Eat, Drink, Man, Woman

She’ll be here in an hour. With her daughter. I’m so nervous I’m rattling around like my late mother’s Anacin bottle — the one that made more noise than the 5th Infantry marching in full battle gear.

Yikes.

Tonight I’ll sew a cover of moonbeams in a quilting bee with elves. We’ll stitch the scraps together with threads from the narrative of her wishes, and the fabric will be as fair as the whispered lullaby of a ladybug singing her children to sleep. I’ll cover her lightly, kiss her forehead, and guard the borders of her dreams, daring ogres and dragons to set foot within her gates.

All the world is governed by the moon, everything tidal, including this scrap quilt of moonbeams rocking her gently as she fades away. I’ll feel no jealousy when the sandman closes her eyes. Shh. We’re in this together, the sandman and I. We are fashioning sleep.

I’m an Air Force brat. In my first 16 years I lived in 21 different homes. I never had a relationship in my first 21 years that lasted longer than three — with the sole exception of my parents’ families, who were people we saw in passing every summer or two or so. Those were less relationships than curiosities.

My nomadic life made me eternally suspicious of others and too willing to quit when things got difficult. It also left a long, messy trail of badly broken relationships. At 54 I am all nettles and thorns. The handful of long-term friendships I possess are the result of others working very hard and tolerating a lot of bull-in-the-china-shop blundering to make them possible. I’m not bragging about this. It’s simply a fact of my life. As my brother said a couple of nights ago over the telephone, “We don’t know how to have long term relationships. It’s something you learn as kids and we were never able to learn it.”

Of course, I can’t be a kid forever. At some point I became responsible for my life and its ensuing mess. So I make the next statement to nearly everyone I meet: “It’s hard damned work to be my friend.” I’m not kidding. I can be a real asshole. Ask any of a number of people who would willingly queue up to testify against me.

Which is all the more reason I am surprised when those who have stood tough and stuck out the hardships come quietly (or not so quietly) to my defense. Spend a Friday night here and you’ll find a group of individuals who occasionally still shake their heads in disbelief at a faux pas, but are as much a part of me as my own family.

Travel a few miles south into Alabama and let me introduce you to one of the finest humans I’ve ever known. Twenty years of hardcore ups and downs have led us to the place where we never end a conversation without saying, “Hey, I love you, man.” Sometimes one or the other will chuckle and say, “But not in a gay way.” I like to think these are the people who know the real me, the one behind the facade and the facade’s facade and the one after that, like a hall of mirrors.

In all the time we’ve known one another not a day goes by when I am not thankful you saw something beneath all the exterior brambles and thistles that was valuable to you. I’m glad you continue to find it, for whatever reason. The ride is never easy, but I hope it’s worthwhile.

Anyway, I said all this to use a very bad golf analogy. You must be brilliant on the links, because your approach shot in this match has been sublime.

You’re right about “King of the Hill.” I probably never would have seen an episode without your encouragement. Now it’s one of my favorite things. But I like it as much for the peripheral conversations as I do for the show itself. Like this:

“Wow. They’re drunk as bicycles.”

“Drunk as what?”

“Bicycles.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Have you ever seen a bicycle try to stand up by itself?”

“Oh. They’re getting in the garbage can together!”

Mutual laughter.

“What really matters is whether they get out together. They’re going to have one hell of a hangover.”

“Yep. He’s getting orange juice.”

I’ve been that drunk — and that hung over — and from experience I can tell you the real test of true love is this:

You’re both so hung over that your hair hurts and you can’t pass a bathroom without trying to throw up the corn and carrots your body must hold in a little reserve organ for just such an occasion. There’s a limited amount of coffee, orange juice and aspirin.

True love is when you share all of them. Including the commode.