It was a hell of a party.
Attachment psychologist Foster Cline described bonding as “the successful completion of an ordeal.” Think of how many interpersonal bonds have been dramatically forged — whether in books or films or real life — via the process two (or more) people go through when thrown together during a crisis. That’s the whole plot-engine behind The African Queen, for instance, and why we start to care so much about what happens to Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure. Bogart and Hepburn are oil and water at the outset of the former flick, but after an all-out struggle to survive they wind up deeply bonded and in love with each other. Likewise, a group of strangers helping one another up and out of a capsized luxury liner become like a sort of motley family, and the sacrificial heroism of Winters and Hackman mirrors the self-sacrifice of devoted parents. There are countless other examples, but you get the drift.
Nothing quite that dramatic happened this weekend…but if I was anywhere near the tipping point before, I definitely went over the edge, thanks to a belligerently drunk Vietnam vet and a seizing epileptic.
All at the company barbecue.
**
But let me back up a little. A few posts ago I identified among my apparent fans “two affable young supervisors who find excuses to hover around my cube like honeybees.” One of those supervisors is a potty-mouthed, politically astute stepdaddy with a shiny bald pate and an attitude who cracks me up all day long with his antics. I’ve taken to sitting beside him lately because he makes the day go by faster.
The other supervisor is Sam.
Sam is a tender twenty-one going on a seasoned forty. One of the other supervisors refers to him as an “old soul,” and her assessment is entirely accurate. He comes off as far more responsive and more responsible than the assistant executive director, a man roughly my age. Most people think Sam is at least thirty. I honestly wish he were running the place, and told him so once. Sam went to college (to study political science) at sixteen, so he’s no dummy and certainly no slouch. He’s long been one of my favorite supervisors for his approachability, his listening skills, and his unassuming demeanor. Everybody loves Sam.
Rick hung out with him one evening and later told me he found him a tad too straitlaced, even though Sam does drink and occasionally partake of the herb. At the time, I hadn’t yet figured out who Sam was. I’d barely even noticed him.
Not that he’s unattractive — not at all — but if he were walking toward me as a stranger in a crowd I wouldn’t even see him. None of the things that usually make me take marked visual notice of a man are present with Sam, other than the retro-hipster mutton chop sideburns he was growing for a while as part of a bet. (Those did look damn good on him, I must say.)
I’d been developing a bit of a mild crush on him lately, however, partly because of our excellent chemistry at work, but also simply because he’s so cool, and because he’s young and fresh and male and there.
And let’s face it, mama cougar is hungry. (They just started hiring again, finally, and one of the first hires was a peach-fuzzed brunette colt with skin the color of browned butter. I was sitting in on his training, staring at his tanned arms, and it was hard to keep myself from openly salivating. I actually started fantasizing about a four-way with me and the kid and Sam and the other trainer, Joseph, a wiry little whip of a fella I’ve always liked. Not exactly the consummately professional thing to do. So, yeah, my appetites are getting pretty dire these days.)
**
At the company’s summer barbecue in our recently departed campaign director Andie’s backyard, feeling the buzz of a couple of drinks, I flirtatiously turned Sam’s Castro-esque cap backwards on his head.
In my inebriated state, I found after a while that I wanted to be near him more than I wanted to hang out with anyone else, even though I was sincerely enjoying my other friends. It was really only for that reason that I eventually followed him into the special room designated for “herbology.”
I only allow myself that particular indulgence maybe once or twice a year, because I’m so sensitive. And usually not while drinking. But everyone in the room was so jolly, and one of the gay co-hosts was so wickedly, raunchily funny, I stayed in there for a good while and took several turns. I was significantly spacey as the evening wound down, with that surreal sense of being in a dream I typically have when I smoke. I begged a ride home (I had walked over two miles to get there) from one of the company’s resident den mothers, a dry-humored lesbian in her fifties who was helping with cleanup. As it so happens, she was also Sam’s ride.
Cue the beginning of the craziness.
**
Helping Miranda fold chairs and bring in dishes, I couldn’t help but notice (even in my dreamlike state) that the longhaired Vietnam vet who had worked for the company for years was getting agitated and shouting. He was clearly out of it, either drunk or tripping on something, and his bellowing had to do with guns and killing people. He may have been having a PTSD episode. At any rate, he was yelling curses and threats at the remaining partygoers in the backyard. One of our braver coworkers, a top performer and fundraising veteran named Jerry with a striking shock of white hair, was valiantly attempting to pacify him, with mixed results. It wasn’t helping at all that Renee, an alcoholic former beautician in her late forties, was still making the rounds of the sparse festivities, throwing out strident and drunken assertions at everyone and occasionally provoking Tom, the vet, by telling him to “fucking shut up already!”
