Sullivan came back from vacation
a man who wasn’t broken
so much as he was just crooked, wild-eyed
and without even a hint
of a sense of humor.

I went to the press conference
at his favorite bar in Fargo, North Dakota
and was ready for the absolute worst
after that hideous letter he had written me.

No joke. I had no idea people wrote
anything but cheques and homemade graffiti
by hand anymore.

I went to the press conference in my best motel clothes
and assumed the worst of him, what might happen,
what they might serve at the bar and of anyone else
who might show up.

His wife was there. She smoked Camels
and kept a fantastic hit list that wrapped itself around her
better than one of Mary Lincoln’s haunted dresses.

His brother came by to dance with every woman
who came alone and remind anyone dumb enough to listen
that he had given up a life of crime to sell car tires to hopeful artists.

His best friend was a stranger to me. We met once.
He was usually too busy trying to become the mayor
of New York in Mexico City. Sully thought the world of him.
He once called him the greatest dreamer in seventeen counties.

I didn’t speak to him. I didn’t talk to anybody.
The whole thing was like one the many weddings
I used to attend in spite of my better judgment.

It was exactly what I thought it might be,
and I didn’t think it was going to be much.

Sully had a podium set up outside the Shop n’ Drop,
and he at least looked like a living legend
when he finally approached the microphone to speak.

No one was really listening. He broke down laughing
five minutes in, slumped forward and probably died
shortly after that.

Everyone else left. I wound up being the one who called
an ambulance
and went through his pockets for answers.

There wasn’t much. There never was with Sully,
so I kept the loose change and checked the address
on the one piece of paper in his pocket.

I can’t even remember
how Sully and I first met.

The address was on the other side of the country.
I knew the state,
didn’t know the town
and didn’t want to be a drunk local
for one single second longer.

I went out that way.
Left my valuables with a guy who probably thought of me
the way I thought of Sully.

It didn’t take long to get a sense
of what might have done old Sullivan in.

All the gas stations were brothels.
The library was twenty miles wide and carried
nothing but Bibles with places to hide pistols
but no pistols to speak of.

The junkies tipped their hats
and didn’t seem to care
about the teeth wedged in their knuckles.

I couldn’t believe Sullivan ever left,
or that anyone had let him leave alive.

07/18/2011

Posted on 07/19/2011
Copyright © 2024 Gabriel Ricard