A few weeks ago, when I told my old friend Eric about how my old friend Jack was doing (maybe not so good), he wrote back sympathizing and told me Susan Connell-Mettauer had died. Susan Connell was my girlfriend in 1963; we danced to the Beatles, had a passionate affair, and were busted by her aunt because she didn’t want me, 20 then, screwing Susan, 16 then. Cambridge police put us into separate interrogation rooms (we didn’t know what each other was doing), got us to confess to the affair, and sentenced me to six months’ probation and Susan to a mental hospital. The charge was fornication, an old Massachusetts blue law. It sucked – the aunt, the law, the situation. It drove us apart, not immediately at first, but for decades.

About 15 years ago, I seem to recall through Eric, I got in touch with Susan again and saw her in Boston. She’d aged a lot; she’d been drinking and drugging and her liver was shaky. It was great to see her anyhow, and strange. It’s funny how your past circles back on you.

A few years later, I saw her again, introducing her to my wife and kids. It was an odd encounter, not a meeting of the minds so much as a meeting of generations. She seemed to have gotten stuck while I had moved on – and even then, I didn’t feel as if I could do anything for her. Then I heard she was married. She wrote, well and tough, publishing some stories online. Maybe two years ago, she told me her marriage was over and she had to move out of her house in Marblehead. She’d been trying to get over her hepatitis but couldn’t lock into the right regimen. She never did get work. I lost touch with her again.

Then came the news, from Eric to me, that she’d died March 26. He’d heard about it from Susan Green, an old friend of his in Burlington, where I, Eric and Susan used to hang out in the ‘70s. Susan Connell and Susan Green, I discovered, had been friends, semi-related through rock ‘n’ roll. After we were together, Susan married Lee Mason, a drummer who was in a ‘60s rock group in Boston called the Bagatelle. Susan Green, meanwhile, was associated with Willie Alexander (once of The Lost, later of Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band), a friend of Lee’s. So the network deepened and extended and I’m glad it’s held; I’ve been in touch with Susan Green about this and hope I can join her and other mourners of the late Susan Connell-Mettauer (expired March 26 before she could secure the liver transplant she needed), probably in Boston, where, it seems, it all began and still continues.

I miss Susan. I wish I could have helped her. That she died the way she did is very sad. That she didn’t live as rewardingly as her passion promised may even be sadder.

Katy had a pretty bad accident today, driving the 2001 Honda Accord EX I bought her last night into the rear of some high-end Ford product, which in turn hit the rear of one of those mercifully rare new Chrysler Sebring convertibles. Hope I don’t get sued for this by angry Chryslerians.
There’s been a lot of car movement lately. I bought Katy the Accord so she could have more mobility, driving her sister around and getting to work at Stone Oven. But she’s been feeling mono-depressed for a bunch of weeks, and she was definitely off today, not feeling good at all; when she called to say she’d hit someone, she said her car was “fucked up.” I was on the toilet at the time; this did not go down well. She apologized later, when I said that was OK and her description was accurate. The car looks totaled to me, though it drove onto the tow truck. Nobody was hurt, thank God.

In other car action, I traded in my four-year-old Acura TL last Sunday for a, would you believe, Scion XB with a manual transmission. I didn’t realize I’d missed a stick shift until I imagined, what the hell, probably feels real good. It did when I went to a Mentor Toyota dealer, told the salesman I wanted to trade straight up—and two-and-a-half hours later, drove away with a stick-shift, boxy silver Scion, a kind of mini-minivan, a box with high-tech stereo and display, enough power appointments to comfort me, and a radio I’m going to add XM to next weekend. I like driving it; I miss the cushiness of the Acura—my only quarrel with it was its mileage—but this offers its own, future-retro pleasures.
Best thing about the XB: it gets 25 to 31 miles a gallon, so a tank in the Scion lasts 140 miles longer—on regular—than the Acura did on premium or midgrade. Kinda matters these days, when it’s all about getting back to basics. If Karen trades her 2005 Odyssey Touring (bargelike, amazingly appointed, still high-tech after three years, but gets only about 16-18 mpg city) for a Scion XB, we’ll be a two-toaster family. And actually save some money. Which would be nice these days.
Pearl Marie, our Newfoundland puppy, is growing fast. Maybe that’s why we’re downsizing on the car front. If you’re looking for sequiturs, you’ve come to the wrong place.