IF YOU HAVE CRYING EYES: John David Souther Will Be Here at Closing Time

IF YOU HAVE CRYING EYES: JD Souther Will Be Here At Closing Time

“All the press ever cared about,” he said, forcefully, but threaded with a whine, “was who I was dating.”

It was a challenge, a bit of a punchdown on the media. The dismissal was stupid, petty, especially uninformed. My ears pinned back.

“Well, you put it out there too much when you weren’t doing interviews. You made it a point.”
He was elegant, lean. Cheek bones and fast eyes, sandy/copper-colored hair a bit full, but well-sculpted. This was a man of refinement, who knew how to present himself. The gaze settled on me.

“WHAT did you say?’ Now the tone was incredulous. Clearly this person was used to selling his story as whole cloth, chapter and verse; an authority who didn’t know, but his position left him unchallenged by people who either knew less or didn’t want to tangle.

I didn’t care, because I was a journalist. Getting it right was critical.

“Who you dated,” I said. “It was always a thing, always known. Whispered about, but not quietly. One walking into your house as the first was leaving. It was legendary.”
He was gobsmacked, staring without words.

“And I knew that as a kid in Cleveland, Ohio. I loved Linda Ronstadt, and I knew. I knew about her, and Stevie Nicks, and Joni Mitchell, maybe Bonnie Raitt.”

Holding the inferno gaze as the face reddened, I knew I was a guest, asked to join Rodney Crowell’s family and friends at Talesai on Ventura Boulevard because I’d been the one who did the booking on “The Tonight Show” for Crowell’s wondrous album The Houston Kid. I’d been sliding into dinners with Crowell for years, been present at family dinners and awards moments, treated like a bonus kid or cheerleader baby. But always, I knew I was a guest in these rooms.

“It’s true, and the saddest thing is the music never registered the way it should have. You are J.D. f*%&ing Souther, and those albums were amazing. But it was never about the music. It never was, and I read it all.”

Hannah Crowell, Rodney’s gorgeous blond mermaid of a daughter, started to laugh so hard she almost flipped her chair over. Unbeknownst to me, no one spoke to JD Souther like this, no one dared. But how could they not when he came so hard and with such ballast? 
“I, I…” he said as Hannah’s outburst stopped the exchange. We all laughed, probably as much to puncture the awkward moment. He didn’t like the correction; I wasn’t happy that he’d just maligned something I’d done my whole life because he’d been played into a fame-facing hunger that America couldn’t get enough of.

“You are important, and your songs? But someone in your world rather than poisoning you on the media, telling you how crummy they all are, should’ve done a better job setting up the music, telling that story better, so the default wasn’t you as a dating man or co-Eagle.”

Rodney, no doubt, said something conciliatory, told us we were both smart, passionate people. I just laughed. Macho white men in the music business? Nothing new. It was a culture of blame and victimize what doesn’t come easy, say it doesn’t matter, talk smack about how little the critics are paid, what can you expect? But don’t kid yourself, everyone famous wants the good reviews, wants to be respected. It’s the curse of the creative class. 

He told me, “Well, Jay Cocks loved me. I always had that,” in self-defense.
I said, “Yes, his work at TIME is exceptional.” Souther’s jaw almost crashed on the table.

When we broke up for the night, people headed to where they were staying, JD Souther approached me. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he said. “I just didn’t…”

“I get it,” I said. “I know what they feed you. People who don’t know how or can’t be bothered. Vilify what you can’t control; feed the artist a diet of rage and resentment, so they buy into dismissal instead of wanting what – in your case – they deserve.”
“Rodney told me about you,” he said. “I didn’t realize.”

That line fell there, somewhere between us, and lingered. 

Maybe he’d think about it, find some peace or ask for better next time. Trouble is artists often fall for flattery in the service of vanity. They don’t always realize that it’s not the people who fawn or drop names the hardest who can get the job done. 

How can an artist or manager truly know? Unless you’re on the frontlines, most people only know theories or have hunches about how it happens. What gate-keepers say becomes gospel. But in the end, it’s the actual how, not “facts” stacked as “gospel” that explains the way a story or placement came together.

