So last night we went to the West Texas Jazz Society’s Holiday Concert at the Midland Petroleum Club.
Whew. I’m tired already, just typing all that. By the time I finish this story, I’ll be too old to get up out of this chair.
The Petroleum Club. I don’t really know what it’s like in its everyday incarnation, but the place is legendary in Midland. I’d never been inside until lately, when we started going to concerts and dances there. Back in The Day, only members and invited guests ever saw the inside of it. Oh, and the workers. The EGE has lived here all his life, and he says it was always very exclusive. I read some article about Midland in a national magazine, back when Bush Ruled the World, that talked about The Petroleum Club and its Rich Whiteness.
You get the idea.
When The EGE and I go, the only people of color we see are the guys at the valet parking stand out front—people we know and stop and talk to, much to the bafflement of the people having their cars valeted.
I love “valet” as a transitive verb!
So anyway, it’s that kind of place. And even with jazz concerts, there are still a lot of Old Midlanders who seem rather amazed to see us there.
The EGE and I made a decision, long, long ago, when we first married, that we would live in Midland, but we would live in Midland our way. We would go where we wanted to go and do what we wanted to do. It hasn’t always been easy; we’ve had some battles. And one lawsuit. The only reason we were ever shown the house we live in now is because I had a little meltdown with the real estate agent and threatened to turn them in for discriminatory practices, and she called me back and begged me to let her find us a house.
We met and married in Midland, but that didn’t mean we had to buy into its backward ways. It’s a very, very class conscious town, one of those places where, just a couple years ago, I heard one man tell the people he was with that he never goes south of Wall Street and never would. Hell, when I was in high school, I wasn’t allowed to go east of Main Street. When The EGE was growing up, he couldn’t eat downtown unless he sat at a table around in the back, and if he needed to pee, he’d better get home as fast as ever he could.
Yes, there were drinking fountains with signs above them: Colored. White.
So this is the town where we live. Rabidly conservative, hyper-religious (and here “religious” means “conservative Christian”-- we’re not talking about mosques and synagogues here, people), class-conscious, full of Old Money and Oil Money and Ranch Money and lots and lots of people for whom the whys and wherefores and whos of that money is a very, very important thing.
Having grown up all over the western oil-producing states, moving all the time, never staying in one place long enough to know the people and the timbre of any town, this kind of stuff has never meant anything to me. While I may recognize some of The Names in town (mostly because streets have been named for their families), it means nothing to me because I don’t know the people and don’t know what they did to get rich and don’t know why it is that they’re Somebody Important.
Some of these people have been very generous to the community and have made lots of things happen. And that’s good. But if you have a shitload of money and live in a town where streets have been named for your various family members, it’s kind of what you’re expected to be doing anyway, I would guess.
I’ve never really understood most of it and have to admit that I care less and less for convention the older I get.
Enough history. The point (and, yes, I think I had one) was that we have always gone where we want to go. To the dancehall where no one speaks English to Juneteenth in the park to the country club to the Stardust to Earl’s brother’s club. Well, we went there once, and then we told him that we’d come back when he made it a non-smoking club. In other words, When Pigs Fly.
And last night we went to the Petroleum Club. Now, most of the members and friends of the West Texas Jazz Society are older than we are, and they dress conservatively: the men mostly wear sports jackets and slacks. Some wear ties. The women wear slacks and sparkly sweaters and heels, for the most part.
The EGE wore slacks and a pale pink sweater over a pink shirt. Black dress shoes. Classy casual.
I wore my favorite dancing outfit: black strappy heels, two layers of dyed skirts, and the fabulous beaded silk bustier I found at Goodwill. I wear it over another, red lace bustier with a strapless bra underneath.
Wait, wait: I know you think this is way, way, Too Much Information, but there’s a reason I’m telling you this. I swear. I promise there won’t be any more details about any other undergarments!
Here’s a photo taken a couple months ago that’s sort of the same. Last night I had a red skirt over a bright lime-green skirt. Very holiday-ish, I thought.
The bustier is fabulous, as I might have mentioned. It’s the kind of thing that other women notice and comment on. They almost always ask where I got it and then say something like, “It’s not something I would ever wear, but it’s lovely.” You know, like, “Gracious, aren’t you a little old to go strapless? And don’t you think you might want to cover up some of those tattoos? You do look kind of like an aging hooker, you know that, right?”
I always say thank you, but if they ask about it, where I got it, I tell them: $19.99 at Goodwill. This usually makes their mouths gape slightly. I don’t know whether it’s because they’re thinking, “Holy shit, I’d better get my ass down to the Goodwill,” or because they’re dumbfounded that I’d admit I shop there. Or because I’ve committed the faux pas of mentioning price. If they seem to want more information, I tell them what a good thing it is to support Goodwill, and I mention how the store works with the kids in the special education classes in the high schools.
Way too much information for them, you can tell. But I like to think it might encourage someone—if not to shop there, at least to donate last season’s wardrobe, you know"?
