“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.”
