I’d planned to just sit home and read, or maybe watch a movie. But I couldn’t. That feeling that the world is passing you by and you’d better get out there and live a little or you’ll miss out – started to descend on me. I thought I was too old for that. Or maybe it was something else, maybe ennui. Or maybe it was something I really was old enough for - existential angst. As a younger man I’d only had an intellectual understanding of it. Later, a little older, when I heard Peggy Lee sing, Is that all there is, I got it. So maybe that’s what it was. Or maybe it was just the moon. After all, it was bigger and rounder than I ever recall seeing it as it rose over the backyard fence, calling to me. It was that once in a year sort of moon, so close it seemed you could reach up and touch it, so awesome that toy poodles and Chihuahuas start howling out of fear or love. I decided to walk to the plaza.

A briskly-cool night under plenty of soft silvery light... it would have been nice to have been holding someone’s hand, but it was still good. Fifteen minutes later I hit the plaza and heard loud rock music. A small crowd milled about on the sidewalk outside of Cindy’s, the local pub. I’d never been in Cindy’s and so I went over. The people outside were my age and dressed as if they’d had too much to drink and had broken open the old steamer trunk in the attic with all their Summer of Love clothes inside. There were lots of bell bottom jeans, peasant dresses, and beer bellies pushing out tie-died Tee shirts. One guy had blued the graying remains of his thinning mop, crazy gluing it into a fin-like do. They all wore name tags – Hello! I’m Larry! Hello! I’m Francine!

I asked the bouncer, a thirty-something bruiser, what was going on. “It’s Sixties Band Night,” he said, trying hard not to smile too much. I thanked him and went inside, stopping just short of the table where you had to pay to get your Hello sticker. A guy in a folding chair leaned toward me to ask for my money just as one of the bands launched into a number, Let’s Spend the Night Together. The four band members, a drummer, bassist, guitar player, and lead singer, were from the sixties and in their sixties. They had great amps and equipment but their playing wasn’t so good. Maybe they were out of practice after all these years or maybe it was just arthritis. But that didn’t matter to the crowd, especially the chicks, all of them hens now, plumped up and big breasted. From every darkened corner of the place their eyes glowed hungrily as they watched the lead singer cock-strut about like Mick Jagger. Wow! It was just like back in the day when the guys in the band always got their pick of the chicks. And these guys would rock tonight too as long as they’d remembered to pack their Viagra.

I hung out for another number and then they asked me to buy a ticket. I shook my head and left. When I was young my occasional feelings of discomfort in situations like this were more about appearance, height, facial hair, ‘face’ -- pecking-order mating-dance kinds of issues. I’ve outgrown all of that. At least I like to think I have. Tonight I just simply didn’t find it all that entertaining. All those people back there were having fun and it was all alright. They were trying to fill that abyss that Peggy Lee had hinted at, with sex, drugs (new, legal ones) and rock and roll. But that wasn’t enough for me. I’m not ready to accept that that’s all there is. There has to be more. I would just have to keep on looking.

I walked down the street to the Coffee Grind. Sometimes they had folkies singing and strumming in there, miked up to a small amp. That was more my style. But tonight no one was performing and so I went on to Peet’s where the coffee was better.

I got in line to order a latte. The guy in front of me had also evidently left the Sixties Band Night. Dressed all in black, he had Rod Stewart hair and the kind of dark, recessed eyes that thirty or more years of hard drug use or the proper application of eye shadow will get you.

I looked around. A few of the usual folks were there, sitting and chatting quietly, or sitting alone and surfing the web, or watching the world go by, or tapping out the great American novel, or maybe ransom notes. Who the hell knows. Some newbies caught my eye – a family - papa, mama, and son, all with opened laptops, seated at the same little table, with hardly enough room left for coffee. Papa was playing some kind of fighting game featuring elves with staves, mama was surfing mystical/religious sites, and son was on the Disney site. Hmmm. I’d never seen that before. There was something Norman Rockwell-ish about it. The family that surfs together… whats together? I have no idea. We won’t know for another twenty five years or so, and by that time everybody in the country will probably be packing prayer rugs anyway, or maybe the Chinese will have foreclosed on the whole damned country, given how quickly we’re running up our tab with them.

“Paul… tall latte!”

I picked up my drink and added a packet of sugar, raw, of course, and found a table. After a few sips I felt a little better. I was alone, but at least I had company. I looked over briefly at the surfing family. There was some conversation, about as much as there’d been when my family had watched the Disney movie on Sunday evenings so many years ago, during the commercials, of course.

Twenty five years is a significant chunk of time. Thirty years ago when I moved to the Bay Area, MC Hammer was at the top of his game, making millions. Then about twenty years later local news stations were reporting that his mansion was about to be repossessed. Now he’s back, successful, happily married, raising little Hammers. Twenty five years from now Lady Gaga will probably be selling Avon door to door, or perhaps she’ll be a nun in a convent run by Mother Superior Madonna. Fitty Cent will be Fitty Fi Dolla and Fitty Cent, due to stagflation. I felt in my pocket for my notepad and pen. Twenty five years from now will I still be writing? Will I still be here. It was possible, in body at least. But at the rate the memory seems to be fading I wonder if I’ll even know it. Actually, that didn’t sound too bad for some reason. Maybe I should’ve ordered a double shot.

TAGS: angst, Life, modern times, Paul Clayton, surfing, the net

PAUL CLAYTON writes historical fiction, mainstream fiction, literary fiction, and short stories, as well as opinion pieces and humor. In 2001 his fictionalized account of his tour in Vietnam was named a finalist in the Frankfurt eBook Awards. He has lived in the SF Bay area for the last twenty-five years. You can read more of his writing HERE.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 2:13 pm and is filed under Memoir, Nonfiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.