There may have been many women in his life.. I only know of a handful and have only known most of them through his own words. Most of the women that I have heard him speak of were already dating or even married to his friends. It didn't make them any less objects of friendly lust but I never knew him to intrude on the relationships of others for his own selfish needs. We have all, I'm sure, been prey to his tales of woe regarding his own perceived inability to impress women into bed... or otherwise into his life and it certainly seems that, according to MY information anyway, the two most successful female relationships of his life were those where the pressure to bed simply never seemed to come up.. (so to speak).
Kathy Apple has been the Reet's friend for decades. I've never met her and I honestly find it difficult to remember through the mists as to the extent of their physical friendship but I do know that the Reet visited the Apple family in Nevada, en route to California so I assume that there were lines never crossed.
The woman that I DO know remains, in my own opinion, the one true love that never worked for his Reetness.. and it was really all my own fault.
We were in the Discount Records store, springing the Allmans on an unsuspecting clientele, when my upstairs intercom rang. Reet told me that he had a girl downstairs at the counter who wanted a job. We desperately needed personnel and so I told him to send her upstairs.
Less than a minute later, tripping over the top two steps to my office, Becky Slinn sprawled facefirst onto my office floor.
She
was an Iowa small town girl, newlywed to an Iowa small town boy...
like she was to say later "hip enough to live with someone and Iowa
enough to marry 'em". They had moved to the big city to start a life
together but they had very different attitudes about exactly what
that life would represent. To hubby, (all of eighteen or nineteen at
the time) the idea of unemployment payments on a weekly basis seemed
like manna from heaven. Becky wanted more out of life.. a lot
more.
She hit the streets of downtown Denver, asking at every store for work.. filling out applications. She talked to me for almost an hour, somewhat needlessly because I knew that I had to hire almost any warm body that came in through the door. But in the course of that one short interview she won my heart. She was absolutely brilliant in her naïve innocence.. she was smart and funny and brutally honest.. she was thin as a rail with big owl glasses and the love of her life was Gene Pitney. I sent her home and told her to report to work the next day.
By the end of the second week, Reet and I had rented a three bedroom house... and aquired another two dogs. Becky's home life had downslid into nights of arguing about work... (hers and his lack of it...) and money... (her earning all of it and he spending most of it).
Becky moved in with us (and me) soon
afterwards, having left the unambitious youth to skulk on back to
Ottumwa, Iowa.
She was our house mother...the tomgirl of the gang and she held her own against all of the many weird and wonderful characters that would run through that small Denver home. Ron Babcock, who painted the strangest and most perverse of all art, the late Mike Agee who brought his voluminous easy-triggered laughter, erstwhile hip and cool radio personality Jay Cooper.. they all melted beneath the small town wisdom of "Beck" as the Reet called her. She nailed all of us one Saturday night when we all sat around, somewhat worse for wear and made boorish boy noises at the Miss U.S.A. Pageanteers. After hearing "nice tits" one too many times, Becky asked simply, "What's a NICE tit anyway...??" and there's no answer for that one.
Becky and Reet were soulmates and lovers in the best of senses.... on the highest of non-physical planes. I have absolutely no doubt that, had I not already established a relationship with her, she would have easily and permanently become entwined with our hero, since their attitudes were/are so much alike. It is easy to say that Becky became fast and firm friends with anyone that offered her the same kind of friendship in return but her sense of caring and outright understanding of the hopelessly socially eccentric Reet was immediate and forever. As exasperating as he could be in those early days of freedom from home and school, she never became angry with him... she would simply tilt her smile to one side and sigh... "awwww Reet" with such genuine affection that he would melt.
She and I were a couple for several years, and I met her next two husbands as well.. and none of us deserved her charm, intelligence and humanity as much as the Reet did/does. I'm not sure, to this day, if one of the reason's for his somewhat sudden departure from the house wasn't a result of feelings for Becky which would clearly be better left unexpressed. But the other reasons were as clear as day.
He had grown up - in almost every sense of the word.
Leaving Queens for Boston was a significant step... leaving Boston for Denver was a huge leap.. but he had survived and prospered. I was a little too close to see the changes and the growth and, I must admit, still tended to fuss over him like a parent... even though there was little to seperate us in age.
We clashed on many other levels as well. Our attitudes towards finances and tidiness were polar - one meant little to me and the other too much. His feelings were the exact opposite in each case. He grew tired of being the third wheel and, to some extent, of the responsibilities that went with the job and with the living situation, and also, no doubt, of what he saw as my "bossyness".
He moved to Boulder, a town that I detested.. and he worked for the Discount store there for a while.... and also as a janitor, but to my astonishment, academia called him back into the fold. I met and liked quite a few of his Boulder friends from the hill but honestly saw his return to school at an attempt at escapism.. never in my wildest dreams did I see him fulfilling it's charge.
We
had aquired more dogs by this time. One was a big black smartass
lab/english setter mix which we named Shawn after Shawn Phillips. (On
one of our later cross country trips, we ran into Mr Phillips at an
overnight stop somewhere in the hinterlands. Proud that we had named
our dog after him, we brought him up to meet the man himself,
whereupon our silly mutt distinguished himself by cocking his leg
against Shaun's bed... ah well... such is the price of fame, I
guess.).
The other dog was a massive lug of an animal which we rescued from a trailer park. He had suffered years of simply being chained and ignored and we couldn't resist his charms. There was never a more loving galumph of an animal to walk the planet... and we named him reet. He was wide and high and happy simply to BE...and he loved all of us , but he seemed to recognise the particular character of the human who shared his name.. and he was, as are all animals and children, smitten with the wild joyous man with the strange voice. After we moved away and then back to Colorado, we settled in an A Frame house in Evergreen to experience "REAL" Colorado life. We would frequently take the dogs to Boulder and visit - (well ok, maybe not often enough, but sometimes anyway). The dander that has plagued our favourite little asthmatic was a bother, not as bad as a cat.. which he persisted in surrounding himself with, but too much exposure to the effervescent attentions of this big furry beast was a trial for his breathing.
Becky and I had moved to Boston, and then to Kingston, Mass - and then back to Colorado before, eventually, to Dallas, Texas. And the Reet continued to move in college circles.. doing a little open-miking and meeting many of the friends that remain to this day.... Tales of Craig and Willie and honeyfarms ran effortlessly and seamlessly together. Boulder changed to Greeley, the hill to the campus. he wrote, and saw movies. He became, as he always has done, an integral part of the town and it's bohemian society. He was respected and admired, but he still seemed to be aimless... he got a date, and then a girlfriend...caught a lot of music and played a lot harder than he studied.. but appeared to get good grades anyway. I can still remember having a brief converstion with him to the effect that one cannot hide in school forever.. how offensive of me.
By the time I came to take it all seriously he was off to Alaska and it would be some years before I saw him again....- tony