Near the kitchen doorway Sam stood monitoring the scene. “We need to clear everybody out of here,” he said quietly. “He’s getting all riled up with all these people around. He’ll calm down once the party winds down.”
Which it was definitely doing; most of the guests had already left. Someone told me that Tom was going to camp out in the backyard for the night, and there were already blankets and quilts fence-side. It was good to know nobody was going to have to wrestle him into a car or see him home. Andie, the hostess, had disappeared some time before, having passed out on her bed; her roommate Russell was wandering around rather incoherent, having consumed several more potent vices than alcohol and weed. The only person vaguely in charge was Paul, the wickedly funny gay guy who helped organize this funfest.
Sam and I were more than ready to go, and everyone was moving to leave, but Miranda needed a rest. She was feeling fatigued. She sat down on one of the outdoor chairs and slowly smoked a cigarette, chatting with a bleary-eyed Russell. When at last we started moving toward the front door, I led the way, through the kitchen and into the dining room.
Which is when Miranda went down.
**
I was in front of her; Renee was behind. I turned sideways as she made a muted, guttural noise, and saw her reach toward the floor with both hands, as if she’d dropped something. In my altered state, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Renee grabbed at her as I stood dumbly by, watching. Miranda narrowly missed the dining table and chair and went down on her hands and knees before hitting the floor, shaking all over.
Sam was there like lightning, kneeling at her head. “Turn her on her side!” he barked. Renee and I helped him roll her. The remaining guests (minus Tom the ranter) had piled into the kitchen and were starting to freak out. “Call 911!” someone shouted. Miranda’s body was jerking spasmodically. “Don’t call 911!” Sam shouted back at the others. I looked at him uncertainly. “Just hold her,” he said. I trusted him. He held her upper body, I held her midsection, and Renee held her legs. Miranda went still and began making a sort of snoring noise in her throat.
Renee, drunk as a skunk as she was, started to freak out then, and decided we needed to do CPR and keep Miranda from swallowing her tongue. She pulled Miranda to one side and shoved her fingers in Miranda’s mouth, shouting at us and clumsily trying to do mouth-to-mouth. Miranda lay limply. Sam wasn’t intervening; maybe he was thrown by the throat-noise and by Renee’s sudden command of the situation. I was confused and vaguely frightened and couldn’t make any sense whatsoever of what was going on. I couldn’t remember whether Renee was the employee with the medical background or not (she isn’t). My brain seemed coated somehow, like a furry post-hangover tongue. “Is she breathing?” I asked, baffled. Renee said she was.
Good old Jerry, unconvinced that this didn’t constitute a life-or-death emergency, was calling 911 on his cell phone. Paul was protesting loudly, saying that it was unnecessary and that Miranda didn’t have insurance. Andie came rushing out the bedroom, surprisingly alert, demanding to know what the hell had happened. She knelt by Miranda’s side and got Renee to quit the amateur EMT routine. Renee got up in a growly huff, saying “I fucking saved her life, man.” Jerry was on the phone giving somebody, the police or EMTs, a blow-by-blow of the action until they arrived.
Which they did, in record time, just as Miranda was coming to. She opened and blinked her unfocused eyes, her limbs stirring. Sam, taking charge again (“Everybody out!”), herded the majority of us out of the room and into the backyard. I grabbed Miranda’s broken glasses up off the floor. Andie and someone else (Jerry?) stayed in the dining room to talk to the paramedics and the police.
**
Once everything had been sorted out and Miranda had been loaded onto the ambulance (bound for a small hospital nearby and not the public-hospital zoo, which was so overcrowded they were diverting emergencies elsewhere), Sam came to get me. “Let’s roll,” he said. I had no idea where we were going or how, but I grabbed my purse and salad bowl and followed. He unlocked the SUV parked in the driveway, Andie’s car. I got into the passenger seat. There was some consulting going on about the change of hospitals and where the smaller one was. I got out momentarily to hug a dazed Jerry, and tell him he’d done a good thing. He was wound tighter than a drum and squeezed me rigidly. Andie climbed into the back seat of her car, I got in front, and Sam, one of the only guests fully alert and sober now, slid into the driver’s seat.
He drove us to the quiet hospital E/R, where it turned out to be remarkably easy to park and check ourselves in as visitors. As we were walking in, Sam slipped an arm around my shoulders. “How are you doing?” he asked. I told him I had picked a hell of a time to do my once-a-year partying and that I wished I hadn’t gotten so fucked up.
