A Life Well Lived

Today was a big day. Frankie remembered it as the new sun warmed his face through the bedroom window. He lay on his back, which ached, in his usual white undershirt and plaid shorts. He rolled his head to the right. Rose was there, waking up in the same position she was in when she fell asleep. Her eyes smiled at him because she knew he was excited and wanted him to know she shared it. They pushed off the sheets and got out of bed.

It was 6:04. Frankie couldn’t remember the last time he woke up before seven. Frankie couldn’t remember many things. World War II was mostly hazy, only a few snapshots of visual memories and some feelings remained: stars framed by pine trees as he tried to sleep, Paris being warm, the German soldiers’ faces looking scared like his. He forgot what he did for his birthday last week, and he could never remember the code on the garage door.

Then there were the 40 years at the rubber factory that seemed like 40 weeks. Where did the time go? How many tires passed through his hands? He couldn’t know. Looking back, it seemed like a separate life. The smell of burning rubber and the whir of the machinery and the sight of round, black tire after round, black tire. All of it numbed his senses, those vessels that connected his mind to the world. Five days a week the rubber factory desensitized him with its monotony, its lifelessness.

Today, two-thirty couldn’t come fast enough. Father Edmund’s nine o’clock homily seemed less interesting to Frankie than the swirling dust particles, illuminated red and yellow by the stained glass-filtered sunlight. It was something about camels and needles. Frankie looked at Rose and couldn’t tell if she was listening or not. Her crimson lips were curled slightly upward at the ends, her head was tilted, and her blue eyes were wide open. The day they met she looked like that when she listened to him talk. He was never sure then whether she really heard him, but he didn’t mind. She looked so beautiful like that.

Five days at the rubber factory were punctuated by a two-day recovery, and Frankie liked to spend one of those days at the club. Saturday nights were for swing at The Orange Tavern.

Dammit could Frankie dance, and dammit did he know it. Freshly back from the war and eager to forget it, Frankie rejuvenated what the factory tried to kill with the sound of walking bass and bright brass. He ordered a scotch but barely drank it before being lured by the music. “Here comes Frankie,” he heard them say on the floor. The other regulars often consulted and agreed about why they liked Frankie: “He’s just a happy guy.” But the real reason they liked him, and the reason he seemed so happy, was because Frankie let go of everything. When Frankie danced, he only knew of the joy that surrounded him in music and movement. The music was divine and eternal, not created from human breath. The movement was disembodied and pure, not formed of contracting muscles. People near Frankie saw his bliss. Someone would always ask, “Say, where’d you pick up that move?” The truth was, Frankie didn’t know where he learned to dance. He always just told them, “Europe.”

Most people accepted the answer; they didn’t care where. But Rose wasn’t like most people.

“Yeah? Where at in Europe?” she asked the night she appeared for the first time at The Tavern.

“Oh, somewhere in France, I suppose,” Frankie said. “What, you don’t believe me?”

“I’ve been to France. Nobody ever danced like that,” she said.

“Well you must have went to the wrong places. But since you think you know so much about it, why don’t you show me how they danced?”

She had never been to France, but knew something about dancing and instantly became a part of Frankie’s bliss. She saw the same happy man as everyone else on the floor, but was inescapably drawn to his energy and simplicity. It seized her, and she soon forgot the world. Frankie forgot the world, too. All that remained was music, movement, and Rose. They danced until the floor started to clear and the band got tired.

Of all Frankie’s memories he managed to keep, he most cherished this one.

Having come home from church and eaten lunch, Frankie lay down and was daydreaming on the couch. The clock chimed twice and woke him from his nostalgia. He straightened out his lips that had unconsciously bent into a smile and called for Rose. It was time to go.

Their Sunday afternoon drive to the vineyards was a source of great anticipation for Frankie. He looked down each fleeting row of grape vines as the car sped past. It was quiet and idyllic in the summer in the vineyards. Fluffy white clouds broke up the vast blue that stretched to each horizon. They pulled into Bienvenue Vineyards, home to live music every Sunday.

When the band began to play an old favorite from The Tavern, Frankie moved to the floor, back bent forward from eagerness and pain. But it wouldn’t take long before he’d forget about the latter. Rose followed behind him slowly, white hair neatly curled and wearing lipstick like her name. The 20 or 30 people sipping wine, absorbing the sun, and feeling good about life began to clap in congratulations for two lives nearing finale. They clapped also in gratitude. For them, Frankie and Rose were two slumping, dancing, wrinkled, happy confirmations of lasting, perhaps true, love. At that moment it seemed perfectly plausible that these two fragile, gyrating people could defy death and keep loving each other forever. Such bliss could never be stifled, could it?

When the last song was over, Frankie and Rose walked off the floor toward their car. The crowd applauded the band, and Frankie turned around and waved like he sometimes did at The Tavern if he really put on a show. Everyone saw him and clapped louder.

Adapted from a true story