Let’s cut past the chase. I had chased Carol and finally cornered her in Miami where I was about to see if the magic was still there after being apart for five years. Carol had picked me up at the airport, and shown no sign that there was even a flicker of the old flame. You may already know that I won her back, but therein lies the tale.

Where I left off last week, we were about to begin a tour of Vizcaya, the home of the late James Deering that had become a magnificent Italian Renaissance style museum with a commanding view of Biscayne Bay in Miami.

She had chosen Vizcaya as our meeting place because it was public and, I guess she thought, there was no chance that I would sweep her up and hold on tightly if things went badly.. She was wrong, and it would have taken the Fire Department to rush in with the jaws of life to make me let go.

Damn! When we neared the entrance, she said, “Will you excuse me for a minute? I have to make a phone call.?”

“Sure.”

She ducked into a phone booth and dialed, leaving the door slightly ajar. I could hear her asking for her dad, Ben Chapman, the head of the Miami based Ivan Tors Studio. Told he wasn’t there, she hung up and dialed another number.

The next conversation almost did me in.” Hello Eddie, this is Carol. Listen. Go ahead and ship those Fords. Yes, I know there are two dozen of them, but they are no good here in Miami, and we need them in Nassau right away. .There’s a storm that might blow here and the forecast says it won’t hit The Bahamas. So, go ahead. On whose authority? My authority? Get them started. I will be there later, and sign them out. She hung up and looked as if she had been casually talking about the weather, Well she had, but not casually.

While we were apart,, she had risen to Assistant Administrative Aide to her dad, Ben Chapman, the Producer at the Ivan Tors Studio, the company that produced “Flipper.”

In the off-season they shot movies and did underwater work. The Fords were to be used by staff members in “Thunderball;” the production in which Carol had assisted in casting the underwater stunt men and coordinated in other aspects, like the two dozen Fords.

“Sorry,” she said, “I had to get those cars moving. Can’t hold up production.” I nodded like it made perfect sense to me.

We began the tour of Vizcaya which I do not remember to this day. I recall admiring a Victorian swooning couch, the kind with no back, but a large curved upholstered padding on one end. I looked up to see that she was admiring it also. We naturally gravitated to the same paintings, and other displays.

On her cue, we ducked out of the first exit into the lush ten acre garden with long reflection pools. There was a boat landing a couple of hundred yards away from the house that was too far for most foot-weary tourists to attempt. She seemed to be aimed toward there.

They say that a man who is about to hang experiences great clarity. Not me. However, it was when humbly walking a step or two behind her, that my survival instincts began to assert themselves. Actually, there was no clarity. Instead, my combative spirit, an overdrive that I seldom called upon, slammed into gear.

She picked up the pace. After a hundred brisk yards or so, I laughed and said, “This reminds me. Today is the anniversary of your hero, Mahatma Gandhi’s 250 mile walk in India to protest the salt tax. She smiled involuntarily.” She did admire Gandhi, and loved stuff like this. ”They say that 250 thousand people walked with him on that march.”

Silence on her end, but I darted my eyes toward her, and detected a faint smile.

“All during that long walk,” I plunged on, “He was chanting something and no one in the long file knew what it was, a mantra or something mystical. But they wondered: what was he chanting that made him so serene under such pressure?

I outwaited her.

Finally, she said, “Did they ever find out what he was chanting.?” It was like old times and I was reluctant to break the spell with a dumb “bit.”

“One of his main followers volunteered to go up behind Gandhi and report back his sacred mantra to the others so they too might gain strength from it.

She was fascinated. “What was it?”

“He was chanting softly to himself,….”

I broke into the first verse of that stirring old march.

“I love a parade..

The tramping of feet.

I love every beat I hear of a drum.”

I love a parade.”

The next few seconds hinged on whether I was in or out.

I watched her face for a sign….,blank….. then…she laughed that scintillating laugh that I had come to treasure...

“But, why am I kidding myself?” I heard myself say,

“I screwed up big time and I have no hope of your giving me your precious heart again.

I don’t deserve you. I am so sorry, darling. My heart is broken, and I don’t think it will ever be mended. I am so damned sorry. I don’t even know why I came here.”

I was holding her by the shoulders and looking down into her eyes, those golden hazel eyes, and saw them begin to glisten.

“The one thing I know is, despite what happened and how unforgivable, what I did was….You belong to me. …we belong together.

We were meant to be together for the rest of your lives.

I know it will never be, but that is the God’s honest truth, my precious darling. I just wanted to see you for what may be the last time.”

Her eyes drilled into me like hot pokers., like she was penetrating my fontal lobes, searching for signs that this was a “pitch.” Then…after giving me the intense once over, she broke the spell with cascading laughter.

“What?”

She abruptly turned away, and said, “I have to use the phone again.”

Damn! More Fords being ordered? Was she dusting me off? Had I crossed some invisible line? What? And why was I asking myself this when I was the one who had practically called an end to things just moments ago? She had every right to take me at my word if she was looking for an “out.”

“Let’s go back to the car,” She said sharply.

I dumbly followed, half in shock.

On the way back to the airport, I don’t know why, but I was my old self again, chattering without a lot of care about what I said. Just a string of pleasantries with, maybe, a little substance here and there.

She seemed to welcome the escape from the heavy drama and joined in with her share of banter. An easy flow back and forth like the old days.

Then, midway into another chatty exchange, she broke the happy spell, and said, “My head is spinning. I’m not sure what is happening…”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean when I went to the phone I talked to Chap (her dad) and told him that I still love you madly.”

I went numb.” What did he say?”

“He asked me if I knew what I was doing and I said yes and he said, if you love him, don’t let him leave without letting him know.”

“Jesus, honey!”

“Turn around. We’re going to the Fountainbleu….and one more thing.”

I prepared for some rigid conditions on our future relationship.

“The John Deere Joke,” she giggled. “It was really funny.”

Late that night, robed and looking down on Miami from a top floor of the hotel. I began to hum a wordless song involuntarily. Dum de dum dum dum.. Dum dum dum de de dum.


“That song. What is it?

“Promise you won’t laugh?” It’s an old Lightnin’ Hopkins song called ‘Good Rocking Tonight. You don’t want to hear the lyrics.”

“I know the song but I’ve only heard Elvis’ version. She hesitated, thought for a moment, then sang,

“Did you hear the news? There’s good rockin’ tonight.

Yeah. I heard the news. Everybody’s rockin’ tonight.”.

She enveloped me in her arms and sang.

“Well I’m gonna hold my baby as tight as I can,

and let him know he’s a mighty mighty man.

Did ya hear the news? There’s good rockin’ tonight.”

She smothered me with hugs and kisses.

I didn’t call the Fire Department.

If the CSI Miami crew were to sweep Vizcaya, I am sure my DNA would still be there,. even though it’s been forty years. That was where I poured out my heart and spilled my guts.

Months later, she told me what had turned the tide in Miami.. It wasn’t the John Deere joke or the bit about Gandhi or any of my shtick. It was our seamless back and forth chatter at Vizcaya, and on the way back to the Miami airport. Me saying something. Her adding to it . Me adding to that. Us building a pyramid, the perfect shape.

For the follow-up, scroll down to the series beginning with “Happy Hare The Trifecta” then, read the next two episodes, “Hare…Two Fectas Down and One to Go,” climaxed by “The Martin and Howard Show Minus Zero,”

Next week, the crisis climax at WXYZ.