Friday, August 2, 2019

Open Window
It was early summer. The year of 1974. School was out, and I was 17 and had no job. Maybe I had an offer to work at a car wash, or to clean out an old woman's backyard. I don't recall.

But I can still see the street when the lights turned on. I can still hear Springsteen through an open window:

Rosalita, (Come out Tonight)...

Oh, man. I had to call my friend Eddy. The music was in my veins. I dropped a nickel in a pay phone like a juke box.

"Hey, Eddy. I heard Springsteen playing through an open window. You got fake ID. We can buy some beer and smoke weed in the park. Maybe find Spanish girls named Rosalita?"

Me and Eddy met. We sat atop a picnic table. A couple of six packs between us, our teenage feet resting on the bench. The beer buzzed our heads, and the joints made us laugh.

Eddy says; "You know that chick Ruby? The hottest girl at school. I asked her out. Guess what, she said no."

I said to Eddy: "Guess what, I asked her out, too. She said no. Probably doesn't see much in a guy who works at a car wash."

We began to sing... Rosalita, come out tonight. We sang to a row of trees, and pretended  to see a pair of Rosaltias through an open window. They were barefoot in a senorita dance.

It was late, and we drank the last of the beer. We tossed burning joints and watched them like laughing fireflies in the brief night.

I said: "Time to go, Eddy. And remember, Ruby is mine." We both smirked, and staggered our own way.

In the morning, I might have gotten a job. I don't recall. Eddy. Maybe some day he found his Ruby. I don't remember. I'd ask him, but I haven't seen him in all these adult years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYHGh6lmSbo