“Lean on me…”
Dateline: Elite #1
“You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together.”
~ Anthony Bourdain
“db, so how you been?”
I smile, and all I do is look at Kelly’s wrist.
Look at the scar that runs up the underside of his left arm. Watch as he picks up a large glass of sweet tea, watch as his hand twists slightly as he brings the glass to his mouth, watch as he gently sets the glass down.
Kelly never once looked at the glass, his eyes were locked on mine, my concerned eyes.
“Not about me Kelly, about you, how are you?”
And a big grin breaks out on his face, and slightly, ever so slight, he lifts the sweet tea filled glass maybe a tenth of an inch up from the table and tips it my way.
A slight toast.
A strong toast.
A subtle toast to me to show me that Kelly was fine.
That Kelly Jordon, was back.
“…when you’re not strong…”
“You ready to order?”
I look at Kelly, he nods, I nod, young girl in a Musselwhite’s Seafood & Grill looks at me, I nod to Kelly, she turns and, “I’ll have the Surf and Turf but can I make it just Surf & Surf?”
“…yep, no problem…”
“…okay good, thank you I’ll take the Tuna Catch of the Day, grilled and six of your fried shrimp.”
Slight turn of the order pad, “…I’ll do the blackened yellow fin tuna, no salad or anything…”
“…hush puppies…”
“…um…” I look at Kelly I really have no idea what a Hush Puppy is in my head I only see a quiet little puppy, “…um…”
“Um,” I guess meant yes, plate came out with puppies hushed into looking like fried chicken and some vegetables.
I didn’t eat either.
“Tell me about your wrist dude.”
“I tripped, stuck my hand out to stop the fall, and hurt it, thought I just sprained it.”
Then: “To tell you the truth I didn’t go to the doctor until four days later, went swimming two days after, yeah it hurt but I kept poking it with my finger to see if I could feel something broken, even used my other hand to pull on it some to see if it was dislocated…”
At that I put up my hand in the universal sign of a friend being freaked out by the seemingly…strange…way a buddy handled trying to see if he was just hurt, or screwed up hurt.
Turns out, Kelly was, screwed up hurt, “Yeah it was busted up bad,” he lifts his left arm and turns it palm side out, “in surgery they stick a plate in their and right here,” he starts pushing hard on his wrist, “right here they screwed in a whole bunch of little screws to keep the whole thing in place.”
I put the puppy thing down mid almost a bite at that.
On the other side of the table Kelly is trying to push on his wrist hard enough so I can see a screw inside there.
I put my fork down.
“Uh huh.”
“Hmm,” is all I can say.
“…and I’ll be your friend…”
Kelly eats some, the fried shrimp I think, I’m thinking it was a bad time to give up beer, when…
“Leaving for this tournament db was the hardest thing I have ever done.”
I don’t say “why,” “how come,” or “hmm,” I just say…nothing.
“Leaving my wife and kids after being home for that long of a stretch…”
I don’t ask how long it was, if it bothers you I’m sure you can Google the details I forget to ask about.
“…Ruby Kate is now almost five…”
Wow, I remember Kelly coming up to me and telling me he was going to marry Kerri, remember when he came up to me and told me they were expecting a baby, remember when he showed me the first photo of Ruby.
Wow.
“…is now almost five eats only Mac & Cheese, donuts, you like that, cinnamon rolls, yogurt, gold fish but likes the gold whales better, chocolate and cookies.”
And the problem, pretty much my diet as well.
“…I try to get her to eat other stuff but every time I asks she says back to me, ‘not now, when I turn five,’ Ruby’s got a lot of ‘not now, when I turn five,’ banked.”
The other day she told me, “I’ll try pizza when I’m five,” my son, Cole, now two and a half used to eat about anything till he started learning the ropes from his older sister…”
I have a mid-sweet tea smile on when, “…Ruby actually taught Cole how and when to say…yuck.”
Big sister: 1
Mom & dad: 0
“…I’ll help you carry on…”
“db, I’m in a happy point of my life, happy to be here, before this never missed an event in 20 years of being a pro.”