“It’s okay,” I said. I was never going to see him again, and I not only loved his songs, I loved some of his albums.

Half a second paused. “You know, Black Rose is one of my favorite albums ever.”

“Ever?”
“Yeah, your version of ‘White Rhythm and Blues’ is so silky, and I loved Linda’s, and, well…”
“Well…”
“I think ‘If You Have Crying Eyes’ was the best George Jones and Tammy Wynette song I’ve ever heard. It sets the two people who should be together up in a way that also says why perfect and jagged as it is, they can’t connect.”

All the anger and charge was gone. He just looked at me. His car, and it was very shiny, black and waiting, was now blocking the mouth of the tiny parking lot partway into the Valley. 

“You actually know my music.”
“Yeah,” I said, head bowed demi-embarrassed as I moved towards my teeny tiny rental that was two cars back in the valet line-up. “I know your music.”

I can’t remember if Rodney gave me his number, or JD got mine. I am not quite sure when even. But somewhere in the blur of the next few months, there was a phone call. I apologized for being so strident, he explained he felt trapped in the way he’d been painted in the pop culture conversation.

“Well, you shouldn’t have talked about it so much,” I said.

“You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I do,” I countered. “Lots of famous people date lots of famous people. Most of us little people have no idea what happens in Club Fame, except with you.”
Silence, but I couldn’t gauge it.

“Well, except you and Joni Mitchell.”
He laughed. Point made, “And we know how Joni Mitchell feels about the press.”

I didn’t get into the inherent sexism of defining a woman by her paramours. How he was a cocksman, and she was a side piece. I’d already had one tumble down the electric mineshaft of recrimination with him. 

“But the sad fact is: you are an important American writer who also has a strong sense of classic songwriting structures and truths. That is what should’ve driven the way you were seen all along.”

He laughed again. He got it. He knew I knew. That was the moment that cemented our friendship in ways that transcend fame or commerce or any of the ways most “show friendships” are held together. Not that he cared that I “got” it, but the notion that I knew and understood. That was what mattered to him.

There was always something courtly about dinner with John David, something grown-up and elegant. White linen tablecloths, waiters in dinner jackets, very, very chilled martinis. Tone always one level below conversational, wicked humor, muted and boisterous laughter, the conversations romped and ranged; all about books and famous people, the truly famous and famous to those who cared, names like Tom McGuane, Eve Ensler, Jim Harrison, delicious things to eat and films that needed watching. Always films that needed watching, because as much as JD loved and devoured writing, that visual element of great cinema when executed to evoke added a dimension to what was already intoxicating.

He could be prickly, too. Annoyed at things that probably deserved annoyance. Had a code of ethos that governed how he dressed, engaged and responded to the world. He loved his beautifully tailored Manuel suits – that felt like the most gorgeous flannel – but instead of the normal rhinestones and technicolor embroidery, it was grey on grey. He preferred boots that were worn, flannel that was soft, old leather bags and taking your time whether it was a meal or a conversation in a parking lot.

I can close my eyes right now, see so many restaurants in muted light, a table away from the bustle – because musicians’ ears need more quiet to hear intimate conversation – and that, “We meet again” falling from his lips. Whether it was Nashville’s iconic Sunset Grille, a Mexican place on Sunset in the forsaken space between Hollywood and very fancy, a joint somewhere outside of town, or Sinema in an old movie theater, designed to capture glamour long gone, it was all treated with the same respect for dining and enjoying the meal.

Enjoying was one thing John David knew how to do: wherever he was, however it was going to be, he would savor every last morsel or moment. Making recommendations, taking forkfuls of something, always encouraging you to find other flavors or insight.

