He made me a tape, once, to convey the confusion. Full of blues and love songs, it said the things he could not say to my face. “Romance and Reality”, he called it. He should have added Ruthless, Reflective, Redolent and Retarded. Remorseful.

Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison) was about me only in that part about going behind the stadium. I don’t have brown eyes, but it was true of our relationship that we would do it anywhere, and a stadium would not have been at all out of the question. If we didn’t have any problem doing it in the Arboretum, a music practice room, the Miller Hall elevator, my VW bus or the computer lab, what was a mere stadium?

Wash Me Clean (k. d. lang) was for absolution. Look at me, a sinner he wants to say, driven to betray my wife in the blindness of this compulsion. Grant me a sexual palimpsest and I will walk the balance beam of fidelity.

Cringemaker (Walter Becker). I thought at first he meant it to accuse his wife (“whatever happened to my college belle, how did she turn into the wife from hell?”), but at least part of this was a cry for justification, a vindication he did not deserve, because she was not the wife from hell. She was a perfectly nice and tolerant woman, playing King Arthur to our Gwen and Lance.

Bittersweet (Big Head Todd and the Monsters). Both sweet and bitter, bitter and sweet, a bittersweet surrender.

Walk Like a Camel (Southern Culture on the Skids) was a real stretch. The opening voice over is “Baby, would you eat that there snack cracker in your special outfit, please,” so maybe this was his way of acknowledging that “special something that the other girls, ah, wouldn’t do”. I have not, however, been tapped for any cameo roles in short films for more mature audiences, despite my perhaps arcane talents.

Woman of the Dark (Chase) is the perfect blend of message and interwoven melodic lines. Hot, hot horns for the brass lover in your life. In this case, for me, having graduated from Blood, Sweat and Tears.

He intended to be vulnerable, to show that heartache goes both ways, by including At This Moment (Billy and the Beaters). Hey, I’m really the victim here, a nice man torn apart by the idea that although I am married, and indeed quite remorseful, I don’t want you to have anyone else. Mine! Mine!

Bamboozled by Love (Frank Zappa) just makes me say, Honey, it wasn’t love. But nice try. You weren’t bamboozled. You were a lust puppy unable to control your own significant and girthy impulses, looking for a way to wiggle out of culpability. Bamboozle this, buddy.

Finally, we get to Cross the Line (Tab Benoit). This song has made a lasting impression because so many lines were crossed. We were illicit, crossing the marital line. Certainly our particular preferred set of acts was unsanctioned in most states. Lastly, the way it ended, the abrupt excision of me from his life, of him from mine, allowed no explanation, no confrontation. No denouement. I have this song left for consolation, for no matter how many times I hear it or sing it, I am always awarded the role of the justified, jilted jeune fille.

Romance and Reality. A dose of both to you, Walt, as you stew in the juices of your own endocrine backwash. Slainthe!