5:30 P.M.
Last night when Heidi, Jess and I walked into the local �stand by� I immediately scanned the crowd for that familiar face that normally greets me smiling at the door.
I noticed that the crowd was scarce, and the regulars that DID show up were totally off kilter. Heidi ran straight for the dance floor to try the new dances, but I stood along the sideline waiting for Wendell to show.
The place just seemed dirty and dingy and no matter what song came on, I just couldn�t find my groove.
While we were in the bathroom I noticed some new graffiti on the wall while I was washing my hands. It read, �RIP Wendell Lee Johnson�, �Save The Last Dance For me�, and reading those quotes reminded me of my buddy who I had been looking for since we walked in just an hour ago.
I started to recall the last time I saw him a few weeks back in another club for dollar drink night. His smile has the power to just light up the room and his spirit is often the inspiration that would pull me off of the couch on a Friday or Saturday night to run off to the country bar. He had this honest, hopeful intention about him that made the worse case scenario often seem not so bad.
How many nights I would go up to that club and he would greet me, kiss me on the cheek and say, �Save that last dance for me sweetheart! I may get busy, but don�t leave without saying goodbye.� He was the comfort of the club and made that place feel more and more like home I guess it started off the first day we met when I had a run in with a drunk pervert. This guy just came out of nowhere and grabbed my arm. He insisted that I dance with him and when I told him I couldn�t he spilled his beer down the front of my jeans. Wendell immediately picked the drunken asshole up over his shoulders and threw him out on the sidewalk in front of the club.
I was shocked, and thankful all at once.
We often had the best conversations on the dance floor. A few years back I actually stopped going to the club when he told me he was leaving for a few months to take a temporary job up in Missouri or something. When I was going through tough times with my family, or with work I would always venture up to the club for some much needed stress relief.
He was huggable like a great big teddy bear and his hugs swallowed me whole. There was never a real romance between us. He was like a big brother to me and his hugs just made the rest of the world seem almost one-dimensional as the rest of the world just faded into the background until he let me loose.
Wendell taught me how to two-step for the first time and was often the first friend to run up to me to give me a high five for mastering some new line dance. He didn�t line dance, or have any interest in it, so I never completely understood his words of encouragement on the subject.
He was a hard worker and often held 2, and sometimes 3 jobs. I remember seeing him working as a bouncer a few summers back at a club on the beach and was pleasantly surprised.
All of these thoughts ran ramped through my mind as I made my way to the front door of the club to ask Jodi if the writing on the bathroom wall was about my buddy and she took a long hard pause before she told me, �Yes�.
I asked her what it all meant and she told me that he died instantly a couple weeks back in a bad car accident.
I felt my heart sink into my stomach as a lump filled my throat. As she told what details she could, I kept clearing my throat as I felt the lump in my throat swell larger and larger.
It took every muscle in my body to keep from breaking down right then. I kept my cool. I tried to stay calm, and I went in to tell the girls I had to leave.
I couldn�t stay in that place another moment. The tension building up inside me was just way too thick.
I couldn�t help but wonder what caused him to be driving 6 blocks past his house when he was on the way home from the club that weekend. And where the hell did the big rig come from that split Wendell�s truck in two.
Then I had an epiphany. I remembered consoling Sam a couple weeks back as he told me he was up at the very same club morning a friend�s death. He told me the story about Wendell�s accident and I never thought to ask him who his friend was that passed away.
I should have asked. I should have known. Why couldn�t I just go up there last weekend instead of sitting on my couch? I could have gone to the funeral. I could have gone to the wake, and I could have mourned like the rest of his friends did.
Instead, I find myself wishing I would have been there...... I should have been there.
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In loving memory of Wendell Lee Johnson:
�Wendell Lee Johnson Jr., 28, Holiday, Fla., died June 3, 2006 in Florida. He was born June 20, 1977, in St. Louis, the son of Wendell Lee Johnson Sr. and Betty Dahlgren and stepson of Kathy Johnson Sr. and Steve Dahlgren.
He was a construction worker and served in the U.S. Army. He was a graduate of Fox High School in Arnold.
He is survived by three brothers, Michael, Nick and Matt; two sisters, Elizabeth Johnson and Jessica Dahlgren, and by his parents.
Funeral was June 9 at Kutis South County Chapel. Interment is in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.�
