I Started Humming A Song From 1962...

Last week, I was sitting in Ky's Oldsmobile, driving around our fair city in the dead of night. This is something we used to do frequently in years past. We never had any real destination in these nocturnal journeys. It was just something we did for fun. And it was surprisingly fun, after all. Who knew that aimlessly wandering around a benighted midwestern town in a battered old car would constitute a good time?

I always find these travels oddly calming. I don't care for things after sunrise. The night casts its shadows over all things, and mysteries exist in those shadows. After dark, even a mundane journey to the end of your driveway to retrieve your morning newspaper is something of an adventure. But when the mean old sun crests that eastern horizon, it banishes the night's mystery, leaving everything bathed in harsh light that leaves no secrets.

I fondly remember walking home from a nearby Denny's after numerous late nights of drinking coffee and shooting the breeze with my best friends. We would saunter home in the wee hours of the morning, continuing our often bizarre and nonsensical conversations, feeling fine as we slowly came down from our massive caffeine intake. I'm not one who often waxes nostalgic, especially these days, but looking back I realize that I took those moments for granted.

As far as I was concerned, those good, simple times would never end. I just assumed that we would all be hanging out, wandering around the darkened streets and making each other laugh as old, embittered men. Of course, things inevitably change, and unfortunately those days will never come again. But I still have my memories, and I cherish them.

As time passed, I took to walking alone at night, traveling through my old neighborhood, a place that became as familiar to me as the back of my own hand. Often I remained isolated, never seeing any other pedestrians nor any passing cars, feeling like the last man on earth. On rare occassions I crossed paths with others, and we would sometimes briefly converse before parting ways again.

Once I actually found myself stumbling across a late-night house party, and despite my feelings regarding parties in general, I eventually walked in and introduced myself to a few people. Much to my surprise, I wasn't thrown out on my ass and/or stabbed for crashing somebody else's festive gathering. On the contrary, some nice young woman gave me a cold bottle of beer and I stuck around for a while, talking little, mostly listening to other conversations. By the time I left, I had met some very interesting people and shared a joint with a friendly stranger named Reymundo.

Walking home that night, slightly stoned, I drifted by the familiar houses and idly wondered what was going on inside each of those homes. Every home is telling a story behind those walls, and we'll never know those stories. So many tales of love, hope, success, failure, tragedy and redemption, and they will always remain a mystery.

Several years ago, my family moved my grandmother into a smaller house in her nieghborhood, because she was no longer able to live in the larger, stair-heavy home she had lived in for several decades. Across the sidewalk from this new, smaller home, lived a reclusive old man. He rarely stepped outside before dark, and he rarely spoke to anyone aside from a kindly young man who would mow his small lawn for free. I saw this old man maybe twice. I never even learned his name.

Yesterday I learned that this old man committed suicide in early March. Somebody discovered his body outside of his home early in the morning. Apparently he walked down to a nearby pawn shop, purchased a shotgun, sat on his porch and ended his life. He left a note explaining that he was terribly lonely, and that he saw no reason to go on living. Also in his note, he explained his reasons for committing suicide outside of his home as twofold: he didn't want to leave a mess inside that would affect the realtor's ability to sell the home, and he didn't want to remain undiscovered within for several days or weeks until somebody finally noticed a terrible odor emanating from the house.

He also left his car to the young man who used to mow his lawn, because he knew the young man badly needed a new car and couldn't currently afford one.

After I heard this story, I sat alone in my bedroom and cried for the first time since my dog died six years ago. I still don't know the old man's name.