Our Glorious Spring: Jeff Buckley
Andria Lisle, Oxford American, Summer 2000
THERE IS A PICTURE, taken early in May 1997, at Ellen’s Soul Food Restaurant in Memphis. It’s a Sunday afternoon, and we’ve just arrived from a harrowing 3-hour service at Al Green’s church. Jeff is wearing a "Sweet’s Trailer Hitch" thrift store T-shirt, his dress shirt discarded.
His suspenders frame the "Sweet’s" logo nicely; sadly, his belt is not visible from the angle of the photograph. He’s leaning back in the booth, one hand wrapped possessively around his iced tea glass. His delicate face and pouty lips are striking, yet nothing about his demeanor suggests that this young man was once nominated one of People magazine’s "50 Most Beautiful."
Following Jeff’s gaze, to his left, sits a girl – me. I am also dressed for church, in a silk blouse and skirt, my hair pulled back and pinned up. My bangs are crooked. I am making a face – clenched teeth, lips pulled back menacingly – the type my mother warned "would freeze that way." Over our shoulders, a man at the next booth smiles, perfectly centered in the frame. A picture of Martin Luther King hangs behind him.
All movement is arrested – frozen. But Jeff’s face comes alive every time I look at this picture, which is often. His eyes look alternately bemused and alarmed at my moon face. The real action is taking place beneath the table, out of sight of the photographer. Jeff is swinging his legs sideways, kicking me, prompting these faces. Kick – smile. Kick – grimace. Kick – smile. Kick – grimace, and my friend Lely captures the moment with a click of her camera.
Earlier that morning, Jeff wasn’t ready when we went to pick him up. He was talking to his aunt on the telephone, and painting his toenails green. He looked great in his pinstriped suit, but I noticed that his fly was undone. I said, "Jeff, zip your pants up." He shot me a pained expression – so uncool – zipped his pants, locked the door, and hopped off the porch. I introduced him to Lely and Alec, friends from DC, and we were off.
Most of the time I spent with Jeff was like that photograph. Funny, jesting. Our introduction, that February, involved spontaneous karate kicking. Another night, I took him to a gig in Oxford, Mississippi where a group of Ole Miss sorority girls invited him to their house for a party. The band that followed Jeff, Big Sandy and the Fly-Rite Boys, opened their set with the song 'Loser’s Waltz'. Jeff turned to me and asked "Shall we dance, Madam?" Then he purposefully fell off his barstool, like the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. He hit the ground and bounced back up. By the time we waltzed around the room, the girls, horrified, were gone.
Down here, Jeff could definitely be himself, or be whichever self he wanted to be. Memphis is easy and comfortable and I don’t think people were too concerned about him. It’s also a very easy town to live in without too much money – much cheaper than New York, so I think he thought he could be here without bothering anybody, just sit at home and record. Jeff didn’t have many needs while he was here. He’d lie in the yard in the weeds – he never mowed his yard so when he lay outside you couldn’t even tell he was there. He would hide like that for days.
He was such a sweet baby. And it was funny because my roommate and I started listening to his music in earnest. I was often embarrassed because he’d be knocking on the door while Grace was blasting on the stereo. I never talked to Jeff about his music or asked him about it. It never came up. I do wish I had told him how much I liked it – but the topic was unbroachable. Even though I worked in a record store I knew nothing about Jeff’s history. I knew who his father was, that’s about it. Sometimes I would go out and hear other people talk about him in a completely different vein. Like, "Oh, I heard Jeff Buckley’s going to be at this bar tonight," which was weird, because he was somebody who walked my dog with me.
The whole time that we were friends, I was careful not to count on him because I knew that he would eventually leave – it seems that I am always friends with people who are in transit. Our relationship was completely platonic, but I was afraid of falling in love too much. Just the way he would look at me made me feel on top of the world. He made me so happy and we had so much fun. Despite that, I would give anything not to know him and have him be alive.
Jeff was always an actor. The last week he was here, I was walking down Madison Avenue and spotted him coming out of a Mexican restaurant. When Jeff saw me he started prancing like a fairy down the street towards me. I said, "Jeff, someone’s gonna pull over in a pickup truck and kill you – just like the end of Easy Rider, they’re gonna shoot you off your bike." He thought that was hilarious. I felt awful because I warned him about everything except the river.
The night Jeff drowned, I had gone to the casino with some friends. He and I had talked about going down there for free drinks. We discussed it, but that particular night his band was flying in from New York for a recording session. I walked my dog over to Jeff’s before I left. Keith Foti was there, and Gene Bowen, Jeff’s road manager. We decided that Jeff would stay home and I would go to the casinos. Then when I got back I would come tell him how much I won.
At about 12:30 AM, I walked my dog over with a gambling report. After a knock on the door, I was asked "Who’s there?" I was told to go away. I was perturbed, thinking – uggh... musicians. I just thought they were having a discussion. I didn’t think another thing of it and I went home and went to sleep, then to work the next day. My boss asked me if I was with Jeff the night before and I said yeah and he said no you weren’t and I said yeah and he asked again and at that point the telephone rang and it was a reporter from the newspaper wanting a comment about Jeff’s death.
I was so naïve about Jeff. I wanted to protect him. Looking over my journal entries, I can count on my fingers and toes the number of times we hung out. It was a brief period of time – three months. At Jeff’s memorial, Elvis Costello sat in front of me and Marianne Faithfull performed. And I was in shock, thinking no, this wasn’t the Jeff that lived down the street. This wasn’t the kid who rode a bicycle because he couldn’t afford a car.
To paraphrase something Robert Gordon once told me, I didn’t know Jeff Buckley – I knew a Jeff Buckley. I can lay no claim to his life, or his art, or his happiness. But I will never forget the glorious spring of 1997. There is a photo of us, and we are happy. We are two shining stars stuffed with fried chicken and collard greens. We are alive, and we are happy.
© Andria Lisle, 2000
