Good Enough

Billy Blackman

Published in

The Southern Voice

5 min readAug 1, 2024

“There ain’t much in this old world ‘cept tough work and tender love,” he said as we stood in the parking lot, talking after the show. “And I guess that’s good enough!”

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“You mean you don’t remember me?” He looked puzzled.

“People called me Goody and still do,” he explained. “You know, like the Goody headache powder, ’cause I started inhaling so many of ’em after I hurt my back a long time ago when I was a’workin’ on the railroad.”

He turned his head sideways and shot a half grin in my direction.

“Are you serious? Do you not remember me? I drank Southern Comfort on the rocks, smoked Marlboros, and always sat at the end of the bar at Rocky’s Lounge.”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” I said. “You know I am gettin’ pretty old, and my memory is fading faster than my britches.”

“Well, I don’t know about the pretty part,” he quipped.

We laughed.

His eyes were blue and bloodshot. His beard was white except around his mouth. It was a different color. If I had to guess, I’d say it was the color of the last thing he ate, whatever that was.

He apologized for the way he looked. He said he’d come straight to the club from work.

“But if a workin’ man is over-worried ‘bout how he smells when he gets in from work, then he should’a been’a cake baker or an Avon lady.”

We laughed.

“And since I can’t cook or sell perfume, and when I get in from work, my cats always try to rake dirt on top of me… well, there you go!”

“Cats will do that,” I said. “My cat did that to me when I was learning how to play the fiddle.”

We laughed some more.

”I used to have a cat that I had to tie to a cinder block when company would come to visit,” he said. “If I didn’t tie him, that little mouser would dart out from under the porch and attack whoever walked up the steps.”

“That was a bad-ass cat.”

“I don’t know why I kept him around,” he said. “For entertainment, I guess. But he also chased away anyone with a pamphlet, so I guess that was reason enough.”

He said the cinder block and the cat stayed with the house after he and his wife divorced, and he walked away.

“To me, that house was just a place to go to get out of the rain,” he said. “But a home is a place to go to get out of a storm, and I was right in the middle of one at the time and had nowhere to go because that place was just a house to me.”

He was no saint. But then again, it’s hard to find a saint these days, especially one that used to own an attack cat.

But here we were, standing in the parking lot after closing time, him philosophizing and me trying to remember who he was, both of us somewhere between sainthood and sinner-stage.

He had been inside, sitting by himself and listening to the music.

“It was just like the old days, me at the bar and you on stage,” he said. “But this time without the whiskey, the hangovers, and the smoke.”

“Some things change, some stay the same,” I said as I inched toward my truck.

I don’t know what it is about a crowded place. The lonely seem to be drawn there just so they can sit by themselves.

“You don’t remember me from Rocky’s?” he asked again.

He said his life was different now since he was washed in the Blood and trying to do better.

“I’m almost caught up on my child support now,” he boasted as if wanting to prove to me that he was trying to do better.

“I used to look like a beach ball wearing Liberty overalls,” he laughed. But I’ve lost a lot of weight since the doctor gave me the long face a year ago.”

After a few quiet moments, he broke the silence.

“Hell, I lost so much weight that if it weren’t for the snuff can in my back pocket, I’d have no ass-a-tall.”

We laughed.

“I know you like horses,” he told me, in an attempt to change the subject. “I do too.”

He tipped up a styrofoam cup to sip coffee as black as burnt motor oil, the kind country folks would pour on a dog to treat the mange.

“I’m a horse whisperer who got caught in a stampede of deaf horses.”

We laughed.

“And I have the scars to prove it,” he boasted, as if getting run over and stomped was something to brag about.

A couple of coughs turned into a coughing jag, and he spilled some of his coffee onto the asphalt.

Silence…

“You know my life is like the fading center line on that Lost Highway that Hank sang about, and living with some of my memories is like trying to sleep with the light on,” he said as he took his shoe and tried to smooth out the coffee he had spilled, maybe also trying to smooth out some of his life that he had also spilled that night.

Silence…

“So, you don’t remember me?” he asked again. “Well, I sure hope when my time comes that The Man Upstairs has a memory as bad as yours!”

“Me, too.”

“But I’m trying to do better, and I hope that’s good enough.”

