Gone Fishing

Folk Rocker is in town, or rather, he and I are in the same town at the same time. He called a few days ago, he was already there, free from the tour manager and handlers for three whole days, released like a salmon. If he had let me know the week before I’d have moved – not heaven and earth, but definitely my schedule, to get there.

We met in Amsterdam – he opened for my high-school favorite, and I liked his music, politically edgy, praising of women of a certain age, the opening song, about love (they’re all love or politics, sometimes both) and a rose, gripped me and lifted my guts – I’m here, I’m in Amsterdam, I’m at the Paradiso, there were tickets left even though I found out three hours ago, and when the guys lounging on the front steps in the last of the cold June sun asked about my bike and found out I was American, I asked them what *they* did and when they said, “Ummmm…we play music…” I realize, they’re the band.

Later, I’m with the band. In the bar at the Holiday Inn, a roomful of recoverings, the table full of orange juice and Sprite and club soda. The tour manager has a bum knee, and I do a little acupressure and massage. The compact drummer, perfectly formed at 5’0”, tells me the story of his wife’s soul, and how it’s carried with him. I curl into the guitarist’s arm, and make eye contact with Folk Rocker. Later still, on the steep Dutch stairs, he is headed for bed and I am headed for the washroom (only North Americans are so coy, it’s the ‘toilet’ everywhere else) and we meet on the landing. We do not touch. He looks. I say, “You’ll be glad in the morning.” He says, “Yes, but it’s dreadful now.”

Another country. He opens with the song about love and the rose again, opening again. I end up with the guitarist, and in the tiny room of a British hotel, we make out passionately, his nipples are incredibly sensitive, he fucks me with his fingers from behind. I kneel, and he comes on my face and in my mouth, then uses his hands to rub it over my face – it is so loving, so gentle, he is so amazed, I am blissful with how much gratitude is in the world and touched that he steps into the bathroom of his own room and shuts the door to smoke. The next morning, I kiss the tour manager in his room. In the lobby on the way out, Folk Rocker is eating breakfast, and I wave. He looks. I look back. He does not know why I am still there in the morning.

Milwaukee. Oxford. Washington DC and the story of how, after a failed affair that turned ugly, he has committed again, he wants to see if it can possibly be worked out, he must be able to say in ten years to the children, I honestly tried my very best. We shiver on the bench outside the club while a strange 70’s cult band plays.

The connection hasn’t caught. I want to say something about fly-fishing here, but I don’t know anything about fly-fishing, so I will say instead that I do not want to scare the prey.

Tonight, another missed connection. My thing runs late, he leaves from his show to the next location. It’s only an hour, tomorrow I will hear the song about love and the rose and he will, at last, be opened by someone else. I will say my name “plus one” and Folk Rocker will carefully not look at me during the show, and I will let him know that Power Girl will be ok driving back to our hotel alone.

Cast. Set. Play. Net. Land.

Wish me luck.