Southern Story Standoff

I’m standing in my favorite coffeehouse in the world (Open Eye, Carrboro NC), innocently waiting for my drink. Minding my own business.

In walks a friend, someone I hadn’t seen in weeks, possibly months.

There’s something different about him. Oh, that would be the sterile pad covering the lower part of his throat.

Almost as if it were covering… a tracheotomy scar?

“What’s up?” I say. And did I mention my buddy was a little wild-eyed?

“Not much,” my friend rasps.

Dammit. He HAS had a tracheotomy.

“How things by you?” he asks.

Oh my God. He’s not only held back his story, he’s just checked me (think chess).

I have to respond. And ss a storyteller myself, i know I have two options, neither of them great:

1. I can blow him off as politely as possible, and try to get the condensed version of whatever has happened either from other friends, or from the man himself when I have more time or he has less time.

2. I can open myself up for the narrative, right there. And this is tricky, because there’s a code of conduct involved. Once I open myself up, I have to let him tell the story in full, as he sees fit.

It could be five minutes, or it could be an hour and five minutes. It could be as straightforward as Hemingway or as ornate as Faulkner. It could be as clean as… well, no Southern writer I know of, but it could be clean. Or it could be as profanity-filled as a Navy riot, possibly describing things I didn’t know were physically possible or even part of the human imagination.

You just never know with these things.  You also never know if it’ll be worth the effort, or if it’ll be something you immediately want to scrub out of your mind.

But that’s the chance you take.

Once you start, you can’t stop the story. It’s worse than hitting someone’s Mom. They can hit back. But once you cut a story short, you’ve essentially killed it, and wounded the storyteller.

And there will be payback.

So… what to do?

“It’s just been a lot of hurry up and wait. You know,” I reply.

The coward’s way.

“Boy do I,” his rasp now even more pronounced.

Is he doing that on purpose? Can he modulate with that scar? How long do they stay open? I could ask, but…

“I gotta run,” I say, coffee now firmly in hand. “But call me, let’s catch up.”

He gives me the look. The look that says, ‘Next time, I own you.’

“Yeah, my brother, we’ll catch up,” he wheezes.

I turn and shuffle out the door, in shame.

I’ve let a good storyteller down, and I’ve left a possible great story hanging out there. But next time. Next time.

Maybe even with a drink or two. I wonder. What happens if you slam a beer with a reasonably fresh tracheotomy scar?

So many questions…

And because it might save a life, here’s this clip: