The Right Reverend Don
I miss him.
It’s been two years since he died and I still look for him and wait for his laugh. I still look over my shoulder for the glimmer in his eye understanding what I am going through, because he’d done it all before. He would not be able to help me, rather He’d only offer his experience with a kind and wise old smile.
When I met him he was depressed and at the end of the work day he would casually say to me, Well it’s time I go home and measure rope to hang myself. Okay, I’d say. See you tomorrow, Donny. The next day at the end of work he’d say, I’m going to go home and sharpen up a razor blade and cut my throat. Okay, I’d say. See you tomorrow, Donny.
Friends are good medicine and Donny and I were great for one another.
I was coming around the corner one evening, on my way to Old Man Johnson’s Rodeo Palace and I saw Donny in the Pizza parlor. He was wiping beer suds from his moustache.
“Care to join me, Padre?” Don said. “I’ll be calling out for a few hookers and dropping some acid.”
“Sure. Why not,” I said. He knew I’m sober and he loved kidding me.
We walked together to Old man Johnson’s, talking the whole way there. That’s when I think our friendship really began.
From that night on we sat next to one another in the phone room. We sat next to one another for two years. Can you make me ordained, Padre? Don wanted to know. Sure I said. I printed up a certificate and ordained him on the street right outside Johnson’s Rodeo Palace. “Don’t step in the flower bed,” Old man Johnson was worried. We waved to him that that was okay.
Donny and I had several adventures. I am getting chills rememebring the good times just now.
Now Donny is dead. He died two years ago July 9th. I will never be able to tell him how much I miss him.
Not ever.
