactly who it was. A second or so later she complained I was still “sickeningly” stable as my phone number hasn't changed in over 25 years, but was glad that it still was the same as she found me quickly.

It had been probably a good 18 years since I saw her last.

She quickly skipped over the reason why she had called when I asked her and went straight to the “We are gonna hang out, right?” She suggested a Chinese restaurant over by Mineral Spring and I accepted the idea. We had planned to meet in the parking lot and told each other what kind of cars we were now driving, to help identify you know. God knows how much each of us has changed in those years, perhaps to the point of being unrecognizable?

So, a week went by before we could meet up and I reminisced over that meteoric romance we had had. No, it wasn't that fast, more like a bolide that just crosses the sky slowly, with flaring too bright to look at long, before it explodes in an even more blinding flash.

**

How did she ruin me? Let's go back to 1988.

D'Arby had the audacity, the confidence, to let me have the entire candy store. Nothing was held back. She had grown up loving excitement of any kind, a true adrenaline junkie. D'Arby had one hell of an addiction. Before we were an item, I once saw her tear assing around on a KDX 500 dirtbike on those trails that criss-cross the Coventry sand dunes. Cut off jeans, a tube top and pink sneakers with no helmut and ripping along the pines she was. She had more balls than a guy at times. She wasn't just a tomboy. There wasn't anything truly masculine about her except her love of chasing thrills. She was all girl otherwise. I too, loved the adrenaline rush, but in a more staid kind of way. I would make sure there were life boats, life preservers and other equipment around should I topple. D'Arby wanted none of those. She complained I was a bit restrained at times too. But she managed to get me to overcome that idea of safety at times, to my initial leaping fear.

D'Arby had a pretty face, a tight body and partied like a sorority girl from Chico State. When around her, I didn't feel I had to cover up any of my faults...I was just me, the good and the bad. We, from the outset, were very comfortable around each other. Things just fell into place w/o any trying on our part. There were no moments when we found each other being “halting” around one another. What ever our personal neuroses we had, they seemed to disappear. It was liberation to be ourselves, in an instant.

Together, we could dive into most things w/o much hesitation, including each other.

As with most women, they “peel” like an artichoke (how's that for a metaphor). What I mean as I got to know her, as she allowed me to get to know her, she surprised me time and again as the layers came off. D'Arby in public, cultivated something of a dumb blonde personality. It's pretty useful around guys I suppose, as it can turn us to putty and therefore, manipulable. But as D'Arby “peeled,” I found out this girl was no dummy. She had shocked me one time on Block Island, by pointing to the horizon and saying, “Those are cumulonimbus clouds.” I turned around to her in a bit of shock as she was right. I had, at one time, had this geeky flirtation with the weather. As a boy, I had come across a Boy Scout's book on weather and in it, all types of clouds. For some reason, the weird names and pictures stuck with me. Now here was this girl, startling my superficial estimations of her...I hadn't learned everything about her yet I find out. When I learned more...more epiphanies about this girl shown themselves. She slowly revealed a labyrinthine personality that could take months to investigate.

I stood there and looked at her, learning once again, on how women can surprise you with who they really are, once they decide to let you in, a layer at a time. I came to know D'Arby as something more complex than this fun loving chick. And that was dangerous...as I crawled deeper into this newly discovered pyramid, so did my heart.

In short, D'Arby was the whole package. Or, what a 25 year old guy thinks is a whole package in a woman. For years after that blazing relationship ended, I had tried to re-create it in other women I was with. There' a problem though, there is only one D'Arby. Every other woman are what they are in of themselves too. But I could never find/recreate what I had in that time.

I once found myself dating a very stable single Mom of two girls. She was gainfully employed, emotionally stable and the kids were great. One date had us, the Mom and girls, choosing Easter outfits at Nordstroms once. I sat there in the women's department, thinking to myself..'Shit, this is what you've come too?” My time with D'Arby was sooo influential, sooo fun...that it was the litmus paper I used for other romances. The Italians call it a “thunderbolt.” It's the one girl that grabs you forever.

