You may always ask….

My best friend, the one who isn’t talking to me. I am going to give her a name: Trynity (pronounced like Trinity). She has a running gag that is both self-mocking, and quite honest at the same time: “there is only one Trynity.” And, I agree with her.

I was one of 3 best friends in her life. One was a girlfriend from highschool who lives not so far away. The other is a guy from her work. Now, this guy is as different from me as light is from truck tires. He’s a beer-drinkin not-so-redneck good-ol-boy from the country. He likes trucks and fishing, doing work for his own business on company time in direct competition with the company he’s working for. He’s married, and has had several DUI’s. He enjoys DeerHunter, and thats about his extent of his computer knowledge.

Not that all of those things are bad, just that its not me.

I can’t understand what Trynity sees in him as a friend. But, he is her friend, and for all the things about him that I might see as faults, he is still a good-ol-boy. I like him. Sometimes because I have too, but mostly, just because.

But sometimes I resent him. Because, he gets a share of Trynity’s time. They work together, and so he has a unique aspect to their relationship that I can’t have, and so I’m a tad jealous. But, it is a tad, and even that, I try very hard not to let have an impact on either him or Trynity.

Well, last spring, she had quit her job, and things had been kind of tense for her and she was busy and many things. But finally she invited me over on “friend night” (a night set aside essentially for me each week) to help her catch up on the yard. I spoke to her early that afternoon, and we agreed we’d probably mow.

I get off work, and scuttle out to her place, and this guy’s truck is in her drive, and they are leaning over the sides talking. He’s got a beer, of course.

Well, I pull up, say howdy, make a moment of small talk, then go on inside and change clothes. Then I go out on the back deck and sit awhile, figuring he’d be leaving in a bit, and we’d get started on the yard. Alfter about a half-hour, I couldn’t keep sitting still. So I started the mower, and started mowing the back yard. I was trying to calm down.

A short while later, she came around the house to get more pop. She stopped me and asked “What are you doing?” “Mowing. Isn’t that what we were going to do?” I replied, level except for the subtle emphasis on “we”.

“Is that what you want to be doing?” she asked.

“Are you doing what you want to be doing?” comes my reply.

She shrugs, “no, not really…”

“Then I don’t see where the choice lies with me,” I end with, and resume mowing.

A little while after that, they come from around front, and seat themselves on a glider loveseat she built, which faces the yard I am mowing. They sit down, and resume talking. After I make a few turns through the yard with the mower, they motion me to stop. “Stop mowing, and come join us!”

“Naw. Why?” I ask, looking for an exit.

“Because you are making us feel bad!” they both answer.

“Naw. You guys go ahead and do what you want,” I am looking at Trynity, “I came to mow.”

Of course, if I had stopped, I’d probably go over and kill him. So I had an addtitonal reason to keep going.

I hope you can understand what I am feeling. This was supposed to be “our” night. Thats why its reserved. Let him come over any other night when I’m working, and fine. But not tonight. I hadn’t spent any time with her at all really in recent weeks, and working outdoors is something I thought we both enjoyed doing together.

So I was hurt. How could she sit there and let him mooch on our time. Obviously, its because he is more important to her than I am. So I am just so much shit right now, operating a riding mower. I am little more than hired help, except I’m not getting paid. Im not even getting the “payment” of friendship at this moment. But I keep mowing, damnit. If I’m the hired help, then I’m going to get my freakin job done and go home. They can just kiss my kilt.

And, really, my anger was aimed at Trynity. I was feeling betrayed. Not just backstabbed, but she was sitting there on the glider just twisting the hilt casually, while my impailed body spun around the yard on the mower. But being angry with her is something I don’t like to do, thankfully it is very rare. So I more than happily transferred it to him.

After a long time (I was nearly done with the back yard…and its BIG), they finally got up and walked back to the front of the house. I was pissed because I was so totally hurt. I felt completely worthless and betrayed. I am just shit.

(continued…)