Kelly, to me, has always been the Renaissance Man of the tour.
A pre-med major at Abilene Christian University, “My college roommate is now a dentist, a great dentist and spiritual man, he’s my dentist but he never charges me, I tutored him in college in organic chemistry and he tells me that without that he wouldn’t be a dentist, now free dental man…”
Cancer took Kelly’s father at age 52, “I was 27, 27…” and for the first time the KJ smile disappears for a beat or two.
Mom was an English professor, now is a Ph.D. psychotherapist, brother, Karl, is “a world class carpenter in California, makes amazing high end furniture and writes books, is a novelist…”
“I grew up so lucky, grew up in Austin, Texas, then moved to Waco, Texas, when my father became Publisher of Word Publishing, a Christian book publisher.”
“Lucky how?”
“My father would invite authors to our house for dinner, Christian authors, they would come, eat dinner with us then get up and talk about their book or what they were working on, amazing, we had in our house at our dinner table…Billy Graham, Ann Graham Lotz, Max Lucado, James Dobson, just amazing.”
I write all the names down, told Kelly I knew who Billy Graham was, but had him spell all the other names for me.
Spell them.
“…you just call on me brother.”
“You religious, Kelly?”
And with that question he sensed, I’m not so much.
For the next hour, and I mean at least 60 minutes, we talked about religion, the bible, God, Jesus, and spirituality.
It was an honest discussion between friends, good friends.
Honest enough, gut level core stuff. I won’t go into most of it since it was also very private.
Kelly spoke of the Bible, I spoke of my not believing in it much.
Kelly spoke of God, I spoke of still searching, told him I was at 60/40 belief, 60 not believing but, “…I’ve come down from 90/10.”
Those 60 plus minutes may be in the top ten 60 plus minutes of my life.
It was never give or take, never all or nothing…it was in fact what religion should be…spiritual. Should be just about love for one another.
Should be just about The Kind, In Man.
A conversation that could have driven two buddies apart actually brought us closer together.
Wish the world could do that.
“…you just call on me brother.”
Our talk continued out into the parking lot where like kids we would each take turn blurting out thoughts.
Two adults in a misty rain, puddles lit by restaurant lights.
We would get quiet as other people passed us on the way to their cars, then once we heard the engine start we would shout out staccato style a thought.
A counter thought.
“Between us right, db.”
“Yep.”
Kelly talked of watching the History Channel, “…and all the Knights Templar stuff, the Holy Grail, just fascinating, what if someone finds it db, what if, what could happen?…”
I talk of Mary Magdalene and how I think, “…a cup is just a cup…” that “the Holy Grail, the search for it, is the search for what should be found in all of us.”
“What’s that?”
And as a young couple walked by us and giggled in the rain as they ran to their car I leaned in a bit to Kelly and in a voice soft for a friend said….
“Love man, I think it is all about love, that’s the Holy Grail, Kelly I’m being serious now, I think there is a heaven, 90/10 for it, and I think that we are standing in it, right now, this is heaven and when love comes to all, it will become what Earth is supposed to be…”
“All about love, you’re right db, and I hope you are right on it all.”
We then did the one arm man hug, told each other, “Love ya man,” and both drove out the misty parking lot, I turned left, Kelly went right.
With the windshield wipers on low intermittent brushing off the mist I drove listening to Bill Withers “Live in Concert at Carnegie Hall,” play the song of this series, had it on repeat so it played four times during the trip back to the rental house.
Sweep.
Mist.
White line shine.
Sweep.
Mist.
And halfway through the second time through the song came to me this thought; Kelly Jordon my friend you have found the Holy Grail.
Your grail: Kerri, Ruby Kate and Cole.
And the family we call, The Elites.
Welcome back my friend.
And Thank You for the spirituality you showed, you told.
58/42…
“…we all need somebody to lean on.”
Lean On Me
Bill Withers
db
“Listen to many, speak to a few.”
William Shakespeare