You better give me some sugar too.

[KB.]

The first time I met Larry and Sue was early January 2001. I was at one of the registers in my audio department in Circuit City; those were the days of milk and honey. I tried my best to stay back in that corner because even then music was so important to me. There was a lot of B. B. King, Kenny Wayne Shepard, and Robert Cray playing back in those days. I had only been home from Houston for three and a half months. I was still bone tired from it all. That may have been the one and only place I left just when I needed to. I still miss Deborah from Memphis who even after being in Houston, the land of assimilation, for eighteen years had kept her straight out of Orange Mound accent. I miss Greg; my buddy I had known since we had been on the same tug of war team when I was in the fourth grade and worked with at three different places in Tennessee, who kept me alive when I was at Memphis State with his charitable donations. He moved to Houston probably ten years ago chasing a woman, and he never left, even though the woman he was chasing; the one that begged him to pick up and leave his home, left him. I even miss that wild eyed mocha colored woman who was singing a sad song about not going to rehab before Amy Winehouse was old enough to buy cigarettes.

I was back home, if you can call a rest stop home, and I was glad to be close to a bartender that knew how to make a damn drink. I was in a bad way; worried about a Jolene. I was as flat broke and busted as it gets.

Larry came along just in time. He came walking up that aisle holding his Sue’s hand and grinning like they were sixteen. He is a short man, and she is even shorter, he wore his old Marines hat and jeans with suspenders. Gray haired, early sixties I figured and eyes that sparkled with a lifetime of chasing his own Jolenes. Sue’s hair was pure white and curly like a lambs wool. I figure Larry saw his own personal type of salvation in that imagery. He commented on my music, he told me he was a big fan of Robert Cray and loved the song that was playing, “Baby’s Arms, I told him it was something I had been playing far too much for the last few months. We talked music for a good hour that night, and we talked music two or three times a week for the next four years or more.

I told Larry a lot of stories about Houston, whiskey, smoke, and music over those four years. I told him one story about a time when I was maybe nineteen or twenty years old, when I had gotten so drunk off of Jack and coke that my buddy had to drive me to a car wash in Milan, strip me naked, and spray me off like I was some old truck that had been stuck in the mud and never pulled out. That was always his favorite story of mine. We talked about a nice cold six pack of beer or a cheap bottle of bourbon and the pleasure of driving around on back woods gravel roads as the hot sun sucked the inebriation straight out of you. We talked about the best music to play during those drives and that the most comfortable company was sometimes your own head. We talked about being so close to going out of our minds that one wrong turn would have lead to a dead end.

Those last two years we talked about what it was like finding the best woman you had ever met just thirty years too goddamned late. We talked about waking up next to her and wondering if she would be able to remember who you were that day, and if she didn’t would you be able to leave the whiskey in the cabinet.

Sue was in the first stages of Alzheimer’s and it was progressing so very fast. They had only been married for a few years; they had met in their late fifties. The damn disease was fickle in the memories it took from her. He told me about waking up with her gone and it bringing back those old memories of forgotten women that had done the same thing so many times before, but that this time she was gone and didn’t even know it. I left for a short time to move to Knoxville, I needed a small break. When I came back to my rest stop I dropped in for a visit, and she didn’t know me. She thought I was two or three different people all rolled into one, all of us from Circuit City. She called me Wesley and asked how my baby was. She hugged my neck a dozen times, Larry and I had to look at each other to keep us both from crying like some little heart broken school girl. I got my job back at Circuit and the only reason I did so was so I could see Larry and Sue.

This was during those last two years, and it broke my heart to see that look on Larry’s face those days. I knew that look. He was wondering behind that smile why Sue, who had never drank, smoked, fooled around with long legged devils, and left anything anyone would call a drug alone. Why she was the one who had lost her mind; why when he had done all of those things and more he still had his. He told me he figured that it was his sins being visited back upon him. That he had done enough bad **** to deserve the punishment of being forced to remember forever, and to have the one that had finally loved him forget his name some days. When that store closed down the only thought in my head was Larry and Sue. Some people probably clapped and cheered the day that place closed, some folks I am sure laughed about it and thought they had done a good job. Some folks can kiss my ass. **** the store, who gives a **** about TVs, speakers, and laptops? Who cares about the brick and mortar? I lost contact with people I loved; not just Larry and Sue but people I had worked with for years. I lost people who threw me going away parties when I left, and threw me parties when I came back home. People who called me KB, always.

