South Alabama looks good this morning. There’s a low mist on the farmland. The cattle are sleeping. The sun is not up yet. I'm driving.

It was a morning like this I first learned how to chew Red Man. My father and his friend showed me how to tuck a wad in my cheek. It tasted like raisins and kerosene.

“Whatever you do, don’t swallow,” said Daddy.

I got so sick I fell off the tailgate. He laughed and said, “If you even THINK about telling your mama, I’ll put you up for adoption.”

This is a good morning. The orange sun is still behind the trees. It’s thirty-some degrees. The grass is green, even though it’s cold.

My cousin lived on a cotton farm. Long ago, I helped run heavy machinery for one weekend. The smells of the earth were enough to make a kid drunk.

It's too early and too cold to think about heavy machines.

I’m passing dilapidated mobile homes with seventy-five-thousand-dollar trucks in the driveways.
There are dogs, wandering the highway. Scrappy ones, looking for trouble.

Or love.

I’m behind a school bus. Kids are staring out the windows at me. I wave. They wave. They’re laughing, sticking out tongues.

Childhood.

I’m on a dirt road. This is a shortcut my friend showed me long ago. I’m cutting through scalped fields with dry rotted fences which are older than I am.

The road spits me onto pavement. I hope my truck caught enough red dust to make it pretty.

I pass faded brick buildings with Coca-Cola signs. I miss the days when good folks called it “KOH-kola.” I miss a lot of things.

I miss an age before cellphones. And kids who rode bikes to a best friend’s house to ask, “Can Sammy play?”

Today they text.

I pass old homes with outdoor workshops. The kind of one-room buildings where old men piddle. With workbenches…

A gas station. The middle of the night. Tony stopped by this store every evening. He came for the food, and the company.

The night-shift cashier gave him hotdogs and egg rolls—lukewarm from the warming rack.

She did this instead of throwing them away. She did this because she liked Tony.

Tony. A nice homeless man with yellowed beard, gentle spirit, and dusty skin. A man who occasionally smelled like whiskey.

The two would sit on the sidewalk during the wee hours. They’d swap cigarettes, stories, laughter.

He was a spiritual man.

He told her about himself. In another life, he’d been a fella who was working his way through seminary. A thirty-something man, trying to do something worthwhile.

Then, his pregnant wife died in an interstate accident. He lost two people in one day. And he lost himself.

Anyway, Tony listened to her, too. She told him about boyfriend problems, her runaway father, and her unstable mother. She looked forward to his visits, they helped each other with late-night boredom. They helped each other period.

He gave her advice.

She brought him clothes. He gave her presents on her birthday.

One particular week, Tony never showed. She sat on the sidewalk, waiting. No signs. She felt like something wasn’t right.

She called the hospital. The voice on the phone said, "Yeah, we got a homeless guy here… Been here a few days. He belong to you?”

Tony had checked himself in. He’d told doctors he couldn’t breathe. His chest infection had become pneumonia. He was dehydrated.

She visited when she got off work. She lied to the nurses and said she was family. They knew better, but looked the other way.

She found him in a bed with tubes connected to him. She sat in the chair beside him. When his eyes opened, she handed him a greasy paper bag.

“I made these fresh,” she said.

Hotdogs and egg…

My dog ran away. I feel like someone kicked me in the ribs.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It happened earlier. I got home to see the front door swinging in the wind. Maybe it didn’t latch.

I called Ellie Mae’s name, then listened for the sound of paws on pavement. Nothing. She'll come back, I'm thinking.

Three hours: I am sick.

Three hours, she could be anywhere. She could be across the county line. She could have wandered onto a busy highway.

“Stay calm,” I’m telling myself. Dry insanity sets in. I’m imagining bad things. Like what happened to my old dog, Joe.

Years ago, Joe dug a hole under our fence. We drove, searching until we couldn’t. I remember seeing his body after the accident. You can’t unsee something like that.

So the sun is setting. The orange sky is turning into night. My best friend is gone.

I’m searching side streets, back roads, dirt trails. I’m praying under my breath. We knock on doors. We call the sheriff, neighbors, shelters.

“Ellie Mae!” my wife shouts into the woods, until her voice sounds

like pleading.

It’s late. We’re hoarse. Eight hours she’s been missing.

We give up. We pull into our driveway. We’re silent. I skip supper. I crawl into bed with my clothes on, but can't sleep.

I toss and turn. I think about when I took Ellie Mae fishing and my boat motor gave out. I swam the boat to shore. She swam beside me.

There was the time she stole a pecan pie from my neighbor’s backyard deck. She ate the pie and the tin foil together. The foil made a reappearance the next morning.

And the time my wife brought Ellie home. She was just floppy skin and bones. Her ears were a mile long. She tackled me and fell asleep, snoring on my chest.

Her snoring has been the sound I sleep by.

Morning…

I wrecked my truck one mile outside Georgiana, Alabama. Long ago. The only thing I remember is the smack of metal. My driver's window busted into ice.

I thought I was dead.

I had the life-flashing-before-my-eyes experience. I saw myself in diapers. Middle school. I saw my wife, Jamie, in the passenger seat.

She screamed, "I love you, Sean!" while my truck rolled.

They would've been her final words.

I was too shell-shocked to repeat those words back to her with what might've been my last lungful. I regret that.

She helped me climb out of the vehicle. We sat on the side of the highway. Jamie tore a piece from her shirt and dabbed blood from my face. She cried so hard she gagged.

I tried to say something, but my voice didn't work.

The paramedics arrived.

“Sir, can you tell me your name?” asked a large blue uniform.

I couldn't.

“Your NAME, sir.”

I was too confused. All I said was, "My truck."

