NOTE: They used to talk about Stagedoor Johnnies, the men who hung around theaters with flowers and candy for the showgirls. Then women and girls got liberated and got horny, and they called the starstruck ones groupies.

But there are some of us who call ourselves by another name. We are drawn to a special class of classy ladies, to those mature beauties who appreciate a man who appreciates a vintage affair. We call ourselves the silver surfers. And this is one of our stories.

Carl M., Dearborn, Mich.

I'd worked for the Ford 10 years before I got tired of layoffs. We kept collecting our pay, but I'm the kind of guy who needs to know he's doing something to earn his check.

The driving was something I'd been doing for years, anyway. Started with filling in for a buddy when he wanted a break from his cab. Got to know the whole area pretty well. (Around Detroit, that also means knowing where you DON'T want to go.) Moved up to limos on airport runs for hotels and conventions while I was still on the line.

I got some repeat customers who started asking for me by name and wanted to know if I could drive 'em around town, too. So it wasn't too much of a gamble when I quit the auto plant and used my savings to buy my own stretch job.

Built up a pretty good business and an even better reputation. Started to get known around town. Pretty soon I was moving upscale, big-shot businessmen and your better class of stars -- ones who know what it means to be a star, not these young punks that puke all over the car and get upset because I wear a sport coat and not some stupid brass-button uniform and a gold-braid hat.

I give the folks what they want, which is just a fast, smooth ride. I show up on time. If they don't want to talk, I don't talk. If they want, I can discuss anything from philosophy to spackling. It's not that tough: You just nod and say "You're right" a lot:

"Sears has the best scrapers."

"You're right."

"Nietzsche completely ignored the influence of the non-Platonic ideal."

"I hear you."

You get the idea.

So I got a full appointment book. But when I got the call that night, I got another guy to pick up the exec I was supposed to meet at Detroit Metro. Some things you don't pass up.

I got there just before the show ended. I pulled around to a hidden exit like they told me. Sat there reading Albom's column in the Freep until the exit door flies open and she comes strutting out with two of her backup singers and a whole herd of security. They aren't happy when she has me shut the car door after her and the girls get in, but she rolls down the window and says they can follow behind.

I get behind the wheel and turn to her.

"Good evening, Miss Turner."

"Call me Tina. And let's get going."

"I'm just waiting for your people to get in their cars, Miss... Tina."

"Drive, sugar."

So I drove. One car full of bodyguards kept up with me all the way to the expressway, but Tina told me to lose 'em and it wasn't too hard. They called my cell and started blistering my ear before I could get in a word. Tina tapped on the glass and I passed the phone back to her. Man, she must have had her fill of taking orders when she was younger, because she told off those guys so bad she even had me feeling sorry for them. But she said this was her farewell concert tour and maybe her last time in Motown and she was going to party.

That they did. I drove from club to club. The second place we went, her people spun into the lot as Tina was getting out the door and I had to get a little fancy to get rid of them. After that she told me to pick the clubs 'cause they knew her favorites.

We'd run through all the legit places and had hit a couple of blind pigs -- the all-night unlicensed joints -- when the back-up singers started belting the blues about wanting to pack it in. Tina tried to talk them out of it, but the girls were pooped. I rolled over to the hotel and jumped out to open the door. The girls groaned as they stumbled out. After a few seconds I stuck my head in the doorway to see if Tina needed help. Ha! She was sitting up straight, eyes bright. "The night is young," she said, "and so am I. You ready to show a girl a good time?"

I gave her a smile and walked around to the driver's side. As I got behind the wheel there was a tap on the passenger window. I expected to see her security. Instead, it was Tina. I popped the lock and she climbed in next to me. "I hate talking to myself," she said.

For once, though, I did most of the talking. She asked me about the job and what I used to do. I started out like always, playing it close to the vest. But she was persistent and before I knew it I was telling her stories about the Ford and the old neighborhood and all.

I shut up when we got to the place I'd picked out. It was a little rough, but not too bad for a club open at 4 a.m. Still, I couldn't guess what would happen when someone like Tina Turner walked in. She's not their usual trade. I told her as much.

"So how 'bout if you walked in with me?"

I couldn't turn her down. I would never have forgiven myself if anything happened to her.

It was a place without a name, unless you count "the den on 10," which mostly the squares called it on account it was just off 10-Mile Road. But it was no den. It was just an old paint store with cardboard over the windows to keep the cops from seeing the light. Even that was only window-dressing. Every cop in the county knew the joint. It wasn't the paper on the windows kept them away; it was the paper on their palms once a month.

We walked in and it was hardly any brighter inside than out. Just a couple of bare bulbs painted red over the old counter, now the bar, and a few flickering candles in the corners of the big room. The cigarette smoke and leftover turpentine fumes made a sweet-sour stench of a fog in which a few couples were groping each other on the dance floor -- a space about six feet square carved out of the crowded card tables and folding chairs. A trio jammed behind the bar was torturing '50s R&B out of a guitar, a drum set and a keyboard. Every so often they had to crank it up to jet-engine level to be heard over the roar of the old paint-mixing machine, which had a second career as an industrial cocktail shaker.

My suit and tie got more stares than Tina from the half-in-the-bag clientele; in that light one old chick in leather looked pretty much like another. But when we made it to the bar, the keyboard player dropped a dime on her. She told 'em three songs was her limit and the trio cracked open "Proud Mary" like they'd been waiting for her all night.

Tina blew the barflies back against the wall with that one. Then she pulled out a slow a capella "Private Dancer" that had the whole room holding its breath like it was the solemn consecration at Our Lady of High Gloss Latex.

