Actors and Architects

ACTORS AND ARCHITECTS

I think she saw us as a romantic tragedy that she enjoyed rereading.  We had tried on several occasions to form a more intimate relationship but the combination of me and her was toxic.  Our love would shortly flame up and would go out like a match.  We were a match.  We were more like a box of matches, and we had put out a few by the end of September of 2011.

September was a particularly special time throughout our history.  We first got together in September when she was 19 shortly after she found out that her mother was going to die of cancer.  Then again when she was 24, the year we had both gotten divorced.  In 2011 she was 26 and had no out of the ordinary reason to get ahold of me, but before I knew it, another match had been struck.  She had just recently broken up with a guy that she had been dating for over a year.  He bored her, which is not hard to do.  She was looking for a bit of romance; a bit of drama.  She wrote me and said, "Whenever I drive past a Ferris wheel, I think of you."  I knew it was the beginning of another short-lived flame.

I told her about a show I was playing at the Village Green Record Store in Muncie, Indiana which was not too far from where she was living.  She came to the show and we caught up with each other.  At first she had up a front and was disguising herself as someone new, a thing she often did, but as the night went on and I remained true to who I was and who I knew she was also and the front came down.  By the end of the night we had made plans to get together again.

I was living in Indianapolis at the time and was to stay with her the weekend of the James Dean Festival, which she first introduced to me in September of '04.  On the car ride to her apartment to get some of her things, she told me,

"I have to stay at my boss' house because he's out of town.  It's no big deal if you stay there.  He's always telling me I should have friends over; parties and stuff.  He's just this guy, early 50's but looks real young.  He's rich!  Oh, he's so rich!  His family is wealthy, plus, he's like, a big-time lawyer.  He's always traveling.  He has so much money he doesn't even know what to do with it all." 

"Are you his personal assistant or something?"

"Yes. He originally hired me as a nanny for his son but his son doesn't live with him anymore.  He's with his Mom in California.  So then he just has me around to keep him in order.  Run errands, buy groceries, take notes, go with him to meetings... Sometimes I just work a few hours a week.  He'll make me go to his house and clean it.  If he's in a bad mood he'll give me a whole bunch of stuff to clean." 

"Have you ever heard of Frank Lloyd Wright the architect?"  She asked. 

"I think, maybe.  He makes crazy designs?" I was thinking of Frank Gehry.  I had seen the documentary with Sydney Pollock and was quite impressed. 

"He lives in a Frank Lloyd Wright house."  She said. 

"Wait, does it have giant holes in the walls?" I was thinking of Louis Kahn.  I had seen the documentary My Architect. 

"No... It's hard to describe.  There's a lot of windows.  Have you ever heard of Falling Waters?  The house on the waterfall?"

"This house is on a water fall?"

“No, it’s just… you’ll see.”

She couldn’t believe there was no trace of information in my head about this famous thing that everyone was supposed to know.  And I usually pride myself in knowing a little about everything, mostly due to my tenacity for consuming movies of all sorts.

We pulled up to the house down a long driveway.  It was pouring down rain and bitter cold.  I let her unlock the front door before I got out of the car and got all wet.  I jumped out of the car with my old hardshell suitcase and ran to the door.

I walked into the first room the 60s style screen door like the one my grandparents had with the spring that snapped it back with a bang. It was an oddly shaped room with many outlets, dark red floor with dark brown walls.  My first thought was that I should take my shoes off.  There was a bench that ran along the back wall that allowed me to do so.  Once in my socks I noticed that the floor was warm.  I could feel it instantly.  It was an absurd thing to me, but beyond genius.

Carrie was nowhere to be found.  I didn't see which direction she went, or at least I couldn't remember.  It could have been any of the 5 options the room offered; a hallway to my left, an opening straight ahead-ish, a dark hallway to the right, the mysterious door on the left, or the mysterious door on the right.  Or I guess I could have just left the house.  That would be the 6th option.  I went with the mysterious door on the left.  Bathroom.  I gave up and yelled. 

"HELLO?"

"Go straight."  She yelled back in her tiny voice.  The voice brought me back to 2004 when she was a scrawny 19-year-old girl.  I would stop bye her house around 5 in the morning in the middle of my paper route.  I had a stop at the CVS in Marion.  Her old run down apartment was directly behind it.  I’d call her and she would wake up and say hello in the cutest, tiniest voice.  Then moments later she would come down the dingy stairs in her panties and tank top.  She would slightly smile through her messy hair and sleepy face, touching the railing with her delicate hand, identical to my mothers’.  I couldn’t get enough of an eye full of her long feet with red toenails and even longer slender legs void of imperfection.

Straight would've ended up being my last guess, but I went straight.  It led me into a kitchen where she was preparing to steam a kettle of water.  I said, "The floor is warm." 

"Yeah!"  She said.  "The heat comes from under the floor.  There's red wax over the cement.  It's usually a lot brighter.  A guy needs to come redo it." 

"I'll do it."  I immediately wanted in on whatever was going on around there. 

"Charlie does it.  He's this nice older guy.  He's friends with my boss."

"This kitchen is my favorite part of the house." She said. 

Though she had expressed that she didn't like her job, I could tell she was proud, and delighted in all the perks.  She liked feeling fancy.  The counters, sinks, and shelves were simple stainless steel.  The fridge was gigantic and practically empty.  She was going through it to throw a few things out. 

"Do you want this Greek Yogurt?"  She put it on the counter. 

"What's Greek Yogurt?"

"You might not like it."  "I also have to throw out this salad.  They go good together." 

She put out a bowl as wide as my shoulders with a strange looking salad in front of me. 

"It's rich people salad.  It's nuts and berries with spinach and vinaigrette.  It goes good with the yogurt."

"Want some coffee?" she asked. 

"Yup." I said with a mouth full of rich people salad.

"He has all this Starbucks coffee.  He buys one a week and is almost never here to drink it."

She ground the coffee up and put it in a French Press.  Took the kettle off the stove and poured steaming hot water over the grounds, stirred a little then put the top on and left it. 

"Should I give you the tour?"

Down the dark hallway was a bathroom with a giant bathtub, and beyond that was the master bedroom.  She jumped on the bed and pointed out just how expensive it was.  She gave me the billion thread count this, and memory foam that, down this, and satin that.  She went over to the wardrobe, or wardrobes, that covered the entire west wall of the bedroom.  Strong dark wood 3 feet deep, clear to the ceiling.  In it were suits.  Lots of dark suits.  She caressed one or two of them.  Smelling them and rubbing her face on them, maybe danced a little with one as if there was symphonic music playing.  It was a weird moment that I wish I hadn't seen.  I began wondering what the nature of this relationship between her and her boss really was.  "Maybe she just likes nice suits." I thought.

We walked back down the hallway where I notice just how many windows there really were.  They were less then a foot wide and separated by a 2-inch wide beam, so it was beam window beam window beam window as you walked.  All the wood in the house was this soft looking red colored wood.  Everything had a red color really, bright red and dark red.  There was also an incline to the bedroom and a decline back made by red platform steps with little lights on each step.  It was a very narrow hallway that had a curve.  The one side seemed flat and the other side had the windows.  It was dark, it was narrow, …it curved, there were beams, and it seemed endless. 

We walked back through the first entrance and returned to the kitchen to get the coffee.  She poured two cups and we continued the journey into the next area.  Along the kitchen was what would be considered the dining room.  In the middle of the area was a strangely shaped table.  White and swervy.  Very futuristic, with bright red chairs to match.  It was an open space and in a triangle shape.  The one side was the kitchen, another side was a wall of windows maybe 40 feet high.  The 3rd side, was a wide but short book case that separated the dining room from the living room.  In the living room there was nice strange looking furniture around a gigantic fireplace which was a stone structure in the center of the kitchen, dining room, and living room that barreled up and out of the top.  All of the sudden the house began to feel like a permanent teepee of epic proportions.  Carrie complained about having to clean the fireplace.  "When he's mad at me he'll make a fire the night before and make me clean it." She added, causing me to try to work out a scenario in which that wasn't weird. 

Above it was a giant painting.  "He buys all that guys paintings.  He says they're going to be worth something someday."

She said, "Frank Lloyd Wright has many rules for the house and one of them is that you are not allowed to hang art because he says the house itself is art.  But he does it anyway."

Around the fireplace was another dining room type area.  This was more of a proper dining room with a big table and tall but skinny gothic wooden chairs.  The chairs were for sitting but the backs were actually taller than an average standing man. 

She said, "Frank Lloyd Wright designed all the furniture in the house.  It was made just for this house and you're not supposed to bring any new furniture into it.  You're just supposed to fix it."

I thought, "The balls on this guy."

Past that we went into another hallway and into a bedroom. 

"This is his son's room when he's here.  Right now he lives in San Francisco." 

"It's so small!" I said. 

We were in the small space together and there was a moment.

She said, "Yeah, and everything is built into the walls.  Shelves come out of the walls and out from under the bed.  This door goes to the bathroom" 

"Another bathroom" I said.  My count was up to 3. 

