Emerson and the Orchard of Sacred Cherries
- Donovan Evans-Foto Dono
- Sep 22
- 4 min read
Emerson Chronicles: Excerpts from my Journals of Emerson
Who is Emerson? He is a bit of an enigma - a part-time poet and full-time drunk. He is not famous or a celebrity, but he's what some might call a ladies' man, although, after a night with him, they often wonder why. Silver tongue devil...
In hindsight, Emerson seemed full of insight, inspiration, and whiskey, but not necessarily in that order. 😉 I wish sometimes I had been smart enough to tell the difference back then...
A long time ago in a bar far, far away — sometime in the year 2000, though Murphy’s clock had long since stopped keeping time — Emerson leaned across the sticky counter and asked the bartender after a round of bad service, “How many fucks do you have to save before you can give a fuck?”
She looked him up and down, unimpressed, and fired back: “Well, if you had more than two fucks to rub together, I’d give you a fuck.”
The service improved only slightly after that. Emerson didn’t mind. He never did.
The news that night was buzzing about John Paulk — the self-appointed proof of “conversion therapy,” now caught sneaking out of a gay bar. I muttered something about hypocrisy, about how people only ever pick the verses that suit their taste and spit out the rest.
Emerson’s eyes caught mine — green that night, though I could have sworn they’d been blue the week before. He tipped his glass.
“No one can ever really tell you the truth,” he said. “Humans are wired to deceive each other and themselves. In the end, we are just the tales we tell each other. Some are kind and some are cruel. Usually the same person. Most of all they lie to themselves.” He drained the glass, then added, almost offhand, “The point of it all, man? Don’t be a dick.”
Then he grinned, as if he’d just remembered something from a century ago. “Gods? I’ve met a few. Bunch of drunk bastards that can’t hold their beer. And don’t get me started on Buddha.”
By the end of the night, I’d poured myself into a cab and left him behind with his bottomless glass. The next morning, he was in the back seat of my car, demanding coffee before words.
Once that part was settled, I asked, “So, closed the bar again?”
He said, “Nope.” He settled into the passenger seat, inhaling the brew. “I left shortly after you did.”
I said, “Sooooo, it looks like I’m not the only one needing some stamina last night.”
He said, “Actually, I just got back here about an hour ago.”
Raising my eyebrows with a pointed look, “Really?”
“Remember the bartender,” he said. “She was too busy with friends at the other end. After you left, they left too. I waved her over, and she came back down to see what I had to say.” Emerson spilled his coffee and started cursing. “Shit — turn right over here, and drop me off at those apartments.”
Cursing myself, I navigated to where he wanted to go. “Yep,” he said. “Turns out I did have more than a couple of fucks. I had about six. The bartender, she appreciated the change. She had no goddam coffee, though.”
I stopped the car in front of the apartment, and he got out. Emerson was like that lyric from the song, Papa Was a Rolling Stone. Wherever he laid his hat was his home. Turns out his “hat” was now at the bartender’s place.
Years later, Emerson surfaced again. That’s how he works — no calls, no plans, no reason. He just shows up when he decides it’s time, and somehow it always is.
I found him again at Murphy’s. Same crooked TV, same sad bowl of cherries on the counter. He looked older but not worn, like a stone polished by water. His eyes flashed blue this time, winter-cold under the barlight.
We started talking, and I told him about a girl I once had a crush on — she’d found God, decided I was too much of a sinner, and cut me off.
“Guess who I ran into in Missouri?” he said, laughing before I could guess. “Jim Bakker. Swears the world’s about to end. Told me people like me are doomed to wander an empty planet.” He shook his head, still chuckling. “Scripture’s just a jukebox. Folks keep shoving in coins, but it only plays their song.”
I thought of my time with faith and religion and how it shaped my youth. I don’t believe, I don’t have faith. There is too much cruelty in this world for me to believe something is watching over me. I stared at Murphy’s cherries. Bruised, sticky fruit, more pit than flesh. And I saw it for what it was: an orchard of verses stretching back centuries.
People plucking what suited their appetites — Leviticus chewed raw while shellfish slipped by, Paul quoted to silence women while his praise of Phoebe the deacon and Junia the apostle rotted on the branch. Slavery verses left to sour when history shifted taste.
The orchard never chose the fruit. The pickers did.
When I looked up again, Emerson was laughing as if reading my mind. “You can’t blame them. Never blame them. They only see shadows and not the fire. They burn themselves.”
He laughed that laugh of his, part smoke, part jest. “Now I think you owe me the next round.” He motioned the bartender over and gave her a wink.
Then he turned back to me. “Humans are storytellers who deceive themselves, cherry-pick their truths, and burn on the shadows they mistake for fire. But you can still choose how you pick — don’t be a dick. That’s small, but it’s real — and maybe that’s enough.”
I laughed. “You’re insane.”
“Tru’dat.” We clicked glasses. It was a good night.
That’s how it is with him. He wanders in, leaves when the glass is empty, and somehow the years never quite touch him. Not really. With Emerson, time always buys the next round.
Compiled from two entries written in October 2000 and March 2013. Written September 22, 2025.
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