The Half and The Whole

The 1980s. Photos by my mother.

 

He would have made fun of me for this with a sardonic grin slashing his face. The quip would have been witty and mostly meant in good fun. He would have said that I could do this better than I am. That is okay, I would have deserved it.
 

I would have called him a pretentious snob and he was sometimes. In a moment we would have argued about which Japanese car was the best. He always said it was Mazda, he had one of those before the Mustang. The Mustang that stomped me racing down Marietta Highway. I would have defended my Datsun Z, it was prettier, sleeker and it was mine. Teenage pride and stupidity in a double helix. We thought we knew it all and we knew nothing.

Saturday morning, I put the peanut butter jar in the kitchen sink instead of the pantry. I made coffee without water. It was that kind of shock that cracks up the icebergs of sleep and messes with the timeline of waking life. Who cares about a winter storm on the way or whether your socks match?

He went on to a great life and it is terrible for his family to lose him. His life and happiness were too short and that is not okay. What do you say? The longer you live, the shorter your time seems to become?

This feels like an epilogue at the end of a book and it sort of is. He was half the character of Elliot in my books. He was also a real whole person in my life and many others. 

The last time we spoke was too long ago, when he was in New York and it went poorly. Our problem was irreconcilable. I should have left the last memory of him at graduation on the football field, not that that was great either, when I turned and walked away after that conversation. That is okay too, it has to be. 

I cannot be selfish or possessive of an old friend. This is not about me. What thoughts I have are the equivalent of memories shared in the dim passages of a funeral home with neutral wallpaper. Have a seat on the imitation Victorian sofa next to the dusty fake flowers, it might comfort you. A man in a suit with a carnation pinned to his lapel will fetch you a paper cup of water. It was his life that was lost. I just picked up the echoes. It mattered, his life and death, it mattered a helluva lot. I could say more, but most of the important words have already been written and were hung in the warm air of a June night on a Paulding County football field. There are no regrets. I remember those stupid times, those great times. I remember him as the best friend I did not deserve, but he was lost long ago between the couch cushions of time. 

"Chris, don't be as maudlin as an NBC after-school special," he might have said while opening his trombone spit valve on my shoe. "Now, can I borrow a dollar for the concession stand?"

He died on a Wednesday. He was 53. That is not okay and that is the whole of it.