His seven older siblings were pillars of success: doctors, lawyers, or married to doctors or lawyers. The eighth child of a large Catholic family, Eric, however, was an art school dropout coasting on charm alone while dodging responsibilities. Tall and sinewy, he had a grin that disarmed everyone, and a lazy catchphrase, “Sorry, sorry, man,” as if charm erased all wrongdoings. He made the world bend to his will.
He collected admirers of both sexes like trophies and discarded them without a second thought, leaving a trail of broken hearts behind him as he shrugged off their pain.
About the women, he’d say, “She begged, then cried after we did it.”
About the men, he’d laugh, “Why would I pass up a free blowjob?” He always added, defensively, that he never “took it from behind,” as if this technicality preserved his masculinity. Hypocrisy governed the absurd codes of an era when you were either straight or deviant.
I was one of the few who never slept with Eric. Not out of virtue, but because I was young and hopelessly in love with my boyfriend, who happened to be his best friend. Eric had no respect for boundaries, not even the unspoken code of loyalty to a best friend. So, he tried anyway, testing the waters with sly comments and lingering touches. But I remained faithful; young, yes, but not naïve. While others fell for his charm, I saw firsthand what he was: poison in a pretty package. Though I admit, I knew he was out of my league, and I didn’t want to be one of his discards.
Not being his lover gave me a unique vantage point. I was able to treat Eric as a platonic friend and serve as an occasional accomplice to his chaos. He’d often show up outside my dorm in his red pickup truck, bored and itching for mischief. And I’d ride with him. With Eric, even the simplest acts, like driving aimlessly through Baton Rouge, felt like a rebellion against the mundane.
If we passed a pedestrian, Eric would slam his hand hard against the side of the truck. The sudden loud bang would send the hapless victim leaping, sometimes perilously close to tumbling into a ditch. Then, without warning, he’d shout something absurd, like, “Men can have babies!” This was long before trans rights entered mainstream conversation or gender identity was widely understood. To this day, I’m not sure what he meant. Was it a joke, a provocation, or just one of his strange whims? But it always had the intended effect: shock, confusion, and occasionally, a furious pedestrian chasing after us. We’d laugh until our sides ached, Eric slapping the steering wheel as I doubled over in the passenger seat, red pickup roaring away into the sleepy college town.
Sometimes, Eric would burst out of the shop at the local Circle K gas station with a paper bag tucked under his arm, yelling, “Start the truck! Start the truck! Let’s go!” It was all an act, a ridiculous performance to make it seem like he’d just shoplifted. I’d play along, laughing as we sped through back streets in a mock getaway. No store owner ever chased us, and the police never came. It was classic Eric, turning the mundane into mayhem, every errand an opportunity for chaotic fun.
Bored with the same old college hangouts and discos, we’d often frequent the segregated Black neighborhoods and bars. That was a bold move in Louisiana during the ‘80s, even dangerous, yet Eric found it thrilling. Through him, I met “The Guvnor,” a Black elder dressed in immaculate white from cowboy hat to cowboy boots. He never said much, but his nod was enough to ensure that no one bothered me. As a woman in a bar, I’d never felt safer. And this was because of the Guvnor’s friendship with Eric.
Most nights, Eric, my boyfriend, and I would drive up the levee on River Road and sprawl in the bed of his truck, armed with alcohol, weed, and occasionally acid tabs. Under star-strewn Louisiana skies, we’d talk— small-town teenagers dreaming up our next adventure, our next mark. Below us, the Mississippi River rolled on, its slow current mirroring our unshakable belief that our youth and assumed invulnerability were eternal.
Through the haze of weed, pills, or cheap alcohol, I’d listen to Eric recount his romantic conquests and misadventures. One story still sticks with me. He once waited tables at a fancy New Orleans restaurant, where a large family ran up a considerable bill and left no tip. When the same family returned for another lavish meal, Eric’s revenge reflected his recklessness. First, he tried to pee in their salad, managing only a few drops. Then, with his signature blend of bravado and meanness, he dipped himself into the dressing, literally. Watching them eat was, to him, a perverse victory for the inadequate tipping.
To this day, I tip generously.
My escapades with Eric grew rarer once I started a professional job. As our lives drifted apart, his wild charm was giving way to something darker. The last time I saw him in person, he was on his way to rehab in New Orleans. By then, we’d both landed in San Francisco: I in graduate school, free of my old boyfriend; Eric locked in a battle with heroin. He looked gaunt, his beauty faded but not entirely gone.
“Even the men don’t want me anymore,” he said, his voice hollow. Then he looked at me and added, “You think you’re too good for us now?”
By “us,” I assumed he meant himself and my ex-boyfriend, or perhaps he meant the life in Louisiana I’d left behind. The drugs he’d turned to held no appeal for me, and I had classes to teach and papers to write. I had moved on, but Eric remained stuck, a perpetual teenager trying to charm a world growing tired of him.
In the decades that followed, I thought of Eric only when I saw a red truck, heard a familiar song or a too-loud laugh. I’d occasionally check for his Facebook posts or ask mutual friends about him as he cycled through rehab, finally getting clean. But he emerged from that struggle a bitter, far-right zealot who betrayed everything he once was. Then, suddenly, he was gone at sixty years old. His obituary photo was that of a stranger; there was no trace of the golden boy who once ruled his world.
I wonder, sometimes, if time has gilded him—if I remember him as more beautiful, more alive, than he truly was. But then I remember those nights on the levee, the Mississippi rolling along like a dark, living thing beneath us, and Eric laughing as if neither death nor sorrow could never touch him. The past may distort, but my memory is clear. He blazed across my youth like a comet, unforgettable, dangerous, but oh so bright.
What haunts me isn’t Eric’s death but his unraveling. In the end, that was his curse: not the beauty that once seemed a gift, but his inability to exist without it. Youth, like beauty, isn’t meant to last. Only the Mississippi rolls on, unchanged.
Author's Comment
This piece explores the distance between our past and present selves and the speed of our younger days. I wanted to capture the way charm, danger, and affection often blur while allowing time to reveal what youth itself cannot see.
Leaving Home at 83 is an intensely personal story yet one shared with thousands of aging women who are wondering whether to move closer to their children and leave their friendships behind or stay in their communities. Readers will see their own questions on these pages and recognize their own fears, insecurities, and uncertainties.
Butler examines the often-unspoken struggle to sustain our autonomy as we age and our conflicted longing for dependency as we become more vulnerable. Both longings are embedded in the desire not to be a burden to those we love.
With its sharp humor and refreshing honesty, this wry account brings a welcome and necessary perspective to the inevitable moment when we end one chapter of our lives and begin whatever comes next.
“...The ensemble of characters is hilarious, jaw-clenching, at times worthy of a Jack Russell Terrier head tilt. Butler’s writing is tender, funny and unequivocally relatable.”
—Karen Lee Erlichman, D.Min, LCSW, psychotherapist, spiritual director, writer and mentor.
Available from Amazon and at www.sandrabutler.net.
Elaine Croce Happnie writes, “For as long as I can remember, I have been surrounded by art. My grandfather, Armarto Croce, a graduate of the Art institute in Naples, sparked my interest. I have exhibited work in solo and selected group shows in galleries, libraries, and museums in Boston, New York, and Florida. My work is in corporate and private collections.”
Carrie Salazar is an illustrator and emerging writer born in New Orleans to Ecuadorian immigrant parents. A former professional children’s book artist, she has published short fiction and creative nonfiction under the pseudonym Orleans Saltos in The Write Launch, New Feathers Anthology, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, and Blue Earth Review.