I almost forgot this one. Just remembered it this minute. Something truly sad and momentous happened once when Bennett and I were together.
I forgot about it because this event took place fifteen years before we met. We were in the same room only a few feet from each other, but we were strangers and never spoke that evening.
We pieced it together when he was telling me about his past as an amateur musician, playing the clarinet and singing lead vocals in a band. He had just started spinning his tale of a bizarre night when I interrupted him, saying, “I was there. I know exactly where you’re going with this story.”
As he spoke, I could actually picture him all those years ago in his tuxedo, standing at the microphone, singing. Alan, my ex, and I danced to his crooning that night.
Bennett looked kind of like bandleader Artie Shaw fifteen years ago.