Going to Chicago by Rob Levandoski

Author:Rob Levandoski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

Bud Hemphill was happy I looked him up. Having his Jenny stolen was the highlight of his life, he told me. Nobody in town had been much interested in hearing about it. With the despair and disillusionment of the depression all around—with real criminals like John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson all around—that one week in August, as quirky as it was, was after all just one week in August. So Bud was happy to talk over old times with me. He told be where I could find Sheriff Orville Barnes’s whore ladyfriend and where I could find the sheriff’s cousin, Albert Finley, and Lloyd Potts, too.

Goddamn. Sonofabitch. I miss Will. I loved him. And I’m not at all shy about saying so. Not at my age.

Today you talk about loving someone of your same sex and they write you off as either queer or a Democrat. Believe me, I’m neither, though I did vote once for Bill Clinton. Will was more than a friend. I’ve had lots of friends. Friends I respected. Friends I liked to laugh with. Bull with. Fish with. Go out for chili with. Will was more than that. He was always on my mind and in my heart. I felt different when we were together. Better. More like the real Ace Gilbert. Felt the world was OK. Felt God pretty much knew what he was doing when Will Randall and I were together.

It is one of the great secrets of our age that men love other men that way. We call somebody our best friend and let it go at that. But what we’re talking about—and what other men know we’re talking about—is some guy we really love. A guy we wish we could be with all the time. A guy that makes us feel more like ourselves when we’re with him. That makes us feel personally proud when he accomplishes something and makes us feel personally like shit when things go bad for him. That changes our life forever when he dies.

I’ve read that ancient civilizations, the Greeks I think, understood this kind of love between men. Relished and honored it. We don’t today. At least not publicly. But all men know what the feeling is. I know I sure do. I loved Will Randall and he loved me. And I’m not the least bit ashamed that the other old men here at the Sparrow Hill Retirement Villa know it. Goddamn it I’m not. Sonofabitch I’m not.

Women have an easier time with this kind of love. Once at a wedding I remember watching my mother polka with her dearest old friend from high school. Arm in arm. Around and around. Smiling faces no more than three inches apart. Sharing their love with the world. I’m sure my father and Eddie Rickenbacker never did the polka together. But if Will Randall could be here right now, I’d polka him right up the goddamn hallway, right up through all the wheelchairs and walkers.

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