That was a few years back now, and I thought about Larry and Sue pretty much every day. I had no idea if he was alive, if she was alive, if they still made a trip to Jackson from Humboldt every other day to look around for new music. When I got back home and got to the place where I am sure celebrations over such a shitty thing were held; I found myself walking the aisles looking, always looking, for two short lovers wandering amongst the blues, R and B, and old rock sections of our media department. I was giving up hope when one early morning I looked over and I saw an old worn out pair of blue jeans being held up by a pair of blue suspenders. I saw a hat that had an anchor on it, and I saw white, curly as wool hair standing next to it. I wanted to run right there, but I got just a little too choked up and had to sneak out back to smoke first, had to get myself together.

I walked back in, washed my hands, and slowly strolled up behind my old buddy. I put my arm over his shoulder and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek. He turned around, cussed and said, “Well hell I was hoping you were one of those young ladies feeling like making an old man’s heart beat a little too fast. Sue told me I had better give her a little “sugar too, and I did. She didn’t know who I was, but she remembered eventually. All I could do was smile at old Larry.

He asked me where the other half of me had ran of too as he patted his suspendered belly; and I told him cheap women and expensive booze had eloped with that half; shotgun wedding style. His grin got even bigger, and he laughed one of the best laughs in this entire world. He told me, “That’s my boy, don’t you ever give up that fight. He asked me about those women, and if it was vodka or whiskey. I told him a little about both, and he asked me how I was handling it all. I just winked and said, “I’m alright Larry, always have been and I always will be. He pointed over at a woman standing at customer service and said she was living with them now, helping out with things. I don’t know for sure who she is, but from the time line she talked about I have to assume it was his younger sister. He told me he had just been talking about me the other day to her; said he was telling an old story of mine.

She walked over and Larry introduced me, and she told me she knew who I was the minute she saw his face when I had first walked up to him. Told me how he had just been talking about missing his buddy, and wondered where I was and what I was up to these days. Then she recited a story about a naked drunk and a car wash. Larry was chuckling like he had been telling my most embarrassing moments to the entire town. Sue was staring off into space, she looked to be just gone and waiting on the rest to quit working. I found myself wishing I could give her the part of my brain that just won’t ****ing let me forget. I went and got Larry two Ray Lamontagne CDs.

Half a brain for sale; free. No returns and no exchanges; as is no warranty. It will always run, but you might not like where it takes you.

Some folks biggest fear is being alone, the thought of dying alone. My biggest fear is being forgotten. I don’t know where Larry finds the strength, but I suppose if I ever find someone who wakes up next to me and loves me enough to stay there even when she doesn’t remember who I am, that I will find it myself.

I’m going to finish this off with a bit of dialogue from a story I am working on that Larry and Sue inspired; then I’ll quote a song from Ray that I told Larry to listen to when the whiskey started calling a little too loud from that cabinet. You may read it and think it an awful thing to suggest to a man in his situation, but I can assure you Larry and I think enough alike that he understands better than most ever could.



“I never remember my dreams anymore Sid. They leave me as soon as I wake up these days. “That’s alright Polly; I’ll help you remember them. I’ll be back tomorrow or the next day Sunshine, stay bright. “Good bye Sid. “No, not good bye, just say good night. “Good night old man.

KB

Gone Away From Me – Ray Lamontagne

For a while I sat there staring at her photograph

For a while I cried and tried not to make a scene

There was a time when we were young

I used to make her laugh

But life is long, my love has gone away from me

Gone away from me

Gone away from me

Life is long, my love has gone away from me

Gone away from me

Gone away from me

Life is long, my love has gone away from me

Lately I can't seem to find myself no sleep at all

Lately I just lie awake and hear and dream

Of the time when she was mine

Felt like I had it all

But life is long, my love has gone away from me

Gone away from me

Gone away from me

Life is long, my love has gone away from me

Gone away from me

Gone away from me

Life is long, my love has gone away from me

Yesterday is gone

Yesterday is dead

Get it through your head and walk away

Yesterday is gone

Ain't no use hanging on to her memory

It only causes you pain

For a while I sat there staring at her photograph

For a while I cried and tried not to make a scene

There was a time when we were young

I used to make her laugh

But life is long, my love has gone away from me

Gone away from me

Gone away from me

Life is long, my love has gone away from me

Gone away from me

Gone away from me

Life is long, my love has gone away from me



Video of the song: