Not Quite Uptown (from Boyhood Tales)

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jwesley
Member Rara Avis

since 2000-04-30

Posts 7563
Spring, Texas

0 posted 2004-11-01 08:32 PM

Not Quite Uptown
(from Boyhood Tales)

It’s 1956.

Elvis is singing –
“I want you, I need you, I love you”

and I’m sitting on the back steps
of a shotgun duplex with 15-foot ceilings,
just off the Magazine St. bus line –

on Camp St. – not quite Uptown
as money goes,
but not far from Audubon Park –

in the sultry, humid, mid-summer,
mosquito-laden heat ,
teenage hormones
more than the night-time warmth,
causing sweat to rise
from every pore of my skin.

There are six of us;
and Debbie doing a lone, slow dance
to Elvis’ voice,
her eyes locked on mine,
is driving me crazy.

As the last note faded away
I looked at the record player
and saw another platter drop,
at the same time feeling Debbie
take my hand.

She knew what the next record was,
because when I looked back at her
she mouthed the words
as Elvis sang them . . .
“Love me tender, Love me true...”
and pulled me onto the patch of grass
we called our dance floor.

I couldn’t dance and she knew it,
but she put her arms around me anyway,
and I waved at St. Peter as I went by
because I know I was in heaven then,
and blushed a hotter shade of fire
then any heat I’d felt yet
when she said “It would help if you held me too.”

Everybody laughed
and I stopped in my tracks,
bashfully embarassed
but Debbie squeezed me tighter,
laid her head against my chest . . .
“hold me.”

I held her,
never wanting to let go,
wishing life would end right there,
praying that could be the last thing I ever remembered. . .

and I’ve held her all these many years we’ve been apart,
in my heart,
in my thoughts,
in the deepest corners of my soul.

1956.

Debbie, me, and Elvis.

“I want you, I need you, I LOVE You.”

~ ~ ~

w. james beard, jr.
© november 1, 2004

passing shadows
Member Empyrean

since 1999-08-26

Posts 45577
displaced

1 posted 2004-11-01 08:48 PM

a fond memory, yes

ecrivan
Member Elite

since 2001-12-10

Posts 3923
my own state

2 posted 2004-11-01 08:49 PM

Some tender loving moments well described...delightful recall

Magnus

Member Laureate

since 2001-10-10

Posts 14135
South Carolina, USA

3 posted 2004-11-01 09:00 PM

Jimmy, you are not alone...that was quite
a year and decade for that matter. Love
comes to us each in many different ways...

Your own sounds definitely just about right!

Kahlil
Senior Member

since 2003-04-12

Posts 1881

4 posted 2004-11-01 09:47 PM

Wesley,
This write really gets me!
It's so sweet and tender.
Ohhh, now I wish I were Debbie...

K

Enchantress
Member Empyrean

since 2001-08-14

Posts 35113
Canada eh.

5 posted 2004-11-01 09:47 PM

I remember the year...
I remember the songs...
Loved this one Jimmy!

~Autumn..the year's last, loveliest smile.~

S Arthur Grey
Senior Member

since 2001-03-19

Posts 719
woven by a poet's loom

6 posted 2004-11-01 11:54 PM

Vivid.
I can see why.
Lucky you.

sag

and what a different world it is tonight . . .

Sunshine

Administrator

Member Empyrean

since 1999-06-25

Posts 63354
Listening to every heart

7 posted 2004-11-02 08:55 AM

Ah...this is good...
very good...
and I enjoyed every step down
memory lane.

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