"You think I've lived such a fascinating life that I should write a book, do you? Well, I don't know nothing 'bout writing no book. But you do. You should write my biography. I'll tell you the stories, and you bung it all down on paper like that Shakespeare guy. We'll split the proceeds fifty-fifty."
"I'd love to do just that," I said. "But I'm too busy right now with other stuff. I'd never get the book finished."
"I've been making a pretty close study of your stuff lately," Bobby said, "and it's all wrong. The trouble with you is that you don't plumb the wellsprings of human nature and whatnot.
"You just think up some rotten yarn about some-dam-thing-or-other and shovel it into that blog of yours. But if you tackled my life, you'd have something worth writing about."
His suggestion was pretty much on point. I was indeed the man to write his biography. Our lives have been bound tightly together since our early days. Bobby Gene and his mother were living with our grandfather when Bobby was knee-high to a grasshopper. One day his mom walked to the little country store, caught a bus for Michigan, and vanished like morning dew in July. She left a note for Bobby and his grandfather but nothing else.
Bobby was too much for my grandfather to handle—like trying to wrangle a tornado with a butterfly net—so my mother brought him to live with us.
He was a huge influence on my life, being close family and my only friend in our tiny community of older folks with no small children. I was the well-behaved one who never bucked authority. Bobby was different; he loved getting me into trouble, not out of malice but because deep in his heart he knew rebellion was good for me.
I admired him for his spunk and his style. He wore a leather jacket with the collar turned up, jeans with 4-inch cuffs (making it look like he was wading through invisible water), and his hair was styled in a pompadour Elvis would have envied. He carried a comb in his hip-pocket to keep the hair perfect. I'd follow him anywhere. I often did. It usually got us into some sort of trouble that made for great stories decades later.
The best example of his contribution to molding my character involves his teenage scheme to train performing cats for movies and television. He brought kittens to my bedroom one afternoon because the girl next door loved kittens, and Bobby loved her. The story has been re-told many times over the years, and the number of kittens has miraculously multiplied like biblical loaves and fishes—from the actual three to as many as thirteen in some tellings.
When his best-laid plans went awry (as they do when felines are involved), the girl next door was discovered in my bedroom with Bobby. I attempted to escape by jumping from my bedroom window and falling like a hailstorm into my great-aunt's prized petunias. My father witnessed the whole rigamaroll. The expression on Dad's face that day suggested he was reconsidering every life choice that had led him to that moment.
In due time, Bobby's insistence on following the example of Frank Sinatra and doing it his way turned on him. He'd tried to avoid spending days in school by disguising his identity and sneaking out. Unfortunately for him, flaunting his cleverness and boasting of his escapades neutralized his 'secret identity.'
He was taken to reform school the next day, which was regretted by all who knew him, but no one missed him more than I did. The house felt emptier than a church on Super Bowl Sunday.
When he was released, he surprised everyone by going straight to Michigan to be with his mother. Being a reformed juvenile brought him to realize he needed his mother's guiding hand. Either that or having a stepfather who worked for Chrysler and drove a new Imperial every year was too tempting for him to stay away. Some principles bend easily when they're parked next to luxury.
Bobby himself found employment with a Detroit contractor and was soon wooing the owner's daughter with the same charm that had gotten us into—and occasionally out of—so much trouble back home. He brought the girl to Crystal Cove to show her off to old friends and family. It was an impulsive decision, and the two of them didn't tell anyone they were leaving Michigan.
It wasn't intended to be a kidnapping; he simply brought an underage girl from Michigan to Tennessee without telling anyone and without getting permission—the kind of minor detail Bobby considered optional in life's instruction manual. Still, the father forgave him; no charges were brought, and Bobby continued to work for the man. It's a testament to Bobby's ability to be loved and accepted even though he was delinquent and wore that fact like a badge of honor.
Bobby soon fathered a baba daughter. He didn’t spend much time with her, leaving while she was still an infant. Apparently, he was unable to stay in one place for an extended length of time, his feet as restless as his spirit. Still, the girl's mother told her daughter so many engaging tales about Bobby that she grew up to love him and as a young woman, went to the trouble of tracking him down. She didn't consider herself abandoned; she thought of him as a wild bird that needed to fly to live.
Eventually, Bobby settled down, married a woman who could match his spirit adventure for adventure, and moved into a house next door to his mother. They were all back in the hills of Crystal Cove where the saga began. It was clear to everyone that the boy who'd been left by his mother so long ago needed to be near her to be truly happy. Bobby, his wife, and his mother all lived happily ever after and celebrated life by regularly attending the bingo games in Murray, NC, where Bobby's excited shouts of "BINGO!" could probably be heard three counties over.
I once asked what kept him going and where he got the confidence to attempt his exploits, he told me, "Life is stern and life is earnest, and if you want to make the most of it, you must blaze your own trail. Follow your own path."
"Something in that," I said, recognizing the wisdom in his words despite his mangling of Longfellow.
Despite everything that Bobby did, hiding none of it and boasting about it all, my mother accepted and loved him too. Was it because she took the little tyke in and loved him like her own? I'm sure of it. Mom never needed to forgive Bobby for anything he did because she never blamed him; never considered him at fault for anything. I received the same verdict in her eyes—acquitted of all charges before they were even filed.
I'm happy that my mom, my aunt, and Bobby Gene were together for those several years. It provided a happy ending to their sojourn here on Earth. I can only hope that my ending here will be as happy as theirs. I loved them all, and I miss them every day.
They made me who I am—Bobby teaching me to take risks, Mom showing me how to love unconditionally, and the whole bunch demonstrating that family is what you make it, not just what you're born into.
What gave me that impression I don’t know—probably the big, broad, flexible outlook that comes from knowing someone like Bobby Gene.
Love this touching personal story. It ties together the themes of family, unconditional love, and how Bobby shaped who you became. I knew Bobby of course but not in the way you knew him.
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