Back to the hallway to another room.  It was a bigger room with the first familiar object I had seen in the whole house, a TV.  There was a door to the outside in that room.  My count was up to 3 exits, the other being in the dinning room by the kitchen. 

I asked, "So where is that room where we started?" 

"The kitchen?" 

"No, the entrance.  Where did it go?" 

We walked back down the curvy hallway past the small bedroom, and then there it was. 

"This is a bathroom"

"Oh, I got that one."

"and this is the pantry and the laundry room and it has the stereo for the whole house stereo."

I yelled, "Oh, cool!"  It was the first thing I would do if I was rich, would be to pipe music through out the house.

It was close to midnight and we needed to get up around 7 or 8 to get to Fairmount to see the little guys race in the Garfield Run.  We needed to get to bed but had just finished a cup of extremely strong coffee. 

We carried our things down the hallway near the master bedroom.

“This door is soundproof, so when you close it it’s totally silent when you’re sleeping.”

  There was another bedroom in that hallway that I didn't notice earlier.

“So, you could sleep where ever you want, there, or you could sleep in here.”  Pointing to the master bedroom.

“Could we both sleep in there?”  I said as I looked at her with as much confidence as I could muster.

She thought for a second, but then said, “Sure.”

We brought our stuff into the room.  It was very cold and she couldn’t figure out why.  It was like being outside without the wind or the rain.  Without that heat coming up, those cement floors could get unbearable.  The bed and sheets were just as cold and we got in them to warm them up as soon as possible.  Thankfully the blankets were some scientific phenomenon and they got nice and warm right away. 

I layed there on my back next to Carrie.  I could feel the bed easing me into it until I was in a cast of myself.  It seemed like Carrie went right to sleep.  She wasn't rolling around or saying anything or paying attention to me in the slightest.  I just layed there thinking about how not tired I was, and also maybe thinking of a plan to have a more interactive non-sleep session with her.  I knew she didn't want to.  I knew she THOUGHT she didn't want to.  I knew Carrie though.  I knew she was a tough cookie to crack.  It was a sort of pride thing.  Some how, instilled in her, there was a voice saying, “this is something you don’t want.”  But I had known of days when she had ignored that voice and had a real good time.  

After some grunts and some rolling around and an occasional arm graze I realized that she had come prepared.  There would be no funny business.

"Ugh!  I slept terrible last night!" I complained as we rolled around to wake up the next morning still in the dark. 

I was hinting at the fact that I couldn't sleep because I wanted to fool around.  I saw on her face that she knew what I was saying and despised me a little for it.  She owed nothing to me and that type of pressure was exactly the kind of thing she wanted to avoid.  Carrie was a mystery when it came to sex.  You could never assume anything.  Ultimately she wished it didn't exist.  I think it was the male sex drive that always made her uncomfortable.  She once told me she hated sexual tension.  Hated sexual tension!  Hated it in movies and hated it in real life. 

We quickly got ready in the room that had gotten even colder than the night before.  She made two cups of coffee for the road and we were on our way.

Parking was always a problem at the James Dean Festival.  It's easy if you're willing to fork out 5 bucks, but Carrie was a local and there were many options.  Instead of asking someone to let her park in their yard, she found a spot on a street just outside the main area that was open. 

It was called the Garfield run because there was another famous person that had come out of Fairmount named Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield.  On the Fairmount water tower there was both Dean and Garfield.  They looked terrible together.  I saw it as an embarrassment, and most would agree they'd rather not have to pay tribute to both, but a friend and local resident once explained to me that Garfield is the James Dean of cats.  After that, I didn't mind as much.

The Garfield run was important to Carrie because she was Fairmount's most prominent nanny.  She knew more than half of the kids in the race.  If she didn't know the kids, she knew the moms.  A lot of them were her age and went to high school with her. 

It upset her a little that everyone was having babies.  That's all she ever wanted was to have babies of her own.  The first time we were together she was going to school to be a midwife and was a nanny on the side.  She treated her nephews and nieces and friend's kids and the kids she was a nanny for as her own.  All she wanted to do was get married and have babies.  After getting married 3 or 4 years before, she found out that she was unable to have kids and it crushed her.  It may have been one of the causes for the marriage to die so fast.  I think it lasted no more than a year.  I can also not imagine being married to her for more than a few months, too many expectations that no guy could ever live up to, but she was beautiful and wonderfully romantic in the peak moments.  She was dreamy and stylistic, silly and funny and, in her moment of weakness, could be very sexy.

The little kids came down the hill towards the finish line where we all waited.  Some running, some walking and crying.  Parents would go pick them up and carry them across.  (what kind of lesson was that?).  Carrie congratulated her little buddies and then we moved on. 

We went back to the car so I could rearranged my clothes.  I pointed out something I knew she'd like, a blue and white striped undershirt.  "You are not wearing that right now." she said.  I knew it'd remind her of those photos of Bob Dylan from the Freewheelin' sessions with Suzie.  I had the blue jeans and the boots too. 

I tended to dress myself up when I was around Carrie.  The first time we hung out again, one year after our first break up, I dressed like I did the first time she saw me, when she told me I was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.  She wanted me to be that fantasy guy and I didn't want to disappoint her.

Bob Dylan had always played a part in our history.  Like the time we sat on the carpet of her cold apartment in front of a space heater drinking wine while listening to The Whitmark Demos record for the first time.  There was a moment when we looked at each other as if to say, “This is really good, this moment here, couldn’t get much better.”

Or the time we spent the morning watching all his Newport Folk Festival performances before she had to go to work.  Something as simple as those rough recording of baby face Dylan on a stage big stage at night or the mid day performance a year later when he was a thin faced, jaded, visionary, merely months from leaving the Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary world behind, could be worthy of tears on that couch. 

The time I broke a year of silence to tell her to read "A Freewheelin' Time" because I knew she would love it, and then a year later when she texted me that Suzie had died. 

Or the day after I left for Arizona, which inevitably ended our relationship, when she called me during a Bob Dylan concert in Lafayette to tell me everything that was happening, missing out on several songs to just share a piece of it with me. 

Or when we played Don't Look Back on repeat through the small TV in her bedroom while we stayed up with each other all night in a guilt ridden desperation to feel loved and not abandoned only months after our divorces.

To her, I was the version of Bob Dylan that hadn’t existed, but interested her all the same. 

My music was the first thing that drew her to me.  A boy and his guitar never failed to swoon a young gal, but Carrie in particular was susceptible to something like that because she wanted something better than realistic ideals, and in the realm of my music she found that. 

When I wasn’t singing she wanted to see me as a still photo of early Dylan.  She wanted me in her apartment to feel like was like a scene from Don’t Look Back that included her.  I played the part as best I could until she saw the cracks, then there was no going back.

It reminded me a classic American epic; the couples on the run genre.  Bonnie and Clyde from the 60s, Badlands from the 70s, Breathless from the 80s, True Romance from the 90s, the absolute, number one theme in these stories can be summed up in 3 words:

“You’re so cool.”

“You’re so cool.”

These stories are about a simple flawed man convincing a woman, who is very much out of his league, to follow him.  Through out the story he must do what it takes to keep her saying the words, “You’re so cool.”  Many can relate to this dynamic.  It summed our relationship up quite well.  These things are a flash in the pan; hot, bright, exciting, and temporary.  These ideas are surface only, which is the only way it works because beneath is something else entirely. 

-----------

We were hungry and she knew of a diner that she wanted to walk to.  It was 50s themed and had pictures of movie stars and musicians covering all the walls.  There was a table of Hispanic rockabilly types at the front booth.  They looked at me like they didn't think I was rockabilly enough.  Or maybe they thought I looked like James Dean.  Or probably what it was that they thought was that I thought I looked like James Dean.  That was the thing, all day during the James Dean Festival you'd have guys walking around with their hair done up and clothes from a particular Dean photo or movie because they would later be entering the Look-a-like contest.  So not only are the guys judged at the end of the night, but they are judged by everyone the entire day.  They'd think, "He doesn't stand a chance.  He doesn't even look like him.  He thinks because he's white and has light colored hair that he looks like him?"  But, when it's right, it's freaky.  One year my ex-wife and I were walking through the Run and we passed a guy.  She said to me, "Thats the guy who’s famous for winning a whole bunch of times.  He's from Indiana and he's deaf." 

I turned around and looked.  All I saw was the back of his head but it gave me the eeriest feeling.  It looked exactly like the back of James Dean's head.  No joke.

We quickly ate our food and then went running for the parade.  We were at the end, where the parade stops parading, but caught the very beginning of it with the loud fire truck and ambulance.  We stood under an awning, it was sprinkling a little bit, but was still sunny and had a nice potential for a rainbow.  I was excited to see my old friend Adam standing near by.  He was with a cute blonde I hadn't met before.

We exchanged hellos like, "Hey, man." and "What's up, dude". 

