The boys played Merle Haggard’s anthem, “Are the Good Times Really Over.” The young man singing was not yet thirty. He had a dark beard, his eyes were closed, and he was testifying.

It was late. The bar was overrun with good-timers who were out past their bedtimes. The night-crowd was dwindling.

Bartenders were ready to go home.

I’d just gotten off work, I stopped by to see the band.

The boys played Merle Haggard’s anthem, “Are the Good Times Really Over.” The young man singing was not yet thirty. He had a dark beard, his eyes were closed, and he was testifying.

The bar fell silent while he sang.

The old man next to me stared into his beer glass at his own reflection. “That boy’s the real deal, ain’t he?” he said.

Ain’t he though.

When he finished singing, he picked up a banjo and nearly tore off the strings. The whole establishment stomped its heels on one and three.

“God, he’s good,” said the man next to me. “That kid is something else.”

I ordered a beer, but forgot to drink it. I was too carried away watching the virtuoso fly through the Great American Songbook.

During a break, I introduced myself. He was standing outside, looking at the stars. I told him how

much I liked his music.

He smiled, but said nothing in return.

So, we stood for a few uncomfortable minutes, silent. I decided I must’ve said the wrong thing—as is often my custom.

Another man joined us. He was staggering, slurring his words. He lit a cigarette. He stood beside us, too.

"Damn son,” he said, slapping the kid's back. “You were fabu-lificent.”

Nobody talked.

The young man finally answered, “Thanks.” Then, he wandered inside and picked up a mandolin.

Later, the young man switched to guitar. Then electric guitar, then banjo, the list goes on. And I’ll bet if you handed him a Campbell’s soup can and a number-two pencil, he could’ve played Brahms’ Symphony Number 4.

Years later, I saw him again. He was a little older. He was even more accomplished than the…

The man behind the bar is gray-haired. Tall and lanky. He has been tending bar for forty-three years, he tells me.

I am in a bar. Not a nice one. A place that features low lighting, dirty beer glasses, and an unidentifiable odor.

The live music is allegedly country. But it sounds like a college kid sawing his guitar in half.

The man behind the bar is gray-haired. Tall and lanky. He has been tending bar for forty-three years, he tells me.

He has the easygoing personality every bartender should.

“Got my first bartending gig when I’s in my twenties,” he said. “Was either that or go to school to make Mama happy.”

Tending bar was an education in itself. The nightlife is no cakewalk. Bartending is a lot of hard work for mediocre tips.

He met a girl from a small Georgia town. A waitress.

“She and her boyfriend had just broke up,” he says. “Knew I loved her first moment I saw her.”

They hit it off. Things blossomed. They dated. He moved in. They married.

They lived outside Atlanta where he opened his own

place. A bar and grill with country music on weekends. She worked the kitchen, he served beer.

They had two kids. They did family vacations at Disney. Little League games. They owned a Labrador.

But nothing in life lasts.

“She came home early one day,” he says. “And stayed locked in our bathroom all afternoon.”

It was bad. The doctor found something in her breast.

What followed was hell. He sold their restaurant for a pittance. He took care of kids while she laid in bed. He made sack lunches, cleaned house. Prayed.

He drove his wife to treatments. He read aloud from magazines while she sat connected to plastic tubes.

Treatments didn’t work. Neither did surgery. She was forty-three…

I took classes when I could afford them. I attended night school after work. I ate suppers in my truck, going over homework under a dome-light. I wish I could tell you I was a fantastic student. I wasn’t.

DEAR SEAN:

Your writing sucks. What makes you think you’re so freaking special? LOL.

Regards,
I DON’T LIKE SEAN OF THE SOUTH

DEAR I DON’T LIKE:

It was evening. The ceremony was in the gymnasium. The room was filling up. My wife squeezed my hand. “Are you nervous?” she asked.

I wasn't. I was more ready than nervous.

My father killed himself when I was twelve. My mother wasn’t the same after it happened. She spent her days grieving in a bedroom. I did not attend high school.

My first construction job was as a teenager. I hung drywall. Drywall is the Devil's work.

