I started kissing everything in sight,
But when I kissed a cop on 34th & Vine,
He broke my little bottle of Love Potion Number Nine.”
----The Searchers/Jerry Leiber
The scene may sound familiar, but nobody was breaking bottles of Love Potion Number Nine at The Last Tango. That’s because the love potion was self-generating internally throughout the assemblage, a little hormone and neurotransmitter called Oxytocin, a crowd favorite linked to empathy, trust, sexual activity and relationship-building. The gang down on the corner calls it “the love hormone” because levels of The Big O zip up the thermometer during intense affection, hugging and orgasm. The intense feelings inherent in Reunion, Cameraderie and Attraction at the Heartwood Smoochfest sent levels of the good Oxy skyrocketing into the stratosphere and they took about a week to find their way back down. Bill Killeen didn’t even know what day it was until the following Wednesday.
When unlikely things like these happen, the mind reels, reassesses and may even set off on a different course. People discover an alternate tier of happy, recheck their priorities, are less inclined to settle for the humdrum of everyday. Suddenly, all things seem possible again. Maybe someone will fly to Baja, rent a car and look up an old lover in La Paz. Perhaps some poor artist trapped for a lifetime by financial need will pick up a paintbrush again or write a song or go to a casting call for the first time. Love Potion Number Nine has arisen from its long slumber, yawned and stretched, now risen. You can feel it in your bones, in the spring in your step, in the rebirth of Hope. Don’t try to resist it, you only live once. Take it to the limit one more time.
Pathways
(The following incidents are true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. And even more important, the guilty.)
Stunned by the Circus Reunion love-in, George is leaving Canada and moving back to the Gainesville environs. “I left during the Vietnam War,” he recalls, “and life has been okay. But just okay. Canada is great except for the weather, but one day is pretty much the same as the next. Life gets stale, my marriage got tiresome for both of us, the kids live hundreds of miles away. I just sit around trying to avoid making mistakes. I could be making one now, but it’s my last chance to be happy again. The Last Tango brought me back to life.”
Miranda is more pensive. “I’m not kidding myself. I know the enthusiasm, the love I’m feeling at this reunion, the high of contact with old friends---all that is temporary. But this Last Tango has brought me out of my trance. I was a dancer because I loved it and now I am not. You may keep your dancer’s soul but you are only a dancer if you dance. I can’t perform at my age but I can teach. I think I am a teacher at heart and I will work for birdseed if it will let me dance again. I am not the bravest of souls but it’s that or living a slow death. Andale!”
“I wasn’t going to go,” confessed Laurie, 72. “It was a long drive from Virginia and I was by myself. I know Bill but I knew he’d be busy all day and have little time to dilly-dally with everyone who came along. But something pushed me into my little car and I made the trip. Just pulling into Gainesville was a rush. The new giant buildings going up everywhere were a turnoff but most of the town was still the same. The duplex I lived in with my now-deceased husband was still there. I drove merrily around town for an hour before I even checked into my hotel.
I can’t begin to describe The Last Tango. It’s hard to find words. It was like falling into a hole and winding up in Wonderland. I know what you’re going to say but not that many people were even smoking at 1 p.m. It was just the personal contact, the joy of remeeting people you hadn’t seen for decades. And the music---I hadn’t heard most of those songs in years. I cried when the leadoff band played “I Was So Much Older Then, I’m Younger Than That Now.” And I DID feel like I was about 20 again. Then the magic just took over. I noticed a nice looking man who seemed to recognize me from about twenty yards away. He was dancing around like a fool despite his years and he started waving at me. “Is that you, Laurie?” he yelled, rushing up with a hug. His name was Alan and he was my last boyfriend before I met my husband. Alan was shocked in 1970 when I broke it off and he moved to San Francisco where he still lived, now alone.
