The Ballad of Lena Roman

The story of Lena Roman opens somewhere in sunny San Diego sometime in 1968; the Ballad of Lena Roman, however, begins six years later in a Tooele High School locker room.
At that time, Lena was just starting 1st grade in the California school system. Of all the words she was taught, Tooele was a word she would have to come to learn on her own.
In that locker room, the hero of our ballad takes an extra second to make sure his jock strap is on the right way. We'll call him Fred.
"What's your name?" Coach Dart asked him.
"Fred Duran, Coach."
"Are you on my team?"
"No," Fred answered, "I'm here to shoot free throws."
"What?"
"Coach Gardner wanted me to practice free throws."
"Come here," Coach Dart waved, "I need you to do something for me." Fred followed the Coach down the hall to the training room. "I need you to spot for Connell."
"Ok," Fred said, "what do I do?"
"He's in the whirlpool, I need you make sure he doesn't fall asleep and to let him know when to get out."
"Ok," our hero said.
"Thanks. What's your name again?"
"Fred Duran, Coach."
They walked into the overwhelmingly, humid whirlpool room. "Connell," Coach Dart said into the steam, "this is Fred Graham, he's here to spot for you."
The whirlpool tub was a metal basin deeper than it was wide. Through the steam Fred could see Mark Connell sitting with his arms resting outside the basin, head leaning back, with bubbles boiling and water overflowing the tub. Coach Dart left and Fred had no idea what to do. He looked for someplace to be...to go...to sit...to not stand staring at the naked guy in the tub. He found a folding chair and set it up near the wall.
Mark Connell was a senior all-state wrestler/all-state running back. He had so many medals; he had to have someone carry his letterman's jacket. "Hey," Mark Connell said, "what time is it?"
"...about 2:10," Fred said.
"Make sure you let me know when it's 2:30."
"Ok." Fred said out loud. To himself, Fred thought, "Cool, I just had a conversation with Mark Connell. This is how popularity must be born. I bet he'll talk to me in the hall now. Thank you, Coach Dart. Take the risk, Fred, say something else." Then out loud, he said, "You're Mark Connell, huh?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Cool."
"You wrestle, huh?"
"Yes."
"I bet that's cool."
"...yeah, pretty cool."
"...cool"
"You play football too, huh"
Mark Connell grunted a yes.
"Do you know Lawrence Romero?" Fred asked.
"Yeah, he's a hellava wrestler."
"He's my cousin," Fred said. Lawrence wasn't really his cousin. Fred's mother's sister's husband's sister was Lawrence's mother. That kind of made them related.
"Do you know Ricky Garcia? He's my cousin too." Ricky was Fred's cousin.
Mark Connell grunted again and Fred didn't know what else to say. In fact the next thing he said was, "Mark, it's 2:30."
"Grab me that towel," Mark Connell said.
Fred hurried across the slick floor and grabbed the used-to-be-white towel. Mark Connell took the towel and while sloshing water all over the already wet floor, he stood up.
If Mark Connell weren't busy drying the water from his face, he would have seen Fred with a gaping mouth staring at the appendage that fell from the all-state groin. "Oh, God," Fred thought to himself, "that is a big cock...That is a huge cock." Then shock was replaced by fear. "What if everyone has a cock that big and I'm the freak with mine?" Mark Connell stepped out of the whirlpool, wrapped the towel around his waist and walked past Fred without a word. It took some time for Fred to leave the whirlpool room. The humidity eventually dissipated and the breath came back to his lungs. "It was as big as my arm," he thought. "Maybe when you get to be a senior your cock grows that size. Maybe mine will be that big one-day and I can scare freshmen with it. Maybe one day I will be that big." By the time Fred was a senior he realized he was stuck with his penis. He also found out that Mark Connell was an asshole who could wrestler and take a tackle. It was still a life-defining moment.
A decade passed from the whirlpool room and Fred was sitting in an orange chair in front of a broken mixing board speaking into the suspended Shure SM-80 at KTLE. Lena Roman was still two years away from learning about a Tooele. Still her ballad continued.
Fred was working with an Indiana man who just recently learned how to pronounce Tooele. He was odd in a non-scary kind of way. Odd in a way that recently leaving a Jewish girlfriend does not explain away. Terry was his name.
They became friends.
Christmas Eve, Bill Housden walked into the orange-walled control room wearing a brown, ill-fitting suit and black work shoes. Bill came from a family that, even on their best day, looked frumpy. You could see the comb tracks in his hair.
"Bill," Terry asked, "where are you going?"
Bill never seemed to realize he was the joke. He was excited. "Twenty-five years ago, on Christmas Eve, my father asked my mom to marry him. Tonight I'm going to ask Bonnie to marry me."
Bonnie was small town girl who, along with her spinster sister, ran a beauty salon next door to the radio station. We never understood why Bonnie dated Bill. Later she explained that she just didn't know how to say no and she was kinda lonely.
"Bill," Terry said, "that might not be a good idea."
