I Hear Voices: A Memoir of Love, Death, and the Radio

8. Roger and Me, Too, “Il piacere e ‘tutta’ mio”

8 Roger and Me, Too “Il piacere e ‘tutta’ mio” There is no word in English to describe the special closeness that sometimes binds a man and a woman who are never lovers, but more than friends. Had Roger and I met decades earlier when we were both young and crazy, given half a chance, I would have jumped on the back of his Harley and ridden off with him without so much as a backward glance. As it was, what grew between us was something much subtler, something that had shading, texture, and seasoning. But because there is no word for it, it stayed mysterious in my mind, to be brought to light, among so many other astonishing revelations, only in the course of my becoming Roger’s memoirist. Roger was my husband’s best friend, but I loved him too. Ours is a marriage fueled by the energy of opposites: Alan, the scientist; me, the poet; Alan, the atheist; me, the believer. Our temperaments are also opposed. Alan is forever climbing Mount Olympus while I am down below, dancing with Dionysius. We circled each other warily when we first met, careful to avoid any minefields. But Roger and I needed no such delicate negotiations. Attraction between us was simple and spontaneous. We were roughly the same age and had both grown up in second generation immigrant families in twin boroughs of New York City, 165 Roger in Brooklyn, and I in the Bronx, densely ethnic neighborhoods that stamped us for life. We were old enough to remember the clatter of horses dragging their wagonloads over the cobblestones, the whine of the scissor sharpener, the rumble of trolley cars, the cries of the ragman, and the pleas of gypsies begging in the street with their sticky palms outstretched and their sickly babies slung around their necks. Following that age-old American imperative, Roger and I “lit out for the territory” as soon as the way was clear. We boarded the same freedom train bound for the West Coast and came of age on parallel tracks during the tumultuous sixties. While I went roaring around the Berkeley Hills with one of the original Hell’s Angels, Roger was getting ready to stage his own motorcycle rampages through the evergreen highways of the Pacific Northwest. We were both children of William Blake, Aldous Huxley, and Walt Whitman; we shared the same wild streak. Whatever wisdom we were destined to acquire would inevitably come from following the road of excess. But beneath these several layers was something deeper, some invisible substrate. It was as if we were standing in the same stream, miles apart, with our feet on the same contiguous bedrock. “He adored you,” Kathy confided in her low, mellifluous voice when we met in Aspen to scatter Roger’s ashes. Coming from a wife of thirty-some years, that was pure gift. I suppose you might say that deep down I’m one of those Catholic school girls afflicted with a biker babe fantasy and a weakness for bad guys. Alan grew up in Latin America. The first time I met him, he was leaning against a stone wall, wearing dark sunglasses and one of his drug dealer shirts. As attached as I am to that first impression, it didn’t take long to disabuse me of it. Okay, so he might have known his way around the back alleys of Caracas once upon a time, but here was a guy who lost no time in introducing me to classic movies, vintage wine, and Beethoven’s late string quartets. Alan was a mensch. Roger was the badass. Just as I was confronting my sixtieth birthday, a package arrived in the mail from San Diego. Inside the box, hidden under the crisp folds of pink tissue paper, was a silver belt with eagles that were strung on a double chain, and a skimpy sleeveless black T-shirt edged in lace. The shirt had a winged skull printed on the front, the classic Harley trademark. As I held it up, a piece of paper the size of a ticket stub fluttered out, landing 166 Roger and Me, Too • in my lap. It was a tiny hand-lettered coupon. I picked it up and read, “Good for one ride on Highway 101.” I had to wait a few years before I finally got to claim that ride. It was during a...