By Ronnie Bray

Sammy Lee Paston and I could not have been more different.  In many ways he reminded me of my father, George Frederick Bray, and there was much about him that was singularily unlikeable.  For one thing, father was a drunkard, for another, he was not good to his wives, and they were two good reasons why I have find it difficult to warm to drunkards and wife-beaters.  I do not know that Sammy Lee was a wife-beater, but I do know that he did not always put her interests first, and in my book that amounts to the same thing.

I met Sammy Lee when he knocked at our apartment door at Warren House Apartments in Cedar Bluff, Knoxville, in the early summer of 2001.  He was holding a VCR and needed a lift to Charlie’s Pawnshop on Kingston Pike.  He had to have money, he said, for his wife’s medication.  He had been involved in a road accident in which she suffered seven broken ribs.  She had been in the hospital but he had brought her home, her pain medicine had run out, and he needed a ride to the pawnshop to raise some cash.  He would, he insisted, pay for the petrol. 

“Put your cigarette out and come in and wait while I get ready and that I will take you - on one condition.”  

“What’s that?”  He asked.  

“The condition is that you don’t try to pay for the petrol.  This trip is on me!”

His had a fascinating, appealling, and deceptively honest full-cheeked face, with the nut-brown complexion of the outdoor worker, framed by somewhat dishevelled black hair with more than a hint of curl.  He was in his late thirties, five-five in height, with a stocky slightly tubby build, and my first impression was that he was going to try to sell me his VCR.

“I gotta pay for the gas!” he insisted in a gentle Southern accent.

“Then I won’t take you!”  I insisted right back at him.

He knit his brow, shook his head in disbelief, discarded his cigarette, and stepped over the threshold into our lounge where he sat down nursing the VCR on his lap.  I put on some clothes, told Gay my errand, and set off with Sammy to find ‘Charlie’s Pawnshop’ on the lower reaches of Kingston Pike.  

Sammy told me about himself on the way.  He had been married to Donna for seven years, had a ten-year-old son from his previous marriage, but he had gone to be with Sammy’s mother in Morristown.  He hoped to see him soon.  He told me that he would be going to jail sometime in the summer for some past misdeed.  He told me how much he loved Donna and how much he would miss her if she left him.

“Is there any chance that she will leave you?”

“She might, if I don’t straighten out and lay off the beer,” he said, with too much resignation and too little determination, as if the matter was entirely out of his hands.  

When he found out I was a preacher, he opened up to me about his life, and kept apologising for his shortcomings.  It took very little time for me to realise that Sammy was Sammy and that if anyone was going to change his ways, it would only be Sammy that could do it, but that he probably wouldn’t ever make it.  I settled for being his Good Samaritan.  He was in Charlie's for a good half-hour but eventually came out with fifty dollars.  He told me that he would redeem it as soon as he could.

As I was about to drop him off at the apartments, he asked if I could take him to the pharmacy to get Donna’s analgaesic prescription filled.  I told him to get back in and we drove to the imposing new Walgreen’s pharmacy at the north end of Cedar Bluff Road.  He confided that he had worked on the project, and that he was a master builder.  Before he went into the pharmacy he approached a couple of men in a pick up truck and bummed a cigarette from them, standing talking to them in the sunshine to chat with them as he smoked it away before he went inside to take care of business.

As I sat n my car watching him, thinking about Donna sat at home waiting for pain relief from her broken ribs, I started thinking about priorities, and what Sammy’s priorities were.  Whatever they were, it became clear that Donna was not among them.  He had told me that he had a ten-years old son from his previous marriage, but had sent him to live with his grandmother, Sammy’s mother, because he would have to go to jail in the summer.  He told me something of his criminal past when he had been a house-breaker.  That was all over now, he said, but the sentence for his misdeeds was waiting for him.

He emerged from Walgreen’s clutching a bag with the medication in and got back into the car.  As we were driving south on Cedar Bluff Road, he asked whether, since I was a preacher, would I mind if he stopped off at the Pilot gas station so that he could buy a bottle of booze.  I said I didn’t care what he did as long as he didn’t drink or smoke in the car.  Outside the Pilot station, he asked me what I would like to drink.  I told him that I needed nothing and wouldn’t drink anything even if he bought it for me, as his money had to go to help Donna.  More head shaking from Sammy Lee.

He returned to the car with a box of tinned beer and a bottle of root beer for me.  I took it and thanked him.  He opened a can and had it half down as we drove back onto the road.  By the time we reached the traffic lights, it was a dead man.  He explained that he only needed the beer to stop his ‘shakes,’ and that nothing else would help them.  It was his medication.  He trotted out this excuse frequently throughout our short acquaintance as if he always needed to justify his tippling and as if he sensed disapproval from me.  

I took a position of neither approving or disapproving because I knew full well that all I could do for him was to be of service, and I thought it best to offer that without judgement, unless he invited me to advise him, which he never did.  He knew what he should do but couldn’t get around to doing it, whatever it cost him.

