“Friendship”
In love and life, nothing is certain. I learned that the hard
way. I was 22 years old, and instead of getting ready for class, I drove to see
my best friend for the last time. As I got off I-10, towards West Mobile, our
relationship replayed in my brain, from the day we met until our last
conversation, only a few days ago. We met in middle school, he sat behind me in
home-room, but it wasn’t until high school that our friendship grew into
something more than just acquaintances. I was a senior and on the volleyball team. Steven was a recruit from our coach to help with the equipment. He was around all the time anyway, so she put him to work. We rode to school together in my dad’s Volkswagen convertible, so it was either wait for me, or walk home from school. I think he would have stayed anyway. His job was to keep the balls inflated, get linesmen for the games, and put up the net before practices and the games since we shared the court with the basketball team. There was plenty for him to do. Plus he was able to hang out with twelve girls every afternoon, so he didn’t mind the work.
During my senior year, I was thinking about college and he was getting ready to enter the work place something that, to this day, I hate. He was a smart guy and deserved college but the money just wasn’t there. It was hard for me to think about going to school without him sitting in the car next to me, something that we talked about only once.
“Why don’t you get a job in Tuscaloosa,
then we can still be together?” I asked with a slight smile on my face, knowing
he couldn’t do it.
“Because,” he informed me between bites of
his breakfast, a Snickers bar and a Pepsi, “that would make coming for a visit
a lot less interesting.”“No, really,” I said, as I stole his drink. “How can I step on the court without you being there in my cheering section?”
“Section? No offense my friend, but one person and your mom does not constitute a section. You’re going to do great. Just remember when you dive use your knee pads.” He started to laugh and I was happy when he started to choke on his ‘breakfast of champions.’
It was the one thing that I constantly had
problems with on the court. My kneepads were always too low, or too high,
usually ending my practices early.
“Just stop diving,” Steven told me one day
after an encounter with the floor.
My face was in a grimace as we walked back
to the locker room to get my knee iced up. “It’s not like I go out there with
the intention, to break my knee,” I told him.
I was determined not to cry as he started to wrap my knee. “Ow! That’s
too tight. Damn, Steven, are you trying to kill me?”
“Sorry. Should I go get coach? It seems to
be really bad this time.” He never stopped wrapping my knee as he rolled his
eyes at me.“No, and you have to swear that you won’t tell her. I’ll be ok. If she thinks I’m hurt then she’ll pull me out of the game Friday. That can’t happen. The scout from Florida is coming to look at me, and it’s my only ticket away from Alabama.”
“So, I shouldn’t sign the lease on that apartment in ‘loosa, just yet, huh?”
He
gave me a tight smile and blinked several times; it was ok. I was blinking,
too. The difference was if I started to cry I could blame it on my knee. He had
no excuse. He left before the blinking no longer worked to stop his tears.
It didn’t matter because the scout from Florida wasn’t impressed. I barely made it through warm-ups and after the third service game my volleyball career was over. Sitting in the locker room crying while my team played on was the lowest point; I felt like I had let my team down, but more importantly I’d let myself down. There would be no scholarship, and no volleyball in college.
“Why didn’t you tell me she was hurt?”
Coach Davis yelled at him.
“Because she really
wanted to play. I thought if she was really hurt she would tell you.”“Oh, please. You know her better than that.”
They both turned
their attention to me and helped me out to my mother’s car. Truth be told
Steven knew how bad I wanted that scholarship, and how bad that I wanted to play
in college, so even if he knew my knee was broken he wouldn’t have told anyone.
I still went to the
practices and games; after all, I was still on the team even if I couldn’t
play. Now, I was the one sitting around waiting on Steven. He would get his stuff
done, steal a ball away from the team, and we would set it back and forth until
the coach needed him. He still believed that I could play in college; it was at
a local park that he would learn the truth. We had gone to the park to study
for mid-terms, but never opened a book.
“So, when do you get your brace off?
I’m tired of having to help you walk around school.”
“Soon, I hope. I’m tired of you
being everywhere I go.”“Think you’ll get to play in the final game?”
“Steven, I’m not going to be playing volleyball this year or in college.”
“Sure you will. It will just take a while to get back to speed, but you’ll play again. Stop being so dramatic.”
“I’m not being dramatic. The doctor told me that one more hard hit, and surgery is the only option left. You know how I feel about surgery, and doctors. So I won’t be playing anymore.”
“Damn, you’re serious aren’t you? That sucks. Are you ok?”
“I have no choice but to be ok with it.”
