Back in the Old Oakland Days, I had a crush on my friend Toups’ friend Alison, both of whom lived in a town called Lafayette in Louisiana . . . Either he must have told her I liked her, or else I asked him to (which seems more likely), but somehow I ended up writing her letters all the time. And with each letter, I included a $2 bill. Back then I was working the register at Donut Farm, and at least once a week someone would pay with a $2 bill, and when I’d tip myself out at the end of the day, I always kept them to send to Alison. It went on like this for some time until I decided to go visit my friends in Texas and Louisiana, which meant I would finally meet Alison too.

And so exactly 11 years ago, in July of 2014, I flew to New Orleans and stayed with Leila (whose birthday is today!), and then took a bus from there to Baton Rouge and on to Lafayette. I remember the bus dropping me off in the middle of nowhere, and I had to walk into town. There were no sidewalks or anything like that, just dark untamed Louisiana wilderness screeching with insects the size of my fist. Finally I entered Lafayette, which was an idyllic little Twilight Zone-feeling town . . . it was peaceful and immaculate in that 1950s sort of way. It felt like a Hollywood backlot in that sense. I loved it immediately.

I met up with Toups and he showed me around town. This dude was like the mayor . . . he knew everyone. Every bar or diner or venue we went to, even just walking down the street, people would wave and say hello and he would introduce them to me. Everyone was so kind, and they were all curious as to why I had even come there in the first place, to which I would say: “Because I’ve never been here before.” I put it together that Lafayette isn’t exactly a place you end up in by accident . . . it has to be your destination. And so tagging along with Toups, I felt like a sort of celebrated guest. When playing pool at a bar near his house, multiple women either offered to buy me a drink or asked me to two-step. This blew my mind because certainly nothing like that had ever happened before . . . nor has it happened since! Incredulously I inquired with my guide of the source of this phenomenon, my sudden popularity there, to which he replied: “Well Ryan, we don’t get a whole lot of new people here, and so everyone knows you’re new. Plus you look a little more cosmopolitan than a man of Lafayette.”

I spent three days in the town Lafayette. I went to a few cookouts and birthday parties, drank cold beer and ate ice cream with half the town, saw some local bands play (including Toups’ own), met a bunch of babes and cool dudes, and every evening at sundown I walked down pristine streets and through cozy neighborhoods in the balmy Louisiana summer heat. My skin and hair looked fantastic. Back then I was convinced that you had to live in a big city or else life wasn’t any good . . . I was a complete idiot, and absolutely wrong. Lafayette was a sort of paradise to me where everyone was always hanging around having a good time. What more could you need? I remember thinking I ought to have just stayed there, and even still today I wonder at it . . .

AND WHAT ABOUT ALISON? I met Alison that very first night I got in. She was tall and beautiful and had long brown hair. We spent all night hanging out and talking at the aforementioned bar with the pool table, and around 2 am she drove me back to Toups’ house. I gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek and went inside. A few minutes later, back at home, she sent me this . . . I can’t believe I kept it but then of course I did:

This was a long time ago when the world was still pure and beautiful in ways that it is not any longer and can never be again, so you’ll have to forgive the perhaps annoying cuteness of this exchange. Alison and I were young, and we were, all of us, still entranced by life, enriched by life, drunk on it even, and believed that it could be good and dignified, and all would work out in the end. So much for that! But what was Alison trying to say all those years ago? At the time, I thought that in her midnight tipsiness, she might go and confess something to me . . . I don’t know, “I think you’re cute!” or some such thing! Or anyway, I was hoping she would, and I would’ve said it right back to her . . . but she fell asleep before anything came of it, and I fell asleep too. I saw her every day, but I didn’t bring it up the rest of the time I was there.

On that last night in Lafayette, she told me she was moving to Chicago for grad school, and I told her I’d come visit her sometime. I meant it. I said goodbye to Toups and took a night bus from downtown Lafayette to Houston, almost got stranded there in the worst part of town, but eventually caught a connecting bus to Austin, which is where I was headed. In Austin I did acid and went swimming at night beneath a full moon with my childhood friend Jason. And a few days later when I flew back to California, I met my best friend Laura Rokas for the very first time. I never did make it back to Lafayette, and I never did see Alison in Chicago. In fact I never saw her again at all.

I thought about Alison again today because not only was it exactly 11 years ago that I met her, but I also happened to find a $2 bill in my desk that I’d got in the US last time I was there. The two are forever wedded in my mind. I looked her up on Instagram and unsurprisingly she is still just as cool and beautiful as she ever was. I scrolled way down until I found what I was looking for, which was the picture you see at the top . . . that’s the first letter I ever sent her. The caption is “My Oakland penpal 🌻”. Naturally, I felt a sadness and the leaden weight of time. Alas!! I should have said something to her back then, about my liking her a lot, but I thought it was more fun to be coy. I thought I would always have enough time. I was of course a complete fool, as I have been so many times. I wonder what became of those letters I wrote her. Does she remember me? Does it even matter? If you are cursed with an excellent memory like I am, and you make as many bad decisions as I have, then you can be sure that the sting you feel from eternally recalling your own stupidity is as potent as a gunshot. Now multiply that sensation by a hundred-thousand, coupled with the fact that everyone else has forgotten all the things that you can never forget, and the emptiness of the other side of your bed will feel as vast and lonely as a tomb. And I would know.