Okay, the long two-week Goodbye Extravaganza is finally over. Larry’s gone, Katy's gone from the Union and is leaving town in a couple of days, and Matt’s gone. He played a kind of farewell show at Giovanni’s last Saturday night, and pretty much everyone was there. Roy, Marvin, and Jason played with him. It was a good time.
For those that don’t live here, Matt used to be the bartender on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday nights at Calamity Café. So, of course, a whole mess of Calamity folks showed up. Nice to see everybody again. Nikki came down with me, and the Baders shared our table (well, more accurately, we shared theirs; they were there first). Petey, Goldie, and Jack spent some time with us as well. And there were many others there…I can’t remember everyone, because I was pretty drunk. I got so drunk that I stormed the stage and sang backup on the band’s rendition of “Sympathy for the Devil.” That was fun.
Anyway, I nearly killed myself afterwards. See, it had been a long day. The filmmakers I work for were shooting an interview with Ken Hechler at the library, and they wanted me there. I left the house around 10:00 that morning, after only an hour or two of sleep. The interview lasted something like eight hours. My plan had been to leave the interview, go home for a nap, and then go to Giovanni’s, but since it was already 6:30 or so when I left the library, I knew that if I went to sleep I wouldn’t wake up in time for the show. So, instead, I went straight to the Union and started pumping liquor into my body, just to keep my energy up. Then I went from there to the show and split a couple of pitchers and some tequila with Nikki. I didn’t get home until about 4:00 the next morning.
By then of course Jeannie was frantic. I’d been gone for 18 hours, and she was dying to get out. And, since it had been daylight when I’d left that morning, I hadn’t left any lights on. So, I walked, drunk and exhausted, into a dark house possessed by a freaked-out cat, who immediately tripped me in her rush to the front door. I fell onto a small oak table that I’ve had for years, and the legs just splintered. One of the sharp leg segments caught me high in the chest on the way down. It lodged right on my collar-bone, with all the weight of my falling, 175-pound body on top of it. For just a fraction of a second (you know how everything slows down when something like this is happening) I was aware that, if the point dropped a bit, it could slip between my ribs and run me through the chest, just above my heart. Conversely, if it slipped up and in a bit, it could go through my throat. Fortunately, it grated on the bone, slipped up and out, and went back over my shoulder. So, I was in pain (still am, in fact), but it was nothing serious.
I just kinda lay there for a minute, reflecting on my good fortune and on how much I was gonna miss that little table (it saw a lot of good chess games in its time) and thinking how depressing it would be to die in that ridiculous way. I mean, I’ll die someday, just like everybody else, but I’d rather do it in such a fashion that I won’t get a Darwin Award.
Also, I would hate to have died on that particular night, because there are too many people who would have been happy to hear about it. I don’t mind if they’re happy I got hurt, though, because I’ll admit it’s pretty funny. If it had happened to you, I’d laugh.
* * * * * * *
Actually, it isn’t my plan to die by accident, anyway. I’ve always maintained the right to commit suicide. This isn’t a cry for help, by the way. I got no immediate plans in that direction. But I want to be the one to decide when my time has come, when I’ve lived long enough. I won’t do it out of despair; I intend for it to be a rational decision. Someday I’ll just say, “Well, that’s about it, then,” and it will be.
The universe is an awful big place, and it kind of keeps all of us on a string. We actually have control over very little in our everyday lives, but the leaving of those lives, at least, should be up to us. I certainly don’t want to leave myself at the mercy of fate or the whims of a capricious god, or whatever nameless force governs the world.
I like to think of my eventual suicide as a scream of defiance against an impersonal universe. Well, except that I’m not usually emotional enough to scream, really. More of a smirk of defiance. That’s more dignified, anyway. And if I'm still doing this blog, I promise to leave a very nice farewell for everyone, so be sure to check back in ten years or so.
In any event, I’ve always held that every man has a right to destroy himself in his own way. For example, I don’t hold junkies in contempt (though I do try to keep them away from my stuff), and even if I wasn’t an alcoholic I wouldn’t look down on those who are. They’ve found their own paths to destruction, and that’s nobody’s business but theirs.
* * * * * * *
Which brings us to my best friend. Actually, there are two people back home in Richmond to whom I usually refer as my “best friends.” One of them is Pancho, who I’ve written a little about. The other I guess will have to be anonymous under the circumstances, so we’ll call him “Ralph,” an inside joke that no one but us will ever get.
Anyway, Ralph’s been my best friend since I was twelve and he was thirteen. He lived with my family for a year when we were in high school, while his mom was having financial trouble. He and I shared apartments together off and on through our young adulthood. He was really a member of our family, and I always called his mom, Nancy, my “other Mama.”
It was Ralph that taught me to pitch and to play basketball and tennis. He’s a natural athlete; he was just excellent at every sport he picked up. He was a good enough basketball player when he was twenty that he could have started at shooting guard for all but a handful of the colleges in the country. Like me, though, he dropped out of high school, and the colleges never came calling.
