Neither did he go.

I think most men would have apologized and taken the ride with the cool people to the cool place. After all, William was expected. But William Gay was not most men, nor like them in most ways. I once asked him did he ever feel like he was an alien when he found himself a stranger amongst people and their peculiar ways, their manner of living and speaking and behaving. “No,” he told me. “I feel more like I have been set among aliens.”

He was right at home in his skin, and didn’t need to fix up different when company came calling, nor duck when he was caught out. When I came calling to his cabin in Hohenwald, he’d always ask me what I wanted to eat, and he’d have it homemade on the stove when I got there. He’d have clean sheets on his bed, all made up for me to sleep in, and wouldn’t have it any other way. He’d take the couch. His dog would keep him company.

I once pushed my publisher to let me include, late in the production cycle, one more author’s work in Stories from the Blue Moon Café. The guy, a good writer, had been on a dry spell of late and needed a break. And then that writer withdrew his story. Just days from going to press. He’d got a more prestigious offer from an iconic literary magazine, and told me he was sorry, but, quite frankly, he needed Southern Review more than he needed our anthology. I was pissed off, and called Tom Franklin to bitch and vent. Tom stopped me. “Well, Sonny—you and me—we both know only one writer who wouldn’t have pulled their story, and, sorry, but I’m including us both in that count.”

“William Gay,” I said.

“William Gay,” he said.

He was a superior man. Willing to sell his literary papers to help with someone else’s doctor bills. Or to offer me a loan when I lost my home to a foreclosure sale on the courthouse steps in 2008.

On one of our highway runs, we made a little detour and stopped at my mother’s house in rural Alabama. My brother Frankie lived with her and took care of her and wanted to meet William Gay. When we went inside, my mother was upset because Frankie had failed for four days, he admitted, to figure out what she wanted from him. Mama couldn’t speak since a stroke fifteen years earlier, and could only gesture and say, “Okay, yes,” or “Okay, no.” I gave it a try, sat on the sofa with her while The Price Is Right blinked on the TV.

Mama gestured in a direction that could have indicated the hallway to her bedroom, or the bathroom, or something outside in the unknown distance. William walked into the living room to stand near my mother. He was interested in her trouble. When I shifted my Is it bigger than a breadbox? approach to nearby towns in the general direction of her pointing, she lit up when I said Vernon. “Okay, yes!” she said, and even gave a little laugh, relieved for some progress finally. Frankie looked on. William watched and listened. Mother even motioned to William, as if, Please, help my dimwit sons!

“Let’s see,” I said. Then, to add a bit of levity, and keep the mood going, I asked, “You want to go to the jailhouse in Vernon?” But my comedy was weak and my mother’s face conveyed to me a deep frustration that quickly devolved into sadness.