Aside from my high school girlfriend, (whom I later married), there were two deeply significant friendships in my middle and high school years, friendships that were truly formative. The first was Barry, who became my friend in 7th grade. As it is for many, the beginning of middle school was an awful transition for me. And on top of all the standard transitional elements, I was also dealing with the fact that my mother had just gone through her third divorce, from the man who had been my *father* for much of my life, and had immediately begun a serious relationship with a new man. Like me, Barry came from a relatively low-income background, and had cultivated a perverse sense of humor as a way of coping with the struggles of everyday life. Barry was goofy, funny, clever, intelligent, and sensitive. We liked the same music, watched the same movies, ran in the same circles, and Barry could make me laugh like no one else. We were best friends for about three years. That friendship began to deteriorate in my freshman year of high school, when it came to light that Barry had stolen some high-value baseball cards from me. We lost contact in the following summer, right around the time that I began dating my future wife. Then, in our senior year, at a New Year's Day party in fact, Barry accidentally shot himself in the head with a 9mm pistol he carried around with him at all times. He survived, but was minimally conscious and completely paralyzed until the end of his life, which came a few years ago.
The second friend was Pat. Our friendship began, as most do, purely by chance. Pat was two years younger than I was, and I knew him tangentially through his brother, Joel, who was in JROTC with me. I walked into the school cafeteria one January day looking for someone in that friend circle (I no longer remember who) to join me for lunch. That person wasn't there, but Pat was, and he cheerfully volunteered to go. We had so much fun in that hour window, and the next day, spotting me in the hall, he mentioned going again. By the end of that week, a routine had formed, one that lasted for the remainder of my senior year.
Pat was a small guy, small in stature and in build. But he was huge in personality. He was one of the most affable, jovial, lovable people I've ever known in my life. He was the poster child for the 90s hippyish nerd, typically sporting tattered flannel shirts worn loosely and open over a T-shirt bearing the name of either a 60s group like the Doors (our shared favorite band at the time), or a 90s grunge band like Nirvana or Pearl Jam. He wore glasses and black combat boots, and in the cold weather wore a Vietnam-era military jacket that I can only assume he bought in a thrift store. I envied him his shaggy, chin-length hair, always clean but also always haphazardly hanging just in his eyes and in brown waves to the side of his head. (Thanks to JROTC, I had to keep my hair short). Hell, to be honest, I envied the way he could pull off the "I don't care how I look" look, as it never seemed to work for me. I clicked with Pat in a way that I have never really clicked with any other male friend in my life.
Our favorite haunt for lunch was McHugh's restaurant, a fast food "chain" with a few restaurants in our county. They had the best chili cheese dogs I've ever had. We'd typically grab our food, go to my house and scarf it down, then kill the rest of our lunch by cruising around the neighborhoods near the high school, blaring the Doors and trying not to attract the attention of the police. A few weeks after our lunch ritual began, Pat invited me to his house for the first time, to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show (the first time I'd ever seen it). Joel made cheeseburgers, their mom made Rotel dip, and we watched the film, with Joel and Pat singing along to every song.
After this, our friendship was no longer confined to school lunch hours. We began to hang out together just about every day that one of us wasn't working. We'd watch movies, hang out at one of our houses listening to music, eat more calories in a meal than I eat now in a week (oh, to have the body of a young man again). And the passage of time brought warmer weather. Spring turned to summer, and I graduated. And one of our favorite things to do... we'd take the sunroof out of my car (I had an '81 Toyota Tercel hatchback that had been wrecked when I bought it for $300... it was ugly as shit, but the stereo worked and so did the sunroof). Then we'd drive around town, with the windows down, stereo BLARING, and Pat, standing up out of my sunroof howling and screaming at the top of his lungs. How I managed to never run into the cops...
But some of the most formative experiences were our walks. Pat and I would take walks, sometimes hours long, and at all hours of the day and night, sometimes until 1 or 2 in the morning. It was with Pat that I had some of my first deeply philosophical conversations, talks in which I began to question the religious faith that I had grown up with, the judgmental, sin-based morality with which I was raised, the existence of God, and so on. Pat was one of the most thoughtful, introspective, intelligent people I've ever met. I have no doubt that these conversations were integral to the path that brought me to where I am today.
Summer turned to fall, and fall brought transition. Pat returned to school, and I, a recent high school graduate, began working full-time. Pat and I tried to maintain our friendship, but the time just began to come between us. With me no longer at the high school, Pat formed a new circle of friends who began to occupy his time. And I had very little free time to spare anyway, given that I was working so much. One Friday night, Pat asked me to go with him to a high school bonfire party outside of town. So I went. But I felt completely awkward and out of place. Part of it had to do with being at a huge party (I've never been very good in those contexts, for some reason), but the bigger part of my discomfort was related to the fact that I was now, technically, a full-fledged "adult" at a party with people who were 15 and 16 years old, and most of whom were absolutely wasted and/or tripping balls. I stayed for maybe a half hour, before I made up some excuse and left.