Pulling into the apartments' car park, he tried to give me gas money by stuffing it into my pocket, but I unstuffed it and returned it to him.  I felt it would do him no harm to learn that it is possible to do good without hope of reward.  It was, I assured him, my pleasure to help him in his distress.  He shook his head, drew back, looked at me down his chin, and said, “I never met a man like you.  You are different.”  

Not wishing him to gain an undeserved favourable notion of me I explained that it was a church car and that I didn’t pay for the petrol, but he still couldn’t see why anyone would do anything for nothing, and that gave me a glimpse inside the world Sammy knew, where nobody ever did anything for anyone for nothing.  It saddened me to see this man unable to grasp the simple principle of active love.  Perhaps his life would have been different if he had learned this earlier in his life.

And so it was that Sammy’s needs seemed to be all taken care of.  He had no VCR, but the apartments were furnished with cable television, so he and Donna would not want for entertainment.  Donna had her medication and would now get some relief from the pain of seven broken ribs, and Sammy had some cans of beer.  It seemed that their lives were settled for the present time.  

I called in to see Donna.  She had been a good looking woman but was in some pain and the lines on her face told of a life of trials and hardships.  She sat holding her side to alleviate the pain from her broken ribs, but her eyes betrayed how much she hurt.  I was surprised to hear her say that she didn’t know how much longer she could stay with him if he didn’t stop drinking, but she said it and she seemed to mean it.  He made no response.  

I saw Sammy the next day.  Donna had been in so much pain that he had called the University of Tennessee’s medical centre and they had sent an ambulance to admit her.  Could I take him there to see her, for they would not permit him to ride in the ambulance with her?  I questioned whether he was fit to visit anyone because he was obviously drunk.  He ignored my question.

“I need to call at a store to buy some mints.”  He said.

“I don’t know where there is one.  I’m a stranger to Knoxville.”

“We’ll find one,” he asserted, but we did not find one.  It took me all my time to find the hospital and Sammy was no help.  I dropped him off at the hospital entrance and he rolled through the doors.

Three days later, I was bringing groceries out of the car when Sammy got off a community transport van and explained that I hadn’t seen him for a while because he had been in jail.  When he had entered the hospital, the security guards had called the police, and he had been arrested and jailed for becoming angry at the police officer who took him into custody.  He had been released later that night, found himself a bottle, and taken a taxi back to the hospital where he was promptly re-arrested and locked up for two more days.  On this visit he remained sober but managed to persuade Donna to sign herself out of the hospital against medical advice.

Sammy called at our apartment a week later, less than five minutes after we had got home from the Institute to ask if I could take him to Walgreen's to collect Donna’s repeat prescription.  I asked him if the prescription was ready for collection, and he said, “Oh, yes.  It has been ready since this morning.”  Walgreen’s was but a fair mile walk from Ten Mile Road and I wondered why Sammy had not walked to get his wife’s prescription instead of keeping her waiting in discomfort through the whole day.  However, I did not challenge him, because I knew that whatever his excuse was, it would not satisfy me, so why put him in that position, and, in any case, I had decided that I was not going to change Sammy’s behaviour.

On the way home from Walgreen’s he told me how much he loved Donna, and hoped that they would marry some day.  I reminded him that he had told me they were married.  He said he told me that because I was a preacher and he didn’t want to shock me.  I told him that I was past shocking and that he could be, and always should be, honest with me.  

I had a tape playing by the celebrated Mormon arranger and conductor, Lex D’Azevedo.  Sammy said, “What kind of music is that?  Is it special music?”  I explained that Lex was a member of my Church and that he had made special arrangements of many of our most loved hymns.  Thereafter, I always had Lex playing when Sammy was in the car, since he had recognised something in his music that seemed to reach and please him.

Perhaps it was my telling him to be honest with me that led to his next request.  He had been working for a builder in Maryville who owed him some pay.  Could I take him there?  If so, he would give me some gas money.  I reminded him of our agreement and he made a big song and dance about it, but finally settled on my terms shaking his head and muttering about how much I confused him.  I thought it sad that kindness should be confusing to anyone.

We picked Donna up from their apartment and set off to Maryville.  Lex D’Azevedo’s music was playing, as usual.  Sammy explained to Donna “This is special music, Donna.”  Donna said that she liked it.  

On reaching Maryville we headed to the building site where his boss, according to Sammy Lee, “A non-Christian, but one of the nicest men I have ever met,” gave him one hundred dollars after some earnest discussion, the details of which I did not hear, but it was evident from his boss’s face that there was some reluctance and, possibly, some conditions involved.  Whether he received the money for wages due or an advance against the promise of future work, I do not know.  I do know that Sammy habitually took his pay in dollar bills and that he and the IRS were not on speaking terms.

Leaving the site, we had to stop at a filling station for some tins of beer.  Sammy and Donna pointed out the place where they had been in the accident.  Sammy had been drunk and the other vehicle had hit them amidships.  Sammy could not remember the details but blamed the other driver, and Donna seemed too far off to comment.  The crash had written off his pickup truck, and Donna had taken the brunt of the impact.  

