TheBanyanTree: Alonzo

[Mike Pingleton]

My brother called me at work Friday, long distance and I knew it could not
be good.  "I thought you might want to know," he said.  "Sue saw the
obituary and called me to get in touch with you."  My sister is one of
those daily obituary readers.  I thanked Dan and inquired about his family
- I don't get back to my home town much any more.

I left work early and put on my good suit.  Wedding clothes.  Funeral
clothes.  Nell had gassed up the car for me, saving me a little time and
trouble - I had a three hour drive ahead of me and rush hour to deal with
when I arrived.

All the way a steady stream of memories surfaced and played in my head.  He
was the only other kid in seventh grade science who was interested in
science, in living things.   We sat next to each other; we would sit next
to each other for years to come.  My mind kept calling up bits and pieces
of times we shared - the long hikes in the hot summer, snakes and lizards
we caught.  Swimming in the Meramec, exploring every known cave in the
area.  We had other companions, other friends, but Alonzo was always ready
and willing to head out - down to the Mississippi, out to some new patch of
woods, or maybe uptown on our bikes to the zoo.  I thought of all the
dangerous, foolish and utterly stupid stunts we had pulled as young
immortals.  The pranks we pulled on each other; the girls we had taken to
proms.

I crossed the river at six o'clock and settled into the stop-and-go St.
Louis rush hour traffic.  I wondered who would be there - who from our old
crowd would show up?  I was nervous - it had been fifteen years since the
last time I saw him.  So much water under the bridge, and now, no happy
reunion, no catching up over old times or the new things in our lives.
Only me, coming to pay my respects.  I wondered if he had still been
married to the girl we went to school with.  To most people in our
neighborhood, he was a shambling, sloppy goofball; she loved him for his
big heart, his generous nature, his perpetual grin aimed at the whole
world.  I remembered their wedding; such a happy time.   But adulthood
brings changes; we drifted apart, and when I moved away we lost touch for
good eventually.  I am not very good at keeping in touch with people and
here was another time I found myself wishing I had done things differently.
 Feeling guilty about not making more of an effort.

No one seemed to know me inside the funeral parlor, and so I had a long
quiet time in front of the casket, reliving so many memories one after
another.  The man in the casket seemed so old to me.  We were the same age,
but he seemed so old, so grey.  And yet, and yet I could see faint traces
of the pudgy, grinning twelve-year-old.

His mother came up to me, remembered me.  She led me over to his wife and
his daughter.  His wife who was no longer his wife; they had divorced some
years ago.  She loved him still, but couldn't deal any longer with the one
flaw she could not overlook, could no longer endure.  The one that killed
him.  "It was an accidental overdose," she told me.  He had gone back to
live with his parents after the divorce, falling back into his old room.
He died peacefully there, his struggle over.  "His long battle with
substance abuse," I think is what she said at some point.  I didn't want to
consider how the last fifteen years must had gone for him. 

I said a silent goodbye to my old friend, and left the funeral parlor.
Before heading back home, I drove over to our old neighborhood.  I drove
past his house, past our old school.  I went up to Jefferson Barracks, the
park over looking the river, one place where two young boys spent so much
of their youth together.  Nothing but old ghosts there now, and those gone
when I leave.

Heading back home.  Neil Young is on the classic rock station.  "Every
junkie's like a setting sun," he sings.  I don't want to remember Alonzo
that way; I want to keep close what I can remember of our youth. I've spent
this weekend embracing those times past.  He was a good friend, and
together we got out of life such times worth remembering.  Goodbye old
friend; your night has come.