Here's the Hoagy tune from 1939, the theme song of the distraught.
Here's a cool story to go along with it:
I met a drunk girl with big lonely eyes at a bar. She was with her boyfriend but she just oozed self-destructive tendencies and was tired and depressed and I fell in love with her. I dreamed about her and jerked off thinking about her and looked for her at every bar. I thought I saw her vomiting in an alley and went down there to see if she was ok and it was not her and I said, "Sorry, I thought you were someone else."
This went on all Summer and I wanted to kiss her and lay in bed and watch her smoke cigarettes and drive her to the Social Services office to pick up food stamps. We would make love tenderly and she would massage my prostate when I climaxed. Then I saw her boyfriend and we were talking and I was drunk and said, "I have a confession. I am in love with your girlfriend."
We were playing pool and the guy stopped in the middle of taking a shot at the 7 ball.
"Really? Because I've been looking to pawn her off on someone for months. I thought about you but I like you too much."
"But I love her depression, she's wounded."
"No, dude, she's terminal. I wasn't really dating her, she showed up on my doorstep and had nowhere else to go. I couldn't get rid of her."
"She's so dreamy. I could talk her out of slitting her wrists all day long."
"She'd be doing everyone a favor."
"Where is she now?" I asked with heavy desperation in my voice that translated to "Her silky hair beneath the wool beret, where are you my beloved, my angel, my devoted love?"
"Probably in jail. She's been indicted twice for murder." He took the shot at the 7 Ball and sunk it. We were playing 9 Ball and his leave put a lot of green between the cue ball and the 8.
I gasped with ecstasy. This would be the third girlfriend of mine to involve prison.
"Does she need help? I could work a second job to pay for her lawyer. Only the best for her, only the best for my beloved."
"Dude, have you even had a conversation with her? She's sniffing glue, drooling, she has no idea where she is. My 13 year old son finally told me that she has to get out of the house. Then she was shacked up with some junkie and the dude overdoses on her anti-psychotic medication, dies, the second junkie to do that with her drugs, and...hey, are you listening to me?"
I was dreaming of the old scar on her cheek that she didn't even bother to hide with make up, and wondered if it was self-inflicted or caused during one of the many sexual assaults her uncle perpetrated against her.
"What?"
"I'm telling you that she's been indicted twice for homicide. They call her The Black Widow."
"Yeah, she's so awesome. So divine. Can I call her? Would you be offended?"
He eyed the 8 Ball and not only failed to sink it, but he left it hanging on the lip of the pocket...and the 9 Ball was near a side pocket.
"I think it's a really bad idea. She's sincerely sick, she's a junkie and she's mentally ill and she's homeless, has no direction, indicted for two murders, depressed, suicidal, refuses to take any birth control, fucks anyone, she..."
"So I can call her? Do you have her number?"
"Man, man, man..."
"I'll say that I found it in the phone book."
"Don't mention me at all. She fucking called the cops on me, said I had kidnapped her, talking crazy shit about alien abductions. She's bipolar to the max."
"I won't say nothing about you. I just want to take her walking in the park, play tennis with her, go to the theater and watch Grease or Cats because I love her."
"Tennis? Wow, you are hopeless, shit, good luck."
I stood up and sunk the 8 Ball and then sunk the 9 Ball shooting left handed, easy, like a pro. He shrugged and shook my hand.
So, he gives me the number and I call her immediately and tell her the most babbling drunk excuse in the history of cover-ups as to how I got her number and that I've dreamed about her all summer and wanted to meet her and brush her hair and take her to an ice cream shop downtown for ice cream and show her all the special spots around town that only I know about. Her tone of voice is exactly the opposite of how my fantasies about this conversation would be. I imagined she would be breathless and excited and echo all of my longing but instead she said, "Who is this? No I don't remember you. Did we fuck?" In a very gruff and displeased and bothered tone, very suspicious, very leery and annoyed and defensive. No trace of the affection I deeply desired. My heart broke a little. She tells me she will meet me at a bar and I say I can come get her and she says no, she will drive to me.
And so I wait all night nursing sad watery White Russians in polyester disguise, gay men rubbing my plaid knees, whorish bartenders showing cleavage for big tips. I keep asking the bartender what time it is? And the bartender tells me and I say my girlfriend is late. And the bartender gives no response. I tell strangers that my girlfriend is coming to meet me and we're going to the theater later on. And I tell this story for hours and hours until the bar closes and it's only me and I ask if they will stay open a little longer because I think my girlfriend is stuck in traffic. And I call her number again and it goes to voicemail and in my message I beg her to come to the bar. Is she ok?, I can come look for her and I am a mechanic and will fix her car if it is broken. And I talk until the voice mail runs out of memory and then I hold the cell phone like I'm holding her chin before I kiss it and then the bartender kicks me out rudely onto the street and drunk kids walk by and make fun of my polyester pants and jean jacket ensemble and I yell back, "You motherfuckers, I've got an REO Speedwagon concert pin, so fuck you, I've got the pin and my girlfriend and me are going to the Journey concert this summer and we're going to rock our denim jackets and I'll play her sad Hoagy Carmichael songs on the piano and she'll understand."
And the drunk kids throw empty beer cans at me and I wait in the fog but she never comes to the bar and never answers the phone again. Still, I think of her and how she was perfect for me and she wore a horizontal striped Russian Navy shirt and leaned heavily on the bar and had thin shoulders and I don't know why I love you like I do, I don't know why I just do.