A few days later Sammy’s timid knock hit my door again.  Donna was in pain and she had to go to the hospital at Maryville.  A half-mile from the hospital Sammy had me stop at a filling station from which he emerged with a brown paper bag hiding a tin of beer.  Then we continued our journey to the hospital where I drove up to the main entrance and Donna got out.  

“Are you going to take her in?”  I asked the still seated Sammy. 

He wound down the window and called to her, “You go ahead and I’ll come in a few minutes.”

“Take her in, Sammy,” I pressed, but he would not.  He had something to do.

“Drive into the main car park.” he said.  “I have to finish this.”  He held up his bag with a “you-know-how-it -is” look on his face. 

I drove to the main parking area and Sammy took his time finishing his drink.  That done, he dismissed me, telling me that his old boss would give them a lift back to Cedar Bluff.  As I steered out of the hospital entrance, I saw him in my mirror depositing his empty in a concrete rubbish bin before shaking his way towards the Out-Patient Department.

Sammy’s called on us a couple of days later to ask if we wanted to buy his furniture.  He was being evicted from his apartment for non-payment of rent.  He had known about this for some weeks, but had not bothered to mention it.  Our apartment was furnished so we could not help him out. We invited him to use our telephone to contact divers religious charities but none of them could help him.  His social security payment had been stopped, so he called the office, and was told that he had all he was entitled to get.  The skids were firmly under Sammy and Donna.

He had one last course of action open to him and that was to appeal to his mother, who lived in Morristown.  He called her to persuade her to let them stay in her home.

“Mom?  It’s Sammy.  I need your help.  Could you ask Bob if he could come and collect our furniture?  We have to be out of the apartment by Friday.”  This was Tuesday.

“Well, Mom, could you ask Larry to ask Bob and have him call this number to let me know?”

“I see.”

“Mom?”

“Could Donna and me come and stay with you for a few days until we find a place?”

“We have to leave by Friday.”

“Just for a few days, Mom!”

“No, Mom, both Donna and I are off drink!”

“I know, Mom, but we are OK now.  I’m off it and Donna is too.”

“It’s not like that, Mom!”

“We’ve nowhere else to go.”  He put his can of beer on the computer desk.

“But, Mom, we are both off drink now.’

“A few weeks, Mom, or just a few days.”

“We’ve quit drink and smoking.”  The bulge in his shirt pocket gave the lie to this.

“Mom - ”

“Mom - ”

“But, Mom - “

“I know, but it’s different now, Mom.”

“I don’t know what else to do, Mom.  Your are our last chance, and I’m worried about Donna, she’s real hurt.”

“She has seven broke ribs from the wreck.”

“I have to find some place for Donna to be so she can get better.”

“Just for a few days, Mom, until I can get settled.”

“I’ve not been able to work after the accident.  I got banged up pretty bad, Mom.”

“Can I call you again tomorrow, Mom?”

“No, Mom, we quit drinking and I know you don’t like smoking, but we quit that too.”

“OK, Mom.  I’ll call you tomorrow.  I love you.”

He replaced the handset and settled back on the settee.  It was painful to see his pain, but he had let himself and his life go to the point where it looked as if no one could save him and he was certainly not up to the job.  

“She’s going to see if Bob will come and get my furniture.  It cost over a thousand dollars and I’d let it go for two hundred.”

There were no telephone calls for him that day or the next. 

On Thursday, he came and called his mother again, having much the same conversation with her as he had before.  I do not know what transpired but the last time we spoke he did not know what was going to happen to him.  He might have closed even the door to his mother’s heart, and that is always a tragedy, for mothers will continue to love and assist their children even as the gates of Hell close around them.

In the course of a couple of weeks, we had seen Sammy and Donna slowly descend in a spiral that gathered pace and ultimately headed straight down.  He had caused injuries to himself and his wife through drinking and had lost his only means of transport, and that had been uninsured.  

He had made promises to his employer that he would be back on the job, but he drunk his advance of pay as he had drunk the cash he got from his VCR.  His furniture was still on the landing outside the apartment a week after he had quit and moved on, presumably abandoned because no one would come and help him and he could not help himself.

The day of his eviction I saw him for the last time.  He, Donna, and an unknown companion were walking across the grass to leave the apartment grounds.  They had been drinking, all three, and looked as if they were coming undone.  Unsteadily, they staggered with the exaggerated movements of drunks determined to show how sober they were, but with a little wheeling this way and that they moved slowly across the grassy area between the buildings and then they were gone.

It was one of the saddest sights I had ever seen, for I knew that wherever they were and wherever they went, they had hit bottom and would find it a formidable task to raise themselves off the bottom, and  I wondered if Sammy Lee and Donna would ever hear ‘special music’ again.

Copyright © Ronnie Bray - December 2001

ALL RIGHT RESERVED