Some fiction litae'

“You look like you just lost your best friend”

Said the voice I almost heard.

The instrument technician repeated himself.


I almost heard it again.

Thirty years before my dad and Leon Sr were friends. Leon and Loyce.

They had grown up as friends in the days when entertainment was taking a few guys down to Russelville and whipping up a good fist fight in the A&P parking lot. Our best guy against their best. A few dollars held on the side. Bare knuckles, Mano-e-Mano..

Leon placed the bets and my father was the one in the ring.

It was a time of leather football helmets and uniforms sewed by your mother. Then they got married and had a kid or two and jobs. Leon went with the phone company, my father stayed with grandpa's gin. much to smart and good looking to climb poles for a living. And so by the time Leon Jr. and I were born they were two up and coming young men building lives for themselves in the new space age.

Leon Jr and I literally grew up in the same playpen. We became men, and took wives, and got jobs. Leon was more like my father in that he was the talented one, the one much to smart and good looking to get a real job.

As kids we used to walk at night across town between our houses, slipping between the chain link wire at a slit in the hole at the town cemetery. “This is creepy” I always said as we slipped inside. and Leon always replied “Those folks are the least likely to bother you as anybody” and laugh at my big eyes and ashen face.

I can't drive by the place today without hearing his voice repeat those words.

Every time I say to myself “ no Junior.. you are wrong.

There is one guy in there that bothers me.

Bothers me a lot”

As we got older I flew into my work. Leon flew into his guitar and girls and drugs sometimes he would call but the voice on the other end was almost like a radio show. I couldn't call him. Even minor show people have people who build walls. He often sang “Desperado” in his stage show and when he looked at me I knew he knew he was singing about himself. He knew even then where this would end.

The voice on the lab phone said “Have you heard about Leon?" ..

“If you are calling me at three am I guess he is either in jail or dead”

I replied in a quiet calm.

“Dead”

The voice replied.

I slipped the phone into the cradle. The earth voice became clear. “ I said – you look like you just lost your best friend” Repeated Max for the third time..

“I did” I replied. but it was a long time ago... “lets get to those instruments”