There was absolutely nothing going on in the E/R for a Saturday night. Once Miranda had been admitted, within minutes we were able to go in and see her. She was completely conscious and coherent by that time, lying in a private exam room in a neck brace and hooked to an IV. She was glad to see us, but rueful that no one, particularly the paramedics and police, had noticed the dog tags hitched to her belt that said EPILEPTIC and DO NOT CALL 911 along with a list of her medications and her emergency contact. She hadn’t had a seizure in over a year.
Sam had been in the right all along. He stood by Miranda’s bedside now, squeezing her hand reassuringly. I was the designated digger, digging in her backpack for her spare pair of glasses, her wallet, and her portfolio of contacts and medical records. The casual, shirtsleeved doctor consulted with her briefly, determined she was good to go, and directed the nurses to discharge her. The whole hospital visit took less than an hour from end to end. Sam made the calls to the others to let them know everything was all right.
We all drove back to Andie’s house, which was dark by now. Miranda was going to spend the night there; Andie was lending Sam the car until tomorrow so he could get us both home (she still wasn’t fit to drive). Sam and I exchanged hugs with Andie and Miranda and climbed back into the SUV. I silently rejoiced to have him to myself at last.
(To any other gals out there: seriously, aren’t you in love with Sam by this point too?)
**
I marveled at how we had wound up here, after all the night’s misadventures, exactly where I would have wanted to be. Zooming down a quiet Thirteenth Avenue in Andie’s car, finally alone with him following upon a Foster-Clinean, dramatic ordeal, I felt even more strongly bonded to my steady young supervisor.
He had turned up the radio at Andie’s request on the way back to her house, and it was still turned up. I heard Glen Hansard’s gently plucked guitar intro to “Falling Slowly” from the movie Once come on, at a volume impossible to ignore, and I thought, aw, geez. Here it comes again: one of those moments where you’re rendered a hapless pawn to the emotion in a song, a beautiful love song that kidnaps you and carries you away to places you didn’t even know you wanted to go. A song from a movie about two people who become close in a short amount of time and share an unforgettable experience, but who, for one reason or another, don’t wind up together. Glen started singing
I don’t know you
but I want you
all the more for that...
I asked Sam if he’d seen the film. He hadn’t. I told him a little about it and mentioned that this song won an Oscar. As we crossed the intersection of my street and Fourteenth Avenue, Glen was crooning
You have suffered enough
at war with yourself
it’s time that you won…
and I thought with a smile, hell if that ain’t the truth, but I’m the only one in this car to whom that line means much. I started singing along softly.
Sam pulled into the driveway on one side of my building, and extended his right hand as he thanked me for being there tonight. Freeing myself from my seat belt, I brushed aside his hand and went in for a full hug…which he gladly and gratefully accepted, nestling me against his chest with both arms.
We held each other for what seemed like a long time, as if one of us were leaving for good. His warm and relaxed embrace felt as rare and right as that of only a few other men, Sonny among them (and I have put my arms around a multitude of men). Melting into his body, I could have stayed there all night.
“You’re so great, Sam,” I sighed. “Do you have any idea how great you are?”
He murmured something characteristically modest in reply. I separated myself from him at last, placing a hand briefly, caressingly, on his stubbled cheek. “Boy, I swear,” I continued with wry regret, “if you weren’t my boss…or if I weren’t old enough to be your mother…”
I shot him a sidelong look as I released the door latch, leaving the sentence unfinished. My consummate professional of a supervisor had the loveliest shy, open, vulnerable expression in his shining dark eyes. It was the expression of a hopeful young boy. In the half-light under the streetlight, he had never looked more beautiful or more appealing. (Should I have tried to kiss him anyway? Dang it, I was too messed up to judge. My rational mind says I did the right thing, but that embrace felt like the kind of supreme trumping good that makes a body throw caution to the wind and break protocols and laws and even a commandment or two.) We said good night, and I gave him a conspiratorial wink.
Another man I had hardly taken notice of at the outset had become something irresistible before my very eyes.
**
I can’t get over how easily I topple, like a top-heavy stack of plates. I’m a one-woman cliche. A formulaic romance narrative: introduction, then buildup, then crisis, then realization of feelings — without the Hollywood payoff at the end. But it wouldn’t be unfair to say that I’m like a windless sailboat when I’m not powered by some kind of eros. At least now I’m getting some energy back.
Walking in the park the day after all this madness, I thought about Rick, and about how much I enjoyed the time we did spend together. Isn’t that the point, I thought, to savor every moment you spend with someone you care about?
So I shared a bonding ordeal, and a lovely moment alone, with the capable and winsome young Sam…and I wouldn’t take any of it back or trade it for all the tea in China. That embrace glows in my heart the way Christ’s kiss glowed in the heart of Dostoevsky’s jaded old Inquisitor.
Is this going to be one more AlienBaby mishap? Oh, hell. Maybe.
Ask me if I care.
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