Heck Of A Guy

Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane,
Ain’t got time to take a fast train.
Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home,
‘Cause my baby just a-wrote me a letter.

Refrain from The Letter, First popularized by The Box Tops
Written by Wayne Carson Thompson

“Call me Ishmael” (Herman Melville, Moby-Dick – 1851) is, according to the American Book Review, the best first line from a novel.

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” (Gone With The Wind – 1939) is, according to the American Film Institute, the greatest movie quote of the past 100 years.

For my part, I don’t give a damn what you call Ishmael. The first line that still thrills me every time is the opening of the letter I received from Julie¹ almost 30 years ago, “Are you the DrHGuy I used to know? I’m divorced. How are you?” Catchy, eh?

Even burdened with the foolish pseudonym, those three sentences, which surely must be the most awkward, jejune phrases Julie ever composed since writing an ill-considered mash note in junior high school to her first boyfriend, Squirrely (not a pseudonym), make me shudder with delight even now as I write this.

In the six years since Julie left her first husband – and me – to be with Philip, she and I had each married, relocated at least twice, and pursued careers far removed from our degrees in English. We had been completely out of contact for the last three years, and neither of us had any idea where the other was. Most importantly, we had both been smart enough, sensible enough, and mature enough to know that holding onto the illusion that the two of us would somehow, someday be together was not only unrealistic, but emotionally treacherous. Consequently, we had each surrendered that fantasy.

We did not, after all, live in a Dickensian melodrama, a fairy tale, or a mythical universe where parents routinely find their long-lost children by accident, twins separated at birth discover each others identity when they notice they are wearing matching lockets – or lovers reunite after living disparate lives for six years. This was real life.

On the other hand, …

As you may recall, when we last saw our heroine, she had made an attempt to discover my whereabouts and, two weeks later, had declared, before a few hundred applauding EST participants, that she had “let go” of her hope that she would end up with that guy she knew in college.

Her effort to find me had been partially successful. She contacted directory assistance in my hometown, found four listings under my surname, called the first one, and had a chat with my Aunt Saundra. Aunt Saundra was suspicious of a stranger, especially a woman, calling and so refused to provide an address or phone number, but she was too proud of her nephew to forgo mentioning that “he’s a doctor now in Chicago.” After a brief pause, she added, “And he’s married.”

Julie later pointed out that by that time, discovering that I had converted to Mormonism and had eight wives, that I had been comatose for three years, or that I was standing trial as a serial murderer would not have deterred her.

A subsequent call to the AMA netted Julie a list of all the physicians in Chicago with my surname along with the medical schools from which each graduated. The next day she mailed her letter addressed to me at my residency training program.

Two weeks later, she had not heard from me and assumed, reasonably enough, that I had chosen not to respond.

As it turns out, she had not reckoned with my Medical Center’s internal mail system, which kept her message in a slow motion re-routing maze for almost two weeks, reluctantly discharging it into my hands the afternoon of the day after Julie’s EST weekend proclamation.

Julie and I were talking on the phone within the hour.

But the phone call — like all that has followed — was denouement to reading the letter

In that instance everything changed forever.

[Previous Installment Of Julie's Story: Meanwhile, Back At The Medical School]
[Next Installment Of Julie's Story: Willie, Waylon, Jerry Lewis, Julie, And Me]
[First Installment Of Julie's Story: This Is How A Love Story Began]

Footnotes

1. Julie Showalter was the fiercely intelligent, sexy, and loving woman and prize-winning author, with whom I had a outrageously wonderful 20 year marriage that ended with her death in late 1999 from cancer diagnosed the week of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier. Many posts on this blog are about her, our unlikely romance, and our life together, and still others consist of her writings. Information can be found at Julie Showalter FAQ.↩

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