“Do you miss it Mike?” Shirley asked me as we sat at her kitchen table last night.
A last second invitation turned into a long conversation about everything from gossip of various public people to what happens after you die. Her question was about Union Mission.
“No,” I quickly fired back. “I don’t. There are some people I miss and there were some perks that I enjoyed but I should have left long before I did.”
“You don’t look like you miss it,” she thoughtfully replied. “You seem to finally be enjoying yourself. You had been through so much but you are certainly different now than you were then.”
I am no longer that guy.
I’ve worn a tie once since May. It was in late June and I had just returned from St. Martin. The occasion was an awards dinner honoring “Fifty men making a difference” and I was one. There were also three special awards distributed by an African-American organization.
Keller Deal and I thought it would be funny if we fielded an “All White” table to ensure integration and sure enough we stuck out like a sore thumb. Joe Driggers sat with us. At the end of the night, I was honored with one of the special recognitions and because this was the last time that I was representing Union Mission there was a standing ovation.
On the stage I was handed a plaque and inscribed on it was “Rev. Micheal Elliott, Former President Union Mission.” I cracked up, jumping off the stage and ran to Keller so that she could see it too. She burst into laughter and we just stood there while people clapped giggling and having our last Union Mission moment together.
Joe Driggers couldn’t stand it so he had to see what we were laughing at. When he did he gave a sympathetic shrug of a shoulder, looked me in the eye and said, “You’re a has-been.”
Since then I haven’t been to anything that didn’t revolve around a Beach Bum’s existence. The Breakfast Club, the beach, the Bored meeting, Bar Church, the Beloved Back dock, Shirley’s sad little holy dock, Johnny O and Judy’s daily “whine and cheese” and Friday nights in the “combat zone” with my drunken bicycle to listen to Sam Adams and Gordon play.
Sure I did go to New Orleans (which is a trip that Conner and I cannot reconstruct in our minds), Atlanta, L.A. and Pittsburgh but they do not count because I was taking a Sabbatical from the Sabbatical when they occurred.
And sure Rebekah now breaks into my house after I’ve double locked the doors to keep her out carrying calendars, pens, papers and deadlines that she shoves down my throat. (I am thinking of training Goddess to be an attack killer to see if that keeps her away! If I didn’t know she has my best interest at heart I might!)
Though let’s be honest. None of that is important. What is important is what happened this morning at the Breakfast Club! Of all of the Beach Bums Johnny O is by far the best dressed. I show up in tattered running shorts and a tee shirt with a hole under the arm.
Everybody who works at the Club looks like they are professional Dumpster Divers.
Johnny O shows up in a velvet sweater vest, a plaid shirt underneath, slacks with creases, AND SOCKS! As you might imagine he has his fair share of groupies.
It was bound to happen. A couple of weeks ago one stooled up sitting next to Johnny O who was sitting next to Whitley who was sitting next to me. While we are sipping coffee, discussing this week’s Sunday School lesson and developing our top ten list of TSA employees that we want to “pat us down”, this groupie slides his hand down Johnny’s thigh.
We’ve been friends for almost a quarter of a century but I’ve never seen Johnny O eyes get that large while he attempted to shallow the coffee he had just sipped. Of course as Chaplain of the Breakfast Club he came to me for counseling and I absolved him from the fleeting moment of joy that he received from the experience.
We both thought it was over.
But this morning, aforementioned groupie showed up again and sat next to Johnny O who sat next to Whitley who sat next to me. Johnny O was so sharply dressed that everyone who worked at the Breakfast Club went to the back room. We were discussing “world peace” I think, when it happened again. Aforementioned groupie slid aforementioned hand down aforementioned thigh.
Johnny O’s aforementioned eyes grew large again.
All of that to say, I may be a “has-been” but I thank God that I am not Johnny O wearing sweater vests and slacks with creases for coffee at the Breakfast Club because that is a breeding ground for groupies.
