Everything I know about music I learned from Jimmy Ray Casey. He had a perm, and a mustache, and wore cut-off jeans just like Daisy Duke.

It was the British Motor Repair that brought us Jimmy Ray. My daddy ordered all the parts for his shop from a place in Birmingham back when you had to call them up on the phone and then pay with a check or a money order. He got to be friends with Sue who processed the orders. Daddy invited Sue down for Mardi Gras. Sue brought Jean, and Jean brought Jimmy Ray. They’d get all dressed up and Daddy would drive them around in a 1961 Rolls Royce, and people would stop and look. Sometimes Daddy would wear tails, other times a full-length beaver skin coat. Sometimes he’d talk in a British accent just for fun. Daddy loved the attention. When the weekend was over Sue and Jean left, but Jimmy Ray stayed.

For a while Jimmy Ray worked as a short-order cook at the Waffle House, which when you’re a kid seems like a dream job. We would visit him when he was at work, and I’d sit at the counter and watch as he masterfully moved food across the grill. If I was lucky Daddy would give me change for the jukebox. The jukebox at the Waffle House didn’t have the music Jimmy Ray liked. It was mostly country music: the classics like Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash, maybe Reba McEntire and Kenny Rogers. And of course, some Jimmy Buffett. This was the Gulf Coast, after all. Daddy would dole out the quarters one at a time, making me think that each one would be the last, so I’d take my time making my selection. What it really did was keep me entertained and buy him time to talk to Jimmy Ray. 

If anyone asked, Jimmy was Daddy’s roommate. That’s what Daddy said.

But somehow, even at seven or eight years old, I knew it was something more. I just didn’t have the words for it. Eventually, I learned those words. Not at home, but at school. On the playground. I still didn’t really understand what they meant, but I could tell that these words were not good words. Not in Alabama. Not back then.

For a kid whose elementary and middle school experience spanned the decade, the 80s meant Friday nights at Godfather’s Pizza followed by Friday Night Videos on MTV. Daddy would load us up and take us to Godfather’s which totally qualified as fine dining since back then you could sit at a booth and eat. He’d send me around to collect the pitchers of beer people would leave behind. He said it was okay because it wasn’t like people drank straight from the pitcher. 

Godfather’s had a jukebox, too, but this one was different. This one played all the Top 40 hits. It was at Godfather’s that I was introduced to artists like Bon Jovi, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and Aerosmith. Once again, Daddy would ration the quarters. Sometimes I’d find a quarter in the payphone outside which bought me an extra song. I’d stand at the jukebox carefully debating my options before dropping my quarter in and then racing back to our booth to wait for my song to play.

Jimmy’s skills at the Waffle House extended to our home where he did all the cooking. If we didn’t go to Godfather’s to eat pizza and steal beer, he’d make corndogs from scratch and hand-cut French fries. Being able to make corndogs from scratch was basically a superpower.

At home the music was different. Jimmy Ray had his own bedroom that was covered in music posters and filled with records and 8-track tapes, but even then, I could tell he didn’t sleep there. At home we listened to Boy George and Culture Club, Madonna, Cindy Lauper, Prince. A whole lot of Prince. Jimmy had a record player I wasn’t allowed to touch and an old school boom box with a cassette player. He would rig it up so that he could bootleg his old LPs onto cassettes which I was pretty sure made him a genius.

The music changed depending on where we were. So did the way Daddy and Jimmy interacted with each other. At the Waffle House, Daddy was Jimmy’s customer. At Godfather’s they were friends. At home, where Prince and Boy George played on repeat, they were partners. At school and family events, Jimmy Ray was conspicuously absent. There would be too many questions that no one wanted to answer.

I noticed the changes: the way they carried themselves and the way they talked to each other when people were around. In public my dad was gregarious, shaking hands with everyone and careful to not stand too close, while Jimmy Ray just tried to blend in. At the time, I didn’t fully understand why it was so important that they played these roles, but I did understand that Jimmy Ray resented it. Slowly, they began to devour each other.

I didn’t know why Jimmy lived with us, but I did know that I didn’t like the way they talked to each other. You could hear the meanness in their voice even when they smiled. Secrets will do that. No one told me it was a secret because that would have meant some level of acknowledgement, but somehow, I knew that it wasn’t something I should be talking about with other people.

