Mutuals
by Pat Foran
On a Zoom call, Dolly Parton and I were talking about a mutual friend. We wondered how he was doing, doing since the three of us met back when I was mostly somnambulant and Dolly was mostly singing about coming and going, coming and going.
Dolly Parton and I, there’s mutual respect between us, I think, because of the way our mutual friend has grown since Dolly found him writing messages in the sky with his finger. I’m talking to the sky, he’d said to her. I’m telling the world. Telling it 'Goodbye.’
His words scared Dolly at first, scared her because of course they did, which is why she said to me as I was passing by that day, the day we met, Would you mind helping me for a minute? Okay, I said. Okay.
I could see right then and there how genuine Dolly is. How kind. I knew she would be, if ever I met her. And there she was, as I was coming and going. There she was, genuine and kind.
Telling the sky what now? Dolly said to our soon-to-be mutual friend. Are you leaving? If so, where to? If so, when?
Leaving someday, he said with the index finger on his right hand. In case I have to leave in a hurry. I'm trying to be polite, polite while I’m still here, he said. I'm saying 'Goodbye' while I still can.
Dolly got what he was saying right away, maybe because she sings about coming and going in that way she has. I get it, she said to him. I get what you mean.
It took me a little longer, me with my sleepiness, me with my wistfulness, to get what he was saying with that right index finger of his. And I don’t know if I helped Dolly any. But I trusted her, trusted her like I've never trusted anyone, maybe — you can see how genuine she is, and how kind — so I trusted him, our new mutual friend.
What Dolly said, I said to him.
Now, the three of us have the makings of a mutual understanding. About coming and going, and about leaving. About telling. About trust.
I’m proud of him, our mutual friend, Dolly was saying on the Zoom call. How he has grown.
Yes, he has, I said. I’m proud of him, too.
Because he had grown. Since we’d met, the three of us, he’d gone from talking with his finger to talking with his eyes to talking with his hurting heart, scar tissue and all. Goodbye, his heart now says. Goodbye. He says it sometimes, but not all the time. Like Dolly says: Every moment is a goodbye, and sometimes, it’s better to let the moment speak for itself.
Dolly taught him that.
I taught him how to shoot free throws.
Dolly thought I was kidding when I told her this, but she got it, the way she gets everything.
I really wanted to tell her on the Zoom call about a moment that probably had spoken for itself, but it was a moment I knew she’d missed.
Before COVID, we were in my driveway, our mutual friend and me, shooting free throws. He was shooting, I was rebounding — sluggish and sleepy, like always, but I was rebounding, I told Dolly. Free-throw shooting is like shaving, it’s like ironing — it’s about the routine, the repetition, I said. The peace in it.
Yes, I get it, Zooming Dolly said.
While he was shooting and I was rebounding, you were singing on the radio, Dolly, I said. It was a song of yours I hadn’t heard — the one about mutual funds not being mutual?
Ha! Dolly said. That one!
Yes, that remarkable song, I said.
I didn’t tell her what the song said to our mutual and me that day. What the sky said. What I thought the moment said.
I wanted to tell her — she is my friend and I trust her — but I didn’t know how.
While Dolly was singing about mutual funds, singing like the beautiful songbird she is, the sky was talking, talking with its heart about a world spinning and a world not spinning. Talking about a time to say Goodbye and a time to say Hello. A time to hold someone’s hand, hold it so they can’t feel you holding it, but they can feel something, and you can feel it, too. Hold it like a baby songbird nudged in its sleep from a nest. Hold it like a Hello, caress it like a Goodbye, the kind you’d say to a peaceful sky with your heart, even if your heart had lost its voice, lost it from all the telling, all the coming and going, all the trusting. Your heart, re-learning to talk. Re-learning to leave. Re-learning to fall.
Yes, that remarkable song, I said again to Dolly, because it was the only thing somnambulant me knew how to say.
Thank you so much for saying, friend, Dolly said. I wonder how our mutual is doing.
I wonder, too, I said with my heart, feeling the tug of scar tissue with every word, the way each tumbled, how each one fell, perhaps from the sky. ‘Hello, Dolly,’ I said. Hello.
Ha! And yes! said Dolly, her words riddling across the screen like a rebound in reverse. By Jove, and by the tender light of this articulate moment, I think you’ve got it!
Pat Foran believes in Dolly Parton. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tiny Molecules, jmww, Truffle and elsewhere. Find him on Twitter at @pdforan.
