32. On The Couch

Bored shiftless with lights off lying listless turning restlessly this way and that playing hide-and-seek with comfort and the dry-mouth desire for a smoke.
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Switch on radio and catch The Beatles doing Hey Jude, no less. The lyrics like a message in the dark: Don’t be afraid / take a sad song and make it better / the minute you let her under your skin / then you begin / to make it better. Spine shivers. Nah! Nah nananana nah!
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Close eyes and conjure up Judy’s image. Never bored when she’s around. Always had something going on.
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One night she showed me something so weird I haven’t thought about it till now. We were alone at home one night (T-Minus 10 months) - the folks at some office party, Judy and me here on the couch, vaguely watching some crummy movie.
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‘Check this out,’ Judy says buttoning off the volume and going over to the stereo rack by the TV. ‘Pick a record, Leo. Any record.’
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‘What do you mean? What for?’
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‘Just do it!’
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‘Okay. Don’t get your knickers in a twist.’ (One of the sayings I’d picked up in Ireland that could always be relied upon to get a laugh out of Judy.) ‘Crash Test Dummy’s,’ I say. ‘God Shuffled His Feet. But why?’
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‘Why, why, why? Is that the only word you know? We’ll watch the movie to the sound of the album. Yeah?’
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I lit a cigarette and we shared it.

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‘Yeah. So? What’s the big deal?’
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‘Shut up, little brother,’ she tells me. ‘You’ll see. Just watch and listen.’
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She crawls back into the groove she’s made in the couch beside me. I shut up, watch intently, listen eagerly, wait expectantly. And by the time the needle’s halfway into the first track, to my total amazement, something amazing is starting to happen. As if what I’m seeing on the screen is - inexplicably - synchronising with the sound from the stereo, matching up, as if one is made for the other. Mesmerised, I remain silent until the LP stops.
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‘You see what I mean?’ she says getting up to flip the album over. Impressed beyond all recognition, I ask her how she found out about this.
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‘Discovered it for myself.’
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She often watches TV alone in her room like this, she tells me and I turn away from a sudden urge (to bundle her in my arms and kiss and tickle her all over) and admit to her that it’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced.
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We’ve watched movies together that way ever since. I used to marvel at how her funny little mind worked. Still do. Marvel. But, don’t get me wrong: Judy marched to the same beat as everyone else - just whistled a different tune is all.
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Occurs to me that I haven’t been in her room since… B.C. (Before Crash). Have I been deliberately avoiding it? Or is it that it just hasn’t crossed my mind until now?
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Doesn’t matter. Either way… got to go in there sometime.