THE HAPPY LOSER
My brother Jimmy
referred to himself as
the happy loser.
He had a tough life.
He never really recovered from the death of our puppies
in Phoenix
all their little heads stuck in tin cans
by neighborhood kids.
I think that was his first knowledge of the cruelty
of human beings.
Then, in Grand Bay
he took to wetting the bed
instead of going out to the outhouse
at night
in the pitch dark.
So one day Mom had just had it with him
so she made him wear a diaper all day
and to bed at night.
He was nine years old
and the humiliation almost killed him.
That was his first knowledge that Mom
when pushed to her limit
could be cruel.
He was a gentle man
and cruelty cut him to the quick.
He grew up and got married
to a nice girl from our church
who had two children with him
but she went home to her Mama to bathe on Saturday nights
and in the end she took the babies and left him
and that was his first knowledge that life could be cruel.
He and I lived far from each other
so I didn't get to see him much
but one time, when we were together
he told me that his life was pointless.
He didn't know why the Lord had put him
on this earth.
After a while
he stopped referring to himself
as the happy loser.
He just said he was a loser.
And it was through no fault of his.
He worked hard at jobs
only to lose them
because of layoffs
or a new boss who didn't like him
or the company moved.
He always had jobs going on the side.
One time he and a friend
pooled their money to buy a dump-truck
to haul gravel
on weekends
and his friend up and left
with the dump-truck
and their money
and that was that.
He remarried
a nice girl who wasn't good at coping
cleaning
cooking
which he didn't seem to mind as long as she loved him.
They had three children.
Which was good because his first wife
didn't allow him to see his first two children
even though the courts had ordered her to.
The loss of them broke his heart.
Time passed
and Jimmy was a manager at a Chicken Delight.
He met a lot of the townspeople there
and ran for mayor
and it looked like he had a good shot at it.
Life was on the upswing finally!
But colon cancer came along
and stopped his campaign
and his life.
At the funeral
his youngest son laid his head on his Daddy's chest
and sobbed
and when I worked my way up to the casket
I saw that there was a big tearstain on Jimmy's blue suit.
It caught me in the heart
to see that.
I guess what it comes down to
is that everybody matters
even losers.
Music Playing: Against the Wind
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