The Geek and the Showgirl

Rodney wore his nerdiness like a loose fitting trench coat. From a distance he looked fairly normal, but when you got close to him, the coat would fling open and in a flash, his nerdy glory would be exposed. It’s not that he didn’t try to upgrade to a different personality wardrobe, he tried many times, but he just never could pull it off. Over the years I watched him try on various images of persona, all of them failing to elevate him up beyond the dork section in the department store of life. Still, he tried. There was the Flock of Seagulls phase where he spiked up his hair and tried to imitate an English accent. He walked around looking like he had just fell out of bed and sounding like a drunk Liza Minelli. Then he decided that being a cowboy was his ticket on the cool train, but he ended up looking like he was auditioning for a spot with the Village People. I won’t even go into his attempt at being a biker outlaw, it’s just too embarrassing.

The best thing going for Rodney was that he was very smart and a hell of a nice guy. He could always be depended on to help a friend in need. And at that time in our lives, with the group of misfits that we ran with, someone was always in need of Rodney’s assistance. He was our unofficial den mother, stable and efficient, keeping us from straying too far from our responsibility, and a few times, from being tossed into jail. But, Rodney was secretly looking for something else in life, something other than babysitting his rowdy comrades. At a backyard cookout for his twenty-second birthday, he thought that he had finally found it. Poor guy, as smart as he was he should have seen this one coming.

What can I say about Staci other than the fact that she was as wild as a tornado tearing through a trailer park. Extravagant party girl was just the opening line of her resume. She had claimed the world as her personal playpen and she ripped through relationships like a herd of stampeding, fishnet wearing divas. The notches in her bedposts looked like someone was trying to map the DNA strand of a small city. She was hell-on-heels and was constantly on the lookout for her next play toy. She spotted Rodney while Cindy Lauper’s ’Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ was blasting from the boom box. By the time Duran Duran’s ’Hungry Like the Wolf’ was finished, Rodney was a goner. He was smitten by Staci and refused to listen to the warnings from us more worldly buddies. But, what can you do? If he ignored our advise and leapt into the spider’s web, then all we could do was try to pick up the pieces after it was all over. I mean we tried to tell him, so he should have been smart enough to see it coming.

We friends waited patiently for the moment of Rodney’s demise. And kept waiting. In fact the waiting stretched out so long that our group slowly broke up the way that groups always do. As we friends moved on to other stages of our lives, Rodney and Staci kept dating. It was really strange, I couldn’t figure out why Staci was taking so long to drive the stake through Rodney’s blind sighted heart. I never saw the tragic moment unfold because I lost touch with Rodney as I drifted off on my own life’s path.

But, life has a way of tying up loose ends. A week ago Rodney had found me and called to invite me over to his house for dinner. His and, unbelievably, Staci’s house. I was happy for the opportunity to re-connect with Rodney after so many years, but I was more curious to see how such a mismatched couple could still be together.

I was truly humbled by the experience. Staci and Rodney welcomed me into their home like I was a beloved, long lost relative. Their house is in a modest, yet very respectable neighborhood, surrounded by families with the sound of happy kids echoing from the front yards. It is the kind of place that glows with contentment and success.

During dinner, I couldn’t help but notice how Staci and Rodney kept smiling at each other. Their own children chatted merrily and kept peppering me with questions about what their parents were like back in the old days. I told them stories of Rodney and Staci, although I gave them the PG-13 versions. I never told them that none of us guys from back then ever expected these two to make it.

So, I guess that Rodney was really the cool guy in our group. He is the one that has found the right fit in his life. He has become what he was meant to be, a husband and a father.

He should have been smart enough to see it coming…and luckily…he was.

Take care.