I said, "Glad you made it up here"

"Yeah, P-Nut let me take today off."  P-nut was the owner of the tattoo shop he worked at in Bloomington.  Most of my tattoos are ones he's done.  He himself was covered in tattoos, though his new girlfriend was not.  

"This is Suzanne" He put his arm around a short pretty blonde girl who looked half misplaced with his tattooed arm around her and half perfect with his tattooed arm around her.

Adam waved to Carrie, "Hey I'm Adam."  "It's Carrie.  You know me." She said.  They grew up together in Fairmount. 

"Oh, Shit!  Sorry, I didn't recognize you."

It was weird for all of us because I had only seen Adam with this one girl he lived with for something like 5 years, and he had only seen me with my ex-wife which all changed within the last year. 

"We drove up here in the truck." He said.  He had a badass 1966 Chevy truck that I was in love with. 

"It cost 80 dollars, two tanks of gas."

“Well, every you start it up, you blow 5 dollars with that thing.”

“You should sell it.”

“To me.”

There was an awkward pause.

We were missing the parade.  We turned around just in time to see the class of '49 (James Dean's graduating class) in a baby blue Cadillac convertible.  Blue haired ladies throwing candy with matching pink shirts that said something about 49 and something about feeling fine.  Next was the big guys in the funny hats and tiny bikes.  They were flying around in figure 8's and so forth. 

There was always a number of floats that were from churches and they would have the church band up there with a PA and everything, playing a song.  You'd only hear a line or two before they went by.  So instead of getting smarties or tootsie rolls you got a line or two about nature and then it would be over.

In the parade there would be a series on cool cars, there would be girls on horses, there would be roller derby girls, there would be some do-gooder biker gang.  There was always a motorcycle at some point with a side car and in the side car would be a funny dog wearing a matching helmet. 

The class of '61 was celebrating their 50th class reunion.  There were usually people running for office.  The running candidate Mayor or some other office candidate that looks like a random Dad, walking along handing out pamphlets, and making their kids hold up signs with some catch phrase that rhymed with their last name. 

You wouldn't know when the parade was over.  You would just start to get the feeling you're not being entertained anymore.  Everything would just ease back into normality.  Regular old mini vans started driving past and you would think, "Okay, I think it's over."  I truly loved every moment of the Fairmount James Dean Days Parade.

Carrie and I left the downtown area where all the venders and rides and activities were and went to see the cars at the James Dean Run.  It was a nice 6 or 7 blocks away.  I enjoyed walking through the neighborhoods with the big houses and nice lawns and sidewalks that were either badly broken up by the roots of the trees, or hand printed and autographed.  Tiny lap dogs barked in the windows and had for a full 3 days. 

Everyone in the town had a yard sale during the James Dean Days because so many people were in the town for the event.  You'd always have to spend at least a few hours looking through yard sale junk.  In the past I've bought some frames, boxes, glasses, some movies, some records, and other various James Dean memorabilia. 

We passed a table that was everything 50s.  They could put a picture on anything.  There were cigarette lighters and coffee cups, keychains and cigarette holders with 50's pictures on it.  I was interested in the cigarette holders to use as a wallet.  I had been using one but it was girlie.  I was torn between two.  One had two color photos.  One side was just him smiling and the other was one of his last photos, if not his last, where he was getting into his car.  The other was grey toned.  They were both of him on the set of Giant in a cowboy hat.  I had to buy that one. 

I grew up in a nearby town called Kokomo.  I liked to say I lived down the street from James Dean, only 50 years and 30 miles apart.  I had a lot of Fairmount friends because of the Indiana music scene of the early 2000s.  I was in a band that basically built the scene from the ground up and Fairmount, as well and all the other surrounding towns (Gas City, Upland, Peru, Bunker Hill, Marion, Logansport, Carmel, Muncie) were a big part of that.

Dean and I were a lot alike.  We were both born in Indiana but moved away until we were about 9 when we moved back to Indiana, (him from California, me from Kentucky) and we lived here until we were 18 and then ventured out.  He moved to California then New York, then California again.  I moved all over back to Indiana, all over, to California also, but then moved back to Indiana.  Now he's in Indiana to stay, and so am I, more than likely.

Fairmount hadn't changed since the 50s.  At one point the 3 towns; Kokomo, Fairmount, and Marion were exactly the same.  Then Kokomo got Chrysler and Delco factories and Marion got many different manufacturing factories.  The towns grew enormously over the decades from maybe 5,000 to 50,000.  Fairmount never changed.  It still has mostly all the same businesses and all the same houses.  The downtown area looks exactly like from the famous photos of James Dean visiting his hometown after his first successful movie in 1954.  The same record store is there on Main Street, and it’s owned by the same lady.  She opens it for a few hours a week on Saturdays. 

We passed Fairmount High, which had begun to collapse in the last year.  It had been dormant for a few decades but still stood as a historical landmark.  Martin Sheen was said to have shown interest in funding the preservation of it.  Sheen was a fan of James Dean as an actor.  In 1974 he played "Kit" in the movie Badlands, which was my favorite movie.  Kit tried his best to resemble James Dean and within the movie he made a famous James Dean pose from each of Dean's movies; with the gun over the shoulders from Giant, squatting down from East of Eden and flicking his cigarette out of the car window like in Rebel Without a Cause.  Ultimately though, it was just talk, and they let it go.  The high school where James Dean attended was falling apart.  A piece of history was fading away.

We went out of our way to avoid Carrie's old house.  The new owners had changed it quite a bit.  She said it looked awful now.  She didn't want the memories.  I felt so bad for her sometimes.  I will never be mature enough to understand what she went through and what she will always have to deal with.  I usually avoided commenting on her past, her home life, her dad, and her mom, which might have come across as not caring, but really it was that I found it all unfathomable.

We arrived at the James Dean Run.  It started in the late 70s, maybe early 80s.  It's mostly a big huge classic car show.  I couldn't say how many cars, plus there was much more up in Gas City and Marion.  I think that one was called the Duck Tail Run.  We spend a couple hours walking through there, weaving in and out of several different roads.  It was a park with lots of paved and graveled roads with a big tent in the middle and it was surrounded by baseball fields.  There were lots of vendors all offering the same foods.  There were tables selling redneck stickers and sunglasses.  In the back there were old men selling parts to old cars.  They were selling old metal gas station signs and old license plates.

I once bought a motorcycle license plate from 1966.  The numbers were 5581.  '66 was one of my favorite years.  I wore glasses from 1966.  The kind Bob Dylan wore during the Highway '61 revisited studio sessions.  And '66 was when Dylan was in that motorcycle accident.  '55 was the year James Dean died in the car crash while driving his '55 Porsche Spider, and '81, well that was the year I was born.  (which by the way if you add all 3 numbers and divide them by 3 you get 66 again)

In the entrance of the run there was a replica of James Deans '55 550 Porsche Spyder.  Some guy had made a few from the ground up, using the same blueprints and the same aluminum and everything.  Even the red interior was exactly the same.  Next to the car was a nearly life sized picture of Dean sitting in the car giving a thumbs up to the camera with sunglasses and driving gloves on.  He looked 20 years older do to shaving his hair back into a receding hair line.  He had played a 60 year old man a little more than a week before in his last movie, "Giant". 

I had a tattoo of the car on my left arm, just below a short sleeve.  It's the Spyder with a couple roses on the sides with a banner underneath that says, "INDIANA".  I wondered what the maker of the car would think of it.  I was sure he'd love it.

Also next to the car was the tracker from a famous photo of Dean and his cousin.  The picture was there next to the tractor.

Every year I would pick a favorite car.  Some years I would go with hot rods.  Some years I'd pick a car that I had seen in a movie recently and liked.  That year I was on the hunt for a 1931 truck.  I was working on a graphic novel that took place in '34 and the main character drove a brown Ford truck from 1931.  I had been using pictures off the internet for references, but it would be eternally useful to get up close, take pictures from all angles and get a look at the interior.  I found several early '30s cars, a lot of them altered into hot rods which didn't really exist until the 50s.  I saw a Model A and a Model T.

Carrie would spot one and I would disappoint her with, "No, that's, at the earliest, a '38". 

Some of the ones she would point out were from the 50's or later.  And then she found my truck.  1931 Ford.  It had wooden gates in the back but was still the right truck.  Carrie took my picture next to it.  It was my pick of the year.

We headed back to Main Street.  It was really starting to warm up and I was beginning to regret the coat.  It would not be out of character for me to say, "Gee I wish I didn't have this coat" in order to get her to go back to the car with me to drop it off.  She would just roll her eyes and go along with it.  So I did.  Sometimes I thought the more annoying I acted, the more Carrie liked me.  Maybe the more childlike I became the more motherly she became.

The main strip was jam packed with people heading both directions.  There was a lot of food and a lot of redneck junk I couldn't believe people were into like Marilyn Monroe with tattoos all over her and with angel wings and brass knuckles and pregnant, smoking weed, and reading about aliens.  A table full of cheap jewelry.  A table full of knives.  A table full of bumper stickers that say, "no fat chicks allowed", or "Keep honkin' buddy I'm reloadin'", or "If this flag offends you, I'll help you pack".  Plus far more offensive ones I've blocked from my memory.  There was a t-shirt table that got cheap on the last night.  One year I got a Lou Reed t-shirt for 5 dollars.

