Red Barfield response from the hereafter to play I wrote about him

I watched the play last night I wrote about the outlaw I will still call Red Barfield who I remained friends with until he died at the age of 61 which would be around 9 years ago. The play is up on You Tube on my channel GerryKing40 under the name of "Red and Dandy: Outlaws Love Story." Red came to Phoenix a number of times. I even took him to a rehearsal of I think it was my play at Playwright's Workshop. He became so engrossed in the process that he spoke up, startling my son Raymond, but he just could contain himself.
Doc read all the male characters in this play quite well I thought. I suppose being an alcoholic he was able to capture their essences since all the males in the play were alcoholics, including my father who at the time the play was written was addicted to sleeping pills causing quite a problem for me who was trying to look after him and at the same time deal with this increasingly disturbing addiction.

RED: I have watched this play a number of times, Gerry, and I wish I could say it was not me, but I am afraid it is all too true. In fact, you have not pictured me here as bad as I really was. My father has also seen this play and is still trying to get over it. As you predicted he has taken your accusations that I was a bisexual to heart. He said that hit him harder than my thieving which he already knew about.
GERRY: I think the last conversation we had was about this subject.
RED: Yes, it was. In fact, most every time we talked on the phone which was about every year at least, you brought it up and I would deny it as best as I could. The last time you called you claimed you had just about gotten the proof that I had been lying about and denying all those years.
GERRY: It seemed important to back up my suspicions with some related circumstantial evidence which is about all you can do when there is nothing but denial. As you can see I am now contemplating writing my memoirs the first volume of which will end before I ever meet you. I had to do the same thing with my dad, spend years observing him until I thought I had enough evidence to talk about my suspicions to the family. I never thought I had enough until my mother wrote her memoirs about her life with my dad and she wrote about catching him in what looked to me like a very compromising position with another man in their hotel room. This I thought was enough proof for me combined with what I had observed to cause me to talk to the rest of the family. They got just as upset as I figured they would. We are still battling over it, but if you are going to tell the truth at all, especially about a bad case of molestation, I think you have to tell the whole truth, not just parts of it.
RED: I understand that maybe.
GERRY: What sisters don't understand is how you can get crippled by molestation. I started getting chronic fatigue symptoms the same year I was targeted by another man which added to the stress of the first molesting which seemed to be almost more stress than I could stand. Again, I felt that my father's sexual split was involved in the second molestation by a younger man who had come to hate him. I am sure that it gave him satisfaction to scare me simply because he felt powerless to get back at my dad. He knew that if he upset me that would upset my dad worse than anything he could possibly do. I think his desire for revenge on my dad became more important than any consideration of what all this might do to me.
Chronic fatigue symptoms flared up and nearly killed me in the mental hospital. Hardly anybody seemed to know this. I regarded my enforced incarceration by the University of Utah psychiatrist as akin to a violent abduction since I was taken and held against my will and told to prepare for a series of electric shock treatments. Nobody else was escaping them and it was very likely I wouldn't even though I protested as strongly as I could and even told them something was wrong with me and I should not have them.
Before I could be given them five days after I was incarcerated I started to die. I had already thought I was going to die when I first experienced the symptoms at the age of 11. I could hardly drag myself out of bed in the morning. I told the Intern put in charge of my case that I thought electric shock therapy would be very bad for me in my condition. I was then 20 years old.
RED: I can guarantee it does not take long to die. I probably died within a few minutes of a perforation or bursting of a blood vessel in my stomach. I sat down, felt myself growing weak, and knew I was dying. I had been told not to drink and to take it easy. When it happened I was working very hard and I had gotten drunk that weekend. I remember thinking I was too young to die.
GERRY: Sixty one is definitely not very old. I went through the process of dying for about 4 hours. A voice talked to me in the beginning and said that I needed to die now rather than wait to be given electric shock. I would have a better chance of coming back. My body was locked up, I could not take a deeper breath. All the reasons for living now became the reasons for dying in the hopes of coming back. The voice said with less damage. The voice confirmed that electric shock therapy was too severe for the condition I was now in.
RED: I figured all the stress I experienced from the situation I was in shortened my life. It wasn't just the drinking, it was a lot of things, my life style, my work. Camping out all the time. I know you asked me about the first time I talked to you for any length of time at all if I got it on with men in the logging camps. I was shocked. I remember how mad I got and accused you of being a lesbian. I don't recall any woman ever accusing me of that before. I didn't understand why you did, but I see now it was because of being molested and thinking your dad and the molester were having an affair.
GERRY: That was pretty much the beginning of my developing a suspicious mind. You were 28. Too old to be a bachelor I thought. I figured there was a reason and that was probably it. I always ask guys who are coming on to me if I think there is a possibility they are bisexual, because it is certainly going to affect a sexual relationship if they are. My dad was 26 before he married and even then it looked like a very sudden deal without too much passion on either side. My mother was looking for a way to leave home. She had already tried working and wasn't too crazy about it and the tiny wages she made. Her dad couldn't afford to send her to college.
She had worked for my dad's family, saw him as a prospect she might marry. He seemed smart. They would probably have smart kids and their chances of becoming prosperous were good. I think to my mother who had had to worry about enough to eat every now and then for years the prospect of never having to worry about food again was close enough to love for her. It was probably a stronger emotion than any other she would feel for years. It was stronger than romantic love because if she fell in love with a poor boy she might very easily face hunger and deprivation again during those rough times.
RED: I didn't realize I came across as so determined not to marry as I did in your play. People were always telling me why didn't I get married. I just didn't want to do it, but I also did not want to tell anyone why as I did not quite know myself. Well, I did know in a way, but it was not anything I was ever going to talk about to a woman. I never told anybody anything I thought they would look down on me for. I wasn't going to make myself look bad. Give people a reason to talk about me. Who could blame me? I just let the women keep on trying to capture me for a husband. I figured sooner or later one of them would get me in a corner where I could not escape, which is what happened. You said you did not want to marry me, so I knew it would not be you.
GERRY: No, after all the trauma of marrying and divorcing Frank I was never going to marry a guy from his home town again. Nor have any kids with them. I was basically just passing through the summer I met you. I never intended you to be any more than a summer romance. Besides as I said then I would have been out of my mind to think you were good husband material, outlaw as you were.
RED: So we became friends.
GERRY: Yes, passionate friends, since the attraction was strong. It took a while for that to wane.
RED: I only had one wife and one child. After our divorce I never married again. Never intended to and did not. I concluded I was not meant for marriage. I felt more peace of mind after I decided that. The only thing I regret is that I even lived with a woman. She caused me more pain than any relationship I ever had. Well, you know that because that is when I started coming through to you after death. I was so upset over what she did with all my properties I kept calling you on the spirit phone (I learned how to do it) until you finally answered me. You kind of joked about my pain, so I finally decided I had to quit brooding about it. So what if she spent a fortune. Now I don't care anymore. My desire for revenge is gone. I see her as just human. So I forgot it. Now I am a pretty happy man, going here and there. Greeting my friends as they join me on this side. I am looking forward to seeing you. We will have a good time and I am going to show you some of those places I wanted to show you years ago.