Birthday blues

This is all Anthony Trammel's fault. He's the one who keeps pushing me to do this so I'll give it a shot.

Turned 55 today. This is the first day I've set down to do any extemporaneous writing since my newspaper closed down almost seven years ago. It's not that I haven't thought about writing, it's just that it has been almost too painful to do. It's like a piece of me died and I lacked the heart to try to revive it. Still people keep pushing me. Writing is the one thing I do well.
I guess my real problem is I shouldn't be alive. As I told one of my old drug buddies when I made a visit to Missouri a couple of years ago, "You know we never expected to live this long." He agreed.
After all the booze, drugs, crazy nights and close calls, it isn't logical I should have survived to such a ripe old age. My father once told me that God had to love me more than any other man he'd ever known. I asked him what would prompt him to make such a comment. He replied, "You're still alive." At the time I was 22.
My old family doctor -- a crazy man in his own right told me he doubted I would live to see 40. On a visit to his office during the cocaine years, he took one look up my nose and told me I should start shooting up. He pulled up my sleeve and said, "Look at those veins. Anyone could hit those." That was just a taunt. He knew only too well about my aversion to needles.
Wouldn't he be shocked. I'm 55 and my nose is still located securely on my face.
I don't know if I'll like old age. I began the day with a call from a telemarketer who offered a new program by which I could pay for all my funeral expenses in advance. What a nice way to enter the 55 and older category.
It's funny. My birthday fell on the same day that my old alma mater held its 100th birthday. The University of Missouri School of Journalism and I share a birthday. I did receive an invitation to the festivities but didn't reply. I don't understand why anyone from that school would still want to associate with an outlaw like me. The last time I chatted with George Kennedy at the school he was amazed I was still alive.
Considering the number of people whose lives I have destroyed or made much more difficult over the years I worked as a journalist and how much of it was done in a drug-crazed frenzy, it is amazing I'm still sucking in air.
Sometimes winning is just surviving, my father told me.
I don't know if that's enough.
I remember a stoned journalism student sent out on a off day to try to find the owner of a pet store called, "Love for Sale," that had closed amid rumors about its owner being involved in a call girl service he was operating out of his pet store. A lot of people were looking for this fellow, the feds, the county mounties and the sheriff. There had been an exchange of gunfire between the owner and some alleged loan sharks in the parking lot of the mall just prior to the owner doing the disappearing act.
I enticed one of my buddies with a couple of joints and we went out driving country roads trying to find the guy. Sure enough, we driving down a two-lane country road when we passed a mail box with the guy's last name on it. There was a house about a 100 yards away that the loan sharks had torched -- at least that's what the fellow claimed.
We were just standing there staring into space when I noticed what looked like a trailer all covered up and hidden in the woods about another 100 yards behind the house.
We approached the trailer and I knocked on the door. The fellow for whom everyone was looking answered the door with a .45 in his hand. My buddy took off running.
"Hi. I'm Jay Johnson from the Columbia Missourian. Do you mind if I ask you some questions about your pet store. Nobody is feeding the pets and everyone is worried they're going to die," I told the fellow.
I don't know why I didn't run. I guess it was another piece of advice my father had passed on to me about what to do when facing an armed assailant. "Don't run away," he advised, "You'll just get shot in the back."
"Come on in," the pet store owner said. I think he also was amazed I hadn't run away.
I sat down on one side of the kitchen table while he held the gun on me. I then told him that, while I knew he didn't remember me, I had bought fish at his store on a number of occasions. After about 20 minutes of chatting, he finally put the gun down, made me a cup of coffee and gave me a great story.
I still remember my lead. "Love for sale. Not within the last two weeks."
Those were the days.
It's funny how those memories surface despite all the mind-numbing substances I have ingested over the years. You would think they would fade away but to me, it seems like it was just yesterday. I think I suffer from Slaughter House Five syndrome. I'm caught in a perpetual time loop.
I was sitting down at a restaurant tonight and when I was served my dinner I couldn't help but notice the music. The first song was "Sweet Emotion," followed by my old theme song, "Cocaine."
I finished my dinner to "Can you see the real me. Doctor. Doctor," from Quadrophenia by the Who.
It was like whoever programmed the music did so just for me.
The message -- just keep going. Keep pushing onward. Who knows where you will finally end up.
It may not be paradise, but, if you're lucky, it won't be Cleveland.

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