With Friends Like This...

                Sometimes when I take a step back I wonder just how people can call themselves a friend. This honestly eats at me in a way I can’t explain, though I will try.

                I once had a friend who I’d see nearly every weekend. We’ll call him Harry. Most common traits unshared, we found a bond over drinks.

And it all started with a deeply held secret, we admitted  to each other we used to listen to Master P. Now I don’t claim to know much about the world, but I don’t think two males can share any closer bond than that.

As time passed, he and I frequented bars here and there. From what we remembered we had a great time, every time, no question.  

We got to meet a cavalcade of people; cowboys, lesbians, bankers, bartenders, bouncers, pill poppers, pill dealers, the occasional midget, ex cons, co-workers, desperate school teachers, hobos, hippies, high-strung professionals, and cowboy-lesbians etc.

The more we hung out, the more adventures we had, the more exciting things became. Every weekend it seemed like we were upping the ante, just by stepping through the door of a new bar. 

Months passed and this trend continued. To change things up we even expanded our travels, heading to Vegas with our then girlfriends. Then lost said girlfriends, don’t worry it was after Vegas (even still, some were more stubborn and not easily shaken). We then went about trying to gain new ones thereafter, hilarity and half-assery ensued, but that’s not the point of the story.

It what seemed like no time the fun stretched out over a period of five years. My God- five years! It had flown by in an enjoyable way when viewed from afar.

T’was about this time that I began to notice Harry was willing to go to lengths that I wasn’t, just to perpetuate a good time. Sure, I was willing (and in some cases more than willing) to get loaded and piss on the side of the Wells Fargo building downtown (or other such nonsense), but I had to draw the line somewhere- I was a gentleman after all.

 

Even this was fine until it began to affect me. One night at a bar north of town, Harry had had a little too much and made the mistake of telling a regular’s girlfriend that his version of cunnilingus was hands down better than how her boyfriend performed the task. Now when you overlook the fact that Harry had broken two cardinal sins in the world of bar etiquette; in a bar far from home, always survey the crowd to see who is attached, and of course trumping that; don’t fuck with the regulars. Not necessarily all that bad, except the boyfriend in question was within earshot. I quickly found myself in the middle of a brewing storm trying to settle down both the lightning and the thunder.

Granted he was already blind drunk at 11:30 at night, but it might surprise those that don’t frequent drinking establishments, that this might’ve actually worked in Harry’s favor. Typically, the boyfriend, and what I assume were his meth-selling, meth-addicted friends (because you have to have variety in those you associate with I suppose) would’ve probably had the bouncer gently (not gently) escort Harry out to the front walk, after realizing Harry’s words were more unrecognizable slurs than insults.

Of course this would’ve applied, if not for 2 things; 1) there was actually a bouncer in this dive and 2) Harry had not already worn out his welcome while trying to take these boys’ money by doing his (worst) pool shark routine. For the record, drunken pool sharks are not the fiercest predator in the ocean of city nightlife. 

Luckily, my gift for gab extends off the written page and into real life, and while I thought I was probably delivering what for these angry men was the equivalent of a Gabriel Iglesias show, in reality their sheer boredom from listening to me likely snuffed out their fury.

 

                A month or so later, while visiting a bar on the east side, shots were fired. Sorry, didn’t mean to get dramatic there, I meant shots were involved. Harry and I thought that we needed to free the whiskey that was behind the bar and proceeded to order 3 rounds. By the hoisting of the 3^rd shot, Harry was already eyeballing some innocent (well honestly, are there any innocent folks in bars?) stranger, sizing him up. By the time that last shot went down, Harry was in this guy’s face screaming, threatening him, and challenging him to everything  besides a dance contest (though alas, that would’ve been kind of entertaining to watch- you got served!).

Well it so happened that this fine establishment had been getting a bit rowdy on weekends, and the owner had what was nearly a constant police presence there on site. In fact, as Harry was going all silverback on this poor nobody, policemen were cuffing two other guys who had just shared a similar interaction- fisticuffs not a dance off. Again, I had to act; I pulled Harry off the stranger. Apologized, bought him a drink to make amends. Why did Harry suddenly become so hostile you ask? I don’t know; I believe the explanation I got after was that this unfortunate stranger was a member of a rival football team Harry had played against in high school. By the way, when this took place, Harry was nearly 30 years old.

