Kid, just let it go

“Listen kid, you can’t go home every night, take off your pants and pop open a beer,” Lyle said. I looked into his eyes to see if he was going off on some tangent like he does sometimes. But those were the only words coming out of his mouth. For the moment.

We both took a long, deliberate swig of beer. They were so much better when the bottle was just opened. It still had that little bit of steam rising out of it and the rim was still wet. Lyle used to say he likened it to licking a pussy right after you’d pulled your fingers out. I always countered with the penis followed ejaculation statement. And he always winced and called me a fag. He was 73 years old and didn’t have much use for politically correct speak. “To hell with that,” he’d always say. “You and your God damn penis jokes. I really wish you’d stop it. You sure you ain’t one of ‘em?”

To that, I always replied “So, I spend all my time, here with you, talking about a redheaded woman who stole the life out of me, and you still think I might be a fag?”

Lyle always smiled at that. Then frowned. He was predictable. Like a hack sportswriter using clichés or quotes from coaches that included “giving 100 percent” or “one game at a time.” When they’re spoken by other people, they’re still clichés I’d tell writers under my wing. A few got it. One was a gal. She was way too sexy to be working at the small town rag we were at. And eventually, she got out. But she was trouble. By the end of her stay in that part of the state, she’d fucked every single sportswriter who had anything to offer by way of expertise or networking. Ended up marrying the one who hated all of us others. If only he knew we’d all been there, done that. He’d probably disgorge – which was the fourth entry under vomit in my dictionary/thesaurus. Which were usually the words he’d choose, just to feel superior.

“I know kid, you’re not a fag,” Lyle said after that. “But damn it, you just need to let it go.”

“It ain’t that easy,” I’d always say.

“Fuck you, kid,” he always replied. “You don’t know how to, that’s all.”

He was right. There were a lot of things I didn’t know how to. And usually, somehow he found out what those things were. I think it’s just because we spent so much time together. Sitting on those rotten old barstools just talking.

Lyle had three kids. One was dead. Shot in the head during a bank robbery of all things. He was just there to withdraw $50 to give to Lyle so he could get a tire fixed. Lyle never drove his car again after that happened. His other two – one boy and one girl – were in prison. They were both heavy drug users. Started selling it to pay for their habits and got nabbed.

His wife died of cancer when he was 45. Never even went on another date after that. However, he was quick to point out that he’d fucked at least 100 women in the last 28 years. But he couldn’t see himself marrying any of them. Why, I asked him a while back. He answered simply: “Any woman that’ll fuck me before she gets to know me, ain’t worth marrying.”

I tried to bring up how polar opposite all the advice he tried to give me about redheads, booze and kitchen sinks was to the way he lived his life, and he poo-pooed it by simply saying “Do as I say, kid, not as I do.”

“Like a cop, huh?”

“Yeah, fucking police.”

That was one of my favorite running jokes with Lyle. He hated cops almost as much as he hated Budweiser. Almost. I once saw him hit a waitress over the head with a full bottle of Bud. Simply because she accidentally placed it in front of him instead of Heineken. “If I’d ordered a Bud, I wouldn’t have done it,” he told the police after the incident. Lyle was gone for two weeks in jail after that. I missed him. But I kept drinking in the same spot. Whenever someone else sat in Lyle’s seat, I’d talk to them. But not once did anyone keep me interested for more than 23 minutes. I had Sam, the owner of the bar, keep a stopwatch on me and my new barstool friends.

“You’re a tough nut, Jones,” Sam said after a particularly short three-minute conversation with some guy in a suit and tie.

“All I said was how’s it going ‘Suit-and-tie guy!’ And he started going off on welfare and bums and such things,” I said. “I was hurt by that. I’m not a bum. I write. It’s worse than being a bum.”

“You got that right,” Kylie, the local whore, said. “Writers never have any God damn money. Until they’re gone.”

I chuckled and wished Lyle had been there to hear it. He got a blowjob from Kylie in 2004 I think he said. Said she wasn’t very good at it … “for a pro.”

Then, one day, Lyle showed up again. And we got right back to it.

“Don’t ever go to jail, kid,” he told me. “You’ll see people you never thought you’d see in your life.”

“Like who?” I replied, knowing exactly what he was going to say.

“My God damn drug-addict of a son,” he yelled.

“Quiet it down there Lyle, you just got here,” Sam implored.

“Eat shit and die, Sammy boy!” he responded with.

“One of these days, Lyle. One of these days…”

I took a sip of my beer and looked at Lyle. Over the past few years he’d become the father figure I never had growing up. Yeah, I had a dad. And yeah, he was around. But he didn’t talk to me much. And if he did, he was usually yelling or complaining. It’s where I got my great personality, I do believe. He also didn’t teach me things. I still to this day do not know how to shave with a blade. My pops never taught me. I didn’t drive until I was 18. My mom taught me how to ride a bike after I cried the first time and dad gave up.

Lyle never gave up. No matter how pathetic the story got.

He patted me on the back, every time, and said “Kid, just let it go.”