I don’t know how it happened. But over time, I came to believe I was unintelligent. After all, smart folks drive nice cars, go to college, and tell Charles to saddle their horse.

Educational failures like me sanded drywall seams.

Embarrassment was my roommate. I did a lot of reading during those years. I read so much I developed headaches.

I did

this because I missed out on things like prom, football, and other various benchmarks. Books helped me feel less stupid.

The librarians knew me by name. I read Westerns, adventure novels, “The Unabridged Encyclopaedia on Cheesemaking,” “Innocents Abroad,” and the autobiography of Andy Griffith.

I admire writers. Always have. Especially those who write.

Anyway, getting into a community college was no small feat for someone like me. The truth is, I barely made it.

I took classes when I could afford them. I attended night school after work. I ate suppers in my truck, going over homework under a dome-light.

I wish I could tell you I was a fantastic student. I wasn’t. It took me nearly a decade…

After she takes our order, she waits on the party across from us. At that table: four adults, and a five unruly kids. The children holler in voices loud enough to affect atmospheric conditions.

The barbecue restaurant is slammed. Our waitress is tall. Blue-eyed. Middle-aged.

After she takes our order, she waits on the party across from us. At that table: four adults, and a five unruly kids. The children holler in voices loud enough to affect atmospheric conditions.

The waitress takes their drink orders. She disappears, then reappears with a tray held over her shoulder.

When she nears their table, a little boy stands on a chair. He reaches for his drink before she has even set the tray down. Everything topples.

It is a disaster of Charlton-Heston-like proportions.

One of the men in the group—a man covered in sweet tea—says a terrible word to the waitress.

She places hand over mouth and apologizes. Soon, he is half-shouting, attracting the attention of every patron.

Cleanup takes a while. The waitress is on her hands and knees beneath their table. She gathers ice cubes, cleans the floor. The adults are angry with her.

The kids play with phones while she takes care of the mess.

The man of the group calls the manager over. He tells

them their meals are on the house. The family eats, then leaves.

They leave no tip.

“Have a nice day,” the waitress says to them when they walk out the door.

When she delivers our food, her eyes are red, her face is puffy. She places plates on the table and asks if there’s anything we’d like.

“No ma’am,” I say.

She cleans their vacant table, takes plates to the kitchen.

Her manager approaches her. I can tell by his body language that he’s unhappy.

She takes her scolding like a hero. She nods with every word he says. She walks away, composed and tight-lipped.

She checks on us again. She refills my tea and makes polite conversation. She smiles. She asks how the food is.

To tell you the truth, the food is god-forsaken. But that's not…

And right now, she sits on the porch steps, watching a million barrels of rain. There is thunder. Lightning. The sky is black.

The bottom has fallen out of the sky. My wife and her mother are standing by the front door, watching cats and dogs fall from heaven.

The Weather Channel is on TV. The map shows radar splotches over South Alabama and the Panhandle.

My wife has a bouquet in one hand, a purse in the other. She’s wearing her nice shoes.

My mother-in-law is beside her. She’s wearing what any dignified Belleville Avenue woman would, when leaving the house:

Pearls, ruby lipstick, white sling-back heels, Youth Dew, and her hair is fixed in place with Bullseye Shellac.

“Looks like we’ll have to wait out this storm,” says my wife.

There is disappointment in her voice.

Today is the five-year anniversary of her father’s death. She is supposed to be leaving to visit his grave, only the weather isn’t playing nice.

She leans against the front door, eyes closed.

I don’t know if she remembers, but this front doorstep is exactly where my wife got word of her father’s passing.

When she heard the news, she dropped the phone. She fell to her knees and cried with an

open mouth without making noise.

I held her. She went limp. She moaned in a pitch low enough to vibrate my spine.

“Please, no!” was all she could say.

Five years.

The day of our wedding her father was in the parking lot, waiting for me. He stood on the curb watching an orange sky.

I wasn't well-represented that day. Inside the chapel, I had three members in attendance. My mother, uncle, and sister. I’ve never felt so happy and alone at the same time.

He patted my shoulder and he pulled me into himself.

“You’re about to be my son,” he said. “Let’s go make it official.”

