The Thespian. It Was A...

...a chance encounter. It happened when I was in college, at the monastery in the southern hills of Indiana. Population of the town was about 150 people, mostly farmers. I had a good report (as in the #12 definition from the dictionary) with most of them. I'd help them on the weekends with getting the corn in the silos and do some tractor work. Up on the "Hill", as we called it, we had a small movie theater/stage that could be used for not only a flick, but a stage production. Occasionally local colleges from around the area would come and put on a production. It was open to those of us on campus as well as anyone else in the area. Seating was limited so you had to get there early. It was a Saturday night and I was bored. The Un-Stable, the watering hole we had on campus, didn't open until 8. Now I'm not the musical going type, but the thespians were from the U of Kentucky, so I figured chicks. Hey, I was 21 and was living amongst a group of half fags and half ragging testosterone-laden males. You said 'woman on deck' and our asses were there.

Now, some background on the Un-Stable. It was literally buried in the bottom of a hill. A quaint place, poorly lit, but had a place for a band to set up and could seat about 100. There were instances when there were 200 in there. The fire marshall happened to be one of the monks and a drinking buddy. He ignored those times. It had picnic tables for seating and it served two beers, on tap. Doesn't sound like much, but under the circumstances it was like heaven. There were two of us that became legends there, for two reasons; we could drink all others under the table and we combined our resources to build what became known as the "Roundtable". It was a beautiful round checkerboard table that we built by hand out of solid oak. It took us six months to complete, but it was absolutely gorgeous. It was placed in a small area right in front of the bar. It would seat about 8 comfortably, and we had reservations for life. If we walked in and others were sitting there they had two options. They could either vacate the entire party, or, if some seated were part of our regular crowd, someone had to give up their seat. It payed off the night "the thespian" came down.

The musical started around 7. I sat in the back. The place was full, mostly with students and faculty, but some of the town folk were there and some people from the surrounding small cities. As I said, I'm no theater goer, so when 8 rolled around I was out for my Saturday night buzz. But there was one girl in the entourage of the the UK theater players that had caught my eye. She was about 5'10", long auburn hair, a body to make me suicidal and the voice of a lark. If there was a god, and there should be cause I was at a monastery, I was gonna hook up with that girl. When I got to the Un-Stable at 8 there weren't but five or six people there, and they were sitting at one of the tables in the general area. I went up into "our" area, ordered two pitchers (total of $3) and waited for the others to arrive. The ordering of two pitchers was a standard practise. If you got there first you parlayed up for the first round and didn't have to buy anymore the rest of the night. Slowly some of the regulars came in and we settled into the usual banter, discussing the likes of whether Jesus had nocturnal emissions. Hey, it was supposed to be god. Big things come outta god, no? Arcane? Of course. It was juvenile intellectual bullshit amongst horny young men. But we also had the fire marshall at the table, a regular, and one of the funniest men I have ever met.

Around 9:15 the place just flooded with people. The artsy-fartsy musical was over and they all came down to whet their palettes and basically get drunk, which is what most of the locals did, as did we. One of the student bands was set up and started playing and that place started to rock right quick like. Around ten the thespians came down to receive their well deserved accolades and imbibe in some libation. My eyes immediately riveted on the girl I had seen. They were all sitting off to the left of the band, near the jukebox. When the band took a break, I grabbed myself two mugs of beer, a quarter, and was off to let my silver-tongued drunken ass do its thing. I plopped the quarter in the jukebox and played the old Fleetwood Mac song by Christime McVie, "You make lovin fun." Then I went and introduced myself to the love of my life that evening. Her name was Autumn, which of course just blew my ass away. I gave her the beer, said I thought she had the most beautiful voice I'd ever heard, and sauntered back to the roundtable. After offering her an invite to join us if she so desired. After the band played another set I had "J" go stick another quarter in the jukie and hit 109 again. I guess Autumn's curiosity had been tweaked enough to see why we sat in the "crown" of the place. Of course by that time we had a full table, and then some. Twelve people. I had to ask "P" to take a walk. He was a newby. Autumn sat down next to me and we were all on our game that night. We were all enthralled with her boisterous nature and funloving demeanor. And this girl could drink with the best of them. I asked her if she wanted to dance and there was no hesitation on her part. We got out there and shook booty like there was no tomorrow. When we were done the place broke out in a deafening round of applause. We went back to the table and we no sooner took a few swigs of beer when the band broke out in a rendition of the very song that we had played on the juckie, but they had recruited one of the other female singers from the UK group. They edged us on for another dance, to which we gladly obliged. It was absolute magic. She ground herself into me in such a subtle way, given the circumstances, that my head, amongst other things, was about to pop. When the song ended it was close to 1 and the place had to close, so people started shuffling out the doors and the band was breaking down. I asked one of the band members to play an acoustic rendition of the Buckingham-Nicks song "Crying In The Night". Just a chance for a slow dance with this vision of beauty. Needless to say, after that dance was over I had never wanted a woman more in my life, but the circumstances were against us. I walked her out to her bus, which was heading to their hotel, and received one of the best kisses ever.

To this day I often wonder about her. I hope she's happy, has a good husband and lots of kids. She deserves it. Damned she could sing...and kiss...