Jack Burns Lives!

Friends

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”
-Goethe

I journeyed eastward on I-40, the major national artery stretching from California to the Carolina Coast, yesterday. The objective was Brownsville, TN, a small, impoverished town about 65 miles from my front door, to visit a life long friend. It wasn’t a Hallmark day, by any means. The skies were deeply dark and grey, the color of gun metal. Suitable for a Victorian funeral.

In the car, an audio tape of Cormac McCarthy’s All The Pretty Horses played, a much needed mental diversion for me. Something to keep me moving forward, knowing full well that what lay ahead was hard but so very necessary. The wind howled as a few drops of rain began to hit the windshield. Holiday travelers jammed the highway with their SUV’s, almost all of them at excessive rates of speed, hellbent on getting visiting their loved ones, even if it meant endangering everyone else around them. Being Christmas time, I couldn’t bear thinking he was there alone, knowing his brothers and sisters wouldn’t come see him and neither would his sons. His dad would, but that was it.

He was a life long friend. A friend in need. A friend getting ready to spend Christmas alone and in prison.

Robert and I had become friends in fifth grade and stayed close through college. We married girls that grew up next door to one another. Bought our first family homes next door to one another.

Unfortunately, he was an undiagnosed manic depressive that self medicated with too many illicit and dangerous drugs. He sold drugs, and his involvement at very high levels of drug distribution eventually forced me to distance myself from him. I had to protect my family, and frankly, he wasn’t the same person any longer. The drugs and illness had taken their toll. We grew apart, but I thought of him often and kept up with him through his mother, one of dearest women that ever walked the earth.

His dad was a wealthy, well-known lawyer and a big time deacon in the Baptist Church. Well meaning, but misinformed. His mother, Jonetta, opened her home and her heart to me and my wife when everyone else shunned us back in ’85. I was 22 and Allison was 18 and pregnant, and we’d known one another for less than a month. Most of the so-called Christians wouldn’t even speak to us, but Jonetta not only embraced us, she put on a fabulous wedding rehearsal dinner for us in her home, an act of kindness I never forgot.

Robert loaned me the money to buy a wedding ring.

Allison and I have now been married 23 years and have three kids, and I believe Jonetta’s early support and encouragement helped us make it.

Robert’s luck eventually ran out, and he got busted. He spent a few years in the glamor slammer, thanks to his dad, but when released, his wife had left him and he was a broken man. Over the years, his relationship with his two sons deteriorated, as well. It was a pretty classic case of a guy that supposedly had everything but ended up with nothing.

Not able to sell drugs, Robert tried to find work doing odd jobs here and there, but his battle with depression and mania took too much of a toll. I found out he started using meth and other hard drugs and at points was just living on the streets or in one of this father’s Saab’s. There was no way to reach him. No phone. No address. Eventually, he contacted me, we caught up, and I tried to help as much as I could, especially during his mother’s illness. We spent a long time talking at her funeral, and I also spent time with his sons, in an effort to give them some hope about their dad. I wanted them to know that he had been a good student, a fine athlete and loyal friend and was basically just in need of professional help. He was sick, just like someone with any type of illness, except this one had to do with a chemical imbalance.

Robert’s parents, although well meaning, never really understood mental illness and thought Robert just needed “Jesus.” They thought if Robert would just “walk closer to the Lord, stop playing rock music and smoking pot,” everything would be okay. Unbeknownst to them, Robert had “given his heart to Jesus” years ago, but Jesus wasn’t really helping a whole lot. What Robert really needed was lithium.

A couple of months ago, he called and said that he’d been busted for burglary, but it was a mistake and he was innocent. I had my doubts. The trial didn’t go well, and he was convicted, getting a five year sentence. After speaking to his father about the case, I discovered that Robert was already on probation for a bad check charge and another burglary, important details Robert had failed to mention during our conversations about the case.

When he saw me walk through the doorway at the Haywood County Inmate Center, he was overcome with emotion and found it difficult to speak. It was certainly one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, seeing this man, my friend, a man that once held so much promise, in such a lowly state. We talked briefly about his case, a possible appeal and about what could be done upon his release. I promised to help him with living arrangements and work. I promised to put his things in storage, stay in touch and visit as often as I could.

Robert is now being treated but like many Americans, can’t afford the drugs each month. Pondering his mental state, I decided it must be pure hell for a person with a depressive disorder to be in prison without meds. So, I gave the jailer a cashiers check to pay for his medicine and leave a few dollars extra. I went back and made sure he knew, and he finally smiled, and told me that I “had no idea how much it meant that someone remembered him” and for me to keep praying for him.

We both cried and said our goodbyes.

As I drove westward toward the big old muddy Mississippi River, it was with a heavy heart. The mid-southern skies were now completely black and the sprinkles had become a driving rain . Northern winds occasionally shook my small car. But in a way I was happy. Happy that I had perhaps found the real meaning behind all the holiday hoopla. Happy that I was able to reach out and help a friend in need, even if only in a small way.

And as I plodded westward, toward the Delta and the River, I though a lot about something my dad used to say to me when I was a kid. Most often when we were on hunting trips in Eastern Arkansas. He used to talk about “a man you could ride the river with.” As a boy, I sorta knew what he meant, but as I grew older and saw how the world really worked, well, I fully understood what it meant. I knew that, more than anything, I wanted to be one of those men. I wanted to be someone a friend could count on. I didn’t want my friends to think they would ever have to turn around and check to make sure I’m behind them in the unpredictable boat of life.

I wanted my friends to know I’d be there. No matter what.

I’m indebted to my father for important life lesson and hope my own children understand and realize what it really means to love one’s friends. That is, perhaps, one of the greatest lessons I can teach them. To be honorable and of good character. To be loyal to one’s family and friends.
“I get by with a little help from my friends.”
- John Lennon