My Dinner with Todd

I am having dinner with Todd Snider in East Nashville. Or maybe we are in the Village at the Sunset or the Trace—one of the good tables for a change. For all I know, we are at Antonio’s in Bellevue. He is wearing a tee shirt and jeans. No shoes. I am wearing my God-awful cargo shorts that are falling apart, a 10-year old Gap polo, and K Cole slides. I am treating because I feel guilty for burning a copy of his latest—East Nashville Skyline. I will burn a CD in a heartbeat and then tend to feel shitty about it. With a mischievous smile and darting, unsure yes, he tells me “It’s all good…Don’t worry about it.” But I don’t know if he means it.

I am drinking too much, it seems, but am cold sober. Todd drinks water. I want to tell him that he seemed happier before. Not so serious. But I don’t. In part, because I don’t know if that is accurate. In part, because it seems rude. I don’t know him. Perhaps he has spent a lifetime looking for Happy. Contentment. Maybe that is the unspoken, fictional bond we share. Looking without looking for fear of what we may find.

He has a tattered file folder of lyrics with him. I wait for him to reach into it and (like a surreal magician pulling a skinned rabbit from a top hat) extract John Prine to sit with us, share some appetizers. He doesn’t. So I force the conversation and tell him how I’ve listened to John for nearly 30 years and how I saw Kris Kristofferson six years ago at Café Milano. And how I was giddy like a child and pretended not to be devastated when he forgot the words to Me and Bobby McGee. “Todd, my Man, you know these guys—you rank with these guys… That makes you royalty lite. How does that feel?” I don’t know if I say these last things or not. I think I do. But it wouldn’t be like me. Instead, I ask him if he can believe they lowered the speed limit on I-440 to 55 mph. “Blasphemy,” I declare! If he senses my awkwardness he ignores it.

“How’s Emerson?” he asks. He knows intuitively how to put me at ease.

“Em’s good,” I say. “When I put you on in the Jeep, he pauses and smiles and says, ‘I sure like dat Todd Snider.’” The kid’s got taste.

Todd Excuses himself and fades with his folder of songs into the crowd.

I order another Woodford and draught. I bring flame to a CAO Double Corona which is unlike me as I don’t smoke cigars in public. I motion the waiter over to take away the untried calamari. I tell him Thank You, but he doesn’t hear me.

The new girl from Finance appears and sits where Todd just was. She seems shy as she lights her own CAO. “I thought you were funny today,” she says.

“Thank you,” I reply. “I thought so too.”

She is lean and tall. Her face is a little flat and insecure. She is lovely. She tells me that Todd had to leave but that he enjoyed meeting me. We share a comfortable silence and she sips from my Woodford. No grimace. Her sudden confidence is false but I find it endearing. If not strange. We sit there not speaking. Still, it is nice. She asks me to quote ee cummings. I hesitate and suggest Sandburg or Whitman. We don’t know one another well enough to talk of Death and Blue-eyed Boys. I tell her something of Fog and little cat feet. She smiles and politely excuses herself. On her way by, she brushes the hair out of my eyes with the back of her hand. I catch a wisp of lavender. “You seem to do better alone,” she says. There is no hint of malice in her tone. “Solitude suits you.” Her eyes tell me that my danger is not dangerous enough. My return look emphasizes her miscalculation, but does not implore her to stay.

I draw deeply on the CAO. The blue smoke hangs over my head like a dialogue balloon. I am a comic strip, I think. A Calvin with no Hobbes.

Later, at Dalton’s, another draught and Woodford in front of me, Vince Gill finds the bar stool to my left. He orders the house red. He is dressed almost exactly as I am. Except for the lively dance of his eyes, we might be mistaken for brothers. He glances at me sideways. The hint of recognition furrows his brow.

“Ryan?” he asks.

“It is,” I say smiling.

“Good to see you,” he offers.

I say something akin to “Likewise…likewise.”

We talk summarily about the families. We comment absently on nothing of consequence.

A take-out order appears before him. I smell wings. He pays with cash, stands, shakes my hand. And then he is gone into the fading light of day.

I order another round. Compose a verse in my head. It is good but I will forget it before my drinks arrive. I am trying to remember a joke my Dad once told me. I come up empty.

A familiar song plays softly in my head. I hear myself hum along with it. Even in hum I am off key.

I look up as Todd Snider walks in. He takes Vince’s seat.

“I thought you might be here,” he says with his old smile.

“Well,” I reply. “I am.”

We sit quiet. Content. The sound of the bar the only buzz we hear.

The night fades. I hold onto it as long it lets me.