FRIENDS

                        FRIENDS

I have no friends. I shouldn’t say that, I have one who lives far away. We don’t see each other often. I had friends, a lot when I was young, fewer as the years went by, and recently I lost what few remained through covid, cancer, and illnesses of aging. Friends fall off, like leaves in the autumn rain, slowly, one by one.

I remember fondly the friends I’ve had throughout my life. Thoughts of them bring a smile to my face. I miss my friend Bill who died thirty years ago from AIDS. We lost him in the very early eighties when it was still new and we thought you could catch it from kissing, or using the same straw. Reminds me of Covid's early days when we were all washing our groceries and the bag they came in. 

My best friend Sue smoked all her life. We went to high school together. When we were in our twenties, I used to tell her she should stop smoking because she had such a bad cough. I smoked too, so she would laugh at me and tell me to shut up. It eventually killed her. I miss her.

My roommate and good friend Joanne moved out and got a boyfriend. She stopped speaking to me and I never found out why. To this day I never knew what I did wrong. I assumed it was me, but who knows? Maybe it was part of her growing up.

But I digress. As a result of having no friends, I am lonely. I decided that it would only get worse if I stayed at home, so I go out a lot, by myself, hoping to find someone that I could become friends with.

The seashore is a thirty-minute drive for me. There is a place I like to go for seafood, they have the best around. I sit right by the water and devour my scrumptious meal. The only drawback to the entire experience is you have to wait in line for about thirty minutes, but the food is well worth the wait.

As I stood there yesterday, in line, there were two gentlemen, probably in their sixties, in front of me, and four high school-age girls behind me. I’m the only one with a mask on. The girls are well tanned. They talk about girl things. School teachers, girls they don’t like, and what’s on Tik Toc. One girl is home from boarding school, and one is trying to explain what “downwind” means as they watch the sailboats come into the harbor.

I look at the two men ahead of me, and they are well dressed in shorts, boat shoes, and summer shirts. Most of the women in the line are overweight as are their equally overweight friends. At least they have friends. I was the only one by myself on this particular day, and yes, I am overweight too.

Bored with staring at everyone, I listened nonchalantly to the men’s conversation.

Green Shirt: “This mask thing is going to go on for a while.”

Blue shirt: “Yeah, I think you’re right. I always try to observe the six-foot rule.”

The wind picks up, I can’t hear. Then…

Green shirt: “I’m sick of being told what to do. First my mother, then the wife.”

Blue shirt: “Oh, I agree, your whole life, someone’s telling you what to do. You go from your parent's home to a home with a wife.” 

Green shirt: “You know, once I get home, I don’t like to go out. In fact, I don’t like to go out at all. The wife knows this. She knows better than to ask me to go anywhere if I’m in my recliner with the TV on. You know? I’m comfortable, leave me alone.”

Blue Shirt: “I get what you’re saying.”

Green shirt: “I mean think about it, as cops if we had a tough shift, we wanted to go home and relax, not be bothered by wives asking questions.”

“What were we supposed to say, oh, I arrested a guy who threw his pregnant wife down the stairs, but she didn’t want to press charges. That was fun. Then I had to make a house visit to a family and tell them their family member was killed in an automobile accident. Give me a break! That was my day, how was yours? Leave me the hell alone.”

Blue Shirt: “You know I’ve been seeing a therapist since I retired. I need to talk about some of this stuff, and who can you talk to?” It’s not a conversation you can have with just anybody.”

Green Shirt: “Exactly! I have a dark side to me that I can’t talk about with friends or family, and you know why? Because I don’t want to be judged. I used to know a guy years ago, he’s dead now. We would get a couple of beers and sit around, just the two of us, and I could talk to him. 

He just listened, he never judged, he never said a word. He was a quiet sort, and I knew he would never repeat anything I told him. We had that kind of relationship, you know?” And just being able to get that stuff off my chest, was such a relief.”

Blue Shirt: “Yeah, I talked to a priest a couple of times, I know what you mean. I did some things I’m not proud of, stuff you wouldn’t be able to get away with nowadays. Just jackass stuff that if you did today you would be fired or worse. We were young and stupid. Well, you know, small town, everybody knows everybody else, right?”

Green Shirt: “Yeah, I had a lot of issues growing up, you know, with my family, when I was a kid. Now, I’ve got most of it resolved, but through most of my life, it was a real problem. I’ve talked through a lot of it and understand a lot more, but yeah, we did some crazy shit.”

They finally made it to the order window, ordered, paid, and left. Later I saw them walking to the parking lot, one patting the other on the back.  It reminded me of that picture with the two kids sitting at the beach, one arm around his buddy.

How wonderful it is to have a friend.