backgammon, anyone?

my shitty memory has been mentioned in past posts--if someone had told me ten years ago that i'd be writing lengthy, detailed stories from my past today, i'd have laughed and asked, "what past?".  but that was before i discovered that just the right amount of alcohol in concert with just the right random golden oldie could trigger a flood of long-buried memories--and thus, this blog came alive.

it was fun while it lasted (or not), but those days may be over, because, without any drama or conscious effort on my part, the falling-down-drunk phase of my life seems to have passed, just like that.  i mean, i still have one from time to time (in fact, i'm having one now), but one is enough these days.

as also previously mentioned, i recently sold my house, and, in the process of moving, went through every box and drawer and thus re-acquainted myself with every single thing i currently own--and what a revelation that was.

long-forgotten things, i was reminded, can trigger memories, too.  this post is about one of those things.

*     *     *     *     *

i remembered the first time i laid eyes on it--cheap, shellacked-linen case with yellowed, marbled plastic pips, flimsy cardboard cups coated with simulated moroccan-leather paper, painted points on cork.

i had just walked into the club for my usual round of after-school vacuuming and puke-removal, to find beau, my boss, and one of the bartenders bent over the board.  i stopped to watch.  he looked up, caught the expression on my face.

"what's the matter, country boy--never seen a backgammon board before?"

"no," i replied, "i'm just surprised somebody like you would own one that tacky."

he narrowed his eyes, looked at me a long moment.  "do you play?"

i replied, "it's like checkers, right?"

he said, "sit down."

"i've got work to do."

"sit down."

so i did, for the first of what would turn out to be hundreds of battles beau and i would wage on that tired old board.  at first he beat me easily, of course, gleefully pointing out my errors as he mercilessly demolished my board, but i caught on pretty quick, and soon we were slinging dice back and forth, doubling each other up to 128 for no good goddam reason and generally having a good time.

our relationship would go through many changes over many years--from employer-employee to equals of sorts to business partners--but backgammon was always the constant.  we'd spend hours facing each other across that board, smoking, drinking and talking into the night.

one christmas, beau's second wife, gayla, surprised him with a new set.  it was nice--leather, fancy stitching, weighted pips, expensive.  he loved it, of course, because he had to.  the old one got passed onto me--"take care of it," he told me. "i've had it since i was a kid, and it's been with me through thick and thin--trust me, it's lucky."  and i've had it ever since.

i last saw beau in late 1985, and our final conversation wasn't pleasant.  he called me the next day, and i let the machine answer, figuring i'd call him back later when i cooled off.  "later" would turn into never.

i've googled him from time to time in the ensuing years, just to check on him--he ended up in dallas, married a third time (gayla had bailed before i did) and started a tour-wholesaling business--but held off making contact, figuring i'd do it one day.

when i opened that box three weeks ago and found the set--musty and uglier than ever--i figured enough time had passed already.

*      *      *      *      *

i finished moving, slammed the door on my newly-rented storage garage and raced to the airport, missed my flight to dallas, stood by all night for the 6am special, drove the 90 miles east to tyler.  i was there to help my mother move into the house my sister had just bought for her, but i had other plans as well.

the next day, i drove the few blocks over to yorktown circle, parked.  the house looked exactly the same as it had when i had last visited it many years before, but i hesitated, headed for the front door instead of through the garage as i always had in the past--hell, who knew if they still lived here, or were even still alive?

when a stranger answered the door, my heart sank; i apologized, was in the middle of explaining when a familiar voice rang out from within:  "michael, is that really you? get in here right now and let me hug your neck!"

the stranger, it turned out, was a nurse; shirley, much older and frailer than when i had last seen her, couldn't get up to greet me, but that warm, sweet smile hadn't changed a bit.

before i could ask, she told me about fritz--he had died of complications from alzheimer's four years prior.  "and let me tell you", she said, "over 800 people came to his funeral.  people we hadn't seen for years, and some we didn't even know, all of whose lives he had touched with his testimony and his music."

fritz had been a well-known musical evangelist in the southern baptist church, and he and shirley exemplified, for me anyway, everything that was and could be good about christianity--and i'm talking the serious, hardcore, grit-your-teeth-smile-and-turn-the-other-cheek type of christianity that would prove necessary in order to have beau as a son-in-law (to the point of fritz's vomiting, rinsing his mouth and then walking out and performing the wedding ceremony at which i was best man--i only learned that little tidbit much later).

"how are gayla and ginger?", i asked, and was glad to hear that they were doing well, still happily married to great guys who loved them.  i would see them both before the week was out, and neither, to their credit, gave me too much grief about dropping out of their lives for so long a time.

and then shirley said, "you know beau died, don't you?"

no.  no, i didn't know that.

*     *     *     *     *

our friendship ended badly, and long after it probably should have.

beau was bad for me--everybody told me so, and on some level i always knew it.  but i didn't care--he got me in a way that nobody else ever had, and he listened to me in a way that nobody else has before or since.  i didn't know then that that's what sociopaths do, but it probably wouldn't have mattered if i had.  he gave me, a callow, naive east texas boy who didn't know shit from shinola, a window into a world i might never have known existed had he not come along when he did, and for that i will always be grateful.

i'm a very different man than the boy i was then, and i have no doubt i could hold my own with him now.

why'd you have to die, asshole?  you were supposed to outlive us all.