What About Jeffrey?

On the drive home today a song came on the radio that reminded me of someone. The song was "Paradise City" by Guns N' Roses, and the someone was a little kid named Jeffrey.

From 1986 until 1990 I lived in a tiny two bedroom house in an older neighborhood. Next door lived an old lady I knew as Ms. Miller. Ms. Miller had no teeth and wore a duster every day of her life. Ms. Miller had let her white trash grandson Billy, his white trash wife, and their tribe of naked children move into her house a few years before I came to the neighborhood. There was a '72 Chevy on cinder blocks in the gravel driveway. There was an old couch on their front porch. The grandson was an angry guy, and was always yelling at someone. He yelled at the kids, he yelled at his wife...alot, and he even yelled at his grandmother. One day, Billy blasted out the front door, onto the front porch screaming, "F&%k you, Granny!!!". Another time Billy and his wife were fighting in the front yard when Billy hopped on his old motorcycle and sped off down the street. He didn't get too far before he realized he'd forgotten something, so he came back up to the house and yelled from the street at his wife to fetch the forgotten item for him, which she promptly did. The wife was a big girl, and while she was making the trek from the house to the street to deliver it to him, Billy screamed "RUN, DON'T WADDLE!!!". Yes, Billy was a piece of work. I had to hold my tongue on more than one occasion and I often fantasized about punching him in the stomach.

But there was one good thing that came from living next door to that train wreck for four years, and that was Billy's little boy Jeffrey. Jeffrey was about two years old when I first moved to that neighborhood. He ran around in the yard all day wearing his diaper and some cowboy boots. He had beautiful blonde hair which was usually buzzed off, and he was always dirty. But Jeffrey was one of the sweetest little boys you'd ever want to meet, and I often thought of kidnapping him to get him away from his wretched father. I have a few memories of little Jeffrey, but my favorite happened when he was about five years old. One day I was sitting outside and Jeffrey was running around with his little toy guitar. He was strumming and playing, and striking Elvis-like poses. Pretty quickly, he noticed I was watching and began to put on a little show for me. Jeffrey walked up to the chain link fence that separated us, strummed his guitar and recited this line, more like he was reading a poem than singing a song, "Take me down to the Paradise City, where the grass is green and the girls are purty!" Afterward, he smiled a big, teethy grin which he held for several seconds and then took a bow.

That's the last memory I have of little Jeffrey. But to this day, every time I hear that song I think of him and that cheesy grin and I have to smile. I'm smiling right now.

I wonder whatever happened to the little fellow. By now he'd be about 26 years old. I don't have a lot of hope that he had much of a chance with an asshole for a father and a sheepish abuse victim of a mother, but maybe, just maybe he's out there driving around in the now refurbished Chevy, touring the country as the lead singer in a GNR cover band, smiling that wonderful smile, shouting "Good Night, Des Moines!! We love you!!"