Chapter 6
After graduating from High School John felt relief and loss. It seemed like all the other kids were going off to college or getting married and settling down. An uncomfortable restlessness settled onto him.
John went from one party to another, one bar to another always the life of the party and yet in his quiet moments he knew he was a phony. When the loneliness of his life caught up with him he would chase it away with any means he could find. When he had a belly full of booze and a head full of dope his thoughts scattered.
John had found himself thinking of Ray a lot and wished he were back in his life. The time they had spent together seemed like the only time in his life he had ever been happy. They had many late night conversations over the phone, catching up on each others misery.
Ray had joined a country music band and was traveling all over the United States playing music. They played in mostly run down saloons but in John’s mind he was a star. Ray was out in the world doing something he loved while he himself felt he was withering in Athens. When John’s phone rang at two in the morning he always knew who it would be. Ray would be drunk as a skunk calling from some seedy motel room but John would always be glad to hear his voice and lose himself in the latest drama of living on the road in a traveling band.
John had bought a run down trailer house from a swindler for four thousand dollars. The interest rate was twenty one percent but he figured it was better than renting.
Sometimes when John came home from a night of drinking there would be strangers passed out on the floor of his trailer. He’d step over them and wobble off to bed. In the morning everyone would introduce themselves as they passed around the bong. There were numerous drunken adventures in Shady Lake Estates trailer park. Sometimes the neighbors complained and sometimes the cops showed up.
John had gotten a job in a factory. He punched the time clock there for a little over three years. It was a time of immense frustration for the youngest of the Lincoln boys. He knew he could do better but just didn’t know where to begin and besides the factory job paid the mortgage on his trailer and provided him with a roof over his head.
John had tried college briefly but bombed out and his confidence bombed with it.
John dated a few girls now and then, mostly then. He only did so because it was the way things were supposed to be. The Ray thing was long over and buried in the past. If only he could find another Lisa.
From time to time John would experiment with sobriety and his friends blew away like leaves in the fall. It was a life of struggling, booze, more struggling and more booze. He would sit alone in his house in the trailer park and think of the good times Ray was having out there, up on the stage, under the bright lights.
Once in a while John would road trip to Atlanta. He always managed to wind up in some gay bar. Being young, attractive fresh meat on the Atlanta scene he was always flooded with attention. On his way back to Athens he’d feel conflicting emotions ranging from excitement to relief to shame and self disgust. The shame and disgust always seemed to win out and he’d swear he wouldn’t do that anymore. He kept telling himself all he needed to do was find the right woman and everything would somehow work out.
The adolescent period in John’s life went on for far too long. He went from one set of beliefs to another, one life style to another, one set of friends to another and when he ran out of options he recycled the old ones and around and around he went.
At some point he decided to give the church a try. Maybe if he could find God, he would do something about the misery in his life. John would get out the phone book and look in the yellow pages under C for churches. For a period of time he threw himself into religion. He was the greeter, the usher, worked at the pancake breakfast and ice cream socials. He had a better attendance record than the Pastor. The young seeker overlooked the church scandals and hypocrisy he discovered in the church world. When his preacher built the half million dollar house and had become a world traveler John tried not to question things. After all, that’s what they were telling him to do. This had always been very unnatural for John for he had questioned authority all his life.
There eventually came the time when he realized he was going to church on Sunday morning and getting drunk on Sunday afternoons and the inner turmoil of this weighed heavily upon him. He knew he would have to make a decision between the two.
It wasn’t really a conscience decision yet he began to go to church less and less and drink more and more until there came the time he wasn’t going to church at all any more. He then had the destructive freedom to spend his time sitting in his trailer alone every night listening to music with a glass in one hand, a pipe in the other until a late night phone call from a drunken Ray telling him exotic stories of far away places brought him some relief.
John had a revelation one day; if he was going to drink less he needed to find something to spend time doing rather than drink. So, he bought a 500cc Norton motorbike. It ran like a bat out of hell and it was exciting nearly killing himself a couple of times. Of course it was just a matter of time until he discovered the phenomenal feeling of riding the bike after having a few beers and drunken driving on the bike became the new normal.
On the 4th of July, John woke up feeling lonely. It was a holiday and everyone had somewhere to go and someone to go somewhere with except of course him. His solution as always was to go get drunk.