"Yeah," he said. "That ain't a truck anymore. You're one lucky sumbitch, sir."

It was an understatement.

After

I regained my senses, the EMT's told me that earlier the same morning—only miles up the interstate—another accident had happened.

A semi truck jack-knifed. An economy car skidded beneath the trailer. The top of the car got ripped off—the family inside was ruined.

“It was a traveling gospel group,” said the paramedic. “They were leaving a church gig. They were high-schoolers.”

I'll never forget hearing about those kids. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I've seen my share of old-fashioned gospel groups.

Take, for instance, the time I drove six hours to North Alabama, just to watch three brothers sing. I used to lay concrete with them before they started traveling the circuit. The eldest, Aaron, was a good man—built like a Philco refrigerator.

I remember when a contractor tried to cheat Aaron and his brothers…

7:32 P.M.—I'm looking at heaven. My truck is parked in a peanut field right now. My coonhound, Ellie Mae, is in the passenger seat, eating my barbecue sandwich.

I just left a wedding. It was in an old clapboard church. I waited in line to shake the groom's hand.

He hugged me and said, "God, I wish my daddy were here."

Yeah.

His father's been dead a while. I remember the day his father fell off that roof. That year, my friend wore his daddy's jacket all the time—even in summer.

Just before I congratulated his bride, he whispered, “You think people in heaven can see us?”

All I could say was, "I hope so."

I wish I would've thought to say something more poetic.

Anyway, I had to leave the reception early because Ellie Mae was waiting in my truck.

On the drive back, we stopped for barbecue. I ordered one sandwich for myself, one for Ellie.

And now I'm in a field, wondering if this isn't what heaven's like. Quiet. I hope heaven isn't too loud and

obnoxious like some preachers claim.

I once attended an Iron-Bowl tailgate party in Birmingham. It was so noisy I had a headache for three days. If eternity is anything like that, I'd rather raise peanuts with my fellow sinners here below.

I also hope my friend Tyler is up yonder—wherever yonder is. He overdosed on Methadone. That was a shock. None of us thought he touched anything harder than Budweiser.

One afternoon, I showed up at his apartment. A woman in a maid's uniform answered the door. She told me the former tenant had passed.

Former tenant.

Tyler said once that he believed dead people turned into music. And I've thought about that a lot since he died.

“You know how music gives you chills?” he explained, killing a Budweiser. “And everything makes sense? That's where we go. Like music.”

Tight…

I saw her in the Winn-Dixie parking lot. I was walking in. She was coming out. I recognized her right off.

I've changed a lot over the years. She hasn't. She looks like she did when I sat in her English class long ago. White hair, pearls, dressed to the nines.

She taught night classes.

Back then, I'd arrive at campus early. I'd eat supper in my truck—a pimento cheese sandwich—while doing homework. Then, I'd change my work-shirt and go inside.

Hers was the only class I didn't hate.

She wasn't an overly friendly woman. And because of this, several students didn't care for her. But she was kind to me during a time when I felt lost.

And in my book that's a good teacher.

Though as it happens, I'm not exactly what you'd call a good pupil. I never have been. In my school career, I've spent most of my accredited hours trying to figure out whether the professors were speaking graduate-level Pig-Latin.

After my first semester with her, I signed up for her English II course.

After I graduated, I took two more of her classes, just because I liked her.

My mama asked why on earth I'd go to the trouble, taking classes I didn't need.

I hate goodbyes, I guess.

I remember when her husband passed. She didn't come to school for a week. The entire night-class-full of construction grunts and cocktail waitresses buried her desk in sympathy cards.

I went to the funeral with another student. We both wore neckties. She cried when she saw us.

We returned the favor.

The night of our last class, I remember her saying, “I've enjoyed having you, you're a smart boy.”

Smart.

That might seem like a small word. But she's one of the only teachers who's ever gone and said that. That single kindhearted sentence has done me a lot of good over the years.

That…

Early morning. Belleville Avenue. That's me in the kitchen, eating bacon by the handful, wearing a coat and tie.

I just got engaged. My future in-laws are throwing a brunch. My soon-to-be aunt, Catherine, cooked nearly fifty pounds of bacon for this shindig.

I even bought a new shirt for this brunch. Also: a coat, necktie, and new belt—one without a buckle.

“You can't wear a BELT BUCKLE to an engagement party," proclaimed my future-spouse. "People will think you're a 'neck. You need a DRESS belt.”

What could be dressier than a fella waltzing around, sporting a Beechnut buckle the size of a pie-plate?

It would never do.

Earlier that week, my wife carried me to JC Penny's in Andalusia. She selected a skinny belt not fit for stroping a razor. And a fifty-dollar button-down with a shirt-tag reading: “wrinkle-free.”

I want my money back.

The doorbell rings. Folks in their Sunday best begin to arrive. I've never met these people before, I'm not sure they'll like me. I am sick-to-my-stomach nervous about it because I have

about as much sophistication as an empty mayonnaise jar.

Many guests are elderly. Lots of pastel colors. Strings of pearls. Floral hats.

An old woman hugs me. Then another. Then another. And I smell like lady's perfume in a matter of milliseconds.

Someone invites me to church. Another invites me drinking. One fella invites me to do both.

Next: my future uncle. He's a small Baptist man, with eyes that shine. He shakes my hand, tells me he loves me.

Then, I meet a fella with a prosthetic arm and a warm face. He hands me a silver dollar and winks. I still have that coin.

I meet ten Flossies, five Roberts, one Mary, two aunt Catherines, a Mary-Catherine, eleven Jims, nine hundred Jameses, the West Boys, a Ben, a Bob, a Bill, a Blake.

And one Bentley.

I meet aunts, cousins, childhood…