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*Spry Jennie and I made small talk as we've done for years now at Los Angeles' Farmer's Market. But on this day, she said something, and in my gleeful response I slipped and called Jennie, who happens to be the 70-something mother of a buddy of mine, "Baby."
Jennie--I mean, Mrs. Brackett--froze for a millisecond, and no doubt sensing my embarrassment, valiantly regrouped. Mercifully she never stopped smiling, and her jovial "Take care of yourself" assured me she was okay. Whew.
I've got a problem with "Baby." The word falls out of my mouth too easily and not everyone appreciates it. For some, it comes across too familiar, even intrusive. And I need to stop it.
Blame Smokey Robinson. In the '70s, as a wide-eyed young journalist, I was assigned by a magazine to interview the singer. We began with two warm, extended phone conversations and a week later Motown flew me to Vegas to see his live show. Afterward, in his dressing room the lean icon rose from the sofa, extended a hand and said, "Hi ya doin', baby."
A man who truly knew the weight of the word, Smokey made a handsome living exploiting Baby's essence for all its emotional worth during such classics as "Baby Baby Don't Cry," "Baby Come Close," "Baby That's Backatcha" and the mother of them all, "Ooh Baby Baby,"whose anguish and sentimentality could not be captured with mere words but a yearning, sexy moan--Ooooh--and TWO Babys.
Now this man was shaking my hand and artfully morphing Baby into a hip metaphor for manly, Rat Pack camaraderie. And I, a straight cat who never had a man call me Baby and who wasn't even a big Smokey fan until that instant, promptly melted.
During my two days in Vegas, I noticed Smokey called a lot of people Baby--but not everybody. Baby seemed reserved for those he seemed to share a certain endearment.
For me, a young man raised in a loving family that seldom showed love physically, Baby seemed the perfect expression of affection--how convenient that so little could conceivably mean so much? (Back then I had the habit of responding to things with, "I'll be doggone," to which Smokey would immediately mutter to himself, "If I wouldn't work all day." For two days, without fail, anytime I said, "I'll be doggone," Smokey would counter with that line. Privately mystified, I realized only months later that "I'll be doggone/If I wouldn't work all day" is the first line from "I'll Be Doggone," Marvin Gaye's 1965 hit, co-written by Smokey.)
However, I wouldn't find the emotional courage to utter Baby outside a romantic relationship until my 30s. Age doesn't guarantee experience but it can suggest a modicum of authority or at least the illusion. Even then Baby is not to be tossed about indiscriminately.
I have different genres of Baby, including, "Oh, oh baby, I'm sorry!" as in bumping into a toddler (I don't use Baby just because he's a baby), or the unisexual "Hang on in there, Baby." But not, "You've come a long way, baby:" Leave it to ever hustling cigarette execs to see the old Virginia Slims motto as anything but condescending.
But, like an insensitive tobacco pusher is how I must have sounded on the phone one evening with longtime friend Bethany. I'd called her regarding a passage in a book; she put down the receiver and left the room to retrieve it. When I heard breathing again I asked, "Did you find it, baby?"
"No, I DIDN'T find it, BABY," came the response in a cynical, chillingly calm tone that rattled a couple registers below Barry White. "Forgive me," the ominous voice continued. "I thought this phone had fallen off its hook. But I'll go get--MY baby--for you."
The next day Bethany said her boyfriend apologized, but he admitted getting a chuckle from my deer-in-the-headlights silence.
Because of stuff like that, I hadn't uttered the B word gratuitously for at least a week when, moving though the supermarket check-out counter I saw the shy, 30-ish woman waiting to bag my groceries. Noticing what I saw when I looked at her, the lady no doubt knew what she was in for.
"How are you today, Baby," I started.
"I'm fine," she sighed. "Will that be paper or plastic?"
"Well, let's see now, Baby--paper please, Baby...Oh, you know what, Baby? I'll just carry the bottled water...."
Steven Ivory's book, FOOL IN LOVE (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster) is in stores now or at Amazon.com (www.Amazon.com) Respond to him via STEVRIVORY@AOL.COM or MYfeedback@eurweb.com