The Undertaker

Terri and I met at a Bruce Springsteen Concert in Oakland when we were young and Bruce's liver was a lot older. She was a reporter for an on-line weekly e-paper and rock blog in Mendocino, a stringer actually, all bright-eyed and serious, hoping to catch the big break with an in-depth retrospective piece on the inner meaning of Springsteen's lyrics. Me? I had cut class for the week and hitched my way up the coast from LA, hoping to catch the music and some fun with the tailgaters and groupies in the parking lot. Don't ask me why, but for some strange reason we stuck. The unity of opposites? Who knows, but we had eight incredible years together and a lot of good times, right to the bitter end. When it came, I was left with a lot of pain and a gaping hole where someone else should be — a hole I thought could never be filled. Fortunately, I had all those good memories of her too. Memories. Without my memories of Terri, I would never have made it. They were the parts of her I could tuck away in the back corner of my mind and pull out whenever things got really bad, when the hurting parts of me ripped loose and started to fly away. Those were the times I needed something firm to hold onto until I could pull myself back together. That was why they could kill me if they wanted to, but I refused to let them hi-jack my memories of Terri. They were too precious. I owed them everything.

There's an old saying, “that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger,” but it's not true. Things can maim and hurt too, and leave you an emotional cripple. I've got to hand it to Terri. She fought the disease for many months and as she did, she taught me what real determination and courage were all about. When she finally did die, I fell into a black hole. I couldn't help it, but I had had more than I could stomach of doctor's offices, hospitals, medicine smells, denatured alcohol, pill bottles, flowers, funeral homes, and the musky smell of freshly turned dirt. Funeral homes. I swore I would never enter one again, not on my feet anyway. Even today, the smell of cut flowers and organ music can push me right over the edge, and all because of one tiny little lump, a growth no bigger than a pea.

I was numb at her funeral. When it was over, I piled into my Nissan 350-Z and headed south to Mexico, determined to drink them out of tequila. The next three weeks were a blur. Like Jimmy Buffet, I ended up with a blown flip-flop, an unwanted tattoo, and vague memories of too many barroom floors. I'm still not sure where I was or what I was doing, but they say my 350-Z hit a semi head-on out on the main highway. The Mexican cops found a charred body inside. Everyone assumed it was me, but it was probably some poor, dumb Mexican kid having the time of his life in a drunken gringo's Japanese sports car. Whatever, they packed the crispy critter back to LA and buried him next to Terri, and I'm told they threw me one Hell of a funeral. Coming right on the heels of Terri's, our friend's worst problem was to make sure they wore a different dress or a new tie. They didn't even have to ask for directions. It was sympathy squared, with tons of tears and an instant replay for those who missed the first show.

Whatever, the crispy critter wasn't me. I saw a copy of the Mexican death certificate and the florid obituary that somebody wrote for the Pasadena newspaper. The eulogy was so stirring; they said Doug never did stop crying. When they finally let me out of the drunk tank in San Jose and I talked my way back across the border a few weeks later, it really pissed off a lot of people. Talk about your emotional pratfall. All those tears wasted, all those interrupted vacations, all the schedules that had to be rescheduled — how rude.

That was their problem. Me? I had hit bottom. No, I had crashed through bottom and landed in my private little hell somewhere below the sub-basement. Funny though. Even when I sank to the lowest point I could get, after mopping up half the bars in Baja, Terri didn't abandon me. I saw her face staring up at me from the bottom of every tequila glass I downed. She was watching me from the dark shadows in the corner of the filthy hotel room I crashed in. Whenever I paused to raise my blood-shot eyes to the puffy, fast-moving clouds in that high, blue Mexican sky, I saw her face up there on the clouds looking down, watching over me. No, Terri had not deserted me. She would always be there, but I knew she was not very happy watching what I was doing to myself.