The only table, really, that was worth anything was the Rebel Rebel table. Also called the James Dean Gallery.  The Rebel Rebel house was a gallery of all of my favorite things.  It was filled with extremely rare Dean memorabilia from movie promos and odd Dean things from the 50s.  There were promo posters from Japan, and life size posters of Dean and Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor, articles about his movies and his death.   They had actual items of Dean's.  They had a room where you sit and watch a collection of screen and wardrobe tests for Rebel without a Cause and East of Eden, commercials he did like a Coca-Cola one where he sings, and a couple scenes from TV shows he was in like the one where he held a gun at Ronald Reagan.  The table was mostly cheaper gift shop type stuff.  They try to put out a new t-shirt every year, and I usually buy it.  This year they had 2.  One was girl only.  Carrie snatched it up right away.  I didn't think it was that cool.  It was black and fitted with the girlie type sleeves, the front was cliché Dean with the red coat and it said Rebel without a Cause.  The one I got could not have been cooler.  It was a white-tee with a huge image of Dean from the side with a cowboy hat on from Giant.

Two gay men from Brooklyn, who earned a living making clothes for rock stars like David Bowie and the Rolling Stones in the 70s and the early 80s, decided to move to Fairmount, Indiana and start a James Dean Gallery.  They still sold clothes online and they also made interesting furniture using scraps and bottle caps as well as ran a museum, and they lived on the second floor.  Lenny or ‘New York Lenny’ was the more outgoing talkative one and the one everyone knew.  The other guy, I couldn't pick out of a crowd.  Lenny was absolutely one of the coolest guys I had ever met.  Very kind and you could even say "cute," but also the epitome of cool.  He was in his early 60s, always wore his black leather biker jacket with big horn rimmed 50s glasses, blue jeans rolled up and biker boots or chucks, and he was always smiling.  When he smiled his eyes would squint to the point of not even being opened.  He had a thick Brooklyn accent but talked so gentle it was hard to tell.  Surely he was Italian but he might have been Jewish.  Maybe both. 

Lenny didn't know me, but he recognized me every year.  We've had several long conversations and the more I got to know about him the cooler he became. 

"Hey Lenny."  I said with my shy way of talking.  "Heeeey, how've you guys been doing?" 

He knew Carrie quite well because she grew up just down the street.  "Good... I like the new shirt."  I said. 

"Oh yeah... They're great aren't they.  A friend of mine designed them.  Thanks."

"We've been talking about trying to convince James Franco to come and enter into the look-a-like contest." I said, forcing it in to keep the conversation going.

"Yeah, have you seen that 'James Dean' movie?  He's good.  The movie, not so much." Lenny said.

"He's from Brooklyn you know."  I was bating him.

"Yeah, I heard that.  I'm from Brooklyn too!"  He said. 

"Yeah, I know." I said. 

"You should do that." He said. 

"What, the look-a-like contest?  I've been thinking about it."  I bashfully said. 

"I've been trying to convince him to do it." Carrie said. 

"I don't think I really look like him." I subtlety tried to look him. 

"Better than some of these other guys.  You should do it.  It'd be fun." Lenny said. 

"Are you gonna be in the dance contest this year?" I asked, to change the subject. 

"Yeah, Pamela Barres is here again from LA.  I don't know why she keeps visiting but she loves it here.  She loves goin' to the bars and hangin' out.  I told her this place was great, we don't even lock our cars."  Lenny said with that big smile. 

NY Lenny was a gem.  I've never met anyone like him. 

Pamela Des Barres was the most famous groupie of all time.  She'd been with The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Keith Moon and many others.  Penny Lane from the movie Almost Famous was a character that was taken from the life of Pamela.  She was in a documentary I saw about Gram Parsons.  To prove how cool he was, they had her on there.  She started by saying she once straddled Jimmie Page's cranked amp while he played low notes to get her off, then she added, and I thought Gram was a greatest.

There is this legend that Morrissey from the Smiths came to the James Dean Festival.  He wore a disguise and he didn't go out much.  Morrissey was a “Deaner” like me.  A “Deaner” was someone who related most to James Dean.  A “Deaner” was cool, dark, coy, mysterious, misunderstood, and somewhat disliked by most other types.

The Smiths were my favorite band for a few reasons, one being that I related the sensitive, melancholy, lyrics of a true deaner.  Dean couldn’t have said it better himself.  Dylan didn’t have the guts to sing about the emotional teen-like struggles of being a misfit and misunderstood.  Morressey had at real grasp for who he was and who he wasn’t, who he admired and who he didn’t.  He seemed to be the first to say it but many would follow.  In his teenage years he wrote one of the first books about James Dean as well as the president of the New York Dolls fan club. 

As legend had it, when he came he came to the festival he hung out with New York Lenny and stayed at the gallery.  I've asked Lenny about it and he has confirmed that he's come a couple of times.  While walking around I was always on the look out for a possible Morrissey sighting.  Fact: Morrissey came to Fairmount in the late 80s to shoot the music video for Suedehead where he visited Dean's boyhood home and reenacted pictures of Dean.  There're pictures in the record store of Morrissey walking around downtown.

Carrie and I had decided to see a Dean movie.  We had never done it, but always knew they showed his movies throughout the weekend.  We made it a point to go see Giant, but when we walked in, we immediately realized that it was in this cafeteria type room with metal chairs all facing a projector screen and a projector DVD player was projecting on it.  It was terribly pathetic.  We hightailed it out of there.

As we were walking down Main Street it started to sprinkle.  The sprinkle turned into rain, which turned into an all out downpour.  We quickly ran under an entryway to a thrift store.  We stood with a few other refugees and watched all the other suckers run by.  We saw the chaos of the venders trying to save their merchandise from getting ruined, and watched their day go from good to bad.  We went into the store.

There were a few racks of clothes and coats and hats that no one in their right mind would wear.  There were some toys and some electronic devices that have been unusable for a decade.  They served breakfast in the back of the store, though they had stopped around noon.  I sniffed around to see if they had coffee, even if it was the Bunn machine with Maxwell House coffee, it would still make me happy.

While it was raining, Carrie and I did some antique store shopping.  There were a few stores there that had some of the best stuff I'd seen.  I didn't have money (never had, never would) so I could only buy something tiny and insignificant to others.  Like a small box.  Two dollars.  Just a small box to most, the most greatest thing in the world to me.  It doesn't cost anything to look either.  I'm in love with the old world and it tickles my brain to see something truly great.  The best kind of antique shops are the ones run by old men who's hoarded loads of junk and had since the 50s.  A lot of it would just be rusty old tools, but those wooden boxes they're in...

Carrie and I wanted to get a snack.  We couldn't decide between a lemon shakeup, apple cobbler, or an elephant ear.  We went with the elephant ear.  As we stood in line together I was overwhelmed with how cute she was.  She just had this cute way about her.  Some girls just do cute really well.  It was her voice with her mannerisms or something, and the happier she was the cuter she got so I was always looking to make her happy.  Though it was breaking character, I put my arm around her and squeezed her against me for a moment.  I could tell it got her.

We took the elephant ear to a curb just off Main Street.  It had turned into a pretty decently nice day.  I held the plate and we pulled off delicious pieces of fried dough with sugar all over it.  We watched people walk by and saw a busy food vender do their thing from behind the scenes.  There was 50's music being piped into the street from the telephone poles and the tops of buildings all down the strip, and it was really giving us a good time.  Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and the Comets came on, early 50's recording, the true king of rockabilly, one of the most cliché 50's songs ever, but it had to be played at some point or they would be going out of their way to not play it.  I only have eyes for you.  Songs didn't get much better than that song.  Recorded in '59 and a part of the doo wop era which was a whole other era than the James Dean days but still it reminds you of the 50's and doo wop in general was a movement designed to remind you of a simpler time.  A song came on we both knew.  It was The Stray Cat Strut by the Stray Cats.  It was just that kind of shit that would piss me off.  "Who was choosing this music?" I said.  "What idiot would put a song from the 80s on a playlist that is supposed to be from the ‘JAMES DEAN DAYS?’" I was beginning to annoy Carrie.  It had surely ruined a perfectly good moment.

The dance contest was coming up soon and we wanted to go find a good seat.  We walked to the spot where they held all the contests.  It's sort of a little nook of pavement.  Two sides were walls of buildings, the back side was the big stage and the other side was Main Street.  There were bleachers on the left side and you could stand along the wall on the right side and people crowded around from the street as well.  There was music blaring from the speakers on stage as everyone casually waited for things to get organized.  We found a spot on the front row near the stage.  There in the same section was Carrie's friend, Ashley. 

She said, "Hey guys!"  She was sitting with family. 

"I've been looking for ya." She said.  We sat down in front of her. 

