I graduated High School in June, 1989. Having inherited my Uncle Don’s (and in some unspeakable way it was also my Mother’s) wanderlust I was almost instantaneously gripped by the urge to get the hell out of Waycross. Of course I was too chickenshit to actually move to L.A. which is where my 17 year old wannabe poser rockstar id was screaming to go, and it would be yet another six months before I was able to piece together “the plan” with my best friend…which involved Orlando, construction work, a girl with a dragon tattoo (but not THAT one) and a lot of really selfish stupid decisions but that’s a tale for another day and I digress…sooooo for the moment I was 17, stuck in Waycross and victim of this bubbling NEED to go somewhere. Anywhere. Which is why, sans even a splinter of reason, I decided to pack up my Red Escort and leave my sobbing mother in the driveway as I moved to Gainesville, Florida to live with my Dad. After all, Gainesville was much more “city-ier” and certainly would offer a wealth of opportunity to a sheltered, slightly narcissistic, unscrupulous yet decidedly good looking young scalawag. This dashing bold adventure would last exactly one month, and in time, via reflection, would turn out to be a defining moment in my character…the birth of a pattern of behavior that would eventually take decades to undo.
There were two immediate problems with my new living situation: 1) I didn’t really like my father and 2) he lived with my grandmother in a tiny, rotting mobile home in the middle of the woods in Central Florida…which meant…wait for it….ROACHES. And I’m not talking about your garden variety “ooooo there’s a bug kill it honey” roaches of your normal cities. No. I’m talking about huge, thick, evil palmetto bugs that were so brazen, they’d actually crawl in bed with you at night….just to show you who was boss. I’d pull out the couch-bed, do my nightly ritual of creating a “moat” around it by spraying a ring of Raid, turn off the lights and try to sleep; all the while trying to shut out the hideous “SHHHINK CRRAAAATTTT SNNNICCKKA SNICCCKAAA” sounds of a thousand tiny feet running around in the kitchen. I’d hear “PLINK” in the dish drainer and know I wasn’t eating the next morning.
Despite the horrors at night, I was actually able to get into a few bona fide shenanigans: hooked up with a few rocker-types, went to a few parties, got hassled by Mall Cops and even fell for a girl whose name I cannot remember but looked EXACTLY like Gloria Estefan and actually opened our first conversation with “sometimes I like to get really drunk and have violent sex”. Check please! Wooo hooo!
Now that I’m actually thinking about it, it’s kinda funny how epic this FEELS to me now even though it literally lasted only a month…but you know how memory is subjective and time means absolutely nothing when you delve into the past.
Anywhoo…the real purpose of my moving to Gainesville was to start my life…to find a job…to be a grownup. Certainly I couldn’t sponge off my Dad forever, right? So every day, he’d give me some money and I’d tell him and my Gramma that I was going out to all these job interviews and then I’d go to the Oaks Mall and watch movies. That was the Summer of Batman. That was the Summer of the First (and, who are we kidding…the ONLY) Major League.
That was the summer of ROAD HOUSE.
Sam Elliot. Kelly Lynch. Ben Gazzarra. Jeff Healy Band. Crusados.
Swayze.
Dalton.
The Mullet.
“Pain don’t hurt”
“I thought you’d be bigger”
“Prepare to die….you are such an asshole”
And….
Wait for it…..
“I used to fuck guys like you in prison”
I am not exaggerating (or at least I don’t think I am) when I tell you that I saw that movie every single weekday I was in Gainesville. And honestly I could do a whole book about the awesome that is Dalton, but for now I’ll just say, man to a 17 year old kid in 1989, that film struck some kinda chord. To this day, when I hear that opening guitar riff to “Don’t Throw Stones” (and WHY wasn’t that song on the Soundtrack???) I get goosebumps. Instantly I’m a kid again. Sitting in that theater. Wondering what the hell am I gonna do with my life…in that awesome, totally un-self aware teen angst kinda way, thinking the world was on my shoulders and everyone had paused just waiting for my next brilliant move. Miserable. Why the hell am I here? And then….
Dalton.
Dalton didn’t worry. Dalton was philosophical about things. Dalton didn’t have to make plans. Dalton stayed until the job was done. And “when the job’s done I walk”. He was my hero. At 17, that’s what I wanted to be.
And that’s what I kinda became.
Because when Road House left the theater, I left Gainesville. “Sorry Dad, the job’s done; and when the job’s done I walk”. I packed up, did NOT say goodbye to the Gloria Estefan girl and drove right out of town…I wish I could say to a bigger city, but it was back to Waycross. That was the first time I “Dalton”ed a place.
But not the last.
In fact, for the next 15 years I “Dalton”ed a lot. Whenever it came time to leave: Orlando, college 1, College 2, Grad School, New York, I didn’t make a fuss, I didn’t say goodbye, I didn’t keep in touch. I packed up my car and drove out of town, never looking back. I fucking DALTON-ED that shit.
But I never really got it. I didn’t realize that the thing that made Dalton the true badass is that…in the end…
Dalton stays. He doesn’t leave when the job’s done. He stays with the girl and makes a life. Because no Dalton is an Island, and eventually every ronin has to find a home.
It took me a long time and many broken hearts and a few lost friends and several bridges burned beyond repair to have that realization.
The Dalton that left when the job was done was lacking.
The Dalton that stayed was a man.
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