Well’s Running Dry - Day Thirteen

Nashville, what a goddamn gem of a town. I get in to East Nashville around 1p. My friend Jennifer and her husband, Angel have offered me their guest room for as long as I’d like.

I must have done something right in my life, because I’m absolutely blessed with so many wonderful, life long friends. The journey has been full of people generously offering their homes, couches and showers. It’s a good feeling to know that I can show up on a door step in most states and have a place to rest my weary head.

Jennifer and Angel work in film production, they’re design and prop stylists. They work hard and long hours and today is no different. They’re running around so a neighbor lets me in to their lovely, well furnished home.

On the drive in from Jackson, the sky took on an ominous cast. Puffy, white cumulus clouds underscored by a dark grey contrast below. The air, humid and electric. Rain is coming. I’m not sure what that will mean for this leg of the trip. Undaunted and cautiously optimistic, I stash my gear and wait for my friends to get home.

They arrive with hugs all around. Jennifer and I have shared a decades-long friendship from our early party days in San Francisco. We’ve lost some close friends from those years, one fairly recently. My near death experience; this latest one at least, happened too soon after our friend JC’s sudden passing, so there’s this added sense of appreciation and gratitude that I’m still around to give her a long overdue hug. Her husband, Angel from Guadalajara, is charming, talented, and kindhearted. Their love for each other is heartwarming.

Jennifer gets me settled in before they have to get back to work. Angel shows me his absolutely stunning bonsai garden, and I tour their beautiful home: rows of records, lush plants, and cacti stretching toward the ceiling in the sticky southern heat, a cute, and a flat-faced cat who couldn’t care less that I’ve arrived in his home.

I make a plan to sightsee, but it’s quickly mooted by a heavy lightning storm. Now what?! I kick my feet up on the porch and enjoy the claps of thunder, bolts of lightning, and sideways rain.

Eventually boredom wins. I get in the truck and cruise around town amid the heavy rain. Might as well play some pinball. I find a nearby barcade to have a beer and play the machines. It’s a fun bit of afternoon but something feels off. Like I’m killing time instead of living it.

So, I head to the bathroom.

Not just any bathroom, mind you. This is the bathroom in Nashville. According to locals and the Atlas Obscura app I’ve been using to find oddball attractions, the Art Deco styled men’s room at The Hermitage Hotel in downtown was once named “America’s Best Restroom.”

Obviously a prestigious title, and once I visit, I see it’s well deserved. I’ve peed all over the country and, well… yep. This restroom takes the cake. A urinal cake, but cake nonetheless.

It’s a large space, tiled in green and black stripes with matching green urinals and a row of shoeshine chairs.

A couple of southern fellas are already using the facilities when I walk in. I remark on the beauty of the restroom and figure I may as well take advantage while I’m here. That gets a half chuckle. I tell them I’ll wait to take pictures until they’re done, which earns a nod of thanks.

Later that evening, I meet Jennifer and Angel across town at Skinny Dennis, a new honky-tonk bar where we’re celebrating her birthday. It’s a big, divey bar recently opened by a New York transplant. It’s well done with all the appropriate ephemera you’d want to see in a southern bar like pictures of Dolly Parton, various vintage beer signs, free warm peanuts, and a stage and dance floor. It also has New York drink prices.

Can’t have it all, I guess.

I meet their friend Tim, another transplant from San Francisco and a nice, easy going guy. We all chat and talk about back home and their new life here, the weather, things to do, and a smidge of gossip about old friends. It feels nice. The sun drops low in the sky casting a soft light through the windows.

Back at their place, we sip tequila on the patio and they ado about the shooting. Everyone I know has had questions about it and I’ve gotten used to it. I’ve told the story so many times now, it’s taken on a rhythm, a life of its own.

People tend to think I mind talking about it, like it will trigger me, sour my mood. Far from it, the more I talk about it, the more at peace I feel with it in the past. Like each retelling takes me further away from it being a “here and now” experience. It’s no longer something I’m in, it’s something I went through.

Writing about it for others to read, is even more cathartic. I’m able to process the experience in a way that is very different from journaling or talking about it. It evolves from something awful that I lived and barely survived through to a unique story, full of ups and downs, shock and awe, heroes and villains, luck and karma.

