We drank and ate and smoked and talked: about writing, some, but more about reading. Larry talked about writers the way other folks talk about athletes: staggered by their prowess and feats, quoting lines and scenes as excitedly as one might recount a game-buzzer three-pointer. We talked about music, too: another subject that always brought a glow to him. But something was gnawing at him. Every now and again, sipping a Crown and Coke, he’d glance darkly at a neighboring table, and then at Mary Annie, who’d shake her head no. Tracking his glance, I saw two couples at the table: two gray-haired men, wearing suits, with two women glinting with jewels. They had easeful laughs that, at a certain volume level, caused Larry to tighten. The more he drank, the more he kept glancing.

Finally he stubbed out a cigarette, wadded his napkin onto the table, and stood up. These were quick angry gestures, but Larry was smiling: an inscrutable, boyish smile. He walked over to the table, placed the toe of his cowboy boot on the edge of one of the men’s chair, hopped onto the table, and started—dancing. Dancing, yes: a slow tabletop version of the twist, his boot heel stirring a plate of shrimp and grits, Larry swiveling his hips and pistoning his elbows and all the while wearing a look of profound satisfaction. The restaurant, of course, froze; even the servers stopped mid-stride. The only sounds were the music, and the clinking of plates and flatware under Larry’s shuffling boots. The two couples at the table stared down into their laps. Mary Annie rolled her eyes and hid her face. But I kept staring, enthralled, even mesmerized, until the song ended, when Larry descended from the table, took his seat again, and, as though nothing had happened, lit a fresh cigarette and resumed what he’d been saying about Flannery O’Connor.

I didn’t know then why he’d done it. (One of the men, a local banker, had refused Larry a loan—insultingly, I suspect—when he was trying to quit his job at the fire department to write full-time.) I didn’t know about his long and tortured struggle to make himself into a writer, the infinite rejections he’d endured (from dozens of editors and at least one banker), the faith to which he’d clung when almost everyone and everything suggested he quit, the singular literary vision that emerged only after he’d typed his millionth midnight sentence on Mary Annie’s old Smith-Corona typewriter, the deep roar of his artistry. All I knew, in that moment, was that I wanted to hang out with this guy forever.