Finally, she switched denominations to Holy Paint Rollers and the girl from Nutbush wailed about her hometown and how you better keep an eye for the police. By the end the crowd was stomping on the linoleum and hollering like a revival. Somebody scratched enough paint off one of the bulbs to make a 60-watt baby spotlight and Tina shook her tailfeather, with her leather coat flapping around her like a flag. Underneath she wore a spangly tube top and skintight leather pants; you could see the sweat glistening on her chocolate flesh.

By the end of the song the whole crowd was on their feet. Tina punched her fist in the air once, twice, three times as the drummer hammered the beat. The keyboard player drove his hands down and the guitar man twisted three notes over and around and tied them in a knot in a crashing finish. Tina dropped to the floor in a split.

Right then and there I realized I'd turn down any pay for the night. Just being able to see that covered all the charges.

I kept the crowd at bay while Tina got to a table. People lined up to tell her how incredible she was and she sat back, basking in the praise, huge smile on her face.

I stayed on my feet, off to one side, waiting for trouble. There's always trouble.

Sure enough, some suburban cowboy, probably pissed because his date was paying more attention to Tina than to him, started in on her being a lousy singer. Which Tina ignored and so did the rest of the crowd. So the guy pushed his way toward her, getting louder like they do. I was already moving in to cut him off when the guy switches tracks and starts in on Tina's history. "Maybe Ike didn't beat ENOUGH sense into her," he said.

That got Tina's attention and she flashed the guy a look that could cut steel. I could see she was about to say something, too. But then she just turned away.

I was almost close enough to touch the guy then. When she turned her back his eyes bulged. As I lunged forward I heard him say "Maybe I'll have to finish the job."

I caught his right fist as he pulled it back and I swung him around. He jabbed at my jaw with his left. I ignored that and pumped a few rat-a-tats into his gut. He got off one or two more punches but he started to double over. One clean uppercut put him down. By then the joint's bouncers had arrived and they hauled the guy out the front while Tina and me got herded to the back.

We were in the limo and peeling out of the lot as fast as that super-stock Detroit engine could take us. Dawn was still just a thin pink line on the edge of the horizon and I wanted as many miles between us and that joint as possible before the cops finished their morning doughnuts.

Tina had started talking as we rushed for the car and hadn't stopped since, but I had tuned her out. On the line at the Ford you learned to shut off all your senses and just do the job; it was the only way to get through the day -- for some of us, anyway. My brain had gone on autopilot when the clown took off on Tina and it stayed there until we pulled up at a light miles away.

That's when Tina poked me in the side -- she was riding shotgun again. "What the hell were you thinking? Hello? Is anybody home?"

I shot her a glance and then kept my eyes on the road. "I thought I was doing you a favor."

"A favor? Did I ask you to punch someone out?"

I stared a hole into the asphalt. "He was going after you. You think I went looking for a fight?"

"I can take care of myself."

"Yeah, I'm sure. What were you gonna do, high-kick him?"

"Maybe I could have talked him out of it. You ever try using your mouth instead of your fist?"

"He didn't look like he wanted to debate. Or maybe you just wanted him to take a swing at you. For old times' sake."

I regretted it the second I said it. And I should know better. My sister hooked up with a guy used to slap her around. I know the hell she had.

But I was all pumped from the fight and not thinking straight. Tina shut up and twisted around in the seat to look out the side window. I just shut up and drove.

The limo sailed through the half-light past boarded-up storefronts and sleeping neon. Traffic was scarce and cops scarcer. At some point I hit the radio to cut the silence; Tina snapped it off.

I stayed off the expressway. At first it was to punish her for complaining. Then it was to buy time to work out my apology.

We were closing in on the hotel when Tina finally spoke, a terse order to pull over. I bumped over the pockmarked parking lot of an empty factory. "Go around back," Tina said, and I nuzzled the big car up to a loading dock sheltered from the street.

The cylinders sighed. We sat looking out the windshield at busted windows and rusty doors for a minute. We both started to speak at once, our words bouncing off the glass. We tried again; same deal. I threw a sideways glance at her and saw her doing the same to me.

"I'm sorry," we said in unison. It was too much like every romance movie Meg Ryan ever made. We both broke into huge smiles as we turned to each other.

Tina had curled up against the door; she looked fragile, like a blown-glass ornament. Seeing her almost cowering there, so tiny, I felt like a gorilla. My smile faded.

She reached out a hand, fingers splayed. It hovered a foot away from my face. "What's wrong?"

I started to answer, but I didn't have a clue. I just shook my head abruptly. "I better be getting you back to the hotel. They'll be worrying about you."

Tina reached into her coat and pulled out a cellphone smaller than my Aunt Ida's earrings. She flipped it open and held it up so I could read the goblin-green glowing screen: six messages. "They've been calling every 20 minutes," she said, and she laid down a trilling laugh. Even as she did, I heard a whirring like angry wasps trapped in a wall. Tina tossed the vibrating phone into the cavernous back seat. "Let 'em worry. I'm having a good time."

She slid a little closer to me on the bench seat and slipped her coat off. "Ain't we having a good time?" Her eyes were pointed at me, but they were focused a million miles away. "This is my last tour and I am officially enjoying it. Didn't you read that? It was in all the papers. 'Dancing to the End of the Road.' That's what this is, the end of going on the road." Her voice was a whisper like the wind through a graveyard. "The end of the traveling. End of hotel rooms and dressing rooms. End of crowds. End of the applause. End of the road."

She blinked twice and re-entered the atmosphere. She hit the Earth with a splash, staring me in the face and seeing me this time.