And that makes sense…
Look at the songs. Look at the heart. Look at the collaborators. 
When you’re writing with the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, Rodney Crowell, and you’re not the artist, it means you bring a special kind of heart, a sort of wisdom and word sense  they can’t find on their own. “New Kid In Town,” “Faithless Love,” “Prisoner In Disguise,” “Best of My Love,” “Simple Man, Simple Dream,” the silky “Silver Blue,” even the torqued “Roll’Um Easy” and the rager “Heartache Tonight” defined the ‘70s and ‘80s, lingered well into the new century – and over the last few years seems to have found a new ubiquity.
He had his one brush with the Top 10 with his own Roy Orbison-esque “Only Lonely,” which shimmered when it poured out of the car radio. In an era of gleaming arena-sized rock, Souther had tapped a retro-nerve with the yearning that throbbed under Springsteen’s songs of romance from “Racing In The Streets” to “Thunder Road.” 
There was a balm to the big feelings, a swelling to the yearning that suggested how much emotion wasn’t being shown. But it was also a benediction that all will be well in the end. That sense of knowing the end is what matters always made John David’s songs a poultice to draw out the agony and heal the aching inside.

Even his other brush with the radio was a post-divorce, reality-check with James Taylor. The clear-eyed “Her Town, Too” offered the reality of how shattered bust-ups of seemingly true marriages could leave whole social ecosystems asunder, but especially dealt the woman who doesn’t have her own means of support, access or community. If JD’s voice was a birch to Taylor’s maple, both men brought a solidity to facing the wreckage with compassion, even mercy – holding up how unfair and cruel what happens to the woman left behind truly is.

“She gets the house and the garden/ He gets the boys in the band…” Like turning cards over in a game of solitaire, the acknowledgement how some people care, but they go with the work – and they understand, but it’s life. The ones who talk, who said they were your friend, more consumed with the gossip than the loyalty or the hurt. And that’s where John David Souther excelled.

He looked through the chaos, the buzz, the salacious and saw the heart of the person left behind. He wrote such great songs about love, because he was at his deepest core and corps a romantic. He recognized – and delivered – the hope and promise of the most exhilarating gambit of the human condition. But even more than pulse-race, it was the tenderness that mattered and seduced him, her, us and anyone, really, who paid attention.

Because a Texas kid, who did time in Detroit, Michigan and Shaker Heights, Ohio, he was a man’s man. A refined man’s refined man, as well, and there is a difference. He was stoic when need be, but heroic any chance he got. And it stained much of his later work with a sense of how evolved a being he genuinely was, always seeking that perfect heart-shaped valentine, that girl who’s soul he saw in a way it had never been seen.

When I turned 40, I decided to throw my own party. New Year’s Eve is a horrible night to celebrate anything but people who shouldn’t drink, and I dodge my birthday as a matter of course. But 40 is the turning point in life, I had a gorgeous green velvet jacket, and sometimes one needs to face the world and their life in.a way that says, “I’m here.” 
At the last moment, I almost choked and didn’t go. Called Sean at the Acorn, left my credit card number and suggested he just have the table order. John Hobbs, my most recent ex-fiancee, would have none of it when I called to ask him to serve as back-up “please eat” for what was ultimately a wonderful table of dinner party companions.

“I have a key, I am coming to get you.” Hobbs informed me.
The word uttered started with “F.” I have no trouble with age – except other people’s use as a way to marginalize and dismiss – because I believe if you stay curious, you only become more luxurious and wise. Just the self-importance of it felt off… attention? me? No. No, thank you.

When Rodney Crowell arrived with his blindingly lovely wife/artist Claudia Church, you almost saw no one else, because they are such a stunning couple. But Rodney explained that he’d performed a wedding, wanted to bring the couple along. He knew my virtual world means my friends are any friends of someone I love.
When I saw JD looking cute and elated, I may’ve barked just a bit. He was holding hands with a slight dark headed woman with a face that was pure Victorian joy. If Jane Austen could conjure a hip, glowing heroine, it was this gamine creature named Sarah, who was Irish-born and infused with that heart of glee and adventure. With that glittering smile and laughter that bubbled over like a shaken-up root beer, she was that certain someone who’d captured the Warren Beatty of the American songbook. 