"I saw the old couple down the street.  They were coming on bikes!"  She said with excitement.

Sure enough, the crowd on Main Street parted as we heard bicycle bells ringing.  Two of the oldest people I've ever seen came through at a snail's pace on big three wheeled bicycles.  They immediately delighted the crowd with their youthful smiles and their elegant white clothes.  They were full of class and ready to dance.  Their names were Ruth and Abnapold and they've entered, and won, the dance contest every year since I had gone. 

Also keeping in tradition was Lenny and Pamela.  Lenny wore a black suit with a black shirt and a blue tie with Chuck Taylors and she wore a black puffy dress with a blue slip underneath.   The third couple was a similar age to Lenny and Pamela but much more normal.  It was a lady who was a bit on the heavy side and well dressed with her husband who didn't seem that into it.  Carrie got excited and couldn't believe her eyes.  "Oh my God!" she said, "That's my third grade teacher!  That's so weird!  I could never see her doing this."

The fourth couple was a pair of young ones.  He was wearing a 40's style, collared shirt with baggy modern jeans and dopey tennis shoes.  She was plain looking wearing a nice swing style dress with pretty blonde hair in a ponytail, and ankle strap shoes with quite a heel on them.  I had spotted her ankles, particularly beautiful ankles that were perfectly petit.  I would have considered spending the rest of my life with a woman with a pair of ankles like those. 

"Oh man!  Those ankles!" I couldn't help but say out loud. 

"I knew you were thinking that." Carrie scorned. 

"So what have you guys been up to today?" Ashley asked. 

"Oh, the usual.  Antique shopping, looked at cars."  Carrie said.

"We were gonna see Giant at the "theater" but it was just some classroom or something and it was stupid."  I complained. 

"Oh really?  I always wanted to go to one of those and never have.  Guess I never will."  Ashley said.

"Jim’s gonna be in the look-a-like contest!"  Carrie blurted. 

"Oh yeah?  That's awesome!"  Ashley said enthusiastically but possibly with a tongue in her cheek. 

"Well, I don't know, maybe, I might." I muttered with my head down. 

I noticed people starting to listen in to the conversation.  There was far too much pressure. 

"You should do it!"  Carrie said. 

"I think you got a chance."  Ashley confirmed. 

"Better than some of the other bozos that go up there." She said. 

"I don't think I look like James Dean."  I said. 

"You don't NOT look like James Dean."  Ashley tried to confuse me. 

"Are you gonna wear those clothes?"  Ashley asked. 

"Yeah" I surveyed myself. 

"Why?  Is it not good?" 

"I think it's good.  It's like those pictures of Dean in his apartment in New York and he's playing with that cat." She said. 

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking." I said.

"And it won't be the typical red coat thing."  She said. 

"Well here's the deal" I began to explain, "Last year, the look-a-like contest was terrible.  They were all bad.  I was sitting in the crowd, and I was wearing what I'm wearing now, and what I wear most days.  It's how I dress." 

"Yes you do." She said. 

"The contest was a sham and everyone in the crowd knew it.  No one on the stage looked like James Dean.  After it was over I got up and was walking out of the crowd and everyone was looking at me.  Looking me up and down.  Almost disgusted at me.  As if to say, 'Well, why didn't YOU enter?' One or two ladies and an old man said, 'Why weren't you up there?'  And all of the sudden, my secret fantasies were possibilities.  I said out loud, 'Maybe next year.'" 

"Okay, so you're gonna do it." Ashley said. 

"But I don't really look like him." I reiterated. 

"potatoes pota-toes"

The MC got the contest going.  He called the dancers to the middle of the dance floor.  He said, "Let's meet our contestants". 

Reading off a paper, he said, "Here we have Dennis and Jean.  They're from Chicago.  When did you guys start dancing?" 

He pointed the microphone to Dennis but Jean started talking so he pointed it to her. "We both started taking a dance class and that's where we met.  We've been doing that for about a year now."

Everyone cheered over the dumb MC saying something like, "Aww isn't that cute".  The crowd was big.  The bleachers were full and the standing crowd was even bigger.  Jean said, "We heard about this and we thought we'd try it out." 

"Well good luck to ya." the MC said as he moved on to the next pair. 

"Our next contestants are Bill and Rita Kennedy.  They are new to dancing but it's fun, she says.  They try to dance a little every day."

The MC asked Rita a question, "What made you want to dance?" 

Rita said, "We started taking lessons after I retired from teaching last year.  It's just something I've always wanted to do." 

"Okay, well give it up for Bill and Rita!" The crowd energetically applauded.

"Next we have Lenny and Pamela."  The crowd cheered. 

"Lenny runs the James Dean Gallery here in Fairmount and his dance partner is Pamela who is a published author, here all the way from Los Angeles, California!"  The crowd cheered. 

The MC asks Pamela, "So what drew you all this way from Tinseltown to Fairmount?" 

"Oh, I don't know, it's fun!"  She said.  "Well, yeah, I guess it is." 

"Also" She grabbed the microphone, "Also, I'm teaching a class at the municipal building on writing, it's on Tuesday at 3pm, there's still time to sign up." 

"Okay, teaching a class Tuesday at 3, still time to sign up." the MC repeated.

"Our last contestants, but not our least contestants," He walked over to the old couple.  "We have Abnapold and Ruth.  They are both retired and living in Mitchell, Indiana." Some of the crowd cheered.  "Now, you guys have been apart of the dance contest for years right?  How many years?"  He held the microphone to Abnapold.  After a long awkward silence.  The crowd was holding in anticipation, willing to laugh at any cute thing he would say. 

In the end it was just, "I don't remember."  Which was perfect.

The MC yelled to his "DJ" who was sitting awkwardly next to the MC's laptop, "Hit it". 

The pimple faced teen pressed the space bar and with that the dance contest was under way.  The familiar song blared out the speakers.  It was Chubby Checker's Twist . You know, the 1960's sensation in which had absolutely nothing to do with the 50s, but whatever, I wasn't letting that shit get to me.

Each couple did their own thing.  The swing dance couple was going to town throwing each other around, and though they were doing cool things, it seemed very routined.  The retired teacher couple was trying to be cool but you could tell they were better fitted in a ballroom.  Lenny and Pamela were so cool.  So cool, smooth and slow, 50s style dancing, Pamela concentrated on the dancing and Lenny held his face up to sun with his eyes squinted and a smile that could end wars.  And the old couple; you'd have to see it to fully understand how cute it was when they did their thing.  There wasn't a single dance move older that 1925.  The old man played to the crowd like no other.  He knew just the right things to do to get the crowd hoopin' and hollarin'.  By the end of the song they covered each corner of the dance floor.  He made all kinds of extreme and funny faces.  He would play out that she was beautiful and her dance moves were just too hot to handle.   By the time the first song was over you knew why they always won.  There was no competing with those two.  They were on a whole other level.

During the dance I leaned over to Carrie and said, "Lets go ride the Ferris wheel after this.  It'll be right at sunset.  It'll be nice." 

"Okay!" She agreed excitedly.  She was glowing.

Each couple got to dance to a song of their choosing; the old couple picked a real wild one so they could get down, Lenny picked something cool and smooth, the retired teacher picked something more suited for them, and the swing couple picked Jump Jive and Wail, go figure. 

They all danced again together to a slower song and that was that.  The judges had many categories so that everyone got to win, but ultimately the old couple took home the big trophy and everyone was happy.  There were lots of pictures, and then the old couple rode off on their bikes.

We quickly got up and explained to Ashley we'd be back on time.  We made our way through the rednecks and the high schoolers with nothing better to do, through the carnival part of Main Street, to the Ferris wheel, the only ride I could ever do.  It was a long wait to get the tickets.  We were in the back of the line, and as we got closer to the window, I noticed we were still in the back of the line.  While waiting I did the math; we needed 3 tickets each, they came in groups of five, meaning we'd have to buy 10 and have 4 left over.  That was the sort of thing that ruined a perfectly good moment, but whatever I wasn't going to let that shit bother me.

Just as I was running through my head every screwed up system in the world where the consumer gets bent over, a lady came up and asked us if we would buy her tickets.  My first thought was, "This lady's trying to scam us.  Maybe they're bad tickets.  Maybe she thinks I can't do math and don't understand the value of the dollar."  But it turned out a good thing.  I was able to only buy 6 and we ran over to the Ferris wheel.

The line for the Ferris wheel was short and we got right on.  I put my arm around her as we went zooming up.  We went spinning around a couple times.  It was just fast enough to sort of give you the willies in your gut.  We both said, "Oh", when feeling that same feeling. 

We stopped halfway up.  We looked and saw the bright rides around us.  Looked at each other and smiled.  We went spinning around again several rotations then stopped even higher up.  We sat for a minute or two and then went around a few more times, until finally we stopped on the top.  It was a beautiful sight.  The sun was going down, the sky had cleared up, and we could see all of Main Street and were far above all the other rides.  I said, "It's just like East of Eden!" and I kissed her.

