Episode 75: Adventures In Dating

I always thought Joe was kind, funny and smart. Granted he was no beauty; these other factors surely overrode his looks, didn’t they? I, among my other family members, couldn’t imagine why my stepsister Lisa wouldn’t marry him. They’d been going out for a long time.

At 17, I looked at them as I sat across the family dining table. Lisa was a petite, pretty redhead, with abundant freckles and an acerbic wit. Joe, well, Joe was blonde with a receding hairline, eyes that were too close together, a weak chin covered by a thin beard, and delicate skin that blistered on his forehead when he had too much sun.

What’s not to love?

But Lisa eventually broke it off without offering any details.

Time passed. One night when I was 24, Joe turned up for dinner at my mother’s house and before he left, he asked me out. I felt a thin thrill of anticipation. I was living on my own by then. I have no memory of our first date, surely dinner out somewhere. It’s the later details that stick with me.

In spite of being in his thirties, Joe lived with his father on the further reaches of Capitol Hill, right on the edge of the black communities. It turned out to be a strategic location. In Joe’s family past, someone, perhaps his grandfather, started selling a door-to-door patent medicine called Dr. Robinson’s Stomach Tonic, consisting of God-knows-what. The main customers were those in the black community, some of whom came back and back for more when they should have been getting real medical assistance. Joe’s dad continued to sell the tonic.

Examples of patent medicine bottles.

Joe once met a man who had a collection of patent medicines. When he opened his cabinet to show them off, he pointed out his most prized acquisition in the collection: Dr. Robinson’s Stomach Tonic. Joe made a hasty departure.

The house on Capitol Hill was a small rambler. There was no doubt a pair of eccentric bachelors lived here. The place was a mess. A nasty cat named Theisman patrolled the premises. The cat’s name changed whenever there was a new quarterback for the Washington Redskins. Dishes were piled up in the sink, giving off an unpleasant odor and there was a nasty looking puddle at the foot of one of the legs of a vintage kitchen table.

“What’s that, Joe?” I asked.

“Oh, Dad spilled a soda on the table a while back. It dribbled down the leg.”

Oh.

We only stayed one night at the Robinson residence. Joe still only had a twin bed whose sheets were not the cleanest, making sleep impossible. His father roamed the house all night, talking to himself or Theisman.

Staying away from the Robinson house improved our relationship, but family eccentricities followed.

Joe’s father wanted to show off his son’s new girlfriend and against my wishes decided we should venture into the far Virginia suburbs to meet an old friend of his. We followed Mr. Robinson in Joe’s Volkswagen bug and in time it became obvious that we were lost.

The two cars stopped by the side of the road and Joe conferred with his dad. Turned out Mr. Robinson had not been to visit his friend in over 10 years, and everything looked different. I threatened Joe with mutiny if he didn’t stop at a gas station and ask directions. We finally got on the right track and after only a total of an hour and a half, we reached our destination.

Joe’s dad disappeared into the bowels of the house while we sat side by side on the living room couch. A young woman walked into the front hall dressed exactly like a whore headed to 14th Street, the centerpiece of Washington’s prostitution district. Joe learned into me and said, “Take your jaw off the floor.” I did but I looked at him with my eyebrow raised. He shook his head. Don’t say it!

Example of Americana furniture.

Just then we were called to descend into the dark basement where the friend had set himself up for our visit with soft drinks and crackers. We sat on an old American style couch and the old boys started to talk, with Joe chiming in. occasionally. There were pools of light here and there from standing lamps, oases in a room of darkness.

I began to hear an odd grunting sound and looked around in slight alarm.

“Oh don’t mind old Pete there. He had a pretty bad stroke and can’t talk or nothing. But he likes to keep his oar in.”

I looked around and in the far corner in the darkened area of the basement, I saw a hunched shape, perhaps in a wheelchair.

Just as I was wondering if things could get any weirder, the friend hopped up.

“Did I tell you about my submission – successful submission – to our hometown museum?”

“Why no you didn’t,” Mr. Robinson said with enthusiasm.

“Well, come on over and take a look.” He walked to a table and made a sweeping motion with his arm. A table lamp sat there with a clear glass base with something in it.

“That there is my gall bladder. Had it out last year and decided to hold onto it and I’m glad I did. Who’da thought the museum would want it,” he said with pride.

Who indeed?

I looked at Joe and said, “Time to go, Joe. You know I need to get back. Joe nodded his head, reluctantly agreeing. Perhaps he was interested in what could happen next, but I prevailed.

Joe’s dad hailed from North Carolina and no doubt many shenanigans took place there. He had a cabin in the countryside complete with an outhouse. Blissfully I never had to visit there. John complained constantly that Mr. Robinson would not put front steps on the cabin, making entry difficult.

One day Joe arrived at the cabin and was very pleased to find front steps at last had been installed. His pleasure didn’t last long, however. When he had to go to the outhouse in the middle of the night, he raced out the back door and landed face first in the mud. His dad had simply moved the back steps to the front and forgot to mention it to Joe.

Well, after six months it had become clear to me why Lisa wouldn’t marry Joe, and in the end, things didn’t work out with me and Joe, either. We remained friends and he even photographed my wedding. Joe eventually married and had a beautiful daughter.