The Day I Lost My Best Friend

                               The Day I lost My Best Friend



The bell above the door jingled and I looked up to see a stylish woman dressed in a black pantsuit and maroon blouse enter the diner. Her look was out of place for Avila Beach and I knew right away it must be Mike's sister. As she scanned the room, I stood up and gave her a smile and a wave.  

Approaching my table she said, “Hello. I'm Shirley Nelson. Mike's sister. You must be...”

“Ray Redmond," I said, finishing her sentence for her. "Nice to meet you.”  Then stumbling for words I offered, “Sorry for your loss.” 

Well that was clumsy I thought to myself as I gestured to the bench seat opposite me in the booth. She carefully took her purse from her shoulder and slid into the seat, placing it next to her when she settled. 

“Thank you.”

After she had straightened her jacket, I asked her, “Have you set a funeral date yet? We've all been wondering.”

“There's not going to be any funeral Mr. Redmond” she said.

"Please, call me Ray." I interrupted.

"And you may call me Shirley," she said in return. “Mike didn't want a funeral. I just came down to get his ashes.”

“Oh. We figured as much since it's been a while now. I'll let everybody know.”

"Thank you," she offered.

Just then the waitress appeared. “Would you two like menus?”

“Just coffee for me please. Black,” Shirley replied.

“I'm good. Just a warm-up if you would please,” I said.

The waitress smiled and left with the menus under her arm.

 “Lieutenant Griffin at the police station, he was the one who called Mom when... well he was the one who told us about Mike. He gave me your contact info, and said you two worked together?”

“Yes. Out at the power plant. Diablo Canyon. We both started for Pinkerton at the same time, about four years ago. Mike and I were in the same training squad. And honestly, none of us thought he was going to make it with his bad leg and all.  We  had to run a hundred yards in all our gear and carrying a rifle, too. It took him a few tries to make the qualifying time. But he was determined and stuck with it. Your brother had perseverance. I'll tell you that much. We were all impressed.

The waitress returned with a mug of coffee and refilled mine. I took a sip.

“We were best friends,” I continued, as Shirley set her coffee down and straightened the collar of her blouse.  “He and I worked the swing shift together. We fished together at Lake Lopez a lot, too. He loved to fish, as you already know,” I said a little sheepishly. “And we shot pool after work on Thursday nights. He was great at eight ball. Won us a few beers,” I said with a laugh.

Shirley gave a half-hearted smile at my last comment and pulled her coffee mug toward her staring at the table now.

Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned the alcohol to his sister? I didn't know his history, but I knew Mike could sure pound down the beers. He'd get kinda moody after a night of pool and drinking. I had to drive him home a couple times and he'd spill his troubles out on me the whole way. I was okay with it. He just needed someone to listen. But now I wasn't feeling too comfortable talking about that with his sister sitting so stiffly across from me.

After a moment of  awkward silence, Shirley finally spoke. 

“I'm sorry to say, I haven't seen or talked to my brother in years. But I did hear he was excited to get that Pinkerton job. I think it was good for him to finally get out on his own and away from Mom and Dad's place. I was really happy for him.”

Mom and Dad's place? I hadn't expected that, I took another sip of my coffee.

“Tell me more about my brother,” she said, now resting her hands in her lap. 

“Well, like I said, we were both in the same training unit at work. That's how we got to know each other so well. We spent a lot of time together on the pistol range to start. Then, when we both qualified, we decided to sign up for the swing shift together. I have to say, he was quite the story teller and kept us all entertained with the things he'd done. Most nights, depending on what post we drew, four or five of us Armed Responders, as we were called, would gather in the North Yard after dark for a smoke behind the tool shed. It was out of sight of the cameras there. Mike could go on for hours with stories of growing up on your family's horse ranch in Colorado, his college days at UCLA, but mostly his time in Viet Nam. He had so many war stories. But we all thought he was wasting his time as a security guard when he could be out there putting his engineering degree to use. Of course, we all knew that dragging dead bodies from the trenches over there in 'Nam had to have taken its toll on him.”

