The Eagles, the definitive California band...with only one member being from California (Sacramento which we all know is not Cali), the remainder hailing from Detroit, Gilmer Texas and Wichita Kansas. I never really took to these boys, yea they had great harmonies, yea some catchy songs especially when Glen was living with Jackson Browne but for some reason they were vanilla, nothing special.
However the reason I write about this song is not because no one has never heard of "The New Kid in Town" even though it is not one of most popular. I write about this song because it, and the Eagles came to me when I really needed them most. It not only pulled me through a tough time but it solidified a group of people together and gave them something we will never forget. That is the power of music, how it cuts through the fecal matter we carry around on a daily basis and taps past the stanky excrement into our souls and the true people we are past the facades. Among that group all that ever has to be muttered is "The Eagles" and we all know what the point is, never has two words meant so much.
It was my first time out to sea for an extended period of time, I was leaving my most valuable possession at home, alone. She was lost and shaken, frightfully young, an animal taken from her native environment and placed in a strange town, strange state, strange coast and now the only thing she had to depend on was leaving for two full months. We were taking the carrier down to the Caribbean under the ruse of finding "Narco Terrorist" but in reality we were showing Chavez that we could make him a nervous man in a just a few days time. In reality the Admiral just wanted two months in the sun and port stops in St. Maarten and Antigua.
I left knowing, in that part of the brain we never listen to, that when I returned she would be gone. She would be there but never again look at me with those eyes again. I remember leaving her at the door, putting my gear in the car, running back up the stairs and saying goodbye again, and again and again.
We pulled into St. Maarten after about a month at sea. We rented a suite on the beach with a pool and a Tiki Bar. The first night I had Watch on the boat while all the boys enjoyed the sun, sand and strip clubs. I used the phone to have a long conversation with her that was dead, a struggle to find what to say because you knew you should say it but could never address the subject. It was lonely and as I laid in my narrow rack that night with my Wings of Gold hanging on the hook, the pressed dress whites longing over me I stared at the ceiling on the verge of tears until I passed out.
The next day I took the small boat to the beach and found all the boys by the pool, it was eleven in the morning and they were all hammered already. I went to the room and placed a call to an empty phone, walked down to the Tiki bar, the pool and the boys and dug in trying to let it all sweat out in the Caribbean sun. There was a skinny black girl tending bar, serving Rum Jumbie shots and flirting with everyone; there was a stack of concert DVDs under the TV, one of which was The Eagles Live in Melbourne. For the next four days the first disc of that concert was never shut off, not ever and this was the setlist:
"The Long Run" "New Kid in Town" "Wasted Time/Reprise" "Peaceful Easy Feeling" "I Can't Tell You Why" "One of These Nights" "One Day at a Time" "Lyin' Eyes" "The Boys of Summer" "In the City" "Already Gone" "Tequila Sunrise" "Love Will Keep Us Alive"
"No More Cloudy Days" "Hole in the World" "Take It to the Limit" "You Belong to the City" "Walk Away" "Sunset Grill"
I did some stupid things during that week, I swam across the mile and a half harbor drunk at midnight on a bet so I could feel like a man again, I bought a set of diamond earrings and a box of Cubans (don't smoke cigars), I played golf hammered in a button down, loafers and my uniform pants, I danced with the young black Kay behind the bar even though she reeked of body odor and was not attractive and roamed around the slums so drunk I was beggin to be robbed, lost thousands at the blackjack tables and worst of all called her every second I had trying to change her mind. The last day we drank until the last second expired to the Eagles and it was glorious. Everyone had a big time and even I was except for those few seconds when I wasn't drinking, smoking or wrastling with the boys, then she crept back in. On the way out I stole the DVD.
The next month contained sleepless nights and terrible depression, I lost twenty pounds and never ate. I jogged everyday in the hangar with a buddy who never tired at listening to me bitch and moan. I could never be alone and talked to every person I would see for extended periods of time to keep my mind occupied.
When we flew back to base all the wives were there dressed up like sluts (Standard Navy procedure), there were balloons and smiling faces, beer in the hangar and people clapping. I walked towards the hangar and saw her standing in the background shyly like she always was, dropped my bag and hugged her letting the shit fall from my mind. We arrived home, closed the door and just laid together for a while, we kissed and took our clothes off and didn't make love. A few days later she threw a surprise birthday party for me at a close friend's house and all the boys were there. She gave me a inflatable guitar signed in Sharpie: "Johnny one day it is going to be just you and me and the road. -Bruce Springsteen" She stayed for a few weeks and then took that long drive back to Cali, I went upstairs and cried, drank till I blacked out for two weeks and crashed a car. When she left she told me she'd be back.
I took a Navy jet out there to see her one week and stayed in her house and her bed, we laid around every night listening to the Pacific just out her window and smelled the salt air permeating the waving curtains. I played Torey with a great friend and when we finally left things between us were back to normal, she just needed some time.
A month later I flew out again and it was dead, the whole time there was a new kid in town and I had been pushed to the sidelines. I left her on the corner of Orange Avenue and drove to the base, it was the last time I ever saw her. We preflighted the jet and were ready to start it up until we found out we had no oxygen and had to wait for a new canister. Skipper and I sat on the tarmac of North Island looking towards Point Loma, he asked me if she and I had sex one last time. "No, it is over." He had three divorces under his belt and spent the next hour of waiting telling me about them and the self destruction that ensued every time in the most gentle tone I could ever imagine. He patted me on the back, we hopped in the jet and headed back to Florida.
After twenty seven years, with that NASNI ONE departure and wheels in the well, I finally became a man and left my innocence behind.
And with that The Eagles finally had meaning. It was two-fold, the glory of five days in a foreign country with your friends, each of which who were dealing with something in their personal lives (as it would come out years later) but just letting it all ride for the moment; it was lines such as
You're walking away and they're talking behind you
They will never forget you 'til somebody new comes along
Where you been lately? There's a new kid in town
Everybody loves him, don't they?
Now he's holding her, and you're still around
finally having meaning, not what you think or imagined they meant but what you experienced them as meaning; what you knew and felt they meant.
From those days on I always took that disc with me when I was on the road flying, on the carrier and in the middle of the Iraqi desert, it is in my DVD player in Manhattan constantly. When I was scared behind the boat at night it was always in my pocket, when we partied on foreign shores it was always with us and when we were miserable on the boat in a room with six groan men sharing the bottle of scotch we smuggled aboard all anyone ever had to say was "Man I just want some Eagles" and we all knew what he meant. He wanted the freedom of sun and rum, the release of earthly troubles and especially the liberation from women, we all wanted to be together feeling good one more time.
It is the crucible of pain that true friends are born and that week in St. Maarten my good friends became the type of friends I would want my wife to marry upon my death, the ones I could call in the middle of the night and ask for ten grand for a fake passport no questions asked, the ones whom I shared a level of connection rarely known to man and women, or man and woman.
I think of those days when I hear The Eagles, I think of that beautiful Southern California girl I left behind and the days we had on the beaches when we had that peaceful easy feeling until the new kid came to town. I think of how it could all be over in a New York minute and whether I am in the city or on the corner of Winslow Arizona that sometimes she can only be there for awhile but there will always be another tequila sunrise and a bunch of pretty maids in a row all waiting for me at that hotel California. But mostly I think about being born in the city and there is no one there to catch you when you fall, that is except for a bunch of boys and one DVD that caught me when I was hanging off the edge, they let the young man fall and out of the Phoenix of the desert a new man arose already gone.
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