We used to go to the tennis courts near his apartment, back when I was young and healthy. There was a swimming pool next to the courts. Even on the hottest days of the year we’d go down and play. We played all four grand slam events every day. The Australian Open was a one-set warm-up, then we’d play a best-of-three French Open, a best-of-five Wimbledon, and finally a grueling best-of-seven US Open. After every set we’d run and jump into the pool to cool off, then get right back out on the court. And after sundown we’d ditch the rackets, grab a basketball, and play all night. I wish I knew where all that energy came from.
The night my father died, I called Ralph to tell him the news. We’d known each other a long time already, of course, and since he’d never had a dad, my dad was basically his, too. Anyway, he and I share a trait (one of many) that when we’re really upset about something, we don’t usually want to talk about it. We just want to take our minds off it, and try to feel better. So, that night, he told me how sorry he was about Pop, and then we just sat on the phone and talked about basketball for eight hours or so. There’s no one in the world I know better, or who knows me better, or that I love more.
* * * * * * *
He’s had trouble with depression for a long time; it hasn’t been an easy life for him. It’s led him to trouble with drugs, as it does with many sufferers, and he’s spent a lot of time in jail and prison over the last ten years. And all of the trouble combined to ruin his marriage and cost him his two lovely children; his wife left him while he was in jail for trying to steal the kids some Christmas presents (a true story, that, no matter how much it sounds like Charles Dickens or Victor Hugo). To the best of my knowledge, he hasn’t seen them since. And his mother died recently, which left him sort of rudderless.
Anyway, he’s been out of jail since last spring, working hard and trying to stay clean and get his degree. He found God in prison, as they say, and was actually studying to be a minister the last time I talked to him.
He was talking about taking a Greyhound up here to visit when he could get some time off work and get a little money saved. Then I didn’t hear from him for a few days. Finally I called one night, and the phone was disconnected. Now, this is the phone at his grandmother’s house, and that number hasn’t changed since I’ve known him. Without that number, and with Nancy being gone, I had no idea how to get in touch with him. I was a little concerned, mostly because I thought maybe something had happened to his grandmother (she is, after all, something like 95 now). But I wasn’t too worried. I knew he’d get in touch with me eventually.
That was back in April. Now, understand that Ralph and I haven’t gone as much as two weeks without seeing, speaking to, or writing to each other in more than twenty years. No matter where I was living, no matter what hospital or jail he was in, no matter what else was going on in our lives, we always kept in careful contact with each other.
As time passed I got more and more nervous, but there was no way to reach him. I didn’t know any of his friends (he was always jealous of sharing me with other people), and I hadn’t been able to find his brother or grandmother in the phone book or any of the online phone directories. If anything had happened to him while Nancy was alive, she would have called me, but without her I just didn't know the rest of his family that well, didn't have any other numbers to call.
I couldn’t imagine that there was anything short of death that could keep him from calling or writing to me, and as the summer passed I became more and more convinced that he had finally gone over the edge and killed himself. As I say, I think everyone has a right to destroy himself, but that doesn’t make it much easier on those left behind. And I hate to think of someone driven to suicide by despair; I didn’t want that misery to be the last thing he’d ever known.
* * * * * * *
I finally found his brother, after a bit of damn good research (I won’t tell the whole story, but it was the equivalent of Indiana Jones finding the lost Ark of the Covenant), and put up with as many pleasantries as I could before asking how Ralph was doing.
“Well, I was afraid you’d ask that,” he said, as if I’d called for any other reason. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.” I caught my breath, steadied myself, and listened. “Ralph’s back in prison. He started getting back into old habits, and got picked up for something minor, only got a year for that, but he had a gun in the car when he was arrested.” In Virginia, possession of a firearm by a felon comes with an automatic five-year prison term, even if you aren’t using it in a crime, so he’s got six years ahead of him.
Anyway, when I heard that I actually laughed, which I think surprised him, but he understood. And I went to the Union and said to Mary Beth, “I’ve got some good news! My best friend is in prison!” I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve ever said that…hell, it might be the first time anyone’s ever said it. But I mean, although prison isn’t wonderful, at least he’s alive, and I can write him. And I’m gonna, immediately I finish this thing tonight.
It’s easy, when you’re locked up, to believe that world has passed you by, that no one remembers you or cares what you’re thinking or feeling. Maybe for a lot of guys in prison that’s even true; that might be why some of them are there in the first place. But in his case it certainly isn’t. His family loves and misses him, and my family loves and misses him. And I love him, and I do care what he’s thinking and feeling, and I want him to know it. Whatever comfort there can be in that for him, I want him to have. I remember how important it was to me, on the various occasions I’ve been locked up, to hear from folks outside.
So, that’s gonna have to be it for tonight, brothers and sisters; I’ve got other and more important things to write. And if you guys know anyone in trouble whose life would be lightened a little by hearing from you, get to it, okay?
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