I started to cry,
and that’s why we never opened a book. He moved over so I could cry on his
shoulder. It was the moment when I knew I didn’t want to leave him behind. I
told him that and he laughed at me until he realized I was serious.
“So I guess your
choices for schools have again changed. I wish you would make up your mind. I’m
tired of having to buy you a new sweatshirt for each different school.” He
opened his book bag and pulled out three sweatshirts-one for each school that I
had considered.
I ended up going
away to school as planned, with no major even thought about. I had two years to
decide, which ended up being three years because as soon as I chose a major, it
changed. I am now a semester away from graduation, and two weeks from finals,
but all that is on the back burner as I pull up to the church. My black dress
and heels would have had him dying with laughter. It just wasn’t me. He had
only seen me in a dress once and it was at graduation: an event that we both
spent the day laughing at because it was easier to laugh than it was to cry. He
hadn’t wanted me to go away, but he didn’t want me to stay either. He knew how
badly I wanted -no- needed to get away from this town. It was four years of
e-mails, long distance phone calls, and snail mail letters, now all ending.
Steven was no longer going to be with me, in the car or in my cheering section.
I couldn’t decide if I was angry with him or just angry. I wanted him to be ok.
I wanted to go back to a few days earlier, when he was driving home from work
and that guy ran that red light. I wanted that guy to step on the brake and for
Steven to be laughing at my dress.
After the funeral,
which several of our friends from high school attended, his mother walked over
to me. Her hair was messy, and she looked tired, but I guess so did I. She
hugged me. The ring that Steven’s dad had given her when he was born dug into
my back. She gave me an envelope and said, “He really loved you. You know that,
don’t you?” I nodded, because the words didn’t come. I was glad that I’d
decided to not wear makeup. I’m sure the mascara would have been running down
my face, like the filling inside an Oreo on a hot day.
I walked to my car,
no longer the convertible Volkswagen of all those years before, and got in. The
envelope had pictures of the two of us from high school and those summer visits
home, one from when we went to get our driver’s licenses. He was wearing that
damn hat, the one with the New Orleans Saint’s logo. It was so old. It looked
like it had been under a house for years, with rats living in it. His mother
would wash it but it never came clean; the hat was white, but no one could
tell. He wore it everywhere; I started to cry because I wanted to see him in
that hat again. For all the times it use to make me mad, this time I would have
been glad to see it. He brought it to our high school graduation but didn’t
wear it, just wanted to make me smile. He could always do that; make me smile.
There was a CD in
the envelope as well; I pulled it out and popped it into the CD player. It was
a bunch of songs about friends doing things.
The Jacket cover of the CD was so him. The names of the titles were all over the place, with little phrases under them about the song. “You can’t have a friend Cd without this song,” was under You’ve Got a Friend by James Taylor. Other songs included One, Two I Love You by Clay Walker, a song about two people who are friends since they were children; Let’s Get Together by the Young Bloods; and a song from a Winnie The Pooh CD called, Friends Forever. My mom bought us that CD when we graduated and told us it was because that one song was just us. The chorus of the song is that “Some things are just meant to be and that’s you and me.” The last song on the CD was Jimmy Buffett’s version of Brown Eyed Girl, because as Steven told me on so many occasions, “Every CD had to have a Jimmy Buffett song.”
I pulled out of the
parking lot heading back to school, listening to it and thinking of him when
his voice came out of my speakers, causing me to choke on my Snickers bar. In
the background as he talked was Garth Brooks, singing A Friend to me:
“Well you and I, we’re buddies, and we’ve been since we first met.” Garth faded
out and Steven faded in.
“Hey girl! I know I
talked to you on the phone last night, but you sounded down so I wanted you to
have a CD that would make you think of all the good things we have done and
know I’ll always be there with you. If for one second you get sad, throw it out
the window, but make sure the police aren’t watching, cause I’m not helping you
pay the fine. I just wanted you to know that I do miss you and can’t wait until
we are together again just hanging out. I miss you and well... I’ll deny ever
saying this if you ask me in the future, but… I love you.”
I had to pull off
the road as Garth Brooks finished singing “Yes, you’ve always been a friend to
me.” It was as if he were telling me it was all ok. I never knew how he always
knew what to say to me just when I needed it said, but I’m glad at least
someone did. I wasn’t sure how I was going to go on knowing that he was gone,
but this CD was going to help. I silently thanked him as I started up the car
and drove back to school, finals, and a life without my best friend.
----------------
So there it is …. drop me a line…. Hit me up on twitter @beaslma
or leave a comment below…. Should I keep
going?!
--Marcy
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