Click here to buy Billy’s book, Seasons in Beulah Land

One reviewer said, “Reading this book is like going back to my childhood and young adult life. It brings cherished memories back, and the beautifully crafted words bring smell, taste, and the wonderful freedom of youth.”

Good Enough

“There ain’t much in this old world ‘cept tough work and tender love,” he said as we stood in the parking lot, talking after the show. “And I guess that’s good enough!”

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“You mean you don’t remember me?” He looked puzzled.

“People called me Goody and still do,” he explained. “You know, like the Goody headache powder, ’cause I started inhaling so many of ’em after I hurt my back a long time ago when I was a’workin’ on the railroad.”

He turned his head sideways and shot a half grin in my direction.

“Are you serious? Do you not remember me? I drank Southern Comfort on the rocks, smoked Marlboros, and always sat at the end of the bar at Rocky’s Lounge.”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” I said. “You know I am gettin’ pretty old, and my memory is fading faster than my britches.”

“Well, I don’t know about the pretty part,” he quipped.

We laughed.

His eyes were blue and bloodshot. His beard was white except around his mouth. It was a different color. If I had to guess, I’d say it was the color of the last thing he ate, whatever that was.

He apologized for the way he looked. He said he’d come straight to the club from work.

“But if a workin’ man is over-worried ‘bout how he smells when he gets in from work, then he should’a been’a cake baker or an Avon lady.”

We laughed.

“And since I can’t cook or sell perfume, and when I get in from work, my cats always try to rake dirt on top of me… well, there you go!”

“Cats will do that,” I said. “My cat did that to me when I was learning how to play the fiddle.”

We laughed some more.

”I used to have a cat that I had to tie to a cinder block when company would come to visit,” he said. “If I didn’t tie him, that little mouser would dart out from under the porch and attack whoever walked up the steps.”

“That was a bad-ass cat.”

“I don’t know why I kept him around,” he said. “For entertainment, I guess. But he also chased away anyone with a pamphlet, so I guess that was reason enough.”

He said the cinder block and the cat stayed with the house after he and his wife divorced, and he walked away.

“To me, that house was just a place to go to get out of the rain,” he said. “But a home is a place to go to get out of a storm, and I was right in the middle of one at the time and had nowhere to go because that place was just a house to me.”

He was no saint. But then again, it’s hard to find a saint these days, especially one that used to own an attack cat.

But here we were, standing in the parking lot after closing time, him philosophizing and me trying to remember who he was, both of us somewhere between sainthood and sinner-stage.

He had been inside, sitting by himself and listening to the music.

“It was just like the old days, me at the bar and you on stage,” he said. “But this time without the whiskey, the hangovers, and the smoke.”

“Some things change, some stay the same,” I said as I inched toward my truck.

I don’t know what it is about a crowded place. The lonely seem to be drawn there just so they can sit by themselves.

“You don’t remember me from Rocky’s?” he asked again.

He said his life was different now since he was washed in the Blood and trying to do better.

“I’m almost caught up on my child support now,” he boasted as if wanting to prove to me that he was trying to do better.

“I used to look like a beach ball wearing Liberty overalls,” he laughed. But I’ve lost a lot of weight since the doctor gave me the long face a year ago.”

After a few quiet moments, he broke the silence.

“Hell, I lost so much weight that if it weren’t for the snuff can in my back pocket, I’d have no ass-a-tall.”

We laughed.

“I know you like horses,” he told me, in an attempt to change the subject. “I do too.”

He tipped up a styrofoam cup to sip coffee as black as burnt motor oil, the kind country folks would pour on a dog to treat the mange.

“I’m a horse whisperer who got caught in a stampede of deaf horses.”

We laughed.

“And I have the scars to prove it,” he boasted, as if getting run over and stomped was something to brag about.

A couple of coughs turned into a coughing jag, and he spilled some of his coffee onto the asphalt.

Silence…

Silence…

“So, you don’t remember me?” he asked again. “Well, I sure hope when my time comes that The Man Upstairs has a memory as bad as yours!”

“Me, too.”

“But I’m trying to do better, and I hope that’s good enough.”

Click here to buy Billy’s book, Seasons in Beulah Land

One reviewer said, “Reading this book is like going back to my childhood and young adult life. It brings cherished memories back, and the beautifully crafted words bring smell, taste, and the wonderful freedom of youth.”

Written by Billy Blackman