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CHRONICLE OF AN OPEN MARRIAGE #68
The Man in the Blue-Striped Shirt
A chance encounter rang every one of my bells
I ordered a Sazerac at the venue, excited to see the New Orleans signature drink on the cocktail menu. I got an inch of liquor and a big lemon peel in a plastic cup. $20. I stood on the balcony, nursing it, trying to make it last. Then, I noticed the young man in the blue-striped shirt.
That shirt!
It was the same shirt the “love of my life” (or so I thought at the time) once wore with aplomb. I had met him in New Orleans, maybe 50 years prior. It was a hipster shirt, I suppose. He was a hipster before his time. The vertical stripes were each an inch thick, ranging in shades of blue, all the way from navy to gray. He wore a dark blue beret; and this blue-striped, button-down shirt; and tortoise-shell glasses — all the time. He was cool, and knowledgeable about music and New Orleans, and super charming, and fun…
I remembered his shirt so well, and upon remembering, images of my old lover flooded my brain. That man had been something different. He seemed more alive than other people — more attuned to the moment. He was the first person to introduce me to jazz music, among other things. (We were so young.) I remembered lying on a mattress on the floor with…
