My Good Friend
Never a participator in pack mentality, or group activities, my friends have always been hand picked from various walks of life. I enjoy a voyeuristic look at the human race, to some degree, and accomplish this by compartmentalizing those I associate with. Each type of person requires a different demeanor, and the act of mixing the individuals is a rather poor idea…something I learned at a young age.
When I was twelve I invited all of my closest friends over for a birthday party…despite the fact that each and every one of them absolutely hated the rest. I had my adventurous sports-fan friend that I used for athletic activities and meeting girls, my nerd friend that I used for mental sport; chess, computer games, and the like; my criminal mastermind friend (now in prison), that I used because he was smarter than me and made me laugh, and was also up for stealing or breaking into anything I wanted. There were others; my gentle giant, my mechanical bureaucrat; but the big three that I just mentioned have always been my favorite to look back upon, representing the heads of their own respective societal factions. They were like possessions to me, or rather assets; windows into worlds beyond myself, worlds that I knew I could never be a direct part of, but craved to understand and participate in, none the less.
At some point my sociopathic tendencies receded as I began to understand the many factions of society, and consequentially lost interest in human difference…trading it instead for human similarity. The aftermath has, however, left me with the tendency to cherry pick my friends without preconceptions regarding class, and from this initially malicious tendency to simply use people and call them "friends," I have been able to draw some unlikely and fantastic people into real and loyal friendships. One, in particular, I’d like to pay a certain homage to.
He came into my life at the Battle of the Bands. It was a small and local show, but as a recent teenager, out on the town with a fresh possie from a fresh school, it was about as exciting of an evening as one could hope for…particularly since the girl I had something of a crush on was there as well, cheering for her older brother. The music was horrible, I recall, and I wanted nothing more (besides, perhaps, kissing the young girl) than to leap up on stage and smash all the instruments so as to save my ears from their atrocious noise. I sat there, stewing in this thought while they played, willing it to happen– and then it did. All of a sudden a portly young fellow with a thin beard and a large Santa Claus hat came barreling out from left stage, and hockey-checked the guitarist in mid song, sending him flying off the elevated surface, guitar and all, and into the nearby chairs. It brought the show to a quick and violent end, and I remember friends of the band jumping on him and wrestling him to the ground as he cursed the guitarist for slaughtering "cat scratch fever"– needless to say, I liked him immediately.
It wouldn’t be until later that we’d meet and get to know one another, and although I liked him immediately, it was his fondness for me that eventually galvanized our relationship. For reasons I no longer remember, he took a protective and nurturing liking to me, and in return I gave him the appreciation that such acts deserved. I would show up to school without food or money on a regular basis, and he would give me half of his ten dollar deli-made sandwich, every time, and I loved him for it on principal. He was stout, crass, unkempt, vulgar, and slobbish…which I only later discovered was an unprecedented irony. Unlike my closest friend, there was never any competition between myself and this particular fellow, and as such we have always deemed one another our most loyal of friends. Since meeting I have never once failed to give his drunken ass a ride home after the bars close, and he has, and continues to, repay my uncharacteristic loyalty and services in full. For it wasn’t until long after we established our unlikely friendship; the gentleman and the belligerent slob; that I discovered that he was from one of the largest and wealthiest families in the greater area. His skills as a host are flawless, and his polite and thoughtful etiquette regarding people he admires contrasts his vulgar contempt for most other people dramatically. He loves and understands cats, and they are equally eager to take advantage of his nurturing nature. Thirsty? Hungry? Comfortable? Try this. Try that.
He taught me two things; first, that image in no way represents character, and second, that contrary to many of my less financially fortunate hippie-liberal friends beliefs, wealthy republicans are not all simply self obsessed gluttons– that poverty does not hold a monopoly on kindness– that money, particularly wealth, will more often than not cultivate kind and thoughtful people, who like any one, simply want to be appreciated for who they are…and not what they have.
Dude, don’t even…you know you’re my boy.