The Reverie ((For Larry J. Yankovech) (a Tribute))

I guess looking at it, now being an old man of sixty-five, I remember the way Lorimar, we called him Lorimar, his real name being Larry, and how he made me laugh. We had taken a trip once, slept in the State Fairgrounds the police chased us out and we had to walk home three o’clock in the morning, and we walked by a farm, and we stole two carrots, we were so hungry. We grew up together; he lived next door to us. We’d play pool in his basement, play Elvis Presley records, one song always reminds me of Lorimar, that being, “Because of Love,” there was this album of Elvis’ that just came out called “Girls! Girls! Girls!” and that song was on that album he had just purchased, and the album was sitting to the left of me, on a table, the record player playing that very album on that very table, and that song was playing, and he was playing the album as we played pool. Oh, I suppose I could talk on and on about Lorimar, “Come on, Chick,” he’d say, stepping up and down on his toes, he had one web toe, and jogging around the pool table, “let’s get drunk?”  And we’d hit the road and look for someone to buy us a case of beer. We’d come back and sit down in his garage patio, and get drunk.  Oh, I’m sure his younger sister Nadine thought we were nuts, and I guess she’d be right, we were. He sure was fun.

       Anyhow, last night more like this morning, November, 8, 2012, I had a dream of Lorimar—I had only seen him once in the last fifty-years which was some twenty-five years ago, he would be now sixty-six years old, anyhow, in the dream, we had taken his car and went up into Northern Minnesota, and we parked his car at a hotel, and went down to a bar, and on our way back, in a taxi, we stopped at a gas station, I wanted to get something, and I lost my shoe in the gas station, and was looking for it, and the taxi driver came in to ask what was the delay, and Lorimar took off in the taxi, of all things. Well, it would have been all right, maybe, but we had a car, and I told the taxi driver just that, that we had a car and that I just didn’t understand, but if we went back to the hotel, he’d most likely find his car. Well, I woke up, that was the end of the dream; in the morning the sun was up and the day was cool, I asked my wife to see if she could find his telephone number and address on the internet, I sensed a need to. We’re in Lima, Peru, and he’s in Glenwood, Minnesota, remember, and again it’s been twenty-five years since we talked, I was a little nervous.

       I called the number about 11:30 a.m. there was no response, I figured he was out to lunch with his wife. I had lunch with my wife, and after lunch I tried again, his sister answered, I explained who I was, and asked if she remembered me, and she said, “Oh yaw,” I think she remembered the worse of me, back fifty-years ago, I was a wild one. Anyhow, I said, “Is Lorimar home, I’d like to talk to him.”

       She hesitated, it was hard for her to speak I had noticed, nearly tongue-tied, hard for her to get the words out, I asked a second time, “He passed away,” she said, with a near cracked voice. I was standing outside by my garden, my knees started to bed, legs drop, and ankles weaken.

       “When did that take place,” I asked. She again hesitated, I had to ask twice, “August 25, 2012, he had cancer, and other complications.” Then she went on to explain, his wife had left him for a dear friend of his some eight years past, and that she was living with him for the past six years, and he had many physical complications during this time. I myself understood quite well, it was twenty-five years since I had seen him, and he was at that time way overweight and drinking a lot. At that moment I had gotten a tear in my eye. The noisy neighbors drowned out some of what Nadine was trying to say, to tell me, but she was feeling freer to talk now about this and that, but I had to bid her farewell. I liked him a lot, because, well, just because he was himself, so easy to say, Ah, yes, he was a lot of fun.

No: 974/11-8-2012