I Am Just On the Blue Side of Lonesome

 Ted Hsieh

Although he has been to that restaurant for over twenty years, no one there knows he is a world-famous physicist. Lanky, bespectacled and with a full mop of graying hair, long and curvy just above his collars, he cuts a dashing figure as he strolls across the Chinatown square in Chicago. He is there every Thursday afternoon, rain or shine, when he is not somewhere in Europe or Asia giving a lecture, advising a research team, or receiving an award for his accomplishments in a long and distinguished career. 

As far as the workers in that smallish restaurant next to the Chinatown square is concerned, he is their regular customer, generous, kind, quiet but full of mystery. He is never there on any other day of the week except Thursdays. He is always there after the busy lunchtime crowd, sitting in the same booth that allows him a full view of the square with its twelve bronze Chinese zodiac animal statues. He would be there for two hours, have a simple dish of noodles and leave before the arrival of dinner crowd. Everyone loves to take care of him, busily keeping his tea hot and his table clean. He does not talk much but his warm smile showing them his appreciations for as much as their caring for him as their effort to leave him alone. He always brings with him a book, never a newspaper or magazine. But they know that he is not reading the book that is always open before him. He spends much of the time he is there in deep thoughts; every so often a light smile would appear on his face. The smile would stay around his eyes just long enough to bring a certain smile to the faces of the workers, letting them know that he is happy in his thoughts and he is happy to be in their restaurant. 

He is a physics professor in that elite university in Indiana famous for its football teams in a state obsessed with basketball. The beautiful campus is situated next to the slow moving St. Joseph River. He lives alone up river in an architecturally pleasing home designed by an architect friend of his. He has not been always alone. He has been married three times. Each of these women who was married to him still loves him deeply and each has given him two daughters. These nine women, in their own way, have deep affection for him and are very proud of him as a person and as a scientist with accomplishments recognized around the world. But he is alone. And he is happier alone than he is with any one of them. Women in general are attracted to him. Through out the years, many of them have been rather aggressive in trying to get him interested in them. His three former wives love him genuinely and care for him affectionately. He is a very sociable person with great interpersonal skills. He socializes with them and with many other women. But they all know that his heart is not with them. 

He does not smoke or drink. He goes to bars only when he is with colleagues. His drink is always a glass of Diet Coke that he would nurse for hours until it is totally undrinkable. But for over twenty years, that smallish restaurant in Chicago’s Chinatown square has been his imaginary tavern that he is happy to be there alone. When he is in town, he would drive the ninety miles from his university along the Interstate 90, the memory lane as he calls it, to visit his “Tavern of Destiny.”

“I am calling to tell you it is over,” he would put on the old James Reeves song in the CD player in his car at exactly the same point, but no sooner, as he is turning onto I-90 heading west toward Chicago. “Yes, darling, you’re now free to go.” Unlike many us, he does not like to sing along with the music. He likes to be immersed in this song that he must have heard over thousands of thousands of times all these years. He stays close to the lyric and each word seems to pinch his heart just so lightly that he is able to feel both the pain and pleasure at the same time. These words always bring back the old pains and pleasures of his youth, the same pains and pleasures that have been making him feel alive as an old man. 

“I am calling to tell you it is over

Yes, darling, you are now free to go

You’re saying you are sorry you hurt me

But you hurt me much more than you know 

“You’re asking me where this call comes from

Oh, I hope that you won’t end up here

If your new romance turns out a failure

Here’s where to find me, my dear 

“I am just on the blue side of lonesome

Right next to the Heart Break Hotel

In a Tavern that is known as Three Tear-Drops

On a bar stool not doing so well”

 He listens intently and smiles. He is always surprised that after all these years, it is still so natural for him to call her “my dear.” And he begins to wonder how his “dear” is doing lately.  In spite of the sad lyrics in this song of his, actually he is doing quite well. Life just can’t treat any one any better than it treats him, he is sure. He is vigorously healthy. He is professionally successful by any measure. Even his three divorces can’t be viewed as failures. His former wives consider him their best friend and he reciprocates their sentiments. His six adult daughters worship him and many times one of them would accompany him in his frequent overseas trips just to take care of him. They also know when to leave him alone so that he can be alone with his thoughts. They leave him alone on those Thursdays and alone with his thoughts of youth. 

“The floor has a carpet of sorrows

But no one can weep in the aisle

And they say someone broke the bar mirror

With only the ghost of a smile 

The hands on the clock never alter

All the things never change in this place

There is no present, no past, no future

We are the ones who’ve lost in love’s race 

“I am just on the blue side of lonesome

Right next to the Heart Break Hotel

In a Tavern that known as Three Tear Drops

On a bar stool not doing so well” 

Is he really a loser in love’s race? Actually, he is very grateful for this love of his youth. He is even more grateful for the way it turned out. He knows for sure that he would not be as motivated in his studies in college and graduate schools if he were not on the “blue side of lonesome.” He would not be as one-track-minded in his search for the past, the Big Bang, the origin of the universe if he had not thought of himself as a loser in love’s race. So he has been very grateful, grateful to be hurt badly by her, to have his heart broken, to run his tears dry. 

So, on many Thursdays in that smallish restaurant by Chicago’s Chinatown square, you could see a very distinguished looking old man trying to capture his youthful pains and pleasures. This is his make-believe run-down tavern known as Three Tear Drops, next to the Heart Break Hotel. Oh, he hopes that she would not end up there with him. But he knows that she will find him there someday.