Sam did not want to live any more and it has nothing to do with me.

Sam did not want to live any more and it has nothing to do with me.

Sam did not want to live any more and it has nothing to do with me, but I can't help but go back and back and back and regret what I did and what I did not do.

I know it is illogical. Sam is dead. Nothing will bring him back.

There is not a thing I can say or do to change that.

I'm not a saint. I am not the Messiah.

But I am in anguish because I think Sam would be alive if I had said yes when he asked me to marry him.

But I laughed instead, and said, "God, Sam! We'd probably kill each other."

And his house was so chock full of mementos, frogs, and Winnie the Poohs, model airplanes, photos, band flyers, guns, and guitars. Where was there room for me?

He couldn't even part with the dead flower arrangements in his hallway, and I hate dead flowers with a passion.

Sam was a stubborn pack rat, buzzing with a boistrous love of life.

I am equally as stubborn and need empty space and silence.

I made myself remember as much as I loved him, how crucial it was for me to be able to run home to my sparse quiet.

Sam said we could make it work, but I was too afraid.

I love you, Sam.

I'm sorry how it turned out.

I wish, oh I wish you were here.

Ash Snatching

I felt closer to Sam than any other person on this earth, but I never knew he had Crohn's Disease and I didn't know his house was foreclosed upon. I don't know where his ashes are.
On the morning he was discovered dead I was hustled into the house, with an escort, Sam's late wife's sister and strangers glaring at me while I gather up my paintings and my party dress and my Gypsy Nurse tile box where Sam kept scandalous photos of me.
Sam's body had just been hauled away and his house is full of box-filling angry strangers who neither look nor act Blues Approved.
Hello! Do they know who they are talking to?
I hear them talk about no telling who Sam gave his key to and how they'd have to round them up so they wouldn't come in and pillage, and they talk about how Sam can rest in peace now that he is reunited with his dear Dido after nine long years without her. I hate them all.
I learn later that some of the daggers are directed at me because I am driving Sam's car. He made me take it so he wouldn't be tempted to drive! But apparently the car used to belong to Sam's late wife and the late wife's sister wants it for Sam's late wife's neice so even though Sam has only been dead an hour, she is so angry with me that I am hustled away before the fireworks start.
Sam's yard is full of zombies, all very shocked, but I hate them too. Why couldn't they show up at a gig like this? Bunch of vultures.
Yeah, and the local music critic waxes poetic about Sam after he's dead but we couldn't get him to write about Sam or our band when Sam was alive. He never even came to one gig that we knew about.
I return the key and the car to Ruth Ann, Sam's sister. She is angry, cold. I don't even recognise Sam's house. It is full of ugly. Sam is gone. Later Ruth Ann's lawyer questions me about who bought the tapes our music is recorded on? Who purchased the tape recorder? Ruth Ann has found an IOU I wrote to Sam for $300. and wants to be paid! I put the phone aside and start screaming to the heavens "Do you hear that Sam??!! Can you believe it??! You better tell them I paid that off a long time ago!" I think I told the lawyer to tell Ruth Ann what she could do with herself, etc. before I slammed down the phone.
I was glad to be asked to speak at Sam's memorial and I would have probably crashed the party if they hadn't. The first few rows were filled with Sam's dead wife's family sitting with Ruth Ann. I am so sure that they are glaring at me I never look their way. I just think about Sam and what I want to say at his send off.
I was closer to Sam than any of them but I don't even know what they've done with his ashes.
Maybe I'll become an ash-snatcher.
Sam would get a big kick out of that.

Sam's Key

I lied when I said Sam was my only friend, but he's my only friend that ever given me his house key over and over. I'd get mad at him and take his key and give it back like an engagement ring, but he kept giving it back. He said even if I was too mad to be romantically inclined, he still wanted me to feel welcome anytime, day or night.
"You know what, Sam," I said, standing in front of his refrigerator with the door open, "You are the only person in the world whose refrigerator I feel comfortable opening." By now, Sam has learned that being 'comfortable' is a huge feat in the world of KD, so he is pleased.
Sam is a consummate host, who loves to cook, especially grilling out. He has an array of hot sauces each hotter than the next. He dips toothpicks in Bad Bills and Wallopin Willies and various other hot concoctions and passes them out at band practice to pep us up.
Sam is the one I could call to kill rats in my basement or pick me up when I got another flat tire. He'd switch cars with me if I had to drive long distances, and leave flowers in my mailbox. I could ask him to check a boil on my rear end without embarrassment and twice he made me go to the Susan B. Korman festival to get free mammograms.
Best of all, Sam and I played music. We'd play in the band room and in the hallway and the kitchen and the living room. We'd play electric guitars and acoustic guitars. Sometimes Sam would play drums or bass while I played guitar. Sometimes Sam would play guitar while I just sang. We loved to tape everything and then listen back to what we played. It was really, really fun.
I am so sorry I was on a Sam-break when he died, and that I acted like he'd go on forever and I could keep coming back, and back, like his key.

1260 West Fourth Street

Sam's house, 1260 West Fourth Street, is the white house in the background. We practiced in the basement. Sam's house was very important to him. It made him proud that he paid for it with music.
I didn't know until after he died, that his house had been foreclosed upon. He was supposed to be out of his house the day he was found dead. Apparently no one knew about the impending foreclosure until Sam's neighbors noticed official looking snoopers checking out the property and sent out an alert.
At first I felt terrible thinking of Sam being so broke that he couldn't pay his morgage, but apparently he still had some money, $14,000 is what I heard.
It was such a typical Sam thing not to bring in his mail that we never worried when his letters were spilling out onto his porch.
And I remember when Sam told me he was tired of 'The Man' and he wasn't going to pay 'Him' one more dime.
On his last night, Sam told Peter May he was going to ditch his house and move to Holland to play music with one of his buddies. Peter thought it sounded odd but not un-Sam-like.
Damn, damn, damn. I wish I had known. I would have known Sam would not leave his house.
His wife was raped there and it was not enough to make him leave his house.
The next morning Peter was rushing to 1260 West Fourth Street with good news. Sam's late wife's family was going to rally and help him save his house if he'd rather not move to Holland, but Sam was already dead.

The Sams Playing Downtown Winston-Salem

KD and Sam at Rubber Soul

Little Kid

"He's like a little kid," whispered the lady next to me as she watched Sam leap and whirl about the room in his royal blue kimono.

"Except for the Jack Daniels," I say. Sam is waving a bottle in one hand and a guitar in the other as he enthusiastically meets and greets his public.

The boys have gathered for a jam session at a suburban mansion and Sam is the star guest. The "boys" are all grown up and work respectible day jobs for Reynolds Tobacco Company, and despite their passion for music, they look decidedly respectible and middle aged.

Not Sam.

Not Sam.

He was scarred but never old.

God, I loved his lust for life.