A flower from Beavis – winter 1993/September, 1994

"…And it’s raining, all over the world…Raining, all over the world…Tonight; the longest night."
-Electric Light Orchestra, "Showdown"

We called this one particular hustler Beavis. God love him, he was so handsome, but unfortunately, he wasn’t very intelligent. About as dumb as he was good lookin’. Which was Very. A shame, really.

He was passed between various rich men on the island, or he passed himself, I don’t know. But fairly regularly, someone new was "taking care" of him, helping him out, funding his drug dealings, his circumstances always changing. He was a regular at the One Saloon at the time of my employment there. When I would bartend, he would always come to my bar. He would only come up three or four times because he didn’t drink too much, especially compared to the rest of the crowd.

He always tipped 100%. He would linger at the bar, just a bit, smiling at me, then leave. A couple of times he brought me a single carnation. He had pale blue/green eyes, sexy and direct, coupled with a killer smile. And he’d always smile that hot smile at me as he was asking me if I could hold his gym bag behind the bar, for awhile. "Sure." I’d always say, always smiling back.

The bouncer saw our little exchange one night, dragged me to the back and proceeded to explain that Beavis kept a lot of coke in his gym bag, and, if he were to get busted while it was in my possession, I could and would go down hard, too. Oh….Ohhh…Shit. So I found him, real quick-like, and returned his bag. "I can’t hold your gym bag anymore, dude." He knew I knew.

He stared at me for a moment, a weird, shamed expression lingering on his face, smiled a little, and said, almost soundlessly, "Ok." After this encounter, he still came in, but not nearly as much. He would smile at me as he came in, from a distance, but got drinks from the other bartenders. For a while anyway, he stopped bringing his gym bag.

Some months later, I quit the bar, taking a job as a production assistant, and saw much less of him. Not just him, but everyone from the bar. My new job required me to be there between 8 and 10 a.m. daily, depending on what was happening progress-wise with the magazine. So I stopped going out so much, and staying out so late.

I didn’t see Beavis for a length of time during the summer. Those months were tough for him, I think. ___ heard it through the grapevine that his new daddy, a lawyer, had kicked him out, and that, once again, he was staying with someone new. Then, a few weeks later, the same story applied to the new daddy as well. Later in the summer, Beavis was diagnosed with HIV. And then, in September, he couldn’t find a place to stay.

It rained through late September into October. So long and so hard the storms would rage, drenching everyone and everything, flooding the lower elevations of the island, like warm rain pouring from a faucet. And the sun would still shine through. It seemed to be too bright always for the current conditions. I was fascinated by this phenomenon, because it rarely stormed like that in Missouri. Storms in Missouri were cloudy and gray there, no sun, only rain.

So, during these storms, one stayed put, wherever one might be. Sometimes the cable or the electricity would be out, so I would sit on the front walkway or back deck of the apartment and watch the plants and trees bending with the gusting wind, the whipping mist and rain, wetness spotting my extended arms. Storms were a source of comfort.

During one of these showers in late September, I saw Beavis, from a distance, coming towards me. A little thinner, but instantly recognizable. His head was cocked downward, looking a few feet directly in front of him, choosing his path, silent, steady, and rhythmic, sadness surrounding him. He walked directly below me, on the sidewalk, never looking up. I remained quiet while he passed, watching his pace watching him think. He walked in his boots and jeans and white tee shirt, soaked through, walking towards no destination. I saw him twice more that day, still walking.

I had a friend in Key West that would respond to whatever was traumatizing me at the moment with a heartfelt, yet funny sounding "Poor, poor baby! Will you be all right?" Her tweaked sincerity could right my perspective quickly and always made me smile. Poor, poor baby, I thought, as Beavis continued walking, will you be all right? What’s to become of you?

The rain continued late into the evening, stopping briefly overnight, then resuming until the late morning of the next day.