It was over far too soon but it gave us time to get back to the stage and get ready for the main event.  The girls were concerned about my hair not being wild enough.  It was laying down a little too much.  We worked on it back behind the bleachers.  I had to go sign up.  I filled out an entry form.  It asked for my name.  I didn't want to say Chad.  Chad.  The only Chads in this world look like me and are exactly my age.  There's nothing “old world” about that name.  James Dean doesn't jump out at you with a guy with a name like Chad as a contestant.  I went with "Squinty".  Squinty was a name I had tried to give myself a year before but hadn’t quite caught on.  James Dean squinted and so did I.  It wasn’t a Lenny squint, it was more like a sun hearts my eyes, or I should be wearing glasses type squint.  It was risky, but I went with it. 

As I was filling the page out, a guy and a camera guy who had been shooting some sort of documentary came up to me and asked me why I liked James Dean so much.  I paused and said, "Because he's cool."  Because. He's. Cool.  I was under a lot of pressure.  I would like to omit that from my memory but I can't. 

People were always asking why I like James Dean so much, so I’ll take the opportunity now to express my opinion.  First I'd like to point out that I'm not the only one.  James Dean has been a household name for over half a century.  He's one of the most beloved actors of all time and he's one of America's greatest legends.  He quite possibly could be considered the face of America, Hollywood America, Icon America.  He and Marilyn Monroe are our two eternal figures that will forever represent us.  With all that said, ultimately he's a boy from central Indiana, just like me.  His film career only lasted 18 months but he made such an impact in that short of time that we're still talking about him today. 

He was compared to Marlon Brando a lot because Brando was something no one had ever seen before.  Brando was a force, that when put on the screen, it changed everything.  Coming from a stage background he learned to bully his way onto your attention.  Dean stole it without you knowing.  He sucks you in with his intense, unsettled way of absolute presents.  When James Dean is on the screen you can't take your eyes off him.  He had a way of owning every scene no matter how small the role, and once James Dean came around, nothing before him mattered.  Where Brando was a brute, Dean was a mystery.  Where Brando was hunk, Dean was a dream.  Dean's work in East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, and Giant was unprecedented.  When I'm celebrating James Dean, I'm celebrating a Hoosier who grew up 30 minutes from where I did, who defined what cool was for the entire world.

I got back to the sign up sheet.  Who is your favorite actor?  Stupid question.  I didn't want to pick James Dean, so I picked James Dean's replacement Paul Newman.  He had just died during the James Dean Days a few years before.

Favorite 50s song.  "Rave on".  It's true but probably a mistake because of the thick-framed glasses I was wearing, I didn't want to get a Buddy Holly association.  I have a slightly big nose and big front teeth and I'm tall, put some glasses on that and everybody thinks I look like Buddy Holly.  That Weezer Buddy Holly song was one of the worst things to ever happen to me.  At every new job I've had since that song (over 50), I've been nicknamed Buddy Holly.  They'd start by whistling the song when I was around, thinking I wouldn't notice, then eventually after calling me "Buddy Holly" behind my back for months, they'd just accidentally call me that to my face, then just go with it. 

I finished filling it out, I got my number, and I walked back to the girls.  They were so happy for me and excited to see it happen.  They became concerned with my hair.  It wasn't going back right.  It simply wasn’t the same kind of hair.  It wasn't tall enough OR cool enough.  They worked on it for me.  I trusted them.  If anyone knew about James Dean's hair it was Carrie and Ashley. 

"So do you think this sweater's okay?"  I asked.  "I have a white t shirt underneath the striped one." 

"No" Ashley said.  "Never take the sweater off"

"The tattoo's" Carrie said. 

"Well, what about the glasses?"  I asked. 

"I think they're good.  They're similar to his glasses."  Ashley said. 

"Not really."  I said. 

"Well, take them off.  Let's see."  Ashley said.  I took them off and looked at her.  "Keep them on,” she concluded. 

While we were doing all of that preparation, people would walk by and check me out.  They'd look me up and down.  They knew what I was about to claim to be.  It brought a smile to some of their faces, and an excitement to others, but ultimately I could see they disapproved.

It was time for me to leave all the average people, and go behind the stage and stand with the James Dean look-a-likes.  It was surreal.  You couldn't help but to walk around in character.  Though Dean was known, by the people who knew him, to be a lovable and playful guy who was always smiling and having fun, when being him, guys couldn't help but to be sad, feel like a sulking loner, or an feel like an utterly helpless outcast.  There were about 20 of us, the most I had ever seen, and all of us were sulking around behind the stage, fake smoking, kicking rocks, and fixating on playing with small things like their prop or the tent rope. 

I recognized several from past years.  Some of the guys that I thought were terrible were suddenly my competition.  Then I saw a guy standing a few guys over from me.  He had won a couple years ago and maybe had won before that.  I was mad.  "You've already proven your point, dude, you look like freakin' James Dean." I thought.  I walked over to him.  "You won a couple years ago, right?" 

"Yeah."  He said like he'd been found out. 

"Well, what are you doing back here?  We don't stand a chance!"  I boldly said with a nervous smile.  I was actually a little pissed, and having a good time, and possibly seizing the moment, which was rare for me.  Seeing all the bruiting going on caused me to pull my head out of my ass out of rebellion from the norm, a habit that was usually a problem for me.

That gang back there behind the stage, along the wall was crazy.  It was like a twilight zone episode that hadn't yet been written.  It was like that scene in Being John Malkovich where John Malkovich traveled into his own mind and everyone he saw was himself.  Everyone was doing the red coat, white T, blue jeans thing.  Dean Dean.  Dean Dean.  Dean.  They all had blonde hair and it was stupidly slicked back.  There was one guy with a Dean mask on his head.  He was making a mockery of the whole tradition.  They shouldn't have let him up there.  The dude looked more like Elvis than Dean without it.  He was one of those white-trash rockabilly types with not an ounce of Deaner in him.

For the first time in my Dean history, there was a girl in the group.  It took me a long time to figure out what was weird about her.  I only realized after the announcer said something about it.  One year, there was a famous Japanese actor in the contest.  He looked very much like Dean with the big cheek bones, lips, brows and ears but not the hairline and forehead.  He made a good face I think was the hardest thing for people to get right.  He had a great outfit that I thought really worked.  He dressed like Dean in New York in the rain with the black trench coat.  Probably the second most famous photo, but no one ever thought to put those clothes together.  He should have won that year.  I blame the old timer judges who may've still had a Pearl Harbor grudge.  Grudge judge. 

There was one guy in the group that I thought should’ve won but I knew he probably wouldn't because he was so scary.  He was dressed as Dean from Giant in the cowboy Texas gear.  He wasn't the usual guy "Del Ray" that always did the James Dean Giant thing, it was a different guy who looked like Dean but big and dark and evil.  He didn't say a word the whole time.  He just stood there and freaked everybody out.  He was the only one actually smoking, everyone else just had some dumb cigarette they were holding or put behind their ear or rolled up in their sleeve. 

Then there was the guy that I had always hated who was in it every year.  He almost won the last year, which should tell you how bad it really was.  He looked like some dumb kid in a red windbreaker to me.  And he put on this stupid pouty face and looked at the crowd like, "nobody loves me..." The worst part about it was he made it to the final round every time.  I never understood why.  He had no business being in the contest, especially every stinkin' year.  I really didn't like the guy.  I was standing right next to him.  I was standing right next to him and could tell he was a lamo.

The judges were made up of mostly the graduating class of '49 - the former friends of James Dean.  Some of them had been in the documentaries about Dean.  One of the ladies said the same thing every year, that he kissed her on a hayride and that he had very soft lips.  One of the other judges was a look-a-like veteran who had won many years and retired from winning.  The guy looked like James Dean.  It was nuts.  He was getting older but he still had it.  He had an awesome flat top and was dressed in working man clothes.  The last judge was the special guest of the event.  He was Bob Hinkle James Dean's dialect coach from when he was working on Giant.  This guy also worked with Paul Newman for the movie Hud and was friends with him for decades.  He wrote a book and was there probably to promote it.  I was thinking of having him tell me how to say something so I could say that James Dean and I had the same dialect coach. 

After the introduction of the judges, the contest was underway.  The MC called us out one at a time.  He said our number and then said our information as we strutted up on the stage and walked by the audience then by the judges and then went off.  The dumb mask guy went up there and everybody laughed.  The girl Dean was a real crowd pleaser. 

I sized myself up with the rest of them.  I figured I had a chance to make it to the second round.  My plan was to out act them all.  I would embody James Dean, heart, mind, and soul. 

He called my name and I got really scared all of the sudden.  An adrenaline rush went through me as I walked up the steps on the right side of the stage.  The MC said, "Up next we have 'SQUINTY'".  I heard my group of friends say, "Squinty???"  The stage lights were bright but I could tell that everyone in the crowd was looking at me.  As soon as I got on the stage the whole plan went out the window.  I walked to the front quickly and walked by the judges on the other side of the stage and got off just as soon as possible.  There was no acting, no embodying, just embarrassment.  I was off the stage in 7 seconds, far less than anyone else and it was sort of awkward.  I stood back stage after, in a daze, and with my heart racing as the other contestants went up and did their thing.

