It was raining on the field. I was in Belgium. In the distance, I could hear three different bands playing at three different locations. The harder I pressed the phone to my ear, the sweatier the earpiece became. It didn’t help the connection though. She was on her way to a funeral in Connecticut. A friend’s husband had expired after a long bout with cancer.
“I don’t think I can do this anymore.” I could hear her remaining strength evaporate with the last couple of words.
“well, I can. I don’t give up. And you said-“
Cutting me off she remarked, “I know what I said. Its too hard. You have too many issues that you won’t deal with. Besides that I never see you. And besides that, I never see you. Don't you get it!” Her last sentence almost seemed to be screamed at me, at the distance between us.
“I know, one day soon, I’ll stop this,” I was running out of promises at this point. I’d been telling her since the day we met that I was stopping the touring life.
I could hear a dearth of cars and traffic noise in her background. Her words with swirled with tears for the rest of our talk.
“I didn’t expect to run out of gas. My heart just can’t handle the distance.”
Hearing those words, the last three, “handle the distance,” made me go cold.
It made me give up, no more words, no more eleventh hour promises.
“OK. I’ll step away. It won’t be easy. I can’t imagine not knowing you as my love, my life.”
The tears burned. The stinging salt had its own sting. My hear weighed a million pounds.
I continued on, not really thinking as much as just speaking whatever was next on my tongue.
“Hudson, for three years you’ve been my life, my morning to night. Its like I won’t be able to go certain places or say certain words out loud.”
On the other end, I could hear her long sobs, counting down to a hangup.
“I feel like I can’t breathe. It hurts. It hurts beyond pain. When we’re old, I’ll still wonder about you and what could have been, like an unfinished story that-“
“I know, I know,” she cried. Each word a little louder than the last.
“My dear, my heart, I lo-“
And the phone went dead.
I stood on the field for what seemed like hours. I don’t remember leaving Belgium.
I was thinking the other day. Someone was admonishing me at work for a mistake I made. So I went to my place. I thought about my best friend of years ago and why people drift. and what people do or don't do when they drift. its just pieces.
Seven times I tried to call him today. He wasn’t home. We used to be friends. I am only in town for the night and I really wanted to get up with him. Back at home, we were together almost every day for three years. I take many of my secret names and such from his real name. I really liked hanging around his house. His Dad, beercan in hand, would stumble from the shed outside to the stove, mumbling out of both sides of his mouth. He never really said anything of purpose. He told me that his Dad was just a drunk, never really voicing in on anything except the lack of beer. I think I remember one time he mentioned his Dad having a rough time during the Vietnam war.
His sister, Joyce, was this small puppet of a girl with a huge shaggy head of brown hair. She darted throughout the house, never really sitting still or making much discernable conversation. She drew these pictures, these lovely feasts of color. Like a trail, sometimes, there would be five or six of them littered from one end of the house to her spot in the middle rear part. I still have one of them in a box in my spare room. When he would disappear or we’d suddenly be alone, in the awkward living room I’d joke with Joyce about taking her to prom in 8 years. We never went but it was that fun teasing that little girls chuckle and protest almost gleefully. I remember that about Joyce. She seemed to just humour whatever hot air I was pushing. I liked her for that. I always wanted a sister. A real one. Not a half or one by marriage. I wanted a sister that would have been a marginal, diluted version of my mother except she would be smart, well-groomed and not be attracted to men with moustaches.
So we, me and him, would retreat to the rear corner of his house to listen to music. I remember we talked about this one record for almost six hours. We dissected the lyrics, the cover, the titles, everything about the album. I won’t divulge it or say its name out loud. It bothers me too much. It shuttles back a time that I can’t really process. I can think about my friend and the time we burned up and it doesn’t hurt. Thinking about everything else does. I think about how we lived. How I grew up. It seems that everyone is wrecked by their childish years and I concede that maybe my skin is a little thin about some things from back in those days. No, screw that. It seems painful, even more so, that I am in his city and if we saw each other out in public, he’d probably duck out or turn face and skulk off into the edges of light.
So where was I, where was this discourse on a lost friend taking me, taking you? I just heard one of those songs from that record on the radio. It bugs me to hear it. My eyes burn cross with sad anger. Taking a swig of water, I resolve to call again. I figure that he’d be glad that I figured out where he lives.
