My Baby Does the Hanky Panky

we were eating breakfast at the Pink Cadillac,

one of our routine, Sunday morning breakfast places,

‘Crimson and Clover’ came on the overhead speaker,

I looked at her,

she looked at me with a subdued grin on her face because

she knew what was coming next,

it is a little game we have been playing for 37 years,

she acts like it annoys her, but deep down inside I know she

loves it,

it always starts out with;

“who did this song?”

then it goes;

“did I ever tell you he was from my hometown?”

she always rolls her eyes and replies;

“yes, about 2,000 times!”

once the preliminaries were over,

I decided to take it a little farther,

something I do occasionally to keep it fresh;

“okay, what was his real name?” I ask;

I’ve probably told her the answer 500 out of the 2,000 times

we’ve played this game, and she always replies:

“I don’t know, what is it?” in a completely 'hurry up and get this over' tone,

but this time she decided to take the game to a new level;

“Tom Jackson”, she replies, with a wry smile on her face,

whoa, I was impressed;

“come on” she says, “bring it”;

game on;

“okay” I say, “who was the original bass player in the group? the

one who made the original recording of ‘My Baby Does the Hanky Panky';”

I’ve told her the story several times, how Mr. Jackson took the demo

to Cleveland, where it became a hit on the Cleveland radio stations, and how

it got him a recording contract, and how the record company rerecorded it using

studio musicians, leaving the original members without a dime;

“how would you know, and how would I know if it’s true?” she asks,

“you could make up anything;”

“I used to date his sister” I reply;

she chokes on her coffee, then begins laughing,

“you are just full of surprises” she says,

“even after 37 years,”

“so you and Mr. Jackson have something in common," she adds;

you both screwed somebody from the same family;”

“NO, NO!” I reply, “it wasn’t like that, she was a good girl,

from a Irish Catholic family, there were over 20 kids in her family,

there was never anything romantic between us,”

she gives me the eye,

the one that says, yeah right,

“it’s true” I say, “she dated me after breaking up with her

high school sweetheart, we were just really good friends,

we both knew she was just trying to make her boyfriend jealous,

I was okay with it, eventually she and her old boyfriend got married

and had kids, I’d like to think I played a small part in that,

but I have no idea if it would be the truth, I’d moved on to other things

by then;”

I go on to say “I really liked going to her house, there was always kids around,

younger ones, older ones, twins, always people laughing, a very happy place;”

even if there was no hank panky.

.

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