An excerpt from Dave Dyer’s forthcoming fictional autobiography called “A Life I Could’ve Had.”
I left ‘showbiz’ for a blip to try and get my head straight. I felt I’d reached a point of saturation when it came to pleasing the public with my talents and now, I wanted to do something FOR the public… you know…serve.
I took a job working for a service that helped out the visually impaired by translating confusing rock-n-roll lyrics into Braille so that the blind could understand what some of these jokers were signing as well. Elton John had to be the biggest offender in this area. If you’ve ever looked up the words to “Bennie and The Jets” and then tried to decipher them while listening to Elton’s subpar articulation, it’s like eating a couple of gummy bear edibles and watching Family Feud (not recommended).
I’d been working there for a month and was moved up to shift supervisor when a couple of other new employees came onboard who were part of a local community service outreach program. They were reliable enough, but there was something about this one ginger that caught my eye. She had a unique look to her. She was pretty, but it was the kind of look that made it impossible to guess her age. If I was a betting man, I’d say she was anywhere from 24 to 64 depending on how the light was reflecting off of her neck skin.
We acknowledged a mutual attraction by playfully eyeing each other for the first couple of days. We would exchange pleasantries, but nothing ever went beyond, “Those jeans are killer on you.” There was something familiar about her, but I couldn’t pinpoint the foggy recognition until one day when she snapped at my manager. She was accused of substituting some foul language in place of the actual translation on AC/DC’s “Back in Black” and when confronted with the allegation, she immediately burst into tears and shouted, “Haven’t you ever seen ‘Herbie Fully Loaded’, you P.O.S.! How dare you!!” I had seen ‘HFL’ several times so I knew exactly what she was talking about.
It was Lohan… she was back on the grid and getting ready to claw her way back up “Comeback Mountain”. Those tears of hers were bursting with motivation. My heart started to palpitate due to the prospect of her potential reemergence and, possibly, the amount of butter I was eating at the time. I gave my two weeks notice at the end of that day, dusted off my Rolodex, beefed up my resume, and decided to get back to the business I was born to be a part of.
