&@#&%! Morrissey

This is my boss...



He's not my boss anymore and he's always been a close friend more than a boss but, in my mind, he'll always be my boss.

For seven or eight years...off and on...I worked for him as a house painter. Right after I left the Army, while I was an undergraduate at Millsaps, and after I came back from graduate school, me and him spent 30 or 40 hours a week together. Sometimes workin'...sometimes fishin'...occasionally gamblin'...often just drinkin' coffee and smokin' cigarettes. That's mostly what we did.

In the mornings, I knew the second he passed through the doors at Tastee Donuts whether or not we were goin' to work. He'd sit down...really more like a violent assault on the stool and counter...next to me, already smokin', in silence. I'd stare at him trying not to laugh...

"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?," starin' off into space.

"Nothin...nothin," still tryin' not to laugh...I'd duck back into the crossword.

We'd sit like that for a few cups of coffee, half a pack of cigarettes...me trying not to laugh, him muttering curses.

Here we must stop and take a moment to recognize an Artist's mind...a true genius. Had James Joyce known him...heard him handle the language, heard him swear and curse, heard him incorporate comic book heroes and the genitals of aliens into blue tirades...he would have gone straight to his Moma's house, gotten in a fetal position, and never have written another word.

"Whhhaaaaaaaaaaaat?"

"You tell me," without looking up from the paper, "I'm just sittin' here waitin' to go to work."

Then he'd start calculating where we were in the job...what it would take to make up for a lost day...how we'd have to really get after it tomorrow. An hour later we'd be on a bream bed or at a roulette table.

Don't get me wrong...when we worked we worked like Hebrew slaves but, he understood one of life's great Truth's...you can't live to work. We spent a lot of day's 30 ft in the air hanging off a ladder with one hand, pushing a grinder with the other...caulking until you ran out of fingers that weren't bleeding, running trim at the end of the day with hands that had gone numb from exhaustion...layin' across his lap, on three feet of overhang, four stories in the air, so he could reach out and paint a stretch of facia.

In his mind there was nothing that couldn't be got...and he was never wrong. In another life he would've been a hellava engineer. I've never met anybody that understood the relationship of objects to one another any better...or a better painter. There was only one standard for the work we did...and I've got the mental scars to prove it.

We had our moments for sure. He wouldn't just curse you in ways for which there was no defense...he'd get existential on you. He asked me one time, in the middle of a masterful harangue..."You ever thought maybe you're doin' something you don't know you're doin?"

I love the fella...that's all.

I hadn't talked to him in a while though until this week. We've been gettin' the house ready to sell..the burglary and all...and we needed some painting done.

"Hey cat...what's goin' on?"

"I been meanin' to call you just talk but we got some work for you if you want it."

"Hayle yeah."

"Can you come by the house this week...we got a crack we need looked at."

"Yeah man. I'm gonna have to come over tomorrow though. I'm leavin' town Winsdee and you aaain't gonna believe where I'm goin'."

You gotta understand and you may have already guessed...the default options for where he might be goin' and what he might be doin' are far greater than those of the average person. I took him at his word.

"Where?"

"I'm goin' ta Dallas...to see PHU-&^*^' Morrissey."

"What the...WHAT," I couldn't help but laugh right into the phone, "you're ole lady's makin' you go innit she?"

"Yeah...G*** &%&*%^&^ it...she's payin for everything. G** &&%&*&...*&*Y*yu8...&^^%%#@@...&&%$#$...&%%$##...

HAHAHHAHAHAHHHHAAAAHHHAAAAahahahah...I just hope nobody gets hurt.