I Left My Heart in Seguin

My parents live here. Their house is a three-story Victorian behemoth. I live in Seguin now, too. In fact, I could throw a rock from my front yard and smash my parents’ bedroom window. I live across the street from them. What the hell happened?

Last summer I was living in Queens, working as the proofreader at New York Press and sporadically publishing a webzine (rashmagazine.com). My dad sent me an e-mail: "Noah, you have a fan in Seguin. Her name is Sarah Klein and she just interviewed me for a story in Seguin Daily News. She reads Rash."

Considering that most Rash visitors get there by accident when they type "anal rash" into Google, this was a bizarre coincidence. My father had been interviewed for the "Seguin Citizen" column, which spotlights a different community member every day. When he mentioned me, the interviewer said, "Oh, that must be Noah Masterson, the Internet satirist."

I soon got an e-mail from Ms. Klein. She asked for a quote to put in the story about my dad. With a reputation as an "Internet satirist" to uphold, I wrote: "My father always encouraged my brother and me to follow our own paths in life. John lived in his car for a while, and I’m a professional layabout. It was good advice!"

The article ran with my quote intact, and Sarah and I began corresponding by e-mail. She was the editor of the Daily News, and her biological father (long story), Mike, was the paper’s owner. He also owned the local radio station, KWED.

Sarah and I had a lot in common. We were around the same age. We liked all the same bands (more importantly, we hated the same bands). We’d both worked extensively in publishing. She had a PhD in English; I spoke English. When Sarah said she’d like someday to open a little bookstore in Seguin, something in my brain clicked.

I was tired of New York. I’d had a shitty breakup in March. I liked my job at New York Press, but it was only part-time and on my days off, I seldom ventured more than three blocks from my apartment. And I hadn’t accomplished anything I’d set out to do in New York: start a band, write a play, become rich and famous, all that. I didn’t even want to do those things anymore. I wanted comfort and convenience, and space to drive a big truck.

I suggested to Sarah that we form a partnership. I’d help run the bookstore. We’d get a state grant to open a shop downtown in one of Seguin’s registered landmark buildings. Maybe someday we’d add a little coffeeshop. The volume of e-mails between us doubled, then tripled.

I grew curious about what Sarah looked like. And because my pictures are plastered all over my website, Sarah knew exactly what I looked like. I needed to level the playing field.

"Sarah," I wrote, "I’d like to interview you for Rash. Here are some questions. I’ll need some pictures of you to go along with the article."

Sarah answered the interview questions and, a few days later, sent pictures of herself. In one of them she wore a miniature red cowboy hat. She was impossibly cute. Short brown hair, big blue eyes. I had to meet her.

Every Fourth of July, Seguin holds a massive parade. I’d been hearing about it since my parents first moved to Texas, and I hinted that I’d like to see it. Immediately, they bought my plane ticket.

My parents knew that Sarah and I had been corresponding, and on the night of my arrival invited her over for dinner. She was due at six o’clock. At four, in the 95-degree heat, I began drinking by the pool. I had trouble walking to the front door to greet her, but I was sober enough to see that she was even cuter in person. I was floored. We shook hands. Then we went back outdoors to drink some more.

When I am nervous and drunk I make inappropriate jokes that no one but me finds funny. When Sarah is nervous and drunk she talks and does not ever stop. My parents and another couple they’d invited watched in horror as Sarah and I embarrassed ourselves in all sorts of new and creative ways. It was disastrous.

Dinner was better. The food sobered us up, and then the red wine made us giddy. By the end of the night my jokes were hitting their mark, and Sarah had charm to spare. We made googly eyes at each other. It was sort of cute.

The next day was the parade, which featured countless beauty queens and lowriders snaking their way down Austin St. Afterward, at the Daily News company barbecue, I drank beer and chatted with Sarah and her younger sister, Ashley. Things were going great until someone made a dramatic announcement: The Guadalupe River was flooding. Seguin had 12 hours to prepare.

Seguin floods every few years, and sometimes it’s worse than others. 1998 was the worst in recent memory, but this one looked almost as bad. Sarah dumped me at my parents’ house and left to fly around in helicopters, covering the story for her newspaper. A federal disaster was declared, and the National Guard was called in. Meanwhile, in my parents’ plush digs on high ground, I was bored out of my skull.

I saw Sarah and her sister late the following evening. The water had receded and everyone was exhausted. We had a couple beers at a local bar, and then called it a night. I made a vague promise to return to Seguin to open the bookstore we’d discussed. The next day I was back in Queens.

New York had really lost its luster. Not only was I sick of it, but something much more appealing was 2,000 miles away. I did what any self-respecting hopeless romantic would do: I wrote a country song.

"I Left My Heart in Seguin" is a two-and-a-half-minute ditty with the silliest lyrics I’ve ever written, and I’ve written a lot of silly lyrics. The first verse goes:

I been down to San Antonio

Fell in the river, caught pneumonio

Now I’m hooked up to a life-support

machine

I left my heart in Seguin

I recorded the song on my computer, performing all the instruments and backing vocals myself, burned it onto a CD and overnighted it to Sarah, care of KWED, which shares office space with the Daily News. She received my package and made the grave error of playing the CD immediately, with all her coworkers present. Naturally, they gave her all manner of shit about her "New Yawk boyfriend," but more importantly, they began playing my song on KWED. The DJs knew that Sarah’s clock radio went on at 6:45 every morning, and they tortured her with my song for weeks on end. Soon, her will was broken and she was in love with me.

We started talking on the phone every night, and made plans to see each other again. The week of Halloween seemed as good a time as any. Roger, a photographer friend of mine, asked if he could tag along to take pictures of Texas. I said yes, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to have a social buffer. Roger brought his girlfriend, Kara.

The three of us arrived at my parents’ house after midnight. I’d promised Sarah that I’d drop by for a few minutes, just to let her know we’d gotten in okay. We wound up talking for hours. Kissing, too. It was almost dawn when I got home.

The next few days were a whirlwind of double dates, long talks and laughter. By Halloween night, we were behaving like an old, happily married couple, sitting on the front porch, drinking wine and doling out sweets to kids. We felt like we’d won some sort of relationship lottery. Leaving Sarah after that trip caused physical pain. New York was gloomier than ever.

I visited Seguin again the week of November 21–Sarah’s birthday. This time I went alone. On the night of the 20th, we watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s on DVD. Ten minutes in, Sarah asked, "Do you know about my obsession with Tiffany’s?"

"No," I said, and I really didn’t.

Sarah told me she’d been obsessed with Tiffany’s jewelry since she was a little girl, that she loved the little turquoise boxes, that she’d been to all the Tiffany’s locations, including the one in New York, that the only thing she owned from Tiffany’s was a little bracelet given to her by her father.

I held my tongue. A few feet away, in a little box in my suitcase, was a diamond ring. In a little turquoise box.

I waited until the next night to give it to her. She said yes.

And so now I live in Seguin, TX, in Sarah’s house, which just happens to be across the street from my parents’. It’s a little weird, but my folks aren’t at all meddlesome. The wedding is two weeks away, followed by a honeymoon in Venice. We’ve decided we want to have a dog in the bookstore, preferably one that sleeps all the time and doesn’t bite children.

I’ve never been happier.

"I Left My Heart in Seguin" can be downloaded for free at [mp3.nycpunk.com.]