days gone by

it was friday night, and it was the middle of a blizzard, after a long stressful week. i just felt like going home, but whenever i cancel out on things like this i end up regretting it. so i dragged myself across town in the slippery, inching traffic.

i wasn't surpised that i had to park blocks away and that every available spot was taken. i mean, it should have been surprising, because in this neighborhood, there's driveways and garages and parking lots so there's never usually any problem. but tonight would be different.

inside, i was immediately struck by the heat. not the heater, but the heat of the crowd. the place was pretty big. there was a large entryway and a main room where most people were sitting or standing, and then two more rooms in the back. but every room was full. not just the places to sit, but every available square foot of floor was occupied by a body. i wouldn't have been surprised if there were 300 people. so even on this blustery winter night, i was way overdressed for the elevated indoor temperature.

as i slowly passed through the crowd, which was touching me on all sides, i noticed the pictures hanging all around. the pictures were all of people - and that's my favorite kind of pictures. a lot of shots of my friend Nick and his family and his friends. i picked out a few pictures of people i knew. places i'd also been that Nick wanted to remember. i'm sure, i was subconsciously looking for myself in his pictures, trying to claim an imaginary stake for myself as one of his closer friends. but i didn't find my face anywhere.

i understood though. we were friends, but i was mostly good friends with his good friends, so we were sort of friends by extension. i know his sisters better actually. they are big DiFrancophiles too and we'd been to concerts together, but Nick, mostly just at parties.

once i finally make it past the entryway with all the pictures, the handshaking begins. i'm pulled into a lot of guy-hugs too, where you start out with a handshake and pull the buddy in by the shoulder with your other hand - your handshaking hands conveniently distancing your groins, thus preventing any awkwardness.

looking around the large room, there's quite a few faces i'm surprised to see. i mean, if i would have thought about it, i would have known they'd be there. but i just didn't think about it. i didn't think about it because i haven't thought about a lot of these people in close to ten years.

almost ten years ago was when i first met Nick. it was at a party and he had a baseball hat on. even back then, he was a big guy and he had a really big laugh. i had met a lot of people back then, in that just-starting-to-go-out-and-meet-people stage. but over the years i had lost touch with that crowd and met new people... and lost touch with them and met newer people.. and so on. it seems to be a pattern i repeat often.

but that doesn't mean i don't consider them all my friends. i mean, when i saw my friend Phil again that night, i wanted to sit down and catch up on the last decade for the entire evening. Phil was such a funny guy, back in the day. we drove to florida together when i was 16. he didn't really bring much food. or much money for that matter. so he ate all of these packages of tapioca pudding that i had bought. and i think he felt guilty about it and it might have become this little argument once but i didn't care then and i certainly don't care now. but he had to bring it up and apologize or tease me for holding a pudding grudge or something. i don't know. it seemed like the same old Phil. only now Phil is married. and he and Jenny have taken in his two little blonde nephews and are applying for adoption. now i can't even remember their names. it just struck me how weird it is that you can be so close to someone at one time that you share pudding just to make it through the week, and now i don't even know his kids names. but it was just good to see him and to slip back into our friendship like a worn shoe.

it was a night like that. of shocks and surprises. of hugs and forced smiles. of hearty laughs and sad memories.

there was one guy that came up to me with his daughter on his shoulders. i didn't recognize either of them, but he knew me. he knew my name and told me how great it was to see me again. asked me what i was up to these days and the whole thing. i faked it as well as i could and then went and asked someone who that was. of course now that i knew, it was way too late and way too awkward to go back and say, "hey Dario! now i remember you! we used to hang out back in the day at Jasmine's after you moved here from florida! i've been wondering what happened to you." but of course i didn't do any of that because the moment had passed and honestly, i hadn't wondered about him at all. but it was great to see him and bring back all those memories - once they finally registered.

but when i heard that B. had shown up, i did start searching the place for him. B., i HAD been wondering about. it had also been years since i'd seen him and we used to be pretty good friends. sure he came on to one of my buddies, who then freaked out, causing B. to leave in shame and drop all association with any of us, without so much as a word over all these years... but i always wanted to know that he was ok. i wanted him to know that we are cool now if he wanted to try to come back.

i guess he had left right away that night and i didn't get to see him, and i don't know if i ever will. it's one of those sobering thoughts i had a lot that evening. that any one of these people might no longer be my friend, because of the distance or the time or my lack of attention. that they might no longer be around or i might move on. that over the next couple years, one or both of us could marry or have kids or get sick and die. and there would be some of us that wouldn't even get the news.

i hadn't seen Nick yet that night, and i had wanted to, even though i knew he wouldn't look exactly like i remember him from ten years ago. i thought i'd be fine with it, with how much we had aged and how much things have changed, and where we both were. the group i was in though, started talking about him way back when. how when he was a young kid, he'd spend his tiny allowance on toys for his little sisters and brother. how he was sometimes asked to say the prayer before dinner when he was a child and how he always prayed for his family, his siblings, that they would be taken care of.

i found out that night, that Nick was born may 22nd, 1980... one day after i was born. i was shocked again, that we were so similar. that a lot of these 300 people that had come to see him, were the same people i had known and loved at one point or another. that we had taken the same walk down different paths in our lives so far.

i never did see him that night. they didn't have an open casket. i suppose the way the cancer had destroyed him over the last few months was just too hard for anyone to bear. but i remember him the way i remember all of our friends over our shared twenty-five-year past.. i remember them like they are still my close friends. and despite the time between, whenever i see them again - whenever i see Nick again - we'll be friends like no time has passed at all.


Posted by heydomsar
2006-01-30

go back | random brainstorm | go forth

Rachel Ray - 2009-05-03
The cold wind was the reason - 2009-03-02
The Collected Wisdom of Angela Chase - 2009-02-15
All's well that ends well. - 2009-01-07
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. - 2008-10-04

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