Missing

You and I go back a long ways, back to kitchen counter conversations and air-conditioned afternoons. I paced the tile floors and sucked a spoon of peanut butter, you pounded water and leaned against the cabinets. We were young in those days, sure of ourselves. We had everything in the world to say about film and philosophy and Anglicanism and art.

We were both artists. You were making a graphic novel and I was making a regular one. You showed me the drawings in your portfolio: skeletons to show anatomy, Taylor Swift to show accuracy, robots to show detail. Your robots were never any fun, always these techno-organic Iron-Man suits, sleek and rounded. The skeletons were fun, though.

I sent you my stories, which you never read. You sent me your scripts, which I never edited. We both forgave each other. We always met up anyway.

This was back when I was afraid of driving, so you always drove to me. You came in suited-up, neck-to-toe, in your motorcycle gear, helmet hung from your backpack. You had the starving artist vibes down right from the start. You would sit in coffee shops and draw on the napkins and have profound ephemeral conversations with the baristas.

I believe you were, at that time, a much more mature artist than I was. You never started a project except to become dissatisfied with it. You got stuck all the time, and you got better bit by bit. I was only a grad student who wrote on the side. It wasn’t the same. You had total commitment. I should have envied it then. I envy it now. We were young in those days, sure of ourselves. Now I am older and very afraid.

You were a good man. You weren’t a nice one. If you thought something was stupid, you were eviscerating. But you would stay on the phone with a friend all night so that she wouldn’t be alone with her depression. And you kept driving out to see me, again and again; though it was a long ways and you were exposed to the triple-digit sunshine on your motorcycle.

Out conversations fell into a rut after a while, I know. We would talk about the same most-hated and most-loved movies again and again—I remember how much you wanted you books to turn out like Ex Machina and The Social Network. We retreaded over and over the same proofs for Anglican superiority. I’m not Anglican anymore. I wonder whether you still are.

For I’ve somehow lost track of you. It was during the pandemic. Thing were dicey in California. Did you find underground coffee shops, operating in spite of the danger and illegality, where you could work on your stories? Did you adapt to the times and learn to work while sheltered in place? Or did your artistic ambitions crumple and take on water and sink like a punctured raft?

I don’t know. You sent me a message during two-weeks-to-slow-the-spread. You complained that all the coffee shops were closed: “It’s sad out here haha.” I haven’t heard from you since.

Perhaps our friendship had reached its natural expiration date. How many times were we going to stand in the same kitchen reenacting the same conversations? When the coronavirus strangled our meetups, perhaps it was a mercy killing.

Or maybe something awful has happened to you. A motorcycle accident, a freak cardiac event. Maybe even the pandemic itself, though you were young and hale. You could be dead or permanently laid up, and I would have no way of knowing. It’s odd and chilling to think about.

Or it could be that your life took a drastic turn. You moved overseas, or joined the army, or reestablished the Weather Underground. Your phone number changed. You cut all the Anglicans out of your life.

But, most likely, our friendship just slipped. You meant to answer my messages and forgot. I meant to follow-up and felt embarrassed. Now it’s been too long and we’re both too ashamed. And, anyway, life steams forward. We’ve built new friendships and adjusted our personalities.

It is no great tragedy to have parted. We had our season together. I hope with all my heart that you’re on to better and brighter things, that one day I’ll see your name on the cover of a graphic novel in my local bookstore. I know I’m on to better and brighter things. Each day I’m closer to having that total commitment you used to have.

But I can’t help missing you, because you were my first real friend. In you, for the first time in my life, I found a coconspirator, someone who cared about the same things. We were both cerebral and abrasive and too damn sure of ourselves. But, most of all, we were both artists. I took it for granted then, but now I’m old enough to know that was special.