At the end of the round, the MC called us all back up at the same time.  We all stood across the stage.  Maybe there was more like 25.  It was a lot of look-a-likes.  I hid in the back.  They called out round two and I was not in the mix.  The girl James Dean however, was.  And also the dumb guy I hate.  The dumb guy I hate made it to the final 3 actually.  Along with creepy Giant Dean and the 2-time look-a-like champion guy.  The 2-time champion guy ended up winning again.

I got to hang out back stage with all the James Dean look-a-likes, Dean's dialect coach and former classmates checked me out for 7 seconds, and then I got to watch the rest of the contest from the crowd.  Right after it was over, the girls were trying to make me feel better and an old man said, "Try the Buddy Holly look-a-like contest next time."  On my way out of the crowd I was stopped by two girls and asked to get my picture taken with them.  My group of friends were all there to see the strange moment.

The look-a-like contest was the last of the festivities on Main Street but Carrie was a true local and had an annual party to attend.  Before we went there though, we grabbed a kabob.  It started to rain a little as we stood in line.  It was the end of a long day and rain was not something I wanted to deal with.  We got food and sat down under a canopy.  It was getting cold and I didn't even have my coat.  "We need to go to the car and get my coat." I said.  She ignored me and kept eating.  People raved about those Kabobs.  I thought they were okay. 

I forget how it happened but we somehow got on the subject of the Sugarland State Fair Collapse.  Apparently she was there in the crowd and saw the whole thing go down.  Sugarland, a country pop type band was just about to go on stage to perform, when a crazy storm blew through Indianapolis without warning.  The thing with this storm was it's front wind, if that's a phrase.  The wind that led the storm was extremely fast and strong.  It blew through the state fair and hit the stage.  At first the dust from the parking lot went crazy and then the flags and banners from the stage were falling all over the place and then the whole huge stage collapsed, falling forward into the crowd.  People were killed.  I saw it all on somebody's iPhone vid that they sent to the news a few moments after it happened.  She was in the bleachers, close to the front, and saw it all.  She said it was traumatizing and wasn't joking around, though I was.  She loved things being traumatizing so it was hard to gauge. 

On the night of the Sugarland catastrophe I was driving to Broad Ripple from where I was house sitting in Irvington in Indianapolis, going north on Arlington.  It was eerie and quiet when I went to my car.  As I drove the clouds were rolling in and they looked menacing.  Before any rain, there was wind.  The wind became nearly unmanageable.  Trash was flying, west to east, like a fastball pitch.  The moment I decided to turn around was when I saw someone involuntarily running across the street.  But anyway, she had this scary experience and I was being insensitive about it.  It was that, and then something about her family that got brought up.  She got mad at me because I didn't understand.  I didn't understand why but I didn't understand.  It kept cycling downward and once again we were blown out.  We were tired and let it get the best of us.  We made amends temporarily so we could finish out the night.

We had one small yellow umbrella between us.  It was pouring down rain at that point and we had a few blocks to walk.  We were a block away when we heard music in the distance.  It was where we were headed.  A group of middle-aged friends in Fairmount had a band and they played one show a year out of their garage on Saturday night during the James Dean Days.  They played cover songs and really got into it.  All their other friends ate food, got drunk, and danced.  It was a great taste of a small town in Indiana.  The owner of the house was a big fat guy who had a beard down to his belt.  He was wearing sunglasses and played the harmonica.  Carrie went around and mingled with everyone.  We stayed for about 6 or 7 songs; Happy together, Jeremiah was a bull frog, Let it be, I can't get no satisfaction, Wouldn't it be nice, Sister Christian, Don't stop believing, those kinda songs.  I ate some cookies and chips from the table with the snacks and kept to myself watching the band.  We had one more place to go.  I was long since worn out and was READY TO GET BACK! 

Carrie said she needed to see her "other" sister.  Carrie had a half sister she had recently found out about (long story).  We went to a bar off Main Street.  It was beyond jam-packed, and it was before cigarettes were banned, so it was also one big cloud of smoke.  I was so freaked out, by the amount of people, that I was past the point of caring.  I had no control over the situation so I let go and let it happen.  I tried to remind myself that I had always wanted to experience something like the small town bar, celebrating homecomings and town festivities.  We walked through the narrow bar to the back where Carrie's sister was.  They hugged for about 5 minutes, and all the guys the sister was talking to began to swarm around Carrie.  I stood there like chopped liver.  Tired, wet, cold, awkward, chopped liver.  Thankfully it didn't last too long.  I needed the brownie points anyway.

We squeezed out of there eventually and headed for the car.  I was relieved and began to relax, almost falling asleep while walking.  I was excited to get back to the amazing house and get warm.  Again it was raining, and was as cold as ever but I didn't care at that point.  Even better.  The end result of the night would be that much more relaxing.

We got back to the Frank Lloyd Wright house and ran in from the rain.  It was nice and warm.  Carrie got ready for bed and I wandered into the TV room and tried to get the TV to work.  It was on the wrong input to watch cable and I couldn't figure out how to change it.  It was the most complex remote I'd ever seen.  It weighed the as much as a small dog had a TV of it's own built into it.

We went to bed.  The room was still horribly cold.  Carrie tried to fix it again but couldn't.  The down blanket was cold at first and I figured it'd give us an excuse to snuggle up.  We turned the lights out and it was very dark.  There were tiny little bits of light from the windows on one side of the room.  Not the side where the sun would eventually come up. 

Though it was probably a little too much skin, I went down to my boxers before I jumped in.  Carrie wore a soft long sleeve shirt and underwear.  We jumped in quick because it felt like our feet would go numb on the cold floor.  We did indeed cuddle up which was a vast improvement from the night before.  Our arms were around each other and faces were cheek to cheek.  Our long skinny legs were wrapped in each other as well.  She had always had those skinny legs with boney knees, beautiful ankles, and the longest most slender feet I'd ever seen.  The tops of my feet fit perfectly into the arches or hers.  We were warmed up in no time, moving around, working up the friction.

I don't remember how the next thing happened either, but we got on the subject of how well we got along throughout the day.  She thought it all went splendidly, which at the time now while I'm writing this, I would agree with her.  But at the time I did not.  I had things to say about how she was always looking for a fight and how she loved being offended by what I said and how I was immature about things.  That whole speech set us into a tailspin of bad vibes.  She got mean and it got to the point where I was wanting to just leave.  I said, "I don't have to lay here and take this.  I could just get up, grab my stuff and drive home."  And I meant it.  I actually would have preferred that, over lying there in bad blood.  Surprisingly she stopped and made amends.  Maybe the thought of being left alone in that house all of the sudden was not something she wanted to endure.  I said a nice thing to get back on good terms once I knew she actually wanted me around.  I did my patented move where I would sink down against the mattress and try to bury myself under the pillows scooting over slowly until I was eventually under her.  It worked like a charm and we were even more so cuddling again. 

I was lying across her and kissed her neck, just like the first time 7 years before, put my hand behind her neck and pressed my cheek against hers.  I pulled myself completely on top of her and with my arms around her and hers around me I rested my head on her chest. 

"This is so nice."  I whispered. 

"Yeah." She whispered. 

I had an idea.  I got up out of the covers.  I got out and I stood at the foot of the bed. 

"What are you doing?"  She asked. 

"I got idea.  A game."  I said.  "I want to stand here and freeze, and then jump back in bed and it'll be really really warm.  Like getting out of a hot tub and rolling around in the snow, then jumping back in." 

"You're so weird."  She said, though I could tell she was on board.

I stood in the cold shivering.  She layed in bed giggling and waiting. 

"Okay" I yelled, and jumped back under the covers right on top of her. 

I rubbed onto her warm body.  Within a minute I was back to normal. 

"Why." She giggled. 

"That moment I jump back in and get on top of you is so great!  Its worth freezing."  I whispered.  "I'm gonna do it again." 

I jumped back up and stood at the foot of the bed with a semi-erection but it was dark and didn't matter and anyway she knew what was going on.  The second time, she pulled the covers down to allow me to jump right on top.  We started kissing right away.  Kissing and Kissing.  It eventually stopped after the very heated moment.  I jumped out of bed again.  I could tell she was beginning to like the game.  It was a way around all the bedroom shenanigans she was use to.  It gave her a chance to feel in control by being separated from me and deciding what she really wanted. 

"You're crazy." She giggled. 

I tip toed on the cold floor for a few moments then jumped back in.  This time with more intensity.  I pulled her shirt up and she raised her arms in agreement so I took it off and tossed it on the floor.  She radiated twice as much heat from her body.  We where making out heavy and there was no longer holding back our body movements and hands.  She began to pull my boxers down an inch or two and I helped her out by pulling them off, pulled hers off while I was at it, and wham bam boom, we where in the nude.  Kissing and caressing, it was all truly happening, but then I stopped and jumped up.  I decided to stand in the cold one more time.  I figured it would do her some good to really feel that want. 

