I continued to have intermittent contact with Priz after she broke up with me. One time, she came to the Hillcrest Cinemas with Ard to see Lyd. I was putting up the new movie posters outside. When they were leaving, they walked by me. Priz said, "Oh, boy, that looks like a fun job!" That did not make me laugh. I wondered why she even bothered to say anything to me.
The stupid thing was that I still wanted her to be my girlfriend. So I took some action. I decided to write a song about her and record it. I had composed a few tracks in the last several weeks on my keyboard. I figured out which one I wanted to use to write lyrics about her. The song questioned why she started up with all the kissing and attempts at sexual activity if she was under the impression that I was going to eventually dump her for someone else, which was what her previous boyfriend had done.
After I had completed this, I contacted the husband of one of our employees to get him to record the song on his four-track cassette recorder. He was a local singer-songwriter and I figured he would be able to sing it, since I had little confidence in my abilities as a lead vocalist. He came to my apartment and brought the recorder, but he didn't bring a microphone. I remembered how headphones can be used as microphones, so I plugged mine into the mic input. This actually worked.
He was having trouble trying to sing the song. (I just presented him the song on the spot.) He asked me to sing it so he could hear how it was supposed to go. I sang it and he said I sang well enough that I should just go ahead and sing it myself. So that's what I did. We then copied the song onto a few cassette tapes and he left.
One night, I went by Ard's house and found Priz' pickup outside. I put the cassette under the windshield wiper on the driver's side and quickly drove off. I didn't know what was going to happen next.
I didn't hear anything right away. A couple of weeks later, Landmark had its employee Christmas party at the Park Theatre. I suddenly heard someone behind me. "Hey, Fayd!" I turned around. It was Priz. Lyd had apparently invited her to the party. "I got your tape. I was driving home when I saw something stuck on my windshield and thought, 'Is that a cassette?' But I was so tired when I was driving home that I just went straight to bed and left the tape on the car all night long."
She said she liked the song, but I don't think she actually grasped the points I was getting at. She said she was sorry for the way she treated me, that she was really getting back at her ex-boyfriend by starting something up with me. She was also sorry for how she acted that time she and Ard came by the theatre when I was putting up the posters.
But in the past two weeks, I'd had a major change in my life that meant I was no longer looking for a girlfriend. I told her what happened and I could see the glimmer of hope slowly disappear from her face. If she was coming to me with the possibility that we might be able to get back together, she had realized that the chances of that happening were zero.
Sometime after I'd discarded that change in my life and gotten fired from the Hillcrest Cinemas, I contacted Priz because I was going to do a self-published cassette release that included the song I had written about her. I wanted to give her a copy. She was working as a Shift Manager for Jack in the Box. She had previously worked at Carl's Jr. She had also experienced some severe health issues that had affected her for more than a year. It was around this time that she admitted she was a lesbian. I told her this didn't really surprise me very much, seeing as how her best friend was a lesbian. "What? Oh, no! Ard's not a lesbian!" "But you told me..." "No! She is NOT a lesbian!" (Honestly, if you ever saw Ard during this period, the first thought that would have crossed your mind was "This woman is a lesbian!") Later, it turned out that Ard actually came out. I don't know if Priz was lying to me when I mentioned that, because there was really no reason to deny it. I'll never know.
I haven't had any contact with Priz since I left San Diego. I found her on Facebook. Her relationship status states that she's married. Even though her profile shows she now lives in San Luis Obispo, CA, she appears to live in Shendon, CA with her spouse. She's still Facebook friends with Ard, but not with Lyd. (Oddly enough, Ard and Lyd are friends on Facebook.)
I guess I should be thankful that we didn't get back together because the inevitable breakup would have been so much worse the second time around. I should also note that even though I will refer to that major change in my life around December of 1993 was the WORST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE, it did keep me from experiencing this devastation.
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