I paused and looked over at Shirley who now sat rigid in her seat staring at her coffee mug with a blank look on her face. Maybe I was bringing up old wounds for her as well? I figured Mike's family must have suffered too, knowing what he went through. After all, he had risked his life serving his country and returned home carrying all that trauma with him.

“Would you like more coffee?” I asked, trying to break the tension I saw building in her body language.

“No thank you,” she replied. There was another awkward silence broken only by the tinkling of silverware and the murmur of conversation behind us. Then she said “Go on,” without looking up from the table.

“Well, let's see. One story that stands out was the night somebody asked him how he got his limp. He told us about the time he and his men were being helicoptered to the front and they came under fire while off-loading. Of course, as a Sargent, he was responsible for all his squad getting off first. So he went last, as the helicopter was lifting off he said, and had to jump from fifteen feet in the air. He told us that messed up his leg pretty good when he landed. But he said the fighting got fierce after that and he had to stick it out with his men in the trenches for a couple more days before they could airlift him out. That complicated his leg injury and led to him coming back home early. But of course, you know all that.

“He also talked about growing up with horses a lot. He said his favorite was Flicker and we all laughed. That My Friend Flicka TV show - Flicker thing you know.  He said your Mom and Dad thought he was good enough to ride in competitions, but he said he didn't want that. Said he did ride in parades and just around the ranch mostly.  I got the idea he liked being by himself really. Anyway, one of the other guys, Bill Flynn, was a farrier. That's a horse shoer. If you didn't know," I added, seeing the quizzical look on her face. "When we got our big paycheck after being sequestered for two weeks during the low power testing phase, Bill took his money and went off to Wyoming with his wife and kids to start a horse shoeing business. He said he asked Mike to come along as a partner since he knew horses so well. But Mike turned him down.”

Shirley still sat straight up in her seat staring at her coffee mug, only looking up occasionally.

“I don't know if the Lieutenant told you or not” I continued. “But just a few weeks ago Mike came upon a motorcycle wreck up on Avila Road on his way into work. It had just happened and it was bad. Mike put his army training to use to stop the bleeding and began CPR. But the guy didn't make it. Some of us thought that might have triggered some wartime memories again. He was definitely down, more quiet, right after that. Maybe that played a role in his...well, in what he did.”

There was another awkward silence and I asked, “So, maybe you can tell me about you and your brother growing up? He must have been a couple years younger than you, right?” Actually, Mike had never even mentioned he had a sister. I was just searching for something to say.

Shirley slowly looked up from her coffee and finally made eye contact.

After a long pause she began. “Ray, I don't know who you thought you knew. But you didn't know my brother. My family never had a horse ranch in Colorado. Mike and I grew up in Sunnyvale, outside of  San Jose. When he was ten he fell off his bicycle showing off for his friends and broke his leg in three places. And cracked his pelvis, too. When he graduated high school he wanted to join the army, but they wouldn't have him because of his leg. So he got a job at the local movie theater selling popcorn. Later he became a janitor there. He never went to UCLA, or any college for that matter. Certainly never got an engineering degree. He was a janitor at the same place for eight years, until he heard about Pinkerton hiring at the new power plant down here. They were paying almost double what he was making at the time. As you probably know we have a cousin over in Pismo Beach, and Mike came down here, applied and got the job. He moved in with his cousin and that's the last time Mom and Dad talked to him. It's been four years, and now...well, never again.”

I sat there in stunned silence as she pulled a five dollar bill from her purse, now in her lap, and laid it on the table. 

She slid out of the booth, and rising quickly said, “Thanks for meeting with me Mr. Redmond,” and headed for the door.

The waitress had just come up beside me with a fresh pot of coffee when Shirley stopped and looked back over her shoulder at me.

After a short pause, she said, “I'm sorry for you loss,” and she was gone.

The waitress looked from the departing woman back to me.

I looked up at her. 

“I just lost my best friend...again.”