She laughed in agony, "Oh you're crazy!" 

I didn't say anything just stood in the dark.  She began kicking her feet on the bed in a pouting fashion.  I grabbed a condom from my suitcase and tried to put it on without her knowing.  I jumped back in bed and continued where we left off.

----------

The next morning I woke up before her and immediately wanted to try again.  I knew there was no assuming.  I needed to start purely from scratch, and it was another long process, but sure enough it paid off tenfold.  I had perhaps opened the flood gates of Carrie's ecstasy.  She was taking charge and doing things I'd never thought could be done by her.  When it was finally over we were lying in each others arms truly happy about the unforeseen events that had occurred.  It was interesting how different it seemed from the first time we were together.  She was the first girl I had ever actually had sex with.  She was 19 years old then, I was 23.  23!

It was a beautiful Sunday morning.  It seemed sunny, based on the tiny bits of light coming in from the windows.  We got up and headed towards the kitchen slowly.  She began making coffee. 

"What do you wanna do today?" I asked. 

"Well, I need to clean this place up.  I have to do laundry and clean the kitchen and clean the bathroom.  It'll take me about 3 hours so if I start at around 2 I'll be okay."  She said. 

"Do you wanna watch a movie?" I asked. 

"Okay." She said, and I believed her.

She sat on the couch type thing and I stood in the middle of the room with a small book of DVD's in my hands.  Yes Man, East of Eden, The Ring, Bug, Say Anything, Some Like It Hot, The Last Picture Show, Buffalo '66, Romance and Cigarettes, Badlands, The Science of Sleep, Urban Cowboy, or The Time Travelers Wife?" 

"The Time Traveler's Wife" She answered immediately. 

"I'm so glad you said that!  I love the Time Traveler's Wife," I said with excitement. 

"I love the book and I like the movie too."  She said. 

"I love the movie and haven't read the book."

"You should read it it's so good."

"Haley read it and said I remind her of the guy." 

"Yeah, I could see that."  

"I just love this movie so much.  It's so peaceful and quiet.  I like the guy, the actor.  I especially like the take on a relationship viewed through the lens of this out of sequence scenario." I ranted.

Though it was easily the worst movie in the book by film history standards, it was totally the perfect choice.  I put the movie in the DVD player and figured out the TV by tracing the cables from the player to the back of the TV.

I pushed play and ran to sit down with Carrie on the couch with the big blanket and pillows.  The couch was not really a couch.  I think it was a Frank Lloyd Wright thing.  The problem was the back of the couch was the wall, and eventually the couch slid away from the wall.  After a little while of wrestling with it we ended up on the big beanbag on the floor.  The heat coming from the floor made it feel like we were on an electric beanbag.

The movie's mood, music and rhythm fit perfectly with the warmth of the house and the calm of the Sunday.  It was like putting just the right song on while at a crucial moment of a road trip.  The scene where he met his Mom on the subway, when he got another chance to talk to her, after she had been dead since he was a child was so intense to watch with Carrie.  She had lost her mother to cancer about 6 years before and it must have been hard, or maybe nice, to see that take place.  After that scene the movie became about that, and I was glad to be there with her to experience it. 

Words, or at least my words, can't really describe how nice it all was, watching that movie with her, on the heated floor, with two cups of strong coffee, in our pajamas - and with her heightened reality and my delusions that everything is art, and poetry, and music, in that moment it was hard to argue.

----------------

We were changing in the master bedroom.  Carrie put on my long-sleeved blue and white striped shirt.  It was soft and thin and fit her well.  She was wearing nothing underneath it and the combination of it all was perfect.  She was messing with the thermostat in my shirt and grey panties with her long bony legs, and she eventually figured it out.  It got warm right away.

As we were laying around, Carrie asked me, "Didn't you have a girlfriend this summer?" 

"Yeah." 

"She was pretty wasn't she?" 

"Yeah, she really was." I replied, though I should have lessened the reply. 

"Why did you guys break up?" She asked. 

"Wanna hear MY traumatic State Fair story?" I said.  She nodded like a little eager girl wanting ice cream. 

"Ali and I went to the State Fair.  It was a few days before the shit went down with the Sugarland Disaster of one one."  She rolled her eyes. "We had just gotten there and she immediately went hunting for an elephant ear.  She was starving and you don't want to be in her way when she's hungry.  We finally found a place and not before I had fully annoyed her with my antics.  We were sitting while we (she mostly) ate the elephant ear.  I was admiring the people walking by.  They were all good 'ol Hoosiers.  They looked SO Indiana.  There'd be a couple with their arms around each other and I'd say, 'aww'.  Making fun of how she would said 'aww'.  Then there'd be a family of a mom and dad and a son who was a beanpole and a blonde cheerleader type daughter and I'd say 'aww'.  There was a young couple pushing a stroller and I said 'aww, I want to have a baby', jokingly, because I knew it was bugging her.  She eventually sternly said, 'Chad, stop!'  But then a couple walked by and the girl was very pregnant and I couldn't resist but to say, 'Aww, next year this couple will look like that couple!' and thought I was being really cute, but then Ali threw her food down and said, 'I'm probably pregnant.' 

I said, 'What???'  She said, 'I missed this months a couple weeks ago.  Remember that one time?'  I knew exactly what she was talking about.  I was petrified.  My stomach immediately knotted up.  I couldn't eat a bite. 

She said, '...and I hope you're cool with me having an abortion, because there's no way I'm having a baby right now.' 

"She led me around after that and I had no idea what was going on around me.  It was like I had just stepped out of the rubble of a car accident and walked into a crowd at the Indiana State Fair.  Only a few minutes after she dropped the bomb on me, we ran into all her friends.  I, all of the sudden, needed to be nice and talkative, but I couldn't do it.  Someone asked what was wrong with me and I just said I was tired.  We rode the Ferris wheel after.  It was not like East of Eden. 

She was determined to still have a good time.  I could not.  I kept thinking about how I had just knocked up a 21 year old who might have been the most selfish, thoughtless, person I had ever known.  Then I started thinking, 'I could handle a baby.  I have a good job.  I'm turning 30 in a couple months.  I don't want her to kill my baby.  Kill a little me.'  I didn't want that on my conscience for the rest of my life.  Then I started thinking, I would give anything to save a little child's life.  I especially would give anything to save my own child's like.  I would give MY life!  How could I just let her say, 'I hope you're cool with an abortion?'  I'm not like, a pro-life nut or anything, I'm not gonna tell someone else they can or cannot do these things, but this concerned me and was worth at least exploring options.  So for the rest of the night I prepared a speech that I would give her on the way home."

"Did you say it to her" Carrie asked.  "Yeah.  Perfectly too.  She said something about if she puts it up for adoption then I would adopt it and she'd look like a bad mother and she didn't want her child to grow up thinking he or she had a bad mother who didn't love it.  She also said, ' you don't love me, do you?'  We can't have a baby'.  And she was right.  On the way back we stopped at CVS to get a pregnancy test.  She hadn't even done that yet.  She was too scared.  We went in together and it was one of the worst moments.  She started crying at the counter.  The guy ringing us up knew exactly what was going on." 

"So, what happened?  Was she pregnant?"  Carrie asked.  "She took the test and it came up negative."  I even went through the trash to see for myself so I had peace of mind that she didn't lie and go get an abortion.  We were together for 4 months and we both knew it was over after that night." 

"Wow." She said.  There was a long silence. 

"I'd have a baby with you though."  I said, in my usual ways, to lighten the mood. 

"No you wouldn't."  She said. 

-------------

I sat at the table while she stood in the kitchen shining the silverware.  The bowls and plates and forks and spoons, all silver.  The house was so warm and snug that she was still pants-less, and so happy to be comfortable with it.  I fought the urge to bring it up because I knew it might ruin it.

"He doesn't have drawers or cabinets.  He thinks they're tacky.  But I don't mind.  I like shining silverware."  She said with a smile. 

"I know.  You told me." I said.  I was flipping through one of the many Frank Lloyd Wright books that were laying around.  It was huge and had amazing color photos of his buildings.  I had learned a lot about the guy.  He was a real artist.  He died a year after the house was build but was still alive there in that house.  You couldn't walk into the Woodside Estate and not know he was there.  He wants you to know about him and to feel his presence.  He wants you to know how great he was.  When you are in a Frank Lloyd Wright house, you are in a Frank Lloyd Wright house.

I had connect my iPod to the PA and set it on a playlist that I put together for that year's fall.  It had become a yearly tradition.  They were usually moody, melancholy songs about remembering the past.  Maybe it was the mix or maybe it was the place, but each song felt perfect and Carrie agreed.

I was getting together my suitcase in the bedroom to finally leave.  Carrie was jumping on the bed out of protest.  I stopped and watched her.  I grinned at her relentlessness and said,

"Gimme

that

shirt."