This is never how I was supposed to come to Birmingham.
So many words I could use to describe 3 weeks without you, but I keep coming back to surreal. This is the alt universe, like Star Trek. The costumes are all different and the world is much crueler and I’d like to think in the real universe everything is fine and you are happy and still here, even if I never get to know you. Better than whatever this is.
In November, you weren’t doing terribly. You had the opportunity for some closure from a long time ago, back when we first became friends. You were excited about rediscovering your own town, going to bars you’ve never been to and ones you hadn’t been to in awhile. You were chatting and connecting and flirting and creating. A perpetual motion machine, always working on something.
I was on the precipice of losing my job and I knew it. The constant anxiety of whether I could keep it kept me up at night. You told me it was no big deal, that even though you never had a corporate job, that you knew I was better than that, that I had more in me than that. I was your Counselor Troi, after all, and hardly anyone was excited as you were when I told you I had decided to go to college to become a counselor for real. “You already are one in my book”, you said appraisingly, and went back to filling the shampoo bottles.
I was coming home from a night shift when you called, late. Midnight birmingham time. You sounded a little drunk, a little energetic, and also a little lonely. You had just gotten home from a night out and was back at the barbershop and it was too dark to see you, just little shadows across your face here and there when the moon hit right. I remember wondering why you even video chatted when I couldn’t see a thing.
You were having a lot of fun, but felt like you had nothing to come home to. You had some love out there, just so far away that it didn’t completely kill the sensation of walking into a dark and empty building with only yourself for company. We talked about how fun and new life had become, how everything felt fresh and exciting, and I shared how much I enjoyed not being accountable to anyone when my husband and I had first split up. That freedom is a rush, I knew what you were talking about.
“Hey, if I asked you to come to Birmingham on Thanksgiving would you?” if I could see your eyes, I feel like they would’ve been puppy dog’s.
I laughed. “Man, I’m about to lose my job! I shouldn’t be spending money like that! Maaaaaybe the first week of December, but thats a hard maybe”
You went for the hard sell – dude, we can go to this great bar downtown I just went to! We can go on a road trip! I can cut your hair (I was, and still am, growing out my mohawk and I swear my scruffiness annoyed you – “You know, I CAN cut a mohawk…”)!
As much as I wanted to sit your ass down after a night on the town and make you watch Deep Space 9, I was trying to grasp onto my last tethers of being a “responsible adult”, and pointed out that if wanted to do anything fun and make the most of a trip, winter covid time didn’t sound like the best plan. But, I knew that my ex husband had family in Montgomery he needed to visit, tentatively in the spring or summer, and surely the pandemic would be over by then?
“Don’t go to Montgomery, Birmingham is better, and then you can come hang out!”
“Well yeah, Dan, that’s the plan, I wouldn’t come this far without seeing you!”
The weather would be nice, and you could show me the best Birmingham had to offer. You could also meet my ex, and I could tell you when we were all together that the first artist I ever shared with him, mere hours after meeting on that Greyhound bus headed to Rocket’s last show, was you.
I dont remember how that conversation ended. I do remember that I took a shot of bourbon to attempt to “get on your level” and I think you sent me a Bruce Springsteen song on messenger when I hung up. I remember getting into bed, chuckling at this funny, weird friendship and how happy I was that we could continue on like there wasn’t huge gaps where I couldn’t speak to you. I’m still grateful for that.
So, like I said, this was never how I was supposed to come to Birmingham. Thanksgiving 2020, Summer 2021, full of laughter and joy and shit talk, new friends and old, road trips and barbecue and everything else you wanted to show me about a city you’ve talked about for most of our friendship. I have always loved experiencing folks’ hometowns, their memories and special places, through their eyes. I wish I got to see Birmingham through yours. I’ll take my first steps onto Alabama soil like I am going to.