Talk about a present on so many levels! To see someone who was so erudite, so humane, so consumed by life on a foundational and intellectual level find the woman he would pledge his fidelity to? He had to be in his late ‘50s, and clearly this wasn’t a jump decision fueled by fear of mortality. No, it spoke to the willingness to keep drinking people in, letting them open in your heart and trusting the moment when it arrived.

Few things that night made me as happy, not the jokes or the stories about the time that… Not the good news about my friends, not the chocolate Acorn cake that did impossible things with devils food layers and buttercream, not the great hugs and resolutions and hopes for the year ahead. John David Souther had done what I’d assumed was for him the unthinkable, looked happier than ever and was more alive and animated than a man should be.

Ahhhh, we should all be so seen and realized. 
JD, Sarah and Enya, her daughter, bought a farm outside of Nashville, had some land, some dogs and created a world that Ralph Lauren would envy. Not only did it hold all of the totems that make the designer iconic, it was suffused with love and use, meals, chatter, coming together with neighbors, fellow musicians and friends.

And he started really writing and making records again. Joking about “I don’t know if anybody needs them,” but he set standards for songwriting, pulling back the curtain on adult desire that was for a connection beyond erogenous zones. If The World Was You arrived in 2008, somewhere between cocktail classic, boite noir and Sinatra-esque jazz as an adult outgrowth of what Laurel Canyon had wrought.

“I’ll Be Here at Closing Time,” which opened that first album in forever, was all tiny details of a charming woman, a gentle promise of being there later, possibly forever -- and delivering in ways carnal and profound. It’s a simple man, who knows to come proper, to a woman who’s a waitress but so much more.
It drops directly into the staccato humanity/lack of commentary “The House of Pride.” A bit of a barnyard scramble, with horns looping in and banjo plucks, it calls out all the venals and vanities that destroy the best of who we can be. Plucky, then attenuated, the song embodies the deals people make with themselves, the hungers and the “needs” that are wants with a wink that impales.
There was the sultry “Journey Down The Nile,” the slinking, horn slither rejoinder “A Chorus Of Your Own,” the humid Latin slow boil “Rain,” even the roadhouse burlesque piano-tittering “One More Night,” and the almost innocent, gentle recognition of life’s knocks in the misdirection of “In My Arms Tonight.” Complicated, sophisticated, it was redolent of what pop music for adults could be, but at the center of how basic so much of what life is. 

Indeed, fairly spacious “The Border Guard” excavated the cages we keep ourselves, even the freest ones, in. The falter points, the codes, doubts and lines we will not cross that bind us and keep us apart from what we most desire. “I ain’t goin’ to heaven now, I’ve learned to many tricks…” he intones as the bridge passes, a trumpet emerges to write what can’t be spoken.

“The Border Guard” holds those things that keep us warm on the nights when we’re most alone. It understands that sometimes the most heroic things we do – let people go, walk away to let someone else rise, show up and remain when everyone else has left – often leave us without. 

Noble? Foolish? Frightened? Frozen? It doesn’t matter, we have done the thing we believe is right, and that is holy.

John David understood the conflicts, the contrasts that knot our lives. Beyond messy, it was complex and therein lies the fascination. Broken wings, busted hearts, open trenches filled with tears that no one ever sees? That was his stock in trade. Not that it was a sad girl summer, nor was he the catcher-in-the-blue-girl-valley.

I remember the raw day, sky two shades lighter than slate grey and a cutting briskness to the wind, I got the call from the vet telling me Zelda, my wing-girl-spaniel was on her last months. Collapsing a bit against my car, walking by in a perfect black topcoat was J.D. who felt the energy move. 

“Well, what have we here?” he asked, clearly knowing it was not going to be good.