He ripped off on the bike, rode south for a couple of hours until he found a roadhouse along the highway. He was going to have one or two but somehow ended up spending the entire afternoon sitting in the dump drinking countless beers.
From somewhere the cop appeared, lights were flashing, a siren blaring. John cranked the throttle. Soon there were two cop cars behind him and then a third. At some point he figured he wasn’t going to get away and they weren’t going to stop chasing him so he pulled the Norton over to the side of the highway.
They descended upon him as if he were America’s most wanted criminal. Guns drawn, yelling “Get on the ground.” Once they figured out he was just a drunk kid they put their guns away and proceeded with arresting him for drunken driving. The pot bellied sheriff of Miller County himself put the cuffs on John and read him his rights.
After he sat in the drunk tank for a couple of hours the pot bellied sheriff came to him and asked if there was anyone who he could call to come and take him home. He thought of his parents but didn’t want to involve them in this mess. There wasn’t anyone he could think of and the painful reality hit him between the eyes, he had no real friends.
And so, John sat in his cell with a lot of time to do a lot of thinking. John’s alcoholic bottom turned out to be the foundation on which he began to rebuild his life. The years in the factory introduced him to the life he came to know he did not want to have and yet it provided him with the time to sort some things out. It was a cell in the Miller County jail for the first time in his life all he could hear was the sound of silence. And out of the quiet came the gift of a thought, maybe he should do something about his drinking.
In the morning the deputy gave him a bowl of Frosted Flakes and a little container of orange juice before leading him through the jail house to the bright sunlight of the free world. Hung over, exhausted and ashamed, he walk along a blacktop highway for miles until another thought penetrated his mind, maybe, he couldn’t quit drinking.
A self imposed period of sobriety gave him the courage to try school again. With great hopes and encouragement from his mother he enrolled at the community college.
John was beginning to realize the degree to which his drinking was at the root of his problems.
After a shaky beginning John began to get the hang of being a student and eventually he actually enjoyed going to classes. After he finished his second year of college he knew it was time to do something about the secrets in his life.
He sat in the waiting room hoping no one he knew saw him go into the shrink’s office. Once his name was called
there was no going back. He didn’t know if he was supposed to lie on the sofa or sit in the chair and eventually chose to sit on the sofa. Over the next several months this shrink and he talked about his family, they talked about anxiety, they talked about depression, they talked about panic attacks, they talked about homosexuality, and they talked about alcoholism. Slowly, piece by piece John realized he wasn’t as defective or unique as he once thought he was. Eventually he came to think of himself as almost normal. He came to understand he had allowed other’s opinions to control how he felt about himself. He came to believe the opinions of others were not actually any of his business and the gay aspect of his life wasn’t what should define who he was.
This experience of self discovery had such a profound effect on the young Lincoln kid that he decided to pursue a degree in social work and give back some of what he had been given.
John stood on a Georgian sidewalk outside the big red doors of the Methodist Church. People were beginning to trickle through the doors and they seemed normal enough. He wanted to run but knew this was something he had to do.
Taking one last deep breath he went through the big red doors and followed the signs leading the way to the room where a placard hung marked with two big A’s .
What he found was almost unbelievable; these people seemed to actually be enjoying themselves. Some of them smiled at him and he forced a smile back. He found a chair near the back of the room and the AA meeting was soon underway. They started with some ritualistic readings and then recited the Serenity Prayer. John did not know the Serenity Prayer but made a mental note to learn it. When the leader of this group asked if there where anyone here for their first meeting ever John raised his hand and tried to speak but his mouth wouldn’t work. They all said, “Welcome” and everything else was a blur of people talking about their own personal experiences until they concluded at the end of the hour by circling up, holding hands and reciting The Lord’s Prayer. John was glad he at least knew the Lord’s Prayer.
Although it had been two years since John’s arrest in Miller County and he’d managed not to drink in that time he knew he was on borrowed time. He and the shrink had talked enough about alcoholism John knew he needed to get connected with sober people or he’d eventually drink again. The doctor had told him he needed a network of friends with the same objectives. He provided John with a list of meetings and he had selected this one at random.
Afterwards everyone was standing around like they had before the meeting, chatting. A couple of people shook John’s hand and welcomed him again, but all John was thinking at this point was, get me out of here.
