Another Country Heard From

Spring of 1999

I returned home following the Fall semester at Umass bearing the knowledge that I would not be welcomed back for the upcoming Spring semester. Apparently, a 20:1 ratio of weed/booze/sleep and actual school work is not conducive to maintaining a (ahem) 2.0 GPA. Some of us learn the hard way, I guess.

The next 8 months would be an amalgam of hauling horsehair plaster for my uncle Don, slinging Big Mouth Burgers at Chili's for my cousin Jeff and hanging out with one of two long-time best friends. Kev and I were both living at home and working for whomever would agree to hire us. On the side, we were playing pool nightly and choking down enough cigarettes to fund 50% of the advertising for Camel. It was the best of times, it was the...ok, OK. I won't complete the thought. But fuck, it was kinda the worst of times, too. I'd lose my job with Uncle Don by way of too many late mornings marred by a hangover. My waiter gig at Chili's would come to a screeching hault as a result of receiving the lowest secret shopper score in the history of the company (42%). I guess swearing at a customer because you forgot to put in his order for an Awesome Blossom is not such a great idea. I was doing that dude a favor though, come on. But I was better off not wearing the bright red polo with the Chili's logo on it. Wrapping my dad's blue volvo sedan around a pole in a parking structure should have been evidence enough, but I was 19. I was living off of double cheeseburgers and Red Stripes from Charlie's Kitchen in Harvard Square. I had a girlfriend back at Umass, a girlfriend from Chili's and random girls from Tufts that really admired my beirut skills. I was living the college flunkie, pothead, underage alcoholic dream.

Kev and I shared the same ambitions back then. To reiterate: weed, booze and girls. And pool, sure. We had a grand time of it, implanting indelible memories on my mind...such as the time we woke up on couches outside the ZBT house at Tufts. It was visitation weekend for prospective freshmen and Kev, Nate and I were shirtless and still drunk at 8am. The sun was hot, our odor was horrendous and our voices were loud: "Hey! Yeah, send your daughter to Tufts! We'll take good care of her." I wonder if our words were effective...no matter. We did a lot of dumb shit and probably deserved to be either incarcerated or hospitalized on more than three or four occasions, but we endured.

I returned to Umass in the Fall and would eventually finish up my degree. I never really dug out of the academic hole I dug for myself but I managed to do enough to flip my tassle in May of 2002. Kev, on the other hand, hit the road on a pilgrimage to find isolationist respite...at least, that's my take on it. His path would lead him down to the sandy beaches of the eastern Floridian coast and ultimately west to the Californian beaches of Santa Monica. Kev left in 2000 and I hadn't seen him since...until 3 weeks ago.

I got fed up with the lack of email response from over the years. It was sparse at best, and gleaning any pertinent information from him was like defending MJ in the clutch. So I took the path of least resistence. I called him mom and demanded to know where he lived, worked and how I could reach him. Sonofabitch...turns out Kev had been working down the street from where I originally lived upon arriving here in the Golden State. I never had cause to go into the hardware store, though. But on the last Sunday in January I did.

I showed up at his place of work late in the afternoon and walked around a bit until I spotted him. He stood in the back, talking to one of his employees. He looked about the same, aside from the ever-apparent salt and pepper mane he had developed over the years. Kev started going gray at the age of 11, I believe. I stood about 10 feet away for a good 5 minutes until he looked up at me. One take, no reaction. Second take, minimal reaction. Third take, a hard pause and a puzzled look. Fourth take, he looks at me for about 10 seconds and looks floorward, shaking his head and laughing in a way that only Kev could laugh after seeing me after a 9-year hiatus. I threw my arms up as if to say, "are you fucking kidding me, dude?" He put up one finger, telling me to hang on one sec as he finished up with his subordinate. I took that time to peruse the bathroom fixtures...truth be told, I'd feel more acclimated in the Mekong River Delta.

Finally he heads over and we exchange the requisite man hug of a familiar, snapping handshake and quick one-arm embrace. It's a strange feeling...seeing one of your oldest and formerly closest friends after so long a time. But little had changed...his face looked the same, his voice sounded the same. He said I looked taller, then asked if my shoes had lifts in them. He also offered that I looked skinny, but maybe only because I was a bit pudgy when we were 19 and 20. But he had to finish his shift. I took his number and gave him mine and he agreed to come by after work.

And that he did. I made some dinner, we had some beers and began what would turn out to be 8 hours of surface-scratching on the way to getting a combined 18 years of life experience out of the way. And just like old times we headed out to a bar nearby and shot pool, played darts and that quick-shot basketball game. I took particular pride in smoking him at quick-shot, but he made short work of me in the other games...much of the same, as some things just never change. The night would end at 5:30am as it just seemed like a good time to call it. I knew we'd pick it up again soon enough, now that I knew where he worked and lived.

It's a strange thing. You find yourself digging your way out of a cavernous hole in a foreign land where nothing is familiar then all at once, everything is familiar again. Maybe I've mentioned it to Kev by now or maybe I haven't, but reuniting with him after all these years and all the bullshit we've both been through since our last gathering changed everything for me. You meet new people everywhere you go, sure. You forge new relationships and you develop new habits, beliefs, ways of life. But the things you learned with your best friends in your adolescence, when you're most impressionable...those things never leave.

Good to have you back, buddy.