I mistakenly sent a text message to the wrong person yesterday. I may have lost a friend. It was an innocuous thing, really, but not to the recipient, perhaps. It brought me down. Way down. I couldn't quit beating myself up all night. When I woke in the dark, I'd remember it and get low all over again. I'm not sure how many friends I have left. I think, by and large, I've been forgotten. And so I tell myself I will hunker down, huddle up in my shell, read, write, and take pictures, and I will not think or worry about it. But this writing about myself, now. . . I don't know. I thought I would quit it, but it seems I can't. I thought about writing character portraits of the people I have known.
"Who Is Fred Dubitone?"
I don't know why he came to mind. It was a kid I went to school with. He came to our junior high school in the ninth grade. He was French, or so it seemed. We could hardly understand him when he spoke, but that made him intriguing, especially to the girls. He was good looking with dark curly hair and slightly dusky skin, and he was immediately taken up by the "in" crowd of kids who were in the social clubs and sat in student government.
When we got to high school, he was early into getting high. Kids would meet up downtown at the big lake with the famous fountain and smoke pot, then, later, drop acid. But in the twelfth grade, he was walking with some other boys when a big truck swerved off the road and ran them over. Fred took the worst of it and was in the hospital for a long time. He became something of a senior class concern, and when he finally returned to school, he came back to a hero's welcome.
When we went to college, he was among us, and in our second year, I was invited to take off the summer to tour Europe with a few friends, Fred among them. They calculated the money needed, and everyone saved up, begged or borrowed. In the end, I decided not to go. Fred came up short, but somebody spotted him the rest.
When the boys got back at the end of the summer, they were skinny and had tales to tell. Things had gone right and wrong, of course, and they had not always wanted to do the same things, so they would break up and meet again somewhere. Running out of money, they went hungry, learning to eat scraps of food diners left on their plates. The funny thing was, they thought it would be good to have Fred along in France since he spoke the language. Except. . . he really didn't. French people did not like him, they said, and they found out that he was not from France but from Morocco. His French was as bad as his English and so it turned out Fred didn't really have a language at all.
By now, Fred's hair was shoulder length and he began to put on weight. The last time I saw him, he was sitting on the floor in house he rented with some others with his shirt off rolling joints and looking like a little fat Buddha. Fred didn't finish college, and I really didn't think of him much again until last night.
Leonard was the one whose idea it was to go to Europe. I didn't really have much to do with him in high school but we became friends in college. His mother was an elementary school teacher and his father a blue collar working man whose brother was the state's Agriculture Secretary. A large building at the university was named after him.
Leonard's parents were recently divorced. His father was a bit of a rounder, it seemed, a good looking man who exercised and was proud of his figure. Now, Leonard was "the man of the house," living with his mother and three sisters. As often happened then, after high school, Leonard became something of a hippie. He and Chuck and I had long hair and formed hippie intramural sports teams to compete against the frat boys. My college roommate played with us, too, and boy did we piss off a lot of people. They hated losing to flip-flop wearing hippies.
Leonard was the first person I knew to live with a girlfriend. I went to their apartment and for me it was like a wonderland. She was a little older than Leonard, and the place looked like something out of a movie about Haight-Ashbury with old low couches, candles, incense, and Batik wall hangings. I was quite envious in a fearful way. His girlfriend's brother lived with them, and it was he who formed the first social/political organization for gays at the college.
Before the year was out, Leonard was his girlfriend's boyfriend. Now, Leonard was not only the first person I knew who lived with his girlfriend, but he was the first openly gay friend I had, too. It was quite a new thing then and a bit of a shock. I thought back though, to the times I went to Leonard's house where he lived with his sisters, and he'd be walking about after his shower in short shorts and clogs.
O.K.
Chuck was a strange one. He was a real stoner who wasn't supposed to chew gum, his doctor told him, because he always swallowed it. Couldn't help it. Some sort of reflex, I guess. When we were out, he'd ask somebody for a stick of gum.
"Chuck, you can't have gum. You always swallow it."
"I'm not going to swallow it. Give me a stick of gum."
In a few minutes, Chuck would not be chewing anymore.
"Where's the gum, Chuck?"
Before our second year of college was through, Chuck had shocked us all and joined the military. I never saw him again.
Leonard went on to become an elementary school teacher. I saw him several times over the years. He never seemed to age and was still one of the nicest guys you'd ever meet.
All that was running through my head last night as I couldn't sleep. That and much more. I think I was measuring my life against the people I have known. . . and coming up short.
So it seemed last night in the shadow of an errant text message.
It was innocuous, perhaps, but maybe she didn't think so.
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