The Line Between Lust & Madness

Even in the South Carolina twilight, I can see the very air roiling, steam draping like the breath of a L'ung Dragon in the pines. Right now, I have a wee dram of Macallan. Though not the norm for a non-cask strength single malt, due to the heat, I floated a single ice cube to liberate the cooler notes of the whiskey and combat the heat.

Every season is evocative but, sometimes, Summer seems the most so. The hot, dry summer nights of my youth in Phoenix were a vehicle for my first tentative steps in adulthood. For a male teenager, Summer is the universal season of liberation. No school, no suggested bed times and parental control vaporized like a drop of sweat on the sizzling Phoenix asphalt. The issuance of a drivers license led to clandestine, midnight liaisons with girls who had the courage to sneak out of their bedroom windows to meet me. Clumsy, muttered, meaningless phrases led to even clumsier fumbling in the back of my '67 Shelby GT500. After the "conquest", tradition would dictate that I would hook up with my male friends. Sitting on the hoods of our cars, we would slag each other, hold forth on philosophies that we thought would make us look "world wise and deep". We all spoke individually of our bright futures, that would never come to pass, and the insipid behaviors of our parents, who we would all eventually come to emulate. The rising sun conferred both benediction, as well as our assurance of immortality.


Moving to Myrtle Beach changed the nature of the Summer night, and the cascade of associated feelings. There really is something about sultry southern/tropical nights. Inspiration to the likes of F. Scott, Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, and Poppa Hemingway, the wet heat,sounds and fragrances...all lead the mind to a fine line between lust and madness.

There are qualities to the desultory nocturne that evoke my memories as a young soldier at Fort Bragg. Much like viewing a decaying film, I see myself entering the down-at-the-heels off-post clubs that were constrained by the 70's blue laws and ordering a mixer for the bottle of cheap hooch I brought with me. Allowing my eyes to adjust to the dim light within, one by one, I would take in the women; locals all, who were there in search of a distraction from the boredom and swampy miasma of Southeast small town life. The men, boys actually, were all fellow troops, wallets filled from pay day, all fronting an over-the-top nonchalance while doing a fast male-to-female count, assessing their chances for the evening.

As the quiet desperation of both sides eased, the air became filled with a mix of female southern accents, and male tones that ranged from the Bronx to Puerto Rico, all driven by the cacophony of a bad house band. Slow dances led to parking lot gropes and the beginning of a ballet that would end in either a seedy motel or back at her rental.

Sweat glistening on bodies. Perfumes and after shaves re-liquify and meld with the honeysuckle and night blooming jasmine, latent in the muggy night air. She was making love to the man who would eventually take her away. He was finally nailing some high school crush of the past, who wouldn't have even given him the time of day. Ultimately, it didn't matter. For a few precious hours, reality didn't exist, they were both the person their needs dictated and in a place they wanted to be.

Eventually, I married one of those local girls on a hot southern night. You would think that the jasmine scented breeze that is now wafting through my screen door would remind me of that woman. Rather it fills me with the bitter-sweet melancholy of youth that has been lost, and a wistful yearning for a return, if one last time, to that wonderfully fine edge between lust and madness.