I explained, more wordbarfed all the things that had been said all over him. He listened, nodding. Was I making sense? I’m not sure. Zelda, the Prada of Dada, was my best self.
“Okay, pal,” he acknowledged. “This is bigger than right now. I have a meeting at Frankie & Zoey’s to talk about mixes. Can you.. Is there…”
He was giving me room to sort out what I needed. “You mean, could I go do something and you’ll find me?”
“Well, yes…”
“Okay, I was going to Baja Burrito for lunch. If I can eat, I guess I can…”
“Yes, even if you just sit there with an iced tea, I’ll come right back to you.”
And that’s just what happened. I sat with a mostly cold, uneaten burrito staring at the table. It might’ve been 20 minutes; but all I know is panic moves fast and too slow all at once, drowning you in grief and terror.

“Okay, now tell me so I can really get it. Slow down a little,” he said as he pulled the chair out across from me. I explained it was kidney failure, we’d been doing bags of fluid. He asked some questions, made some suggestions, told me that I could do things to make it comfortable for her, even make her life extend if that’s what I wanted to do.
“But one thing, promise me: It’s better five days too early than ten minutes too late.”
I wince just typing that. And I smile, because John David and Zelda had always had a thing: he loved older dogs, he saw the pretty girls they were when young and recognized the soul they embodied as they grew older.

I started boiling chicken, feeding her the meat with rice. I started sleeping on the floor, with rubber sheets and linens that were always in the washer. I started talking about life with my cocker spaniel, and seeking truth in our long, long walks across the street and at Radnor Lake. 

JD would check in, to see how “our girl” was doing. He’d laugh, tell me maybe the vet got it wrong. But we both knew, we knew the time would come. And it finally kind of did: not a hard when, but a knowing. 

Five days early, not ten minutes too late.

“Schedule it, girl, and I’ll come with you. Just let me know.”
Spring and summer was touring season, everyone in Nashville flying off in different directions. He had a flight he had to catch to make a gig, and I wanted every possible moment. “You can do this,” he reassured. “You’ve got this, you two girls who’ve seen so much and chased so many dreams.”
Yeah, but now who’ll chase those dreams with me.

J.D. had a way of knowing when to show up, when to recede, how to help even when he couldn’t be there. He knew the power of someone who understood, who saw what everyone else missed because they were too caught up in their own thing; he got the strength of locking eyes and nodding just a jot, telling you “You’ve got this.”
When my mother passed, a fraught relationship that defies explanation here, Souther was in Cleveland for a Sherrod Brown benefit with Jackson Browne. He called to ask me where the church was. “I’m a Shaker boy, too, don’t you forget. I’ve brought my suit, and I’m going to try to get out there.”

Alex Bevan, my childhood idol, sang “Gunfighters Smile” for the life gone and “Silver Wings” for the kid I was sitting in that pew. Michael Stanley, the rock god of Cleveland with all the attendance records that still stand, slipped into a row two-thirds of the way back after the casket had been rolled in. I did the eulogy, telling truth and humor, the purpose of this far-flung forceful life my mother led, taking no prisoners and creating both fury and fabulous with true originality.

Walking out, Michael helped me with my coat, said he’d played that benefit, too; that J.D. had mentioned he was coming. Maybe to let me know my glamorous songwriter’s intentions were to be there; maybe to let me know they’d found a commonality – or he didn’t want to fall short in the eyes of a man who took masculine respect to a serious level.

John David had called, of course, while we were in the process of it all. “Holly, I am so sorry. I have my suit out, and it’s pressed, but my hands are giving me such problems. It is so cold, and wet, I just don’t think I can. But I’m with you and all of yours. I promise… Oh, and big girl drinks soon.”

I loved that he loved that I call cocktails “big girl drinks.” He always thought it was such a funny way to quantify something that’s supposed to be chic and adult. To me, the inner Eloise is all demanded “big girl drinks”; he got it, embraced it, even dropped it into the swirling string-ladden Nelson Riddle homage “Dance Real Slow” on his final Tenderness album.

A year later, needing to face the grave, I made the trek to Cleveland. If my mother’s burial was bitter cold, bracing and penetrating, the little bit if snow was granular. Driving through Lakeview Cemetary, trying to find the plot on Daffodil Hill, the snow that day was wet and heavy, the kind that makes the wipers move slower. 

