Waiting for Jonny

Last night, Plotnik put his head down on his pillow as he turned out the light, and tried to imagine what it must feel like for Jonny, doped up on morphine, weighing 90 pounds, barely recognizing his family, with a metastasized tumor the size of a football in his abdomen? Plotnik thought that with the lights off he might somehow tune in to his old best friend, that maybe he'd channel Jon's thoughts, or send him a message...but he couldn't. Maybe the thirty years that have passed since New York have been too many.

Jon was 19 when he walked into Plotnik and Ducknik's tenament apartment on East 65th St. with his bass and Grateful Dead T-Shirt, a big kid with a lot of hair and a huge heart. He was the bedrock of the bands that followed, and Plotnik's only real confidant, the little brother he'd never had. Ducknik fell for him too, and just as fast.

But Jon was never too fond of Jon. Lots of pot, coke, freebasing later on, endless rounds of Analysis, pills...Plot never could go there with him. The last band broke up and Jon went out on the road.

One summer afternoon, when Jon had gotten back from a gig in Louisiana, he told Plot about a blonde singer he'd met, that he was crazy about, but didn't really think that a beautiful woman like Bonnie could ever fall for a guy like him. He and Plotnik walked up and down West 8th St. in Manhattan, licking Carvels, talking it all out, and at the end of the day Jon decided he'd give it a try and see what happened.

They got married on top of the World Trade Center. How about that.

Now, these many years and two kids later, and after separation and divorce and chemical dependencies and God knows what else on both sides, Bonnie is back by Jon's side. The kids have come home. Everyone's waiting, or so Plotnik imagines, as he lies in bed lost in his inability to talk to his friend.

Jon's Uncle Bob says Jonny can't talk anymore, he can't hear, one eye is white, he looks 100 years old. The family asked Plotnik not to come, so he won't. He'll wait here.

Nothing good can come from this. Nothing good.