So, I've no interest in turning this blog into a "po' li'l me" whinefest in which I constantly read the obituaries and get all angst-ridden but apparently I'm getting old, and I guess I'm just going to have to deal with the fact that more and more of the old crew are falling away. And I haven't got anywhere else to put it, so you get it. Sorry.
Y'all are referred to an earlier part of my life I wrote for this blog for context:
https://asbestosdust.blogspot.com/2011/12/end-of-era.html
For those of you too lazy to click the link and/or read, the most pertinent chunk to THIS entry reads:
Billy's Kristy was a smokin' hot little Florida sugar-beach blonde. He brought her at 17 into The Family from one of his leaves back home, marrying without so much as a by-your-leave. For some reason or another Kristy and I "clicked" almost instantly. She thought I was just cooler than a bag of ice. She was young, and just didn't know any better, I expect. We began flirting some months later and flirted, not very seriously, for months afterward. We were on a sandy riverbank one afternoon, and I was laying on a beach towel next to her drying after a swm. She'd taken the top off her bikini for even-tan purposes (it wasn't common, but most of the women in The Family were generally not very bashful about that sort of thing. Most of the men didn't pay much attention. I can't explain it. You had to be there.)
Billy had run off on one of the bikes and was tearing up a hillside about 1/2 mile away. Kristy and I were talking about nothing in particular - and out of the blue, I asked her what she would think of it if I were to hit on her seriously. She rolled up on her elbows, her face inches from mine, blue eyes serious as a heart attack, and replied, "I've been kind of curious about that myself..." and then rolled back over to work on her tan, and took up our previous conversation without missing a beat. She was...well, she was something. We finally actually got naked with intent (which memory is making me smile even as I write this,) but at the last possible minute remembered that (a) she was married, which in those days didn't matter much to me, (b) to a good friend of mine, which did and (c) more importantly to someone who trusted me, which was a deal-killer.So, no, we weren't having an affair, and as an incidental matter, that night ranks up there in the top ten of the weirdest I've ever had, and I've had some. But she was generally well-disposed toward me anyhow, thus the tears and whatnot.
OK, up to speed? So, here it is: I found out a few days ago that Kristy died earlier this year.
I mean, fuck. Just....fuck.
No one had told any of the ragged few remnants of the Family that she was gone. Not surprising, really. Billy and Kristy had friends and generations of family and a life that was decades in the making. If any of them knew that any of us even existed it would have been nothing short of astounding.
It was ancient history and a time of secrets and to say that it was a different life is almost insulting in its understatement. As I noted in my last post, some old women, and old men too I guess, have lived lives that none could guess.
Billy was out and about all over the Middle East and Caribbean for years after I'd moved on to more sedate pursuits. He finally came out and worked closer to home until he got into that running gunfight one night in the back yards of a reeking string of row-houses in a shithole neighborhood. He killed the kid who was shooting at him, and never really got over it.
It was a good shoot and they cleared him but he hung up his shit and said he'd never go back. A few years later I ran across him in Mississippi and asked him what he was up to.
"Oh, you know. This and that," he said, giving me that casual glance from behind hooded eyes that I know so well. Ah. Gotcha. Nice weather we're having isn't it?
I last saw them in 2016 at a Family reunion back in our old stomping grounds. There were only six of us left, but it was still a near-perfect few days together. And then it was over, this time for real.
Billy died three years later, the surprise being that he went before Kristy who was desperately ill even in 2016. But his life had destroyed his lungs and eventually trying to get enough air past the scars to what little still worked wore him down to nothing, and the flame guttered out.
Anyhow, I don't drink anymore at all, so I can't do that. I feel like hitting things. That would be bad. So I'm writing here instead and waiting for my training and Stoicism to take over and manage the grief before I begin weeping like a child and throwing an embarrassing temper tantrum.
God damn it. I hate grief worse than any other emotion. There are just no borders to it, y'know?
OK. Time to move on -- it's just life.
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| B&K - 1970 |
I don't know what's wrong with weeping like a child. I do it more and more, there being more and more as the years pass to weep about. When people who've touched us in some deep way or other are no longer on the same planet it's pretty rough.
ReplyDeleteYeah. It is. And even more so by virtue of the fact that (a) there were so few over the course of my life (actual friends) and (b) we're at an age that, in terms of percentage, huge chunks of that vanishingly small pool disappear forever seemingly almost back-to-back.
DeleteI never learned the weeping like a child thing. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but I never had a space in my life where I could, and now I can't seem to get the hang of it. Old dogs, new tricks, all that. Wish I could. But we are the sculpture we carve over the years, and at this late stage starting on a new feature of the work would be a huge undertaking and, based on dabblings that direction, would probably just fracture the whole piece. There are a lifetime of sad things and horror in the world, trust me. But even in the face of that, on balance, it's worth doing.
As I said, it's just life. And thanks for stopping by...
I sometimes google to see if a much disliked ex has died yet... apparently not. The silver lining? No, sorry, being flippant. I'm the youngest of five siblings and doubtless all of them will die before I do, so lots of tears in store.My mystical side claims that those who die in this universe are still strolling along on a thousand different roads in other dimensions, so no worries.
ReplyDeleteHeh -- not flippant at all.
DeleteI've grudge-Googled more than one old acquaintance, which at my age often results in some spectacularly petty-yet-satisfying comeuppance finds, often involving obituaries. One takes such subtle pleasures where one can, even if they're not to be admitted in polite company.
In fact, I more than suspect when I finally power-dive into the great beyond that more than one quiet "it's about fucking time" glass of whiskey will be downed with a smile and/or relief. I don't begrudge them that for a second.
Death doesn't bestow dignity, you know; nor does admitting to oneself that you're glad they're gone and you aren't make you less human. (Quite the contrary -- it's the actually admitting it bit that can be a little sticky). Death is an integral part of The Game and, as a hard-core rationalist, I'm perfectly comfortable with the idea that in the end, the entire lot of us are only here for a near-invisible flash and gone anyhow.
But even so, I know that sometimes I'm really sad that some are gone. (shrug) As I say: It's just life, and for now I indulge it along with its occasional thorns for good or ill.
I cry more as I age, not less. I guess I’m so much more aware of grief now and how loss is but a whisper away. I’m more into sitting with my memories than trying to create new ones at this point, except for my grands…
ReplyDeletePaula (google still won’t let me log into blogger on my phone)
Know what you mean, although I'm less sure whether it's got to do with age itself or the fact that the older we get the more often grief and memory necessarily turns up.
DeleteIn any event, it does server to remind me that I'm more-or-less glad of the life I've lived, and will be pleased to continue doing so thankyewveddymuch, for as long as the arrow of time indulges this little blob of reverse entropy.
I know I'll be reabsorbed in deep time and the universe like an unexpected, swirling eddy in the middle of a rushing river, made of and neither adding to nor subtracting from the torrent. But not right now. For now I twirl downstream just as if it all matters. And so far, things are going pretty well, all considered.