I exhaled watching my breath plume in the limbo between heated car and open window. Tears don’t make it any clearer, but I had some resolve. I was taking Alex Bevan and his bride to see John David later that night at Nighttown, the boite on Cedar Hill that derived its essence from James Joyce’s writing, Tiffany glass and a ‘70s brass and polished wood aesthetic that froze time in a Woody Allen kind of movie.
If I could get through this, I could give the very first person who talked to me about songs the ultimate “thank you” for showing up to sing for my mother. All I had to do was get out of the car, crunch through the heaviness and place the roses on her grave. Wrapping my muffler tighter, I walked down a small hill, around a curve, humming “I’ll Be Here At Closing Time.”
Fist in throat, knot in stomach, roses freed from their plastic, I went up the hill, and saw the roses from my stepfather. This must be the place. Honor what was. Hold it in, hide the tears, remember what’s good. Employ the dignity that defined John David. Get to the raggedy taggedy restaurant that had better than good food, meet my friends and remember the glory of being alive, also part of the ethos of John David.

He had, of course, made sure that the table was brilliant. He made it a point to sing to us and for us. When he sang some of the songs from his upcoming album, songs that I’d known for months, he was sure to deliver the key lines to us. It was worlds merging, the reasons songs matter so profoundly and the humor of “that chip upon your shoulder makes you seem much older, but you’re just a kid in dangerous disguise” escaped none of us.

That was the thing: the smallest details, strangers and known quantities, another town somewhere out there. Converging the way they can creates sacred bonds, and those bonds hold even when it feels like the ships coming apart at the beams.

When the note landed – a follow up to some feedback from a reader on a project I’m doing – they assumed I’d known, but wanted to make sure I’d heard. In Florida with mono, I’m not so in the loop, and I turn my phone off. It took me a moment to absorb what I was reading, to think who to ask, where to look. 

Because there are all kinds of facts – Songwriters Hall of Fame, the people who’ve covered the songs, the chart positions, the stories of the songs – but where’s the man? How do you show people someone who was so charmed by the daughter he never thought he’d ever have – “you know she’s a real ballerina now, and quite good,” he would probably tell you – that it transformed him even in passing conversation? How do you get people to understand that for as intractable as he was in the way he lived his life, he was gentle and encouraging to those who sought his comfort or guidance? How do you show that fabulous sense of humor, the love of gossip and dishy conversation that could turn an early dinner into closing down the place? 

Or his reverence for those who were such an integral piece of his own story, the ones who found great fame and public recognition? 

He would speak of Ronstadt’s brilliance, her reading and informed socio/cultural as well as political takes, Jackson Browne’s sense of humor and poetry, or Henley’s songwriting that they’d picked up “as if we’d never left off” in recent years with a respect we all aspire to. Never starstruck or name-dropping, these were his cradle-mates, the people who were there when a pop moment was forged and Laurel Canyon country rock emerged from the folk-populist rock of the Sunset Strip realm of the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Burrito Brothers and Poco.
Like the little match girl, he made those people come to life in a way that was dimensional, that transcended even the often incredible interviews I’d done with many of the names we had in common. But that was never the point, it was just sharing the rich tapestry of life from a man who was always seeking.

When I got my rescue spaniel, Corliss, I was on the verge of a book tour for PRINE ON PRINE: Interviews & Encounters, a three year odyssey created with a lot of help from my recently deceased third ex-fiancee who’d co-managed the iconic American songwriter. Fraught, emotionally-triggered and facing a publishing company that just didn’t seem to get how to promote this book, I was overwhelmed and sure I was going to fail this gorgeous furry creature who needed love and deserved a good home.
One trainer was too hippie dippie. Another was too military, too “You be the boss of that dog, or he'll be the boss of you,” which triggered a mad barking episode that was scary. I knew there would boarding, me in and out of town. Consistency is everyting.

Torn, I called John David. A man of dogs, a human of deep fiber when it comes to the right thing, he would know. 