OK. So I’ve got on the bustier, with a tissue tucked down into it. I have no pockets anywhere in these clothes, and there’s no way in hell I leave the house without a tissue. Lord, no. Because if you have to sneeze, you must be able to grab a tissue to sneeze into. If you don’t have one and try to stifle the sneeze? Well, girlfriends, I think we all know what can happen then. Stifling a sneeze sort of ruins the delicate balance of water pressure in the female plumbing system as it ages, if you get my drift.
Which reminds me of a woman who bought a bunch of my journal skirts. She is my age, and this wasn’t all that long ago. She said she’d wear them everywhere, and she’d wear them with her boots and thick hiking socks. Why? Because she doesn’t wear underwear. What does not wearing underwear have to do with your choice of footwear? She explained that, when you don’t wear underwear and you sneeze, it’s a good thing to have on really, really thick socks.
Yeah, I squealed, too.
So I carry the one tissue, tucked down inside the bustier. Because, you know: thick socks look like shit with heels.
Now, I know some women who could put everything they own in a sturdy bustier. Their cell phone. Their wallet. Nancy Reagan’s Little Gun. Me? A tissue is about as far as it’s going, something I learned way back the summer after the 9th grade, when we were at the swimming pool, goofing around. I took a boy’s keys and, thinking to keep them from him, I dropped them in the top of my bathing suit. He rolled his eyes and picked me up by my elbows and shook me, and the keys dropped to the ground. Much to the hysterical delight of everyone present. So, um, no: not a lot of architecture for storage in my foundation garments.
So. The concert. On the one hand, we always manage to have a table that’s not fully occupied. People will kind of start to sit down and then glance at us and move on. On the other hand, there are lots of people we know. Hence much schmoozing. There’s another couple we know from dancing, and the guy always Talks Ties with The EGE. He seems to think that because The EGE is always color-coordinated, he has an interest in ties. This is not the case: The EGE loathes ties. He really, seriously hates them. I don’t blame him: I’d go nuts if I had something tied around my neck. It would always remind me of the horrible, horrible story I read when I was a kid about the man who married a woman who always wore a yellow ribbon tied around her neck and would never take it off and never tell him why. So one night while she was sleeping, he untied the yellow ribbon and HER HEAD FELL OFF.
I swear I didn’t sleep for a couple years. And back in the late 70’s, when everyone was tying scarves around their necks? No way. Uh-uh.
Anyway, so this guy is pointing out how his tie matches his slacks, and I say, “My husband’s underwear matches his shirt.” And he turns to me and shakes his finger and says, “That’s way too much information!” and then turns back to The EGE and makes some coaching reference I didn’t understand, something about some NFL coach and his underwear.
I have to confess that, after 30 years as A Coach’s Wife, I tune out every reference to coaching and almost al references to sports. I was A Coach’s Wife, and I was a damn good one. I went to games and meets and tournaments. I kept score and drove team vans and helped haul equipment. I sewed up basketball shorts while the shorts were ON THE ACTUAL PLAYER, and I bandaged cuts and handed out water.
I’ve done my time, and I don’t care if I ever see another athletic competition ever in my life. Ever. So I tune it all out: Sports = eh.
The music starts. It’s a jazz quartet, with a vibraphone player and a bass player from Oklahoma, a drummer from New Orleans, and a guitar player from Sacramento. The band leader is something of an asshole, but what can you say? During the intermission I compliment him. He’s drinking beer, and he looks at me and says, “Yeah,” and turns away. And I’m like, “?” Sure, he can play the vibes, but he’s a fat guy with a ponytail drinking beer out of a bottle, so what’s up with the attitude?
Anyway. I’m going on way, way too long here, so let’s cut to the chase. The music starts. We get up to dance. We’re the only ones dancing at first, until the other couple gets up. The EGE is chewing gum, and I say, “Boy, don’t you be smacking that gum at me!” and he, being The EGE, grins and gives the gum an extra good smack. I laugh and lean back, and he opens his mouth to give it an even better smack, and the following happens in Ultra Slow Motion:
I’m leaning back in his arms, laughing. His mouth is open. His gum leaps off his tongue and sails, in a perfect, glorious arc, toward me. I see it glistening in the sparkles from the tiny twinkly lights. It’s like a tiny, miniature baseball sailing in the lights over the homerun fence as it arcs up and out and down, down, down
into the front of my bustier, where it lands, WHUMP, right between my red lace breasts.
I look down. There is his gum, sitting all shiny on top of the carefully-tucked-away tissue.
I say, “Hee.”
My husband, without missing a beat, reaches into the bustier, plucks out his gum, and pops it back in his mouth.
This is when I completely lose it.
I have never laughed so hard in my entire life. He tries to keep us dancing, but it’s mostly him holding me up. Tears stream down my cheeks. My knees buckle. I hold on to my ribs.
I am so, so very happy I peed right before we left the house.
When I go into the restroom during intermission, one of the women comes up to me and says, “OK, I have to ask what you were laughing about while you were dancing. I could hear you.” I try to tell her, but I start laughing all over again. She listens, tilts her head to the side, and without cracking even a smile says, “OK, I can see that that would make you laugh.”
Indeed.
Posts
