literature

Duff and Axl: The Reunion (A True Story)

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Published: Aug 10, 2013

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Literature Text

Though it had been thirteen years since we’d last spoken, I had always assumed Axl and I would one day meet again. I didn’t know how it would happen, I just held out hope of perhaps rekindling a relationship of some sort, at some time. These days our only relationship, if you could call it that, consisted of being CC’d on the same emails about various business and legal affairs. Often vitriolic, caustic, or unpleasant emails. Now here I was, a forty-six-year-old father of two girls Axl had never met.

In the end I just went to the door of his hotel room. People from his entourage stopped me in the hallway.

“You can’t go in right now, man,” said one. “He’s about to get in the shower to get ready for he show tonight.”

“I’ve seen him naked before,” I said. The door to Axl’s room opened a crack.

“I thought I heard your voice out here,” said Axl. He wasn’t naked. He motioned with his head and said, “Come on in.” And so, for the first time in much too long. Axl and I finally met again face-to-face. Any doubts I had about what might happen melted instantly. We hugged. From the on, there was no awkwardness at all. It turned out it wasn’t a big deal for either of us, I don’t think. It was just cool. After so much time gone and lost, we both seemed eager to mend a personal fence, to bridge a gap between us that had felt wider the longer we had gone without meeting.