“What’s up, kid?” he answered. He obviously knew, or felt it wasn’t just a chat or looking for a quote. Once again, I started crying, showing fear of failing the rust-colored dog, frustration at not being able to get this potty-trained little animal to do the basics, confusion over was I being selfish? On the verge of finding him another, better forever home, it was a 9-1-1 call of the spirit.

“Now, now,” he said softly. “Can you send me some pictures? I’m gonna call you right back.”
Doing as told, I sent a handful of the pictures you can find on my Instagram. Like any proud parent, there was a fistful of shots of my gorgeous little man.

The phone rang. 

“Well, you’re not giving him back or to anyone else. This is your dog.”
“I don’t know… I don’t want to fail him…”
“Fail him? Look at those eyes, he’s all about living life. He may be a little hesitant in those first few, but he’s coming into his own. You can see it, and look at that form! He’s a beauty, Holly.”
I agreed, explained about the two trainer failures. My worry that all the travel now would create a long term problem for his socializing.

“He’s a smart boy, you can see that. It’s not gonna happen in three sessions, it’s about time, and it’s about you. It’s definitely about you, and you having the patience to trust you two will figure it out.”
I protested out of guilt, the folks whose helpful advice hadn’t worked and all the rest of the things that motivate self-doubt. John David listened, taking it in. He never told me I was wrong, just didn’t feed the monster. Finally, he said, “Here’s what I think: Seeing him, I can’t imagine that dog with anyone else but you, and there could be a whole bunch of great families for that handsome spaniel.”
He paused. “But I think dogs rescue people, and you might need him as much as he needs you, and you won’t even know why for a long time. You’re a good dog, Mom, Holly. You really understand them, feel for them, and work hard to give them a good life.

“Your book is gonna do great, and you’ll work hard to make it work. You’ll write other books, great stories, win more awards. But after all the dogs you’ve almost adopted, your Zelda wasn’t having it – and those dogs went to other people. Has it dawned on you: Zelda hasn’t stopped this one.  Did it ever occur to you this might be Zelda’s work?”

In a time of yammering confusion, too many commitments and a world that just kept telling me, “Yeah, it will be fine,” without really thinking it through, John David Souther not only heard all the trouble and considered my responsibilities, he remembered the minutiae of three or four missed connections over the fifteen years since Zelda died – and he realized that was what really mattered.

JD would check in to see how we’re doing. We’d catch up for quick calls about books and moments, always ending with “Be good to that fine young spaniel.” 

He’d left Nashville – leaving a massive hole for all of us in Music City – and he made me promise next time he was in town, I would introduce them. Laughing about the Jimmy Buffett tribute at the Hollywood Bowl, “where I’m not kidding there were so many layers and levels of passes and wristbands, I don’t think I could get to half the people I would’ve wanted to see,” he asked me if I remembered our conversation when I was in crisis about keeping Corliss. Saying yes, we both laughed; the larger lesson did not need to be unpacked.

Mr. Corliss, named for TIME’s late film and culture critic Richard Corliss, breathes softly beside me, his tummy rising and falling as I type this. All I can think about is John David’s doggies at home after he passed, probably beside themselves because they couldn’t help their Daddy. I think about the fact he’d been out playing shows, his luggage and guitar case just inside the front door from him returning from a run of dates to be unpacked the next morning.

In some ways, it was the perfect transition. Make people happy, share your wondrous songs and charm the groups of people who came out, then return home to your dogs, exhale and pause. Take it all in, realize how much love you’ve sown, grown and tended. Because beyond the songs, the stories and the acclaim, that’s the thing that remains. 

The people who’ve called me, texted, emailed, it’s all about the beauty and warm feelings that JD conjured in us. For those left behind, we have the music and the memories, not a great trade, but it’ll serve us. Right now, I can see him walking across the sky, all his ghost dogs bounding up to him, his first mate Glen Frey waving, saying come on in – and I’ll show you’round. 

Something tells me he’s settling in, making heaven an even better place for us all. Me, I’m gonna take Mr. Corliss for a walk, let him stretch his paws and tell him about my friend J.D. Later, I’m gonna get a big girl drink, raise that glass and tell my friend good-bye.

Holly Gleason