After that evening, Pat and I completely lost touch. There was no animosity on either part. It was just one of those typical dwindlings of a relationship that happen in life. I soon moved in with my girlfriend, changed jobs, got married, and bought a house. And I never heard from Pat again. A few years later, working in a print factory (where I worked for nine of my adult years), I knew a woman who, through degrees of separation, was familiar with Pat. She told me that he had recently joined the navy, and was home from basic training for a short while before shipping out.
Over the years, I've tried a few times to track him down. A lazy Google search here or there, for instance. Then a few months ago, my wife became Facebook friends with his brother, Joel. Every once in a while, I'd send a message to Joel through my wife, and he would return the favor. In October, I thought, "One of these days, I'm gonna have her ask Joel for Pat's contact information," thinking that he and I could finally reconnect after all these years. But of course, the busyness of the semester, writing projects, my daughter's hospitalization, etc. "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow..."
Just before Christmas, Pat suffered a completely unexpected and surprisingly severe stroke. His doctors expected him to recover, though he was going to have to learn to do some basic things all over again. At this point, I began looking forward to his recovery, as I intended to definitely try to reach him after such a harrowing experience. Then last week, Pat suffered a sudden heart attack, followed immediately by a seizure that rendered him brain dead. The next day, his family turned off his life support system, and Pat died.
I've spent the past several days trying to process his passing, and how to mourn him. I'm, honestly, not sure why it has affected me as deeply as it has - the passing of someone I was close to for eight months, twenty-eight years ago. Maybe it's because throughout most of my life, I've had so very few close relationships that were not toxic in some way or other, and Pat was definitely one of the non-toxic friendships. Maybe it's because our friendship, though brief, left such an indelible mark on me (to this day, I still wear flannels and combat boots, and that's because of Pat). Maybe it's because I'm at that point in my life when I'm taking stock of who I am, where I've come from, and what the rest of my life might look like, and the death of this formative world is like losing a part of me. Maybe it's anger at myself for not doing more to reach out to him when he was still alive. It's an indescribable feeling. Though you've lost touch with someone for almost three decades, there's a security or a comfort in knowing that they're still out there somewhere, still living their life, that that person who brought such meaning to your life for a time is still going on, that the path from that fork continues even if in a different direction. There's always the hope that maybe some day, the paths will intersect again. Until there isn't. There's a strange solitude in knowing that the last of your closest childhood friends has died.
If I could speak to Pat one last time, I would thank him for the time we spent together, however brief. I would let him know what a meaningful impact he had on my life, how he got me through some incredibly difficult family shit, how much he mattered to me, how much he inspired me, how he challenged me in all the best ways, how much I thought about him over the years, and how much I loved him. I hope he knew that, and I regret intensely that I never told him. For now, quoting Derrida, "I'm going to have to wander all alone in that long discussion that we should have had together."
Adieu, my friend. Adieu, Patrick.
The second friend was Pat. Our friendship began, as most do, purely by chance. Pat was two years younger than I was, and I knew him tangentially through his brother, Joel, who was in JROTC with me. I walked into the school cafeteria one January day looking for someone in that friend circle (I no longer remember who) to join me for lunch. That person wasn't there, but Pat was, and he cheerfully volunteered to go. We had so much fun in that hour window, and the next day, spotting me in the hall, he mentioned going again. By the end of that week, a routine had formed, one that lasted for the remainder of my senior year.
Pat was a small guy, small in stature and in build. But he was huge in personality. He was one of the most affable, jovial, lovable people I've ever known in my life. He was the poster child for the 90s hippyish nerd, typically sporting tattered flannel shirts worn loosely and open over a T-shirt bearing the name of either a 60s group like the Doors (our shared favorite band at the time), or a 90s grunge band like Nirvana or Pearl Jam. He wore glasses and black combat boots, and in the cold weather wore a Vietnam-era military jacket that I can only assume he bought in a thrift store. I envied him his shaggy, chin-length hair, always clean but also always haphazardly hanging just in his eyes and in brown waves to the side of his head. (Thanks to JROTC, I had to keep my hair short). Hell, to be honest, I envied the way he could pull off the "I don't care how I look" look, as it never seemed to work for me. I clicked with Pat in a way that I have never really clicked with any other male friend in my life.
Our favorite haunt for lunch was McHugh's restaurant, a fast food "chain" with a few restaurants in our county. They had the best chili cheese dogs I've ever had. We'd typically grab our food, go to my house and scarf it down, then kill the rest of our lunch by cruising around the neighborhoods near the high school, blaring the Doors and trying not to attract the attention of the police. A few weeks after our lunch ritual began, Pat invited me to his house for the first time, to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show (the first time I'd ever seen it). Joel made cheeseburgers, their mom made Rotel dip, and we watched the film, with Joel and Pat singing along to every song.
