To continue the “Whatever Happened to....”post, I want to tell you about Doyle.  Doyle was probably the most withdrawn of the three amigos.  I got the impression that he felt out of place whenever he was sober.  When he was drunk, he was happy. Doyle never really opened up to me about his life.  I knew that he had been a disc jockey for quite some time.  That lasted until he couldn’t stay sober long enough to work.  He was a huge Kinks fan (by the way, if you didn't know, the title of this post is the name of a Kinks song).  He had had all their albums at one point or another, knew every song they ever played and knew all their stories.  When he was sober he was an engaging conversationalist.  He didn’t try to impress you or make you feel sorry for him, he was just a nice guy.

    Once he gave me a story that he had written and wanted me to read it.  As someone who has hidden their writing for years, I know that giving it to someone for an opinion is a huge risk.  If they don’t like it, their criticism can stifle you for months.   I took his manuscript home with me and read it in private.  It was a warm and fuzzy tale about a guy that has a crush on a girl and gives her a puppy.  The first half was like a movie on the Lifetime channel.  It was well thought out and kept you reading.  Then, out of the clear blue, it turned into unadulterated pornography.  Graphic, sweaty, throbbing, no holds barred sex.  After they tried every move in the Kama Sutra it became a bittersweet tale of unrelinquished love.  She went her way and he his.  I don’t think I was very critical about his work, but I did bring up the fact that the hardcore part seemed to not really fit the storyline very well.

    To the best of my knowledge, Doyle didn’t receive any type of aid from the government.  He lived in the back part of an old house that his Aunt owned.  On occasion he would scrounge up something to sell for a little cigarette and drinking money.  Once, he had an antique radio that was in pretty rough shape and sold it to me for $25.00.  It didn’t work, of course, but I refinished it and it looked pretty good.  It’s sitting up in our TV room today.

     Doyle climbed onto a Greyhound bus headed to New Orleans one day.  He really hadn’t discussed his plans with anyone.  All he said was that he wanted a new life.  The hard part about getting a new life is ending the old one.  We never saw Doyle again.