Blues to Blood

“Rolled out of Nashville heading west with the evening sun. The ferry ride at dawn the next morning marked the end of a seven-year ride that was branded on the very essence of my being. The ride was over. Where could it possibly go from here? The half-life of the angel dust dwindled into the no-life of depression. I was certain my life was over; I simply needed to wait for my body to catch up with my mind. The car drove itself the last 40 miles to the farm for I was elsewhere, living in the world of what might have been. Constance was waiting and then there was Joseph. Joseph was a Texas-trained cutting horse who knew no fear. The last thing Joe did before Connie Sue plucked him from Nashville was to become a TV star. Jerry Reed of Smokey & The Bandit fame did a pilot with another Hollywood forgettable and it was called Concrete Cowboy. Jerry rode Joseph during the first episode and every show thereafter in the opening credits. The show lasted a few months before it was cancelled. John Foulks, the owner of the stable, said Joe was a bit too much horse for Jerry’s riding skills. I wanted to bring the horse in the house to watch himself on television, but Constance did not think he would fit.” “The dark day arrived when I was no longer able to say no to myself. I decided that my life as I had known it was over. All I had worked for, all I ever dreamed had ended. The only thing I cared about was making damn sure I did not run out of alcohol.” “Dreams eroded into delusions, clarity into haze. Life lost any meaning—was not worth living. The fog of depression would never lift without a drink, slowly returning during the endless hours of waiting for the next one.” “I kept finding myself on Gifford Avenue where I grew up. My grandfather would be lying in the gutter, face down. That was how I always found him. I could not wake him—he was dead. I wanted to talk to him, so I turned him over. I was looking down at myself—then I woke up.”