"You're a dumb-ass," Fred said to Bill. Fred was not as diplomatic as Terry.
"Maybe you should slow down some," Terry said.
"How can she say no," Bill said, "It's Christmas Eve. It's fate." He lumbered out of the control room and pulled at the suit in places it did not fit. He smiled a confident smile.
"I kinda wish Bill's old man would have picked Easter to propose," Fred said to Terry.
"Why?"
"It would have given Bonnie four more months to figure out a way to say no."
When Fred met Lena Roman, Bonnie was two years in the past. Bill never had a chance to see what Fred saw one election night ten months after that one Christmas Eve. Thursday nights, Lena Roman took over as host of the oldies show on KTLE. What was the Mike & Mike Show, became Shades of the Past. Lena was a Doors fan. And she was everything the show needed: young and pretty and liked Fred.
A year passed for Shades of the Past. Terry was fighting simmon's suits; Bonnie was married to a brutish man knowing that that one election evening was probably as good as it will get; Lena had become a fixture in Fred's world; and Fred was pretending to live like a poet. Some late nights in the darkened control room, Lena stayed and talked into the morning. She talked of San Diego and Mexico and the Doors and Lena Roman.
One of the songs Lena played on her show was by special request for Fred. She had never heard the Velvet Underground, but she learned to love Lou Reed.
Lou Reed once said, "When you're growing up in a small town, you say no one famous ever came from here..." Tooele was Fred's small town. The only one almost famous to come from there was Bret Applegate. Bret Applegate was 6'10", a nationally ranked NCAA division 1 rebounder, a draft pick for the Portland Trailblazers, and a bust. He was back in Tooele after refusing to star in the Australian Pro Basketball League. He would come to Shades of the Past for Lena. He would show up half drunk with a cold pack of beer under one arm and Nick Drake firmly attached to his ass.
Nick Drake was the sport's editor of the local newspaper. He was ridiculous. If the adage is true that says, "those who can...do, those who can't...teach, those who can't teach...coach sports" then it should conclude, "those who are lame, motherfucking leeches, with serious personality disorders, hygiene issues, and no social skills...write about sports in a two bit rag not good enough to wipe asses." ...or something like that.
Bret Applegate sat across the table in the control room making moves toward Lena. Nick Drake was just a little quicker. Fred once saw Bret throw the Kentucky Twins, Mel Turpin and Sam Bowie, to the floor at the same time going after a rebound. He was powerless against Nick Drake. Fred was on the air watching Nick Drake force his tongue down Lena Roman's throat. Fred was on the air watching Lena Roman breath through her nose fencing tongue to tongue with Nick Drake. And Fred was on the air watching Bret Applegate sobbing while he was watching them like porno. The beer turned warm and Bret and Nick finally left.
Lena sat next to Fred. She was exhausted. He put his arm around her and she started to cry. "Wow," Fred said.
"Why did I do that?" Lena asked herself.
"Yeah, why did you do that?"
"I don't know."
"Do you like Nick?"
"No."
"Did you know that Bret wanted you?"
"Yes."
"Ok." Fred said. He felt like Fred Graham. He had no idea what to do.
"Why did I do that?" Lena asked herself.
The next month they locked the door during Shades of the Past. They spoke well into the morning. There was no mention of Nick Drake or Bret Applegate. Lena spoke of her first boyfriend in Tooele—Her first serious boyfriend ever.
"He was an asshole," Lena said.
"Most boys are," Fred said.
It was the typical story. An older man meets a pretty high school girl who wants to be more mature and falls for the same pretty, poetic bullshit.
"I wonder," Lena said, "how many girls spread their legs over flowers?"
"I don't know," Fred said. In his head he tried to count how many he knew.
"I did," she said. "and I was a virgin."
"Sorry," Fred said.
"I wish I could see him now and tell him to fuck off. Or warn the next high school girl he wants to hurt."
"Do I know him?" Fred asked.
"I don't know," Lena said, "His name is Mark Connell."
Fred reached for his crotch. "Ouch," he said, "God that must have hurt."
Lena laughed. "How do you know?"
"I just do," Fred said.
Lena thought about that for quite a while. "Fred," she said, "please promise you won't tell anyone about Nick Drake."
"I promise," Fred said.
Lena never played Bob Marley on Shades of the Past. There was no reason why she didn't, she was just a bigger Doors fan. In Waiting In Vain, Bob Marley said, "If it's pain that you fear, I'm still waiting here...If it's love that you fear, I'm still waiting here."
Lena and Fred never listened to Bob Marley together. Maybe they should have. Maybe there were signals being passed back then that time gives a certain clarity. Lena Roman stayed in Tooele. Fred went north. Bob Marley died. And Bill Housden came back that Christmas Eve sobbing madly all over his brown suit.
"Did you ask Bonnie to marry you," Terry asked.
"Yes," Bill sobbed.
"What did she say?"
"She said Fuck No."
The story of Lena Roman continues, but the ballad ended there.