 

By this point, some of you may be wondering why I wouldn’t have spoken up to good ole’ Harry about his behavior. Valid question.

Before I go further, I feel it’s important to say that I’m no saint myself; and contrary to popular belief, I’m a mere mortal (practicing for promotion though). As such, copious amounts of alcoholic beverages sometimes do to me what they do to anyone else - make me act like a damn fool. Although I am not one to pick fights or inappropriately grope women after throwing back the 5^th ‘last one’, I am apt to spouting all manner of mean, hateful horseshit to anyone that happens to have the misfortune to piss me off. Harry, his girlfriend, his cousin and Harry’s dear mother- may God rest her soul- had all been on the receiving end of my alcohol soaked barbs over the years. Just kidding about Harry’s mother, I never gave her the business, and as far as I know she’s alive and well in Newark- I’m not a monster for God’s sake.

Kidding aside, in short I didn’t feel like I had the right to speak up. It would’ve been like the pot with the brand new raven paint job, calling the kettle black. 

 

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on which side you favor), the escapades continued, with another incident following shortly after the last. This time, I was left behind, amidst a crowd of flesh eating zombies. Well, in a manner of speaking anyway, Harry got so inebriated at the city’s zombie walk that year that I guess he simply forgot he was with me. While I was answering nature’s call in one of the conveniently located port-o-potties, Harry thought it okay to leave me at the event. Under normal circumstances this wouldn’t have been so bad, except Harry had been my ride there.

 

So remember that whole finding new girlfriends thing I mentioned earlier? Well by some fortunate twist of fate we had managed to do exactly that. Only difference between Harry and I was that I was determined to keep mine.  After a few trips to Vegas where I was not on the guest list, Harry had managed to hook up with a stripper. And as you might’ve guessed Harry was not sly enough to keep this from his new girlfriend. She promptly dumped him, after which Harry called (you guessed it) me, to confide in.

A new behavior developed. We ceased going out, as Harry declared he wasn’t up to the task. Instead, he would phone me on Sunday afternoons and ask for advice about her, how he missed her, how he messed up, how he might win the girl back.  I was perfectly willing to lend an ear, and give him a bit of guidance. Honestly speaking, it was a welcome change of pace to be able to do so without both of our elbows connected to a bar top.

 

The Sunday calls continued, though a few weeks passed and on a Friday, I received a text from Harry asking me to meet him at one of our favorite breweries to discuss a new girl he was seeing. I wasn’t shocked at this revelation. As I imagined negotiations with the ex had fallen through. So meet we did.

At the start of this palaver, he told me about this girl in great detail. None of it flattering, except for the fact that she knew how to take a good selfie- a box one must always check in searching for a mate- be they temporary or permanent.  The two of us had never beat around the bush with one another, and protocol determined that I not deviate from that. I was straightforward when I told him that I thought he was wasting his time with this new girl, and she seemed like she was hiding something from him.

Regrettably, I didn’t have the wherewithal to stop there. You see, the evening had been whiled away through the consumption of many beers. My mouth got the better of me, or perhaps more accurately the alcohol had. My words became callous, venomous to the point they were needlessly hateful. In our grand tradition Harry was keen to the fact that I had too much. If he was offended by my speech, he didn’t let on; in fact he offered to drive me home. In slurred vocabulary, I accepted.

 

That Sunday commenced with another call from Harry, this one proclaiming that he was in fact reuniting with his ex-girlfriend and had broke it off with the one I had warned him about. All seemed well, all seemed forgiven. All seemed natural.

 

Then a funny thing happened; I never heard from Harry again.

Following that Sunday chat, I reached out to Harry to see how things were going with the ex. No response. A call a few days later. No answer.  Facebook message (I was getting desperate ok?). Nothing. Texts. Nada…

Now don’t let your mind go to the worst scenario, I have it on good authority that Harry is in fact alive and well. We share mutual friends, and I know that he’s still breathing. What I can’t put together is why the radio silence? What I can’t conceive of is why the mystery?

Six months have passed since the two of us have seen or spoken to each other.

What boggles my mind is now, looking back why I called Harry a friend to begin with.  But the thing I question most of all?

I wonder if he knows that even if he called me today, by God I’d still be there for him just like we never skipped a beat.