My story.

My original plan was to have a drink or two, get some rest, and write. I have a few days of travel to catch up on.

But Nashville has other plans.

Jennifer and Angel head to bed early for a 5 a.m. call time. Tim offers to show me around, so off we go. First, burgers and fries at Dino’s, an East Nashville institution and real-deal diver burger joint. The place feels like if Sam’s Burgers and Zeitgeist had a baby. Like Sam’s in San Francisco, Anthony Bourdain ate here and loved it. So did I.

We bounce around to a couple more bars, sipping mescal and trading stories. Tim’s easy to talk to. He’s good company and we have an easy rapport.

I’d been hoping to see Courtney, another dear friend from San Francisco. Coincidentally, I get in touch with her just as she’s driving past the bar we’re at. My friendship with her has always been casual and easy. We know each other through the tattoo scene back home. I was looking forward to seeing her and the life she’s built for herself here in Nashville. Sure enough, after hanging out, I can see that it suits her well. She seems comfortable and excited to show us all a fun time out on the town. Courtney picks us up outside the bar, along with her friend Eric from Let It Bleed Tattoo, who’s also visiting from San Francisco. The four of us are off to Eastside Bowl for a proper honky-tonk.

I’ve never been to one. I’m excited.

The shindig was at the coolest and most well done restoration and build out of a bowling alley I’ve ever seen. A large stage and dance floor, multiple bars, an even larger venue in the back, the place was so cool.

The band was fantastic, playing a slew of great country songs; some originals and classic covers. Couples were dancing in tight-as-sin Wranglers, boots, and cowboy hats. It was a hootenanny and the honkies sure were tonkin’!

After all these days on the road, pondering and wandering, seeing awe-inspiring vistas on every stretch or road, or catching up with friends over dinner then resting my bones, I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed a good ol’ fashioned party.

The night flies by in a blur with music, laughter, stories, hugs, and high fives. It’s a whirlwind of joy and I take it all in embracing the ease in which it comes.

We’re winding down now; it’s almost 3am. There goes my early night of rest and writing. This is the kind of night that makes a story of a life, and a life without living ain’t much of one at all.

Tim drops me off. I stumble toward the door, ready to sleep off the tequila. I slide the key into the lock, turn the knob, and the door opens… one inch.

Then it stops.

Angel must’ve locked the chain out of habit, forgetting I was staying there. I know they need to be up in an hour. I don’t want to wake them. I resign myself to sleeping in the truck. It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I’m so tired it won’t matter anyway.

Then I remember the backyard.

I grab my pillow from the truck and lay their chaise lounge flat to sleep outside in the warm Nashville night. Crickets chirp. Frogs burp. Stars beam bright beyond the treetops.

It’s peaceful. I’m peaceful. My goofy half- frozen smile stretches across my face as I fall asleep enjoying the slow breeze.

---

I woke up on my third day in the ICU exhausted from the barrage of nightmares that haunted my sleep. There was a brief moment between waking and opening my eyes where I forgot where I was, what had happened to me, and how I’d been wounded. It was a temporary peace that I wished could have lasted just a little longer.

A day in the ICU always feels eternal. Time was irrelevant, meaningless. Hours and days blended together with no significant distinction between them, apart from the shift changes of the nurses.

The early morning doctor visits felt like I was an attraction at a zoo or a traveling circus freak show. But as usual, I tried to be a good patient and answer all their questions. I would chat up the nurses as they brought my medications and checked my vitals. I’d eat my fill of puréed food stuff. I’d wait for the medication to dull the pain. It didn’t matter what day it was. It made no difference.

I speak from experience. Thirteen years earlier, I had spent twelve days in the ICU after a ruptured brain aneurysm nearly killed me.

Back then, the explosion came from within. This time, it came from outside.

I wouldn’t recommend either.

I wasn’t yet strong enough to stand up on my own. Nurses feared I’d fall. So I laid in bed hoping for better days sooner rather than later.

I wanted nothing more than to stand on my own two feet, just to know that I could.

Maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I’d stand.