I wasn't in California for very long. The beginning days from Jacksonville were rough. I was so happy in Florida, nonetheless fate called from the West.

You were taller, fit and thin. I walked in when they were putting on your white face paint. Everyone knew that you were apart of the Karno group and had associated with Chaplin. I didn't care, everyone else did. I always saw you as yourself. Maybe, that's the problem.

The girl sat me across from Stan and started plastering on that ghost white face makeup. He reached his hand out as the makeup girls did their surgery. I chucked as a found your hand somehow in the chaos.

I hated yanking you around in that movie, in all of our movies. I didnt stay at all for the tea you offered, Stanley. I was too excited to move in to my new residence.

People always wanted more of a answer of our first meeting. There was nothing to it. We met, did the movie, had good greetings, then parted.

However, seeing each other on set and walking down the boulevards, we struck up a decorum.

Our first "date" was at the Musso & Franks Grill. It started out with mostly movie tricks, business and gags, then it loosened to hobbies, relationships and other pleasantries.

You hated when I would rush off to golf, and like any paranoid spouse, one day I found you at the course, unannounced. I bought a fishing pole only to discover it was too advanced for a novice like myself.

The last time we fished together, before you divorced Ruth the first time, we went to a river so rapid, I thought Neptune himself had it out for us.

"Don't you trust me, Babe? Look-here, sit back on daddies lap, scoot."

"Really, Stan?!" I laughed loudly. "Why here? there's fish in the calmer lake."

"There's good Salmon fishing here and they give a nice fight. Just me and the elements. Listen to the water, Babe."

The water was louder than we could talk. Rushing rivers helped with his rushing thoughts. Something about being within the wilds of nature calms and gives any man a renaissance.

I leaned into his chest and softly got locked into Stan's instructional arms.

That night, we laid on the grass, next to the boat. The boat was not the Ida May, but some simple, small river craft with a motor. We faced one another, leaning on our sides, tops off, feeling the brisk night wind. Our hands met in the middle.

Lucille. You can I are kindred spirits and you are one of my best friends. Stan and I are cut from the same cloth, with this understanding that doesnt need words... All we need is one another.

The only way I can try to describe it, would be as God was forming the universe, he created a cloth made of life. We are all from that cloth. The creator then cut it up into odd and even pairs, some matching, some not so much. Stan and I are from one piece. I beleive you are too, darling, however, him and I are the bulk of it, matching closer to one another in uneven pieces that fit together in different arrangements.

Along the walk of life on this planet, living can eat away at this cloth, and the people we meet can either take more or repair it, giving strings or whole patches from themselves.

This is what I minimally conjure to explain what Stanley and I do for one another, since I cannot go into details.

He has my heart, Lucille.

Heaven wont be a Laurel and Hardy bed. It will be me and him, laying next to a river, with our fingers laced, falling asleep, waking up to one another and having a slightly bizarre fish fillet, and scrambled eggs, with bacon, breakfast.

As relationships go, however, the more used and comfortable you get with someone, the more you plant into them. Your hopes, dreams, nightmares and poisons.

I should burn that wicker table.

Lucille asked me what was the matter as I rushed to the bedroom after we came home from that uncomfortable dinner. I struggled with taking off my shoes, popped off a lace, then burst into tears. All Lucille could do was hold me. I told her I didn't wish to talk about it with her. Stan was being Stan.

The next morning, he called me.

"Babe, I realize that my emotions can go ahead of the horse. It was me, not you. Ruth and I aren't doing so well and-"

"Stan, I know. I thought that you could just handle you for a while. I'm a married man, happily married. Lucille is good to me, isn't a drunk and is loyal. I'm going to concentrate on my life, my home. None of us have all the answers, Stan, I know I don't, but what I think you should do is stop being Stan... Get in touch with Arthur. I'm curious if I ever met him."

"I wonder too... Babe, I don't-"

"Oh, it's not 'Oliver' today?"

"You're always Babe to me."

"I hope so... That's good to know."

"Listen, Babe, I thought we could do some publicity shots at the Fox studio. After that we can go shopping."

"What about your Alimony, and my debts?"

"On me, Babe... And I mean the shopping too." He joked.

"I'll think about it, Stan." I sighed. "I have some meetings coming, you know that. Then Lucille's mother is coming for the first time since the wedding..."

"Babe... Have things really changed that much...?"

"I'm right here, Stan. I always have been. But,... I do not know if you have. I can see glimmers of you in your embrace, kisses and journeying to sleep with you. Then your emotions take a spin and everyone is buckshot targets."

"Yes, yes I know."

"Give it a few weeks, Stan. Call Arthur and tell him to call me back."

"What if he doesn't pick up the phone, or isn't at home? I haven't spoken to the fella in a while." Stan chuckled.

"I will accept, embrace and take whoever you are. It will be bumpy, and I won't ever turn away from you. Being away from you is like tearing off skin from the flesh. I feel exposed and bleeding. I wish you were here right now."

"I miss you too, Babe."

"Lucille is good to me, I made vows with her. You and I have unspoken vows. She comes first... I come first to her."

"Distance does make the heart grow fonder... I understand, Babe."

"It's not as if we didn't have space in seeing each other before. I think it is good for the both of us. I dont know about you and Ruth, but please give yourself time to find what you need to do to be more stable, Stan. No one is perfect, but at the same time I wish not to be a punching pillow, but a rest. You're not the only one with anger and past regrets roaming within the skull."

It was only two days after that phone call and I was up the wall. We saw one another at Fox, did some practice runs, then immediately went our separate ways.

Usually after Stan and I would do work at the studio we would call one another and plan the next step or some lunch activity for later on. That call never happened.