"What are you doing coming in here like that?" the bouncer asked me as I showed her my ticket.
Now the bouncer looked like some teenage amazon wearing an outfit that didn't even begin to cover her and left me incapable of meeting her eyes as I'd already been blinded by her other assets. Was she standing there with an "OLD HIPPIES NOT ALLOWED" sign that I was too dazed to see? Wasn't she too young to even be out at that hour of night?
Maybe it was the way I was dressed that made her suspicious. I'll admit that nothing fits me right anymore because of my obsession to lose weight and therefore live forever. I was actually wearing a pair of what I call dress shorts that I've probably kept in the back of a drawer for several decades waiting for some special occasion, but, really, what would the occasion be for wearing something that should have been donated to the Good Will long before I even moved into the house we live in now?
These shorts are reminiscent of khaki trousers with flap pockets and cuffs and it could be that I haven't lost enough weight yet for them to fit me so they don't look like I'm wearing a pre-teen size. But these shorts are in very good condition. They aren't old hippie clothes which tend to be torn T shirts that might have had some design or tie dye on them in the last millennium.
So maybe I don't know what to wear out anymore. All the boys these days are wearing what I call 'dork shorts' which are what used to be called 'baggies' (a clothing style, not the thing for the leftover half a sandwich). They look ridiculous, like calf length skirts with athletic logos. If those shorts don't look like they came from the Good Will reject box, I don't know what does. But perhaps I'm out of style.
"You come here dancing a lot," she said looking me up and down. I guess she has a right to do that if she really is the bouncer. "But I have to tell you that those shorts you are wearing just won't do here."
Now wait a minute. Here is a young woman, barely old enough to be my grand daughter and apparently not old enough to know that she isn't wearing enough clothes to cover the places that should be covered, telling me that my shorts (which are older than she is) just won't do in a crowded, dimly lit bar that smells like a combination of spilled beer and old roaches (the kind that you would use the baggie that was holding the leftover sandwich for).
This is starting to sound like an Old Hippie bust in disguise. She is trying to blame my shorts instead of my age and I'm not going to take the bait. I'll just gloss over her dress code critique and play the straight, 'glad to meet you' line.
"Yep. That's me. I've been dancing here for awhile now," I say. "I'm Roger."
"Yes, I know you are Roger. I'm Kelly and this is my boyfriend of the moment," the bombshell bouncer says looking down her nose at me as if I'm not good enough for this joint. A guy was standing next to her, speechless. "I want to tell you one thing, Roger. I've been here for years too and one thing is for certain- you and I are going to be stuck here together for a long time to come and I don't want to have to look at you in those shorts. They are just too short and out of style."
Uh oh. It's starting to look like I'm not going to be able to weasel my way around my hopelessly out of touch attire and she is a fire breathing young woman so I'd better make amends. I pathetically agree that my shorts are too short and I'll try to do better. Will that let me pass muster?
"Do you really mean that," she demands. Her eyes are blazing while the guy that was standing next to her is backing into the wall behind him as if it might mercifully absorb him. "Will you really do that for me? Do you think I'm worth doing that for? Do you think I'm worth it?"
I'd like to answer her question and then squirm out of her piercing gaze but I never get the chance.
"You know something? I think I am worth it. I think I'm worth you getting dressed in cool shorts so I won't have to look at you dressed like that. I think I'm worth you doing that for me." She wasn't kidding and I was getting the idea that she wasn't there to stop fights but to start them and I was the next guy in line. I was really starting to understand why her 'boyfriend of the moment' was trying to be invisible when it dawned on me that she had left me a move in this verbal skirmish.
She was asking me if she was worth it, and I happen to believe that all people are worth it. That's an old hippie concept, the idea that people are inherently worthwhile and that everyone is worthy. 'Love and peace, brother' became an empty slogan but the meaning in those words is real. The closeness and intimacy of love is real, and in our own youth we tried to really live that way through the Summer of Love and in the old hippie communes.
"Yes, of course you are worth it, Kelly." I'm excited and enthusiastic now because I mean it and I hope that everyone in the room picks up on that. Hippies give off good vibes, you know, and old hippies giveoff good vibes that are really sage too. I'm proud of my insight that Kelly is as human and as worthy as everyone as I lock on to her darting blue eyes at close range. But she is well armed and ready to take me to the next man-eating level.
"And just why do you think I am worth it, Roger," she said spitting my name out like a well deserved death sentence.
The chips were down. I had to shake off her blinding energy field and shake off the youth-knows-best death blow and meet her as a worthy human but I had to get even closer than that. I needed to meet her as the woman she was and it couldn't be done from a distance. How could I touch her, connect with the she-warrior, especially with her temporary boyfriend bodyguard standing right there with all the blood drained from his face.
"Because you are Beautiful," I replied with a simple smile. With that word, beautiful, her eyes turned from energy bazookas to warm molten pools and her gaze wandered off into the dancing crowd. I had gotten inside of her. I had gotten inside of her youth with its style-is-everything power field and inside of that place where we all hide our feelings of being undeserving and insignificant.
"Why, yes," she murmured. "Yes. That's right." Her voice trailed off as if in a trance. In that moment the 60's love generation met the running-on-empty hungry young cowgirl searching for something truly satisfying in a loud dive packed with come-ons and I-love-yous in the same old sleazy lines.
Kelly saw something in that moment and it was her own beauty. Old hippies know about that beauty where we all are brothers and sisters, and old hippies know where the fun is. I let the rhythm of an old Grateful Dead song fill my thighs (and threaten to split the seams of my antique shorts) as I slipped away from her off into the dance.
