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11 ...once the words are spoken, something may be broken...  What Can You
Lose (by Stephen Sondheim)
   The common room of the clubhouse had a console TV that had seen better
years.  The manager kept putting off replacing it, although he did finally
spring for a DVD player to supplement the VHS job.  The cabinet in the
corner was stuffed with VHS tapes; the complex had started with a modest
library, and with every tenant who moved out and left tapes behind, the
collection grew.  Many was the afternoon or evening when Rose and I would
pull up the overstuffed couch and watch movies from that collection, or
DVDs that I had checked out from the library, or rented (or traded for
tapes that we had duplicates of), or that she'd borrowed from schoolmates.
We both liked our popcorn plain and our soda cold and stolen.  We went
through phases where we'd zero in on a particular category; '70's comedies,
Jamie Lee Curtis films, Hammer horror, Tim Burton movies, and so on.  She
was royally bemused by my confession that there were two movie scenes that
made me cry every time; the very end of "The Wizard of Oz" and the airport
scene in "Casablanca".  Rose wanted to put it to the test, and I obliged
her, both by watching the films and by shedding a few tears, as I knew I
would, when the aforementioned scenes came on.
   So it hit me as a fiercely unnerving epiphany one Saturday night in
January when we watched "Dick Tracy" (as a segue from a Warren Beatty
retrospective to films that had been made from comics); midway through the
picture, there's this scene where Mandy Patinkin is singing a duet with
Madonna, "What Can You Lose?" Now, I challenge you to come up with a more
perfect anthem for unrequited love than that song.  Anyway, Rose and I were
sitting fairly close together like we always did, our legs almost but not
quite touching, her hand carelessly draped in the space between our legs,
actually touching my leg through my sweats, and as the lyrics to this song
played out, I felt like I'd been slugged in the face with a shovel.  The
song was reaching into my chest and ripping out the ribcage.  There it was,
right in front of me, breathing in my face, my dilemma all wrapped up in a
perfect package, telling me that I loved her.  Not only that I loved her,
but also that I needed to tell her of my love, and in the same breath
forbidding me to do it, partly because I might scare her or confuse her
into retreating, but mostly because she was just a baby and I was well into
middle age, and it was WRONG, just dead WRONG.  In those few seconds, the
weight of the years, the agony and emptiness and sheer need, overwhelmed
me, because the answer to it all was sitting right beside me, yet we might
as well have been on different planets.  Before I knew what was happening,
I was bawling like a baby and struggling mightily to prevent Rose from
seeing my tears.  Of course, that failed utterly.  Rose was startled to see
me weeping so profusely, and she wanted to stop the film.  I told her no, I
was fine, I just wanted to finish watching, but she kept a close eye on me
for the rest of the night.  When we parted, Rose gave me the first hug
she'd ever trusted herself to give; shy and fiercely protective at the same
time, she squeezed me tight around the middle and laid her head on my
chest, telling me that she could hear my heart beating, and what a
wonderful sound it was.  Up close like that, I was able to take her in as a
whole; filling up my arms, my eyes, my nose.  The aroma, the simple sheer
redolence of her skin, a smell uniquely human and uniquely her.  Her
breasts, little mounds of firm flesh, smashed up against me, boring into
me, drilling through me, demanding recognition, and I was sure I could feel
the firmness of her nipples against my stomach as she gripped me.  As I
looked down, she turned her face up to gaze earnestly into mine, and as we
stood there, swaying imperceptibly in a nonexistent breeze, her lips were
close, so close, too close, and I really have no idea how I kept myself
from smothering her mouth with kisses right there and then.  If I learned
every language on earth, I still wouldn't be able to describe my feelings
at that moment.  Sweet, sweet, unbearably sweet, Hellishly sweet torture,
to go so far and no further.  But at least for now, I had part of her. 
There were more hugs to come; just a few, here and there; enough to look
forward to with hungry anticipation.  But it was that night, when we
watched "Dick Tracy", that I finally admitted to myself just how deeply in
I'd gotten.  I no longer had the crutch of self-imposed ignorance.  Bare
before the all-seeing eye of desire and regret, pinned in place like a
creature being vivisected by it's own need to give and receive love, and it
HURT, worse than any pain I'd ever felt before, physical or otherwise.
  
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