Back out on the sidewalk he was about to make a clean break when someone yelled, “Hey buddy.” Turning around John saw a middle aged couple making their way up the sidewalk towards him. When they got to John the man handed him a piece of paper with his name and phone number on it and then he said, “Call me, that’s if you want to.”
John said, “Okay,” taking the piece of paper and crammed it into his pocket. He politely thanked the guy. The man then said something that John would never forget, it was profound and yet so simple.
“You never have to be alone again.”
John looked at the woman and she gave him a reassuring smile and the two turned and almost like a pair of angels were gone.
When John got home to his trailer it seemed so empty. Just a few moments ago back at the AA meeting there was life. And now, loneliness was closing in on him. There had been hope and laughter and now only thoughts bouncing off the trailer walls.
About that time he found a crinkled piece of paper in his pocket. He stared at it and wondered if he had not gone to that meeting randomly. He dialed the number and that simple act may have saved his life.
They met in an all night diner. It was awkward at first but soon they were talking comfortably. George was a successful business man who had made some poor choices and was now recovering in AA. It was the beginning of a friendship unlike any John had ever known. John’s life had been derailed but there was some light beginning to shine in the eyes of the boy from Athens.
When John came out as gay to his parent’s things went pretty much like he figured it would. His mother was shocked and then cried a bit and then sat down at the kitchen table and looked sad. She was hopeful this was some kind of phase. John had a good relationship with his mother; he knew she would come around and support him eventually.
His father shook his head and walked away without a word. Their relationship had never been good and John knew this wasn’t going to make things any better. Mr. Lincoln had always been proper and always concerned about his status in the community and believed having a gay son would only damage his credibility. This father and son relationship had long ago gotten to the point of a deafening silence filling the Lincoln household.
Now, with all lines of communication down and the words, “Never amount to anything,” ringing in Johns ears he collected everything of his that remained at the house, kissed his mother, and left without a word to his father who sat supposedly reading the newspaper. The young man loved his father in some deep way and his mother told him his father loved him so it was a mystery why two people who apparently loved each other couldn’t at least be friends. He would never understand his relationship with his father and eventually just came to accept it for what it was. They were two people driven by different forces.
Out on the lawn, John reassured his mother that they would talk about this some more later. Mrs. Lincoln hugged her son and they told each other that they loved each other. John thought about taking the high road by saying goodbye to his father but decided against it because he knew he would only be punished with more silence.
When John walked across the stage to get his degree his mother beamed with pride. She had always known her baby was the kind of kid to come through in the end. She had had many sleepless nights worrying about her son and jokingly pointed out the gray in her hair and reminded her son it was his fault. Even his brother flew into town for the graduation ceremony and shook his little brother’s hand so hard the bones creaked.
When John saw George and his wife the three of them hugged in a circle. John’s eyes watered. Mrs. Lincoln sensed there was something special about these people and hugged them as if she had known them all her life. She would never come to know the hard work that her son and his friends in the program had done. She would never know about the times they sat in circles, crying or laughing, working through something nobody but them could ever understand. John had become a man but it would be by the road less traveled. He would become a counselor; he would help those in need and gather pure joy when the breakthroughs came and go home to cry behind a closed door when someone slipped away. John would step into the helping profession knowing all too well there was plenty of job security there.
The late night phone conversations with Ray were becoming further and further apart. Now the calls from the run down motels didn’t have the glamour they once had. Ray’s slurred speech and repetitive stories no longer brought envy but rather John felt sorry for his friend and wished he could somehow help him.
Eventually Ray’s band broke up and he was back in Dallas working on the dock of a furniture store loading furniture into the backs of trucks in the Texas heat. The two once best friends now almost had nothing in common and their conversations were now shallow and brief. John realized their conversations had always been shallow and fueled by memories of the past. These two young men had taken different paths in life. They had grown apart and although there was a special place in John’s heart for Ray, this chapter of his life was over.
It wasn’t too much of a surprise when John received the news that Ray had died of an alcohol overdose. He phoned his mother and told her how sorry he was but he didn’t even go to the funeral. As far as John was concerned Ray had died a long time ago.
Almost unbelievably John was offered a job in Brooklyn, New York. He thought about it for a couple of days and decided to tak
e the job. He sold his trailer to a Cambodian guy for twenty five hundred bucks and he never missed it for one single minute.
The Pride of Howard County Page 6