I became fixated on the things that would help me blend in with the other kids; Jimmy Ray and I had that in common. Out of all my friends, I was the only one with divorced parents, a truth that felt magnified every Friday when I arrived at school with my overnight bag. I watched as my friends got all the latest technology the 80s had to offer: microwave ovens, VCRs, mini vans, CD players. I had no control over who my dad loved, but I could collect these little trophies to normalcy. Cable TV was what I wanted most because it meant that during lunch and recess I could talk about what I’d watched the weekend before. It became the gateway to the higher social status I longed for. My dad had a giant television that sat perched on top of a vintage ice box. The day I came home and saw the cable connected, it felt like Christmas. Cable TV meant we no longer had to wrap aluminum foil around the antenna that shot up like rabbit ears from the back of the TV. It meant I could watch Nickelodeon and see kids get slimed. But most importantly, it meant access to MTV.

Jimmy and I competed for my father’s attention, each annoyed with the other for robbing us of our precious time with my dad. I was a weekly intrusion into their routine. But when Friday Night Videos was on, we were friends. There were no secrets, no competition. In music we found common ground. It was a vocabulary we shared. It was something he could give me. A relationship we could define. He was the teacher. Daddy would go to work, and Jimmy and I would stage lip-sync contests in the living room. It was the only time I saw him relaxed and unguarded. Music has a way of doing that.

The living room was furnished with a worn couch where my dad kept his pot on a vintage Coca-Cola tray hidden underneath. There was an old church pew no one sat on, an Edison typewriter, a phonograph, a collection of vintage calendars that lined the walls, and an antique barber chair I liked to pretend was a throne. There was no central heat or air, so in the winter the house was warmed with two gas heaters, one in the hallway and another in the dining area. In the summer, Daddy would set up an industrial fan that meant you had to turn the TV up even louder in order to hear. I probably spent hours of my childhood talking into that fan just so I could hear how the force of the air distorted my voice. It was the house my grandfather built in the 50s: three bedrooms and one bath. It was functional but not fashionable. My memory of the living room is colored in the same muted colors as a Polaroid picture from the 80s; everything looks a little faded. Maybe that’s just my memory or maybe it’s because most of what my father owned was also a little faded; everything was either found, bartered, or bought second-hand.

From Friday Night Videos I learned the simple joy of delayed gratification. Every week I’d sit and wait for the number one video to be revealed. There was an 800 number where for 25 cents you could call in and vote on your favorite video. The only time I can remember my dad being truly angry at me was when I ran up the phone bill voting for my favorite songs, but it felt like a small price to pay for the brief feeling of power it offered. I also thrived on the adrenaline rush I got when I recorded my favorite video on the VCR, capturing it for posterity.  Now music and videos are available on demand, making me part of the last generation of kids to truly appreciate those little victories. 

I don’t remember the last time we went to Godfather’s or ate corndogs. I haven’t seen a Godfather’s Pizza with dine-in service in years, decades maybe, but apparently, they still exist. I doubt any of them have a jukebox, and what a shame that is. Friday Night Videos is gone now. MTV canceled the show in 1992. Daddy and Jimmy Ray are gone too. Just like Godfather’s Pizza and MTV were symbols of the 80s, so was the AIDS crisis. 

What I do remember is the last time I saw Jimmy Ray. It was at my dad’s funeral. What we didn’t know was that the night before he’d loaded everything he could into my dad’s 1971 Pinto hatchback and driven it to Birmingham. He knew the house was no longer his home. He knew he didn’t have any rights. There weren’t a lot of people there: Sue and Jean, the women who brought us all together, an old Air Force buddy, and some family. There was no music that day, just whispers and speculation. His family drove down which I thought was nice until I realized they’d come there to disown him. Jimmy Ray didn’t get a chair by the grave. He didn’t get a chance to speak or to say his goodbyes. Instead, he stood in the back alone, and when the funeral was over, I watched as he got in the Pinto hatchback, turned the radio up, and drove away. 

Photo by Chris Zhang on Unsplash.