GENTLE ON MY MIND

At first Ray thought he'd had a stroke. His left eye could see only inky darkness and he couldn't even raise its lid for the merest flicker.

And for a short while, similar to the little Dutch boy who kept his finger firmly wedged in that famous dyke, he held back any recollection of what had happened to him.

Then he remembered.

"Damn!"

And suddenly all the memories of last night poured out in huge, gushing torrents as the deluge flooded his mind with instant regret.

"Fucking Glen Campbell! Why, Lord?"

Jagged flashbacks appeared in his mind like the quick, slicing cuts of a butcher's knife which made him wince and groan in pain, clutching his white bed sheet tight around him like a giant bandage.

Of all the things that would have brought his oldest friendship to a sudden and terminal end he would never have expected it to be the song 'Gentle On My Mind' and who had the better version - Glenn Campbell or Frank Sinatra.

For Ray there was no question, it was Frank all the way but he'd managed to keep quiet about it most of the interminable evening, whilst working his way through a bottle of whiskey as the recently heartbroken Gordy had been repeatedly feeding the jukebox with coins to play the Campbell version on repeat, over and over again. Admittedly his girl, Sheryl, had only just left him and so he had somehow decided that this was the 'break up' song that was going to stop him from throwing himself off the nearest bridge in town.

But after the twelfth time of Gordy playing the damn thing on a loop, something inside of Ray just snapped.

"For the love of Christ, Gordy!"

Blindsided by Ray's outburst, Gordy turned to his oldest friend and questioned where his sudden anger had sprung from.

"You got a problem that I'm playing Glenn Campbell or something?"

"I got a problem that the stupid hick sounds like a tin of cold chicken soup and you keep playing the damn thing."

This statement got Gordy's back up and he could feel his atavistic defences winding up like the drawbridge of a castle.

"And besides, this isn't even anywhere near the best version of the damn song."

"Jesus, Ray. This is his song for Christ's sake. He literally owns it."

"No he don't. Don't you know anything you dummy? John Hartford wrote and recorded the song originally. Campbell couldn't even write his own name on a delivery slip."

"What the hell is your problem with Glenn Campbell? Did he fuck your wife or something?"

Actually that wasn't so far from the truth except it wasn't literally Glenn Campbell who slept with Ray's wife but a travelling salesman who looked uncannily like him. Ray had broken several toilet brushes he'd found in the guy's suitcase against his head one afternoon as he found them both together upstairs in their bedroom. But he didn't have time to go into it right now with Gordy. He was already three sheets to the wind.

"So what? You think John Hartford is the main man?"

"Actually I don't. I think there's only one guy who ever sang the song the way it needs to be sung."

Gordy drained his bottle of beer in preparation for Ray's incoming revelation about who he believed sang the greatest version of 'Gentle On My Mind'.

"Go ahead. Who is it? Elvis? Give me a break!"

"Sinatra. Francis Albert."

Spraying his last gulp of beer across the room in a cosmos of tiny particles, Gordy laughed uproariously at Ray's choice.

"Sinatra?! Now I know you're fucking with me."

Eyeballing his friend with a dead eye stare, Ray stood his ground like Wyatt Earp at the O.K Corral as the entire bar fell quiet as a church.

"I ain't fucking with you, Gordy."

"What? You think Sinatra in his stupid, badly fitted tux can sing a song about being on the road. The fuck that walking toupee can sing this song."

Having a sixth sense for trouble, Al, the Sicilian born owner of the bar, stepped in to ease the tension between the two men that was drawing the attention of all the surrounding customers.

"Boys. Calm down. It's just a stupid song."

Ray took advantage of Al's diplomacy. "There you go, Gordy. It's just a stupid song."

Turning his back on Ray, Gordy smiled to himself as he slotted another shiny dime into the jukebox as the arm of the record player lowered onto the spinning black 7" disc once more.

And with that, Ray launched at Gordy and pulled him away from the machine; the two men started to fight on the floor, wrestling, throwing punches, even biting and pulling hair. It was ugly to say the least and seemed especially incongrous in contrast to the breezy, happy go lucky track playing in the background.

Eventually, Al whistled for help and two burly looking blocks of flesh with piggy eyes and huge cauliflower ears stepped in to seperate the two men, smacking both Ray and Gordy with some snappy looking jabs.

I dip my cup of soup back from a gurglin'
Cracklin' caldron in some train yard
My beard a rustling, cold towel, and
A dirty hat pulled low across my face

And then Al finally pulled the plug on the jukebox and 'Gentle On My Mind' was brought to an abrupt end.

Thrown out of the bar onto the street where the blood from both of their broken noses spilt onto the snow covered sidewalk like claret wine, the two men were given their marching orders from a puce faced Al.

Gordy, feeling betrayed by Ray and his irrational fury, gingerly got to his feet pointing at the same person he'd often thought he knew better than the back of his hand.

"You can stay the fuck away from me you absolute maniac!"

"Fine! Go find a bridge! You'll be doing us all a favour."

Delivering one final kick to his ribs, Gordy left Ray sprawled on the pavement as he walked off screaming the lyrics to his favourite song to everyone within earshot.

And it's knowing I'm not shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that are dried upon some line

That keeps you in the backroads
By the rivers of my memory
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind

The morning after, thinking about the night before, Ray still couldn't quite believe he had ended up losing the greatest friendship of his life over a stupid song.

"You did have a lot to drink. It might have just been the drink that did it," he said to himself, trialling his excuse to see what it sounded like out loud.

But a week or so later, hearing the song playing on the radio at the construction site where he was working, Ray realised it wasn't the drink at all.

It was fucking Glenn Campbell.