It was December and Brian Hull was in the middle of the produce aisle with a keyboard and a microphone and a red suit covered in Christmas trees and snowmen.
He looked like he’d just fallen out of a commercial for used cars.
I was pushing a shopping cart, heading for the clementines, and I kept my head down.
Brian had been a high school classmate back in the late '70s. We didn’t hang with the same crowd at Lincoln Southeast, but sometimes we ended up at the same parties.
Or on the hill behind the school where, in those more-lenient times, students retreated to soak up sun and smoke pot between classes, or instead of classes.
Brian was always fun and funny and often high.
I knew he’d fallen into addiction in the decades that followed — and I knew he’d made his way out again.
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I knew he lived downtown near the newspaper and sometimes we’d bump into each other on the street, or when he cut through our parking lot, waving and in a hurry.
He was always smiling.
Now his voice was on the loudspeaker at my O Street Super Saver, hawking holiday specials. He was playing Christmas tunes in that gaudy suit.
He seemed to be loving it.
And he was.
“Let’s put it this way,†he said last week. “It’s the best job in the world when you can act like you’re 11 again.â€
* * *
Brian got sober after eight DUIs and a 15-year license suspension, after countless days in jail, 18 months in prison and 12 treatment centers.
He started with weed and booze in high school, added cocaine in the ’80s.
His life was a train wreck in all capital letters.
A longtime drug and alcohol counselor once told him he’d only met three addicts that he never thought would get clean.
Two of them died addicted.
The third was Brian.
Here’s what Brian does now — he plays music with his friend Kelly McGovern, he and move on from addiction, he paints stripes in parking lots.
He puts on a funny suit and makes people smile at the grocery store.
That gig started eight years ago.
He was stocking shelves and ordering groceries at Super Saver on Cornhusker Highway — two years into sobriety — when the store’s director started scheming ways to attract college kids on football Saturdays.
Jim Longcor knew Brian was in a band, so he hired them to make music in the parking lot.
Brian went off script.
“He started playing the keyboard and talking about what was going on in the store,†said Jim, now district manager for the B&R Stores chain. “He was good, so I said, ‘Hey, can you do more of this?’â€
He sure could.
Brian and Jim went out and bought an amp and stuck it in a shopping cart and a solo act was born.
Kelly joins him occasionally, but these days it’s usually just Brian with his polyester suit and his keyboard traveling to grand openings, holiday events and fundraisers.
“He’s been all throughout Nebraska for us,†the district manager said. “Brian’s a very talented musician.â€
Longcor loved his music so much, he even had Brian and Kelly come play at his daughter’s wedding rehearsal dinner in Illinois.
And he’s been to clubs to hear the Kelly Oh Brian band perform.
“I always joke and tell Brian I’m there to hear Kelly sing, not him play.â€
Brian began piano lessons in first grade — classically trained until junior high, when he gave it up for his social life.
He didn’t start playing in bands until he was 25, off and on, but he went to treatment for the first time when he was a senior in high school.
He drove drunk and got busted. He was in and out of recovery programs.
He got shot in the back by a dope dealer in Kansas City.
In 1999, he ended up in prison, busted after selling crack cocaine to an undercover cop.
“I spent all that time studying jazz and learning how to be good at this,†he says. “I figured I might as well learn something.â€
He got out 18 months later, but he didn’t get sober.
Not yet.
* * *
Brian Hull grew up down the block from Charlie and Ruth Thone — Charlie, a former Nebraska governor, and Ruth, an opinionated social activist.
Ruth and Brian’s mom, Naomi, were kindred spirits and the brains behind The Gathering Place soup kitchen, along with Don Tilley.
Naomi eventually became a deacon in the Methodist church, spiritual and deep thinking and a devoted mother to her three sons and daughter.
“She was never happier than when her Brian was home playing the piano in the sunroom,†Ruth says.
Brian lost his mom three years ago. “She gave me my faith,†he says. “I wouldn’t be anything without her.â€
His father, Ron Hull, is still an institution at Nebraska Educational Television and a regular at Brian’s and Kelly’s shows.
“He’s become one of our biggest fans,†Kelly says.
Ruth, too, is a fan.
“I saw Brian once in the red suit,†she says. “What a sense of humor he’s got.â€
She also knows his serious side, and the journey he’s taken.
“I hate to use the word miracle,†she says. “But the fact Brian is alive and well is quite remarkable.â€
* * *
Brian loves entertaining people.
He’s outgoing and still funny, with the same high school smile.
He’s never been married.
But six years ago, he found out he was a father.
“In one phone call, I found out I had a daughter and three grandbabies,†he says.
He’d met a woman from Kentucky while both of them were in treatment in Minnesota in the mid-'80s and they’d slept together. They knew each two weeks. In 2011, she tracked him down.
“Isn’t that crazy?†he says. “Amazing.â€
He’s heading down to Lubbock, Texas, next month for another visit.
His daughter is an alcoholic, he says, just like her parents.
She’s been through treatment, but she’s not yet sober.
“I learned in recovery you can’t make someone change. You can just love ‘em. And hope.â€
* * *
He’s wearing his new techno suit Saturday, standing next to the exit door of the Pine Lake Road Super Saver.
He loves the coat, covered in geometric patterns and lined in purple.
“It’s all polyester, so you just roll it out of the box and put it on,†he says.
Brian looks like Steve Martin in his wild-and-crazy guy days, with a piano instead of a ukulele.
He’s wearing white tennis shoes and playing blues and Billy Joel and hair band music in between calling out the weekly specials on tulips and navel oranges.
A young guy stops to take a photo with his cell phone. Cart-pushing shoppers look and look again.
A mom tosses a dollar in his tip box.
“Were you playing ‘Beth’ by Kiss when I walked in?†she asks. “That’s worth a tip.â€
Brian thanks her.
He picks up his microphone. “Welcome to Suuuuuper Saver! Thanks for shopping on Customer Appreciation Day!â€
The night before, Brian played for St. Patrick's Day at Wilderness Ridge Golf Course, with his bandmate Kelly singing covers and playing guitar.
Kelly is the front man, but Brian is the schmoozer, wearing a green bow tie, bringing the crowd in with his stories.
“How many people here went to Lincoln Southeast?†he asks. “Raise your hand.â€
He makes a joke: “Lincoln Southeast does not stand for low self-esteem.â€
He smiles from behind his keyboard, his Super Saver tip sign taped to the frame.
During the band break, he works the room, handing out business cards, hugging friends in the crowd, chatting with his dad, nursing a glass of ice tea.
I didn’t know what to think last December, seeing my old classmate pounding the piano in the produce aisle. Directing shoppers to the meat department and the specials in the deli.
Wearing that suit.
A gig in a grocery store? Was he down on his luck? Should I be embarrassed for him?
No. And hell, no.
Just the opposite, Brian says.
“That grocery store thing, I’ll tell you what that is, it’s a gift.â€
He means it.
He says the same thing about his life, this sober, grateful, full life.
He’s a better musician now, he has the trust of his family again, a relationship with God, great friends in recovery. A one-day-at-a-time future.
“I haven’t had a bad day in 10 years.â€