Well, like all blazing meteors, or bolides..they burn out. D'Arby ended it all rather abruptly with me though I had been “let in” further and further to her heart via the “peeling effect.” Shit...I had fell in love!

For a couple of weeks I couldn't let go. I wasn't a stalker but I kept trying to get a reason out of her for ending it. She was sheepish and parried my questions till she got the guts, or perhaps annoyed with my digging, to finally tell me her truth.

“I'm bored.” she said.

“Bored? Bored? With all we have been doing?” I was kinda shocked. It wasn't boring to me at all.

“Yeah..and you've changed in the past month...look..you're soo affectionate now...not that I don't like that but this is going somewhere else than what it was.”

She goes on...

“Ronnie..I don't think I was ever in love with any guy..or ever fell in love...I guess I'm broken in that sort of way...I don't know...I don't know why I am like this.”

Well, she had told me the truth...it wasn't a dodge. Shouda' seen it comin' as they say. D'Arby was not the marrying kind.

**

2014. Dragon Villa

I had gotten there early, sitting in my car and rather excited to see her again. I kept trying to tell myself not to expect a smooth skinned, tight 21 year old girl. I was 50 and she'd be 48 now. But I still romanticized what I thought I'd see. Hell, with my memories, how could I not?

She pulled in and I recognized her quickly. As we both approached one another in the parking lot, as the details of her face came into view, I thought, “Shit, D'Arby...you got OLD!”

A nanosecond later I thought this: “You do realize she's thinking the same thing about YOU too!”

Once inside, once we had received our tropical drinks, we started playing catch up. We both surprised one another about the changes that have happened in each other's lives.

“I'd never figured you'd become a nurse” I told her. “You never did like school.”

“And you? Last time I saw you were applying to grad schools..and now you work in healthcare dietary.” she replied.

We both came to the conclusion that life pushes you around in strange ways, and end up at destinations you'd never figure you'd arrive at.

“God...you still have that lion's man of hair...that was so handsome on you...but it's pure WHITE now!”

I was a bit miffed at that...backhanded compliments you know. Ah...what am I going to do about it.

I did compliment on her ability, or luck or whatever, to be thin as a rail still.

“I got fat as a cow for years.” She told me. “I got disgusted with myself, sad..for years...didn't date. I finally hired a nutritionist and with her help, I managed to get down to a healthy weight. I probably was just depressed for years and let everything go....till I got tired of it all.”

I could never imagine her obese...never. But she swore on a stack of Bibles she had become so for a good while. Still, it didn't seem possible to me. But she had assured me she had.

We talked about the old times we both had together and how she still, at 48, enjoyed a thrill now and again, but the volume on that had been turned waay down.

All of a suddne she perks up and says, “Hey, let's go to Misquamicut, to the Windjammer...let's go like old times.”

“Windjammer? That place is even still there? I had no idea.

“Maybe? Let's go anyway...remember the Huey Lewis concert...after?” she says...with a wry smile.

“Yeah..i remember.” I say.

I then say, after thinking about what she might be up to, “What D'Arby...you want to get caught fucking in my car like we did then? It's daylight out now! We'd be nailed in a few minutes!”

She laughed...and felt absolutely no shame in it now..nor then as I remember it.

“God...the times we had...ahh..that didn't bug me that the loading crew saw us.”

“You haven't changed, D'Arby”I said.

“Neither have you...I mention going to Misquamicut and already you are looking to be cautious.”

“Ah, it was just a joke, we can't go...I have to see my sister later on...I can't be that girl anymore anyways.” she said.

**

We promised to keep in touch, but you know how that goes. Work schedules, life interfering, the fact we had changed and trying to recapture the past is futile. We both were much wiser now. We drifted apart again in time.

Do I regret ever knowing her? Do I regret the ruination I had for being able to have the entire candy store to myself, again and again? How I tried to recreate that later on. Do I regret how she opened me up, made me grow by leaps and bound and also how she made me sting when she ended it all?

Do I regret being treated as a KDX 500 dirtbike, or how I treated her likewise? Tearing around being young and irresponsible?

Nope.

        Patti D'Arbanville from Modern Problems...pretty close approximation