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.
