3.

The traveler must have his ritual. For me, the ritual was to pick up a six-pack of Dixie the minute I hit Baton Rouge, regardless of the hour. All across hot and thirsty Texas and wet and verdant Louisiana I would dream of those ice cold long necks, that funky Dixie flavor unmatched around the world, that earthy loamy taste that told you once and for all that you were home again.

So there we were at the grocery store buying beer at 7 a.m. Red Mark laughed at the decadence of it all but the ritual was not complete. Without opening the beers I wheeled us down College Drive and into the parking lot of the apartment complex where my friend Fontenot lived. That was another part of the ritual. No matter the time of day or night, it was necessary that I look up old Fontenot and make sure that he was still breathing. I parked the car and let Pineapple out of the back seat. He baptized an azalea bush and then walked up the steps to Fontenot’s door. He knew the ritual too. I rapped on the door until Fontenot answered, looking half dead and frightened. 7 a.m. knocks on the door for freaks like he and I were unwelcome. But Fontenot smiled and said, “Piney,” as my dog ran inside. He looked at me and said, “Hey man,” and he smiled and it was good to be home. I introduced him to Red Mark and then we went inside. Fontenot was always down with a cold one for breakfast. And now came the last part of the ritual. The Clash. Red Mark liked to ask rhetorically if there was ever a better band than the Clash. They certainly were a fine group, but my interest in them was narrowed to one song, Rock the Casbah. I didn’t care that it was a hit; I loved that barrelhouse piano opening and those shattering guitars, the almost unintelligible lyrics, the political overtones, the simply great four minute and twenty second jam that is Rock the Casbah. And Fontenot had it on vinyl. I sipped a Dixie. My dog walked around outside, recognizing the old smells. I had assed out everything in this apartment, driven Mrs. A. to hysterics, broken in through the upstairs window like a SEAL to steal my own weed, woken to huffers and Jack Daniels, watching Apocalypse Now on an endless loop for a whole day. I had shared Fontenot’s suffering and inflicted my own upon him. He had born witness to the destruction that had been me and Mrs. A. You could see it in his eyes, the gratitude that I hadn’t killed her or myself. And he could see it in my eyes, the love that men have for each other, true and beautiful brother love.

We tried to dragoon Fontenot into the Jazz Fest but he said no. Too many people, too big a city, too far from home. He feared getting lost and drunk in some strange town. It reminded him too much of his roving past. He was a man of habits, no matter if a slew of them were bad. But he was an ass-kicking chef and a handsome man who painted and made weird electronic music years ahead of its time. He was as faithful as an old cat which reminded me to look for his tortoise shell calico. I didn’t see her and asked old Fontenot where she was. The look on his face. I’ll never forget it. He might have lived the rest of his life and no one would have asked him about his cat at 7 a.m. over a beer and a bong hit. He shook his head. The truth must out.

“I just got tired of her always bitching,” he said as if he was describing an annoying woman. “So I took her to the dumpster three buildings away and left her next to it.”

“What.”

Fontenot looked at me. His eyes were wet and pleading. Please don’t judge me, they said. He had already annihilated himself over this terrible misdeed.

“I went back to look for her the next day,” said Fontenot. “I called her a long time. She didn’t come.”

“I’m sure somebody picked her up,” I said.

“I sure hope so,” said Fontenot. “She was an inside cat her entire life.”

Red Mark stepped in from the porch where he’d been killing a butt. “Ready to go?” he said.

“Sure.”

Sure. Enough catching up for now. Later there might be times even better than this, where all our cats were safely tucked in their beds, where mornings began with waffles and eggs and not whiskey beer and weed. Another time, another day, but not this one.

“Goodbye, my friend.”

“Goodbye,” said Fontenot. “Thanks for stopping by.”