JOHN SAAVEDRA, JR.
Contributor

You dropped into my life and started roaming down empty streets and waiting on desolate corners. And the wind followed you, whistling the sad war songs of your time. And you remind me of women and their lonely, drunken struts as they walk off buses. I’ve taken care of those kind of women. I sit them next to me in theaters, while huge men recite the poetic words of Miller, and hold them, letting them fall asleep on my shoulder, and kiss them on the top of their heads, where their hair separates in two beautiful directions, and I let them sleep until they’re sober. And when they wake up they see me and wonder if the kisses really happened. I’m not wondering about my feelings, Holden. I’ve only ever liked that kind of lonely woman while she’s drunk. And you said you didn’t need people. You walked into bars and talked to men on elevators and they jipped you of course, didn’t they? Your small tuft of premature white hair is not enough to make you wise. Someone pointed out just the other night that I had inherited a few white hairs myself. Trust me I know. It doesn’t make you wise. But I’m not impulsive like you, Holden. I don’t take elevators.
I took the stairs one afternoon and it was her birthday. And I said, “Happy birthday.” Then I kissed her. You would’ve done the same. She wasn’t lonely. But sometimes it happens to us. We do anything for connections, for warmth. But after it happened I was still numb and still on the same woman. I couldn’t let go. You can understand, right? Remember how you held on to that hat for dear life?
And then we’re in mental hospitals, Holden. Or maybe in a hospice and we are just waiting to die, waiting for someone to let go on the edge of a building. We knew where we’ve been, where we’re going. You and I both have said this: “I’ve never been nice a day in my life.” Ha! It’s a wonder we’re not clawing ourselves out of existence. We are so reckless. And they laugh at it. From days hidden in closets with plastic knives to kicking school books across hallways, we are guilty of all of it. I know how much you and I both need people, Holden. We both know how much we hate people.
But you’re growing up. I will admit that. You tell your stories. You hum along with those sad war songs. And walk into jazz clubs and soak it all in, too. You finally talk and spill truths (or lies, we’ll never know) to the world. And we’re adolescents and we’re SUPPOSED to hate our lives because it just means that we won’t be drunk somewhere proclaiming “High school was the best time of my life!” You let those meat heads do that with their anthems and credos that mean nothing to you. It’s all just a long thread that follows you on your way to the store for some scissors.
And we all have break downs.
“I’m terrible, you know? What I’m doing. It’s terrible.”
And we all want to run away.
“I’ll ignore. And when the phone calls come, I won’t answer. And when they’re knocking on the door, I’ll laugh and take another sip. I’ll laugh because I’m no longer here.”
And we all want to be remembered.
“I just hope they play ‘Hey Jude’ at my funeral.”
And when they ask us if we miss home yet, we answer them: “I am home.”
One day, you had this great idea. You said you wanted to leave. Right now, right this instant. “The hell with it, leave it unfinished.” How you were going to get out, I haven’t the slightest idea. Model T. Steamboat. Locomotive. Hot air balloon. Beanstalk. All you knew was that somewhere you could set up your own place in the woods and read Thoreau, but not because nature was your friend. You always said you were in this world but not a part of it. This world has abandoned you the way I’m afraid it could abandon me. So we could farm and spit at the soil because we hated it and nothing would grow and we’d starve. Then we’d laugh and order another martini. You know I would’ve joined you. There was a time when I had my bags packed and ready, Holden. I could’ve left with you.
But we’re tied down. And we’ve lived the last four years. You were always in my pocket and I heard your cynical voice when I needed it. And when she’d come around again with malicious eyes and I’d prick my finger against her thorns, you’d stop me from bleeding out. I could’ve hemorrhaged. But I didn’t. My heart had an eternal bleeding instead.
There are always happy endings though, Holden. You sat in an asylum, listening to “Let It Snow” as you looked out the window. The snow fell and it was the first part of this world that you thought was beautiful. Honestly. It was why you decided to tell your story in the first place. You were happy to do it. And I listened.
It snowed outside today. And I realized this morning that I could go back to taking care of drunken women on buses. And fall in love with them for the entire presentation of “Death of a Salesman.” I could go back to any of them. They’d let me in. And I could stay and settle. And not be happy. But I’d have blankets and soup and coffee and tears. And I could forget that this moment happened. That it had ever snowed today. That the person that changed things for me, that kept me ticking won’t read this. But then I realize why I wrote this in the first place, Holden. I realize it was never about forgetting at all. This was simply to say – and it’s easier now that you’ve gotten your wish… This is simply to say I love you.