Then, he slipped a hundred-dollar bill in my hand and winked.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

“Just ‘cause,” he said.

He took me fishing. He…

Chitlins. I’d rather lick a possum between the ears. However, my saintly mother spent her entire youth popping me with a hairbrush for the express purpose of teaching me to do “nice things.”

I’m watching a Mexican construction crew. They are working on a friend’s house. It is the weekend, and the sun is twelve kinds of brutal.

At noon, they prepare lunch in the shade of a live oak.

The cook for the outfit connects an electric hot-plate to a power cord. He is pan-frying something strange-looking.

He asks if my friend and I want to join them for lunch.

“What’s that you’re cooking?” asks my friend.

“Tacitos tripas.”

I ask what this is, exactly.

The other men giggle.

“I think,” the man explains. “You call them chitlins in Americano. You wanna try?”

Chitlins. I’d rather lick a possum between the ears. However, my saintly mother spent her entire youth popping me with a hairbrush for the express purpose of teaching me to do “nice things.”

So I agreed to try some.

As it happens, I’ve seen some other nice things recently.

For instance, yesterday, in the Walmart checkout lane. I saw a woman with a full cart. She had four

children.

She tried to pay with a card. It was declined.

Her teenage daughter removed a wad of bills and said, “Lemme pay, Mama. I got babysitting money.”

“That’s a REEEEAL good daughter,” said the cashier.

“The best,” said her mother.

Here’s another: I was at a traffic light. I saw a man with a long beard and a guitar on his back. I have seen him before. I’ve even given him money. He’s a nice fella who smells like a distillery.

I saw an arm reach from a car window ahead. The hand was holding a What-A-Burger bag.

The man took it, then sat cross-legged in the median to eat.

She had labored speech and a nice smile. She explained that she would be stocking up on beer, buffalo nachos, Magic City Hotdogs, and burgers for her friends.

Birmingham, Alabama—a baseball game. My wife and I went to see the Barons play. It was a well-attended game.

I stood in the concession line for a forty-five-dollar beer. A girl in a wheelchair was ahead of me. She was a happy thing. Early twenties. Pretty.

Our line was long. But not like the line to the women’s bathroom. Ladies stood single-file, stretching clear back to Chatom.

The girl in the wheelchair turned toward me.

“You go ahead of me if you wanna," she said. "I got a REAL big order.”

She had labored speech and a nice smile. She explained that she would be stocking up on beer, buffalo nachos, Magic City Hotdogs, and burgers for her friends.

I asked why her friends had chosen her to be the neighborhood pack mule.

“‘Cause I got a motor,” she said. “Check me out, I’m practically riding NASCAR.”

She demonstrated her motorized wheels, spinning in a complete circle.

Richard Petty, eat your heart out.

“Sure you don’t wanna

cut in line?” she went on. “My order will take a while.”

“It’s only baseball,” said I.

So, we talked. I was hoping to learn some of her story. But that didn’t happen.

All I learned was her name, and that she has cerebral palsy.

Instead, she asked me questions. The more we talked, the more personal her questions.

And since I have my mother’s talkative genes, I talked. I told her about myself, about my mama, my wife, my coonhound. I told her about a rocky childhood, and a daddy who died too young.

I talked about my education—and lack thereof. I told her I spent the first three quarters of my existence as an aimless kid, working…

His daughter shows me photographs lining his dark hallway. Most photos are of a boy. The kid’s entire childhood is hanging on those walls.

Donald's home is half trailer, half homemade lean-to. He has two little dogs, but his daughter takes care of them. He's too old to care for pets.

His daughter’s home is on the adjoining property. It’s a new-built home. She offered to move her daddy into her spare bedroom. Donald wouldn’t have it.

So, she practically lives with him. She sleeps in a back room. She keeps him fed. She keeps him moving. She encourages Donald to play his fiddle.

He's the creative type. Donald used to build things, wood-carve, paint pictures, grow roses, tell stories, and bow a fiddle.

His house is a wreck. There are piles everywhere. Cardboard boxes, junk-mail, potato-chip bags, radios, guitars, clocks, and enough coffee mugs to construct a national monument.

Donald pitches a fit if ever she tries to clean.