After this, our friendship was no longer confined to school lunch hours. We began to hang out together just about every day that one of us wasn't working. We'd watch movies, hang out at one of our houses listening to music, eat more calories in a meal than I eat now in a week (oh, to have the body of a young man again). And the passage of time brought warmer weather. Spring turned to summer, and I graduated. And one of our favorite things to do... we'd take the sunroof out of my car (I had an '81 Toyota Tercel hatchback that had been wrecked when I bought it for $300... it was ugly as shit, but the stereo worked and so did the sunroof). Then we'd drive around town, with the windows down, stereo BLARING, and Pat, standing up out of my sunroof howling and screaming at the top of his lungs. How I managed to never run into the cops...
But some of the most formative experiences were our walks. Pat and I would take walks, sometimes hours long, and at all hours of the day and night, sometimes until 1 or 2 in the morning. It was with Pat that I had some of my first deeply philosophical conversations, talks in which I began to question the religious faith that I had grown up with, the judgmental, sin-based morality with which I was raised, the existence of God, and so on. Pat was one of the most thoughtful, introspective, intelligent people I've ever met. I have no doubt that these conversations were integral to the path that brought me to where I am today.
Summer turned to fall, and fall brought transition. Pat returned to school, and I, a recent high school graduate, began working full-time. Pat and I tried to maintain our friendship, but the time just began to come between us. With me no longer at the high school, Pat formed a new circle of friends who began to occupy his time. And I had very little free time to spare anyway, given that I was working so much. One Friday night, Pat asked me to go with him to a high school bonfire party outside of town. So I went. But I felt completely awkward and out of place. Part of it had to do with being at a huge party (I've never been very good in those contexts, for some reason), but the bigger part of my discomfort was related to the fact that I was now, technically, a full-fledged "adult" at a party with people who were 15 and 16 years old, and most of whom were absolutely wasted and/or tripping balls. I stayed for maybe a half hour, before I made up some excuse and left.
After that evening, Pat and I completely lost touch. There was no animosity on either part. It was just one of those typical dwindlings of a relationship that happen in life. I soon moved in with my girlfriend, changed jobs, got married, and bought a house. And I never heard from Pat again. A few years later, working in a print factory (where I worked for nine of my adult years), I knew a woman who, through degrees of separation, was familiar with Pat. She told me that he had recently joined the navy, and was home from basic training for a short while before shipping out.
Over the years, I've tried a few times to track him down. A lazy Google search here or there, for instance. Then a few months ago, my wife became Facebook friends with his brother, Joel. Every once in a while, I'd send a message to Joel through my wife, and he would return the favor. In October, I thought, "One of these days, I'm gonna have her ask Joel for Pat's contact information," thinking that he and I could finally reconnect after all these years. But of course, the busyness of the semester, writing projects, my daughter's hospitalization, etc. "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow..."
Just before Christmas, Pat suffered a completely unexpected and surprisingly severe stroke. His doctors expected him to recover, though he was going to have to learn to do some basic things all over again. At this point, I began looking forward to his recovery, as I intended to definitely try to reach him after such a harrowing experience. Then last week, Pat suffered a sudden heart attack, followed immediately by a seizure that rendered him brain dead. The next day, his family turned off his life support system, and Pat died.
I've spent the past several days trying to process his passing, and how to mourn him. I'm, honestly, not sure why it has affected me as deeply as it has - the passing of someone I was close to for eight months, twenty-eight years ago. Maybe it's because throughout most of my life, I've had so very few close relationships that were not toxic in some way or other, and Pat was definitely one of the non-toxic friendships. Maybe it's because our friendship, though brief, left such an indelible mark on me (to this day, I still wear flannels and combat boots, and that's because of Pat). Maybe it's because I'm at that point in my life when I'm taking stock of who I am, where I've come from, and what the rest of my life might look like, and the death of this formative world is like losing a part of me. Maybe it's anger at myself for not doing more to reach out to him when he was still alive. It's an indescribable feeling. Though you've lost touch with someone for almost three decades, there's a security or a comfort in knowing that they're still out there somewhere, still living their life, that that person who brought such meaning to your life for a time is still going on, that the path from that fork continues even if in a different direction. There's always the hope that maybe some day, the paths will intersect again. Until there isn't. There's a strange solitude in knowing that the last of your closest childhood friends has died.
If I could speak to Pat one last time, I would thank him for the time we spent together, however brief. I would let him know what a meaningful impact he had on my life, how he got me through some incredibly difficult family shit, how much he mattered to me, how much he inspired me, how he challenged me in all the best ways, how much I thought about him over the years, and how much I loved him. I hope he knew that, and I regret intensely that I never told him. For now, quoting Derrida, "I'm going to have to wander all alone in that long discussion that we should have had together."
Adieu, my friend. Adieu, Patrick.
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