Dear Stevie,

You're one of the women Johnny left behind, one few ever talk about.

Do I remember you? You bet I do.

Most people only know my brother's other woman, Sera. She was the one from Leaving Las Vegas, the one Elisabeth Shue portrayed on the silver screen.

First edition Leaving Las Vegas, Watermark Press, 1990. Press materials for Leaving Las Vegas, United Artists, 1995.

But Stevie, you are far lesser known, except for me. I know more about you than anyone.

While Sera garnered all the fame (including an Oscar Nomination for Ms. Shue), there are so many similarities between the two of you, you could have been sisters. Like Sera, you’re the starring woman in one of John’s novels. You will live forever within the pages of Stripper Lessons. Also like Sera, you’re a sex worker. She’s a hooker; you’re a stripper.

Despite those chosen professions and in a rarely noted turn of irony, you’re involvement with your respective leading men is never consummated in the biblical sense. Both of your names are also bigger than, well, just the names. Sera is a truncated version of seraph, which per Webster's Third New International Dictionary is "one of an order of fiery six-winged angels who guard God's throne."

Granted, that designation is a tough act to follow, but not to worry, Stevie. You're named after—of all people—Stevie Nicks. Johnny thought the lead vocalist of Fleetwood Mac was the most perfect woman to ever float amid the rest of us lowly earthlings.

I’ll bet you just learned something.

Stevie Nicks, 1977, public domain

Sera was wholly ensconced between the published pages of Leaving Las Vegas by the time you came to fruition. And Johnny had learned a thing or two about angels by then, like if one descends from the heavens and lights right in front you, it’s best not to inspect those feathered wings too closely. (You know what I’m talking about, but hey, let’s not rehash all of your secrets, not here, not now).

Instead let’s revisit some of my brother’s most beautiful writing, specifically the moment when you enter the scene, John’s scene, on page 28 of Stripper Lessons.

The book's main character, Carroll Mine, frequents a strip bar called Indescretions. And that’s exactly where he is on a boring week night (as he always is) when the resident announcer introduces you as "our newest lovelylady, a lovelylady by the name of Stevie."

When you step onto the grungy stage before him, our hero Carroll is immediately smitten. And this, Stevie, is the monologue going on inside his head.

There she stands, more naked than I have ever been, yet absolutely untouchable. Her sweat is her garment; mine simply smells. She glistens; I drip. Her perspiration is sweet water, and I would lick it chastely from her feet, would gratefully die for the privilege; she would never allow it. Her beauty is sublime; I have none. She walks among men; I crawl. And if I were to recklessly approach her, speak to her, utter a simple platitude, if I were to give her the time of day, ask for it, if I were to gently cough while crossing her path, breathe while standing near her, and if she were to answer, respond, look up, acknowledge me in any way, she would not hate herself for it; I would.

Just like a white-winged dove, indeed.

Stripper Lessons, Grove Press, 1997

Stripper Lessons is my favorite entry in John’s entire body of work.

I love that Carroll shops at the K'mon-N-Mart, where he procures a videotape copy of The Shy Man's Guide To Meeting Women after watching a 4 a.m. infomercial for same. I love that he swells with trepidation over a terrifying jiggle in one of the overhead lights in his apartment. I love that he searches endlessly for the SoloBombgate file (a device in Stripper Lessons with which you never intersect despite the metaphoric connection) at the law firm where he is a clerk, much like Johnny was in his late teens. And I love lines in the book like this:

If angels dance at strip clubs, then we're all wearing too much clothing.

Most of all, I love that Carroll is alive at the end of the novel.

So then, Stevie, I don’t know if Stripper Lessons is a good book or a bad book, but I love it because it reminds me of my funny sweet brother before the booze and the world overtook him and moved him to punctuate his life with a single bullet thirty years ago on April 10, 1994.

You know what, babygirl? Johnny left me behind as well. He left all of us behind.

My brother John O’Brien during his stint as a clerk at Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, a Cleveland law firm, circa 1979.

So it is with this letter to you, a sympathetic listener and captive audience, that I’ll mark this difficult anniversary.

Now I shall leave you where you dwell, frozen upon the page, and I will step into the rest of my life, putting one foot in front of the other with my myriad (and hardly angelic) imperfections in tow. For today, I’ll call them my beautiful and terrible earthly chains.

I will not close this correspondence, however, until I lift my trembling finger to my chest and touch the indelible patch that your creator, my brother, sowed into my skin all those years ago. The ragged letters upon it are worn and scarred over, so you must look very closely to see them: suicide

Love, love, love, Erin