It was as if no time had passed at all. We were back in the sixties, comfortable and excited. When the Tango was winding down, I went over to see Bill and introduced him to Alan. They shook hands properly like strangers, then laughed it up at my expense. They’d known one another for years. Bill teased me, “Well, at least you’re not going home empty-handed.” I hope it was dark enough to cover up my blushing. Blushing! Imagine! Alan and I walked off into the night, making crazy plans. It was nuts! It was impossible! It was The Last Tango in Gainesville.”
True Confessions
“Hi, my contrived named is Arthur King. I think it is more than appropriate since the last several years of my life have been a complete reversal of that of the monarch. I asked Bill if I could write this in the first person in order to paint a more nuanced picture. The first thing I want to say is that The Last Tango may have actually saved my life. I know other contributors may say the same thing but I really mean it.
I suspect that some of you out there might be in the same boat, but I assure you, mine has more leaks. I would like your responses to what I have to say. And please---spare me the excessive insults and fits of laughter. I already realize what a dolt I am.
First things first; my wife and I haven’t slept together for more than 6 years. There is nothing physically wrong with either one of us, it’s just not happening. So it looks like what we have here for starters is a serious affection gap. Otherwise, communication is civil. We still go out and do things together even if it’s just so the neighbors won’t talk. We do not have terrible fights and throw things because our things are too expensive. My wife, I’ll call her Anne Boleyn, is actually fairly satisfied with her lot because my income makes her comfortable life possible. We have a roomy estate near Highlands, North Carolina and she has plenty of friends and co-conspirators. I am probably her only impediment to a perfect life, thus I am thinking of hiring a food taster. Don’t laugh, I’m serious.
Well, Arthur, you pout, why not go to a marriage counselor? Been there, done that. We tried two of them but Anne pitched a fit when they both took my side and she won’t see another. The last one flat out told us “You two should never have been married.” No ifs, ands or buts. And these are guys who make a living trying to keep people together!
I have the same reason many others do for staying married. The financial hit would be catastrophic. Also, I’m seventy years old and not thrilled at the idea of starting all over again. Dating at 70 seems daunting and most of the women I know in my age group are tired and unimaginative. I dream vaguely of still having a few adventures left, perhaps some day with a slightly younger woman who’s not just running out the string. But that’s all it’s been---a dream. I’ve been totally incapable of getting off the dime and doing what needs to be done. I’ve wrapped myself in personal business and obligations and carried on like an adult. Nobody in my home town would ever guess I am absolutely miserable.
Then one day, along came the Subterranean Circus Reunion, an excuse for a holiday. I knew Anne Boleyn wouldn’t want to go because she wouldn’t know a soul and doesn’t particularly care for rock music. I had been a student at UF in the Golden Era and had even been in the Circus a few times, so I said what the hell. I was enthusiastic about visiting Gainesville again, expected a festive environment and hoped to run into a few old friends if I was lucky. That would have been a worthwhile weekend. What I got was a whole lot more.
The Last Tango on the Heartwood Soundstage grounds was not of this Earth. Everybody was deliriously happy. Didn’t make any difference if you didn’t know a soul, you could walk up and talk to anybody. It was like being a member of a far-flung tribe, the members of which would recognize and accept you even if you were a complete stranger. I became very emotional, almost teary-eyed. I noticed I wasn’t alone. It was as if a giant bubble existed over the grounds encapsulating all the good feelings. The music from a lost era just punctuated the joyful spectacle. I could barely speak. My past years in Gainesville came flashing by and I was happier than I had been in years. My God, there’s still life in them there hills, I thought. I could be part of this. I would have to do something. Maybe some day I could transform into King Arthur instead of Arthur King.
I am back home again now, barely two weeks later. I would like to tell you I have taken what I learned to heart and I’m on the Road to Glory. That would be inaccurate. Still, I know that I’m that much closer because I know what’s out there. Hope. Promise. Friendship. Someday, maybe even Love. I am going to do it. Suck it up, break the chains, take the hit and head south. Playing out the string is for suckers. The Last Tango told me so.”
That’s all, folks….
