Rein Sanction

We were out of coffee this morning so I had to make a run to the Bucks. I like getting there just as they’re opening. I don’t know why. Maybe I feel productive being up and out at 5:30 in the morning. I was waiting for my café Americanos – one raspberry, one toffee nut – when a fat guy started staring at me. He asked me point blank if we went to school together. I said I don’t know and introduced myself. He asked if I went to Stanton. I said yes and he told me his name. I wouldn’t have guessed it was him in a billion years. When we shook hands he gave me a dead fish, which I also didn’t expect. He was the coolest of the cool when we were in seventh grade. He was a tall good looking kid, who seemed on a one way path to being a yuppie. That didn’t happen. Somewhere along the line he found music, started a band, and dropped out of high school to become a rock star. His band, consisting of his little brother and a guy who now owns a very popular Avondale restaurant, had a modicum of success. They put out a couple of records anyway. I even went to see them play a club in Tallahassee in the early nineties. Then the rock and roll lifestyle chewed him up. He lived down the street from us a while ago. I can’t remember whether it was two years ago or ten, but I’d see him or his brother at a distance every once in a while. I ran into the restaurant owner about two and a half years ago in a Publix parking lot. I only remember that because I told him about LMJ. The two meetings couldn’t have been more different. Both took me back to the early nineties and mid eighties, but the Publix meeting was good, the Starbucks meeting was bad. When it sunk in who I was talking to this morning I thought, “Jesus Christ, what happened to you?” Drugs have stripped away all his social graces. He asked direct questions and gave direct answers. I learned that he’s quit drinking, that he’s never seen any money from Warner Brothers, that’s he’s teaching guitar and mowing grass, and he’s not interested in touring anymore. We spoke for three or four minutes and he didn’t smile once. He had a strange not quite blank expression the whole time. This has been a relatively tough year for me, and I don’t think what I felt was schadenfreude, but there was a little bit of better him than me, and maybe I don’t have it that rough and should stop with the pity party. I hope he’s okay.