He’s done a lot in his life. He was a cotton picker, a veterinary assistant, a crop duster, a house painter, a janitor, a hunter, he traveled with a band, playing gospel fiddle.

Today, Donald is

slow-moving and half aware.

His daughter shows me photographs lining his dark hallway. Most photos are of a boy. The kid’s entire childhood is hanging on those walls.

A toddler on a tricycle. A boy holding a dead turkey. A young man with a Louisville Slugger. A high-schooler, playing guitar—his daddy on fiddle, smoking a cigarette.

The boy’s name was Daniel. He is no longer.

Donald's daughter opens a book of poems. Her father wrote them long ago. She’s compiled them into a binder with plastic sleeves.

A few lines:

“...And the place below heaven, where suns and moons both rise,

“Is yet bitter and the same, without my little boy closeby.”

His daughter tells me…

My waitress has a weathered face. At first glance, I’d guess she’s old. But she’s not old. Just weathered.

Waffle House is quiet this time of evening. The sun has set. I’m on my way back home from Montgomery.

There are eighteen-wheelers in the abandoned parking lot next door. Most of the world is winding down for the night.

My waitress has a weathered face. At first glance, I’d guess she’s old. But she’s not old. Just weathered.

She asks what I want. I order three eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, toast.

“White or wheat?” she asks.

“Surprise me.”

She reads my order to the cook. I never get tired of hearing them do that.

A kid is mopping the floor. He’s tall, skinny, tattoos on his neck. He looks like he just graduated.

“You mean he KICKED you OUT?” the kid asks the waitress.

“No,” she says. “I left."

"Really?"

"And I ain't going back to him. I’ll sleep in my car if I have to.”

The kid leans on his mop. He has a young face.

He says, “You could stay with me and my brother. I can sleep on the couch.”

She smiles. Her teeth are stained, she has lines on her face, but she is handsome.

“That’s real

sweet, E.J.,” she says. “But I can’t.”

“Well, you CAN'T sleep in your car.”

“I'll be fine.”

“C’mon,” he says. “We got Netflix and everything.”

My food’s ready. She hands me my plate and asks if I need anything. And because I’ve eaten enough Waffle House food to own stock in the corporation, I know exactly what I need.

“Ranch, please,” I say.

The kid goes on, “My stepdad used to cheat on my mom, too. She SHOULDA left him, but every time we’d leave, we’d always end up back with him, ‘cause we didn't have nowhere to stay.”

The woman brings my packet of ranch. I drown my hashbrowns within an inch of their lives.

“I'm not gonna impose on you and your brother, E.J.” she says. “Please…

You know love because you are a product of it. It's in your blood. You breathe it. You touch it when you pet dogs. You see it on Andy Griffith reruns.

DEAR SEAN: 

Recently, I started talking to a guy who has been my friend for a while, and actually, I’ve fallen in love with him.

This will be our sixth month together. He’s AMAZING, goes to church every Sunday when he’s home because he works offshore. He’s respectful, loyal, and treats me like no other person.

I genuinely love him and, God willing, I see a future for us.

But the thing that hangs some people up, is that he’s black.

Most of my family loves him, but the other half sees our relationship as “morally wrong.”

I just need a little advice from someone who can tell me to keep going.

Sincerely,
GIRL NEEDING REASSURANCE

DEAR REASSURANCE:

I met a preacher who lived to one hundred and one. They tell me he spent days sitting by the window in a wheelchair, talking under his breath.

He told people he was chatting with his best friend.

Once, I saw him point to a tree outside the window.

“THAT'S love,” he said. “Right there.

See it?”

“That’s a tree,” a nurse pointed out.

He laughed. “What do you think MADE that oak tree?”

She shrugged. “The Good Lord?”

“Close,” he said. “Love made it! Look it up!”

While he cackled, she wheeled him into his room where she changed his diaper.

Well, technically, if we’re following the old man’s way of thinking, “love” changed his diaper.

Anyway, I’ve thought about him for many years. And if that man was right, love does more than sprout trees and change diapers.

It floats through the universe, making everything work. It’s the green stuff inside leaves. It makes flowers grow.