“all of the flowers
all of the flowers i gave her
she burned them
burned them”
– Type O Negative

Birmingham is a really small town. In some ways, it’s the perfect game of ‘Six Degrees’ — sooner or later, everything in this town starts connecting, a wickedly beautiful web that draws together everyone and everything in it.

There was the lawyer and musician, some twenty or so years my senior, who I met when he was a client at TapeSouth. He later went on to do a lot of work with Daniel, and it was at Daniel’s home studio that I talked to him one day about his days in California, some of which were spent building a commune — a commune that my ex-wife’s mother was living at.

There was discovering that Melissa was originally supposed to have attended RLC with me instead of her zoned high school. And even having missed each other there, finding out that we attended the state finals of Trumbauer (a high school drama competition) together. Aside from becoming my wife for a while, she’s also easily one of the most naturally gifted actresses I’ve ever met in my life, and stars in Muckfuppet.

One of favorites, though not smacking of coincidence as much, was Maria. She lived next door to Jen, after our divorce in ’94. I moved in down the way from both of them in the spring of ’96 (Jen and I have always remained friends — not always close, but never, thankfully, the sort of bitter enemies so many ex-couples become), and although I can’t remember how it happened, or why, Jen decided to set us up on a date.

I’m a very awkward first date. I don’t meet people very well, largely because I despise the discomfort and unease of making small talk when you’re both thinking that more important things could be heard and said in other contexts. And this was no different — looking back, I’m amazed that a second date ever came out of it. We both had fun, at least from what I could tell, but who takes a first date to the sister restaurant where he works (a sports bar, no less) to have some really not good food and play trivia? Yeah, me.

It’s a wonder I ever lost my virginity in the first place. Fortunately, most girls do like a guy with a sense of humor. And in Maria’s case, she was really attracted to my intelligence, which was nice. I’ve never been one who would be considered “hot,” and – at least in the south – inteliigence is misunderstood, at best, and frowned upon or feared at worst. But Maria herself was fairly smart at the initial glance (I didn’t realize until much later that she was really incredibly smart, not to mention driven and adaptable).

Sadly, I don’t remember a lot of things about the relationship, even though it lasted for three months (sadly, one of the longest of my life, even to date — I did mention earlier that I’m kind of an asshole and not too bright, yeah?). Just snippets, though some really nice ones: driving in her blue Honda listening to the just-released October Rust; her surprise evening of cooking for me, running me a bath with candles and some sort of acoustic guitar on the stereo, and a closer of strawberries and whipped cream on her back porch, with what stands as one of the most amazing views of the city; Piglet dolls, and little Cassidy as a six week old kitten; her bedroom, filled with white, and the smells so feminine that still set a standard in my head.

We lasted for almost exactly the summer, May through sometime in late August or September. I do remember being at work, cleaning up at the end of the night, and getting a panicked phone call from Maria, crying that her relatives were at Olympic Park where a bomb had just exploded (yet another web, tighter still: the bomb was later discovered to have been set by Eric Rudolph, who also planted the bomb at the clinic in Alabama that, but for a schedule shift, might have killed Jen instead of injuring Emily). That was a long night, but I remember feeling that she had really handled it well. Her father and stepmother were amazing; I wish I could see them again. And her brother Michael is a really talented musician in town who i still see from time to time.

It kind of amazed me to find out that Mandy and James used to carpool with Maria when they were in elementary school to a Catholic school — one that I never attended, but Mandy and Maria did.

We played a lot of trivia that summer at Wings – she and I, and John Betts, and Kevin, drinking and stomping the regulars at both versions of the store. I can’t remember why I broke up with her, though if I’m correct it was because I was being a commitment-phobe (or maybe because I had gotten stable and secure and safe, and found something more challenging and dangerous). It was an ugly breakup, because I was a moron and an asshole; we didn’t speak for another three years.

I run into her every couple of years, and she still takes my breath away. She’s got a really unique beauty — I don’t mean that as a backhanded compliment, but rather that I’ve never met another person that even compared to her. Rene Russo is kinda close, but not quite there. And her laugh is so infectious – she and Bree share that trait in common, although I seem to recall someone (Jen?) telling me that that was the one thing that they hated about her.

On nights like tonight — in he upper sixties, with a cool breeze blowing — I sit on my roof and look up the hill at the old apartments, and I sometimes think of Maria, the first kiss, the first time that she referred to us beamingly as “nerds in love”, that last week in Gulf Shores, sleeping next to the open doors to hear the rolling tide at night, and making the gulls swarm with loaf after loaf of stale bread tossed over the side of the third story. I’ve heard that her long time boyfriend is a really good guy, a really good artist, and I’m glad for her. She deserves a lot of happiness, and I hope that she’s finding it every day.