The Ranger At The RockaBilly Bar

“Love is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of fire

I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down and the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire
The ring of fire”

Lyrics: Ring of Fire, Johnny Cash

They met at a Rockabilly bar on a Friday night in the spring. She felt a presence behind her and turned around and immediately saw him entering the venue door clear across the room. It’s funny how she had this uncanny ability to scan a crowd of people and sense someone special was there. It’s as though she could recognize the familiar energy signature of an old friend from dozens of feet away, but from people she’d never met. Well, that she had never met in this life. Perhaps they were from another life or maybe it’s a genetic thing. She really didn’t think about it because doing the energy scan was automatic for her and as natural as breathing.

But when she felt/saw him and turned around he also felt/saw her and they looked directly at each other for a moment, he smiled and she broke off the gaze. She knew better than to invite the company of some stranger she did not know and how awkward that could be if he got the wrong idea and plopped down next to her at the bar and turned out to be an idiot or a jerk. She preferred to observe from her safe perch with her plate of sushi and cup of plum wine (compliments of the sushi chef…she was a regular) in front of her. She preferred to make the first approach if and when she chose to after her period of observation.

Chances were good that if a man approached her and asked her to dance or if he could sit down she would say “no” because she felt that the most interesting men were not the ones actively on-the-prowl or coughing out cheesy pickup lines. She didn’t trust men who were loners either since that could spell either a dangerous predator or just some social misfit who was desperate for company and attention. Of course, she preferred to arrive at the club alone but that was a different story with different reasons and motives. She had carefully crafted a Friday night ritual for herself, her only real break of the week from career and motherhood, and she looked forward to it and relished it. So she seldom invited friends to join her. This was her place, her time, her personal hunting ground. Well, and if she approached a hot guy and asked him to dance or if she could join him and he said “no”…she was spared the indignity of having any friends see that.

She sipped her sweet wine, she did not drink much when she went out, and tapped her toe to the familiar music and watched the man and his friends as they found a table and signaled the waitress to order. They were all friends, obviously, who knew each other well and they looked about the same age. They joked and laughed comfortably with each other and the man she was interested in seemed a bit like their ring-leader.

He was handsome by any measure but was completely an outdoors sort of guy, by appearances, with faded red Converse sneakers and Levi jeans and a well-worn, green army shirt with the sleeves ripped off. The embroidered patch on the shirt had a parachute and said “Army” and “Airborne Ranger”. He was muscular and cut but not in a studied sort of self-conscious way that a gym rat would be. By all appearances there was not a pretentious bone in his body…he appeared comfortable in his skin and she imagined that he could very well have shown up naked and still have felt perfectly at ease.

His skin was very smooth and tan and he had short brown hair that had grown out from a military cut and his laugh, he had this distinctive laugh that was, well, pretty hick. It was the kind of laugh that made people in the room turn around to see who was laughing. He was kind of loud but it seemed natural for him since none of them seemed like they had been drinking yet.

The waitress came back to their table and smiled at him coyly put down a big platter of sushi and a pitcher of beer. They stared at the sushi a few moments and a discussion ensued as they examined a few pieces and discarded the chop sticks in favor of using their fingers to pick it up.

Yeah, these men were definitely from out of town.

At some point she decided it was safe enough to approach him so she waited until the band switched to a faster song she liked to dance to (slow first dances being awkward).  She stood up and walked over and up behind him then leaned over and spoke into his ear, “Will you dance with me?”

He turned around the opposite direction to look for the woman at the bar behind him, not realizing for a moment that she was that woman…then he turned back around to face her. Two seconds of confusion crossed his eyes and then he recognized her, grinning widely, and said, “Are you kidding? Absolutely!”

He was a terrible dancer. She didn’t care.

 

 

 

 

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Note: About the Army Rangers
The Rangers are the most elite large-scale fighting force the Army has to offer. Their mission, depending on the operation, can range from airfield seizure to special reconnaissance to direct action raids on select targets and individuals, and they have a rich operational history.