This week’s memoir prompt, Looking Back,  gave me no choice but to reflect upon a relationship that that hasn’t existed in over 20 years. But then again, my letter to Tony makes me think that relationships really never die…

Dear Tony,

It’s been a god awful time since I have heard a peep out of you. How are you holding up? What’s going on in your life these days?

Back in High School, and for a few years after, those questions would never have been asked between us. All we would have had to do was to look in the passenger seat, or across the room and we would know. We did everything together back then, but that is how best friends are supposed to be.

Remember Mrs. Krank, the Korean school bus driver? Yeah, I tell those stories often as I think back to how she would pick up on bits and pieces of our conversations only to discover some villainous plot we were cooking up to undermine her authority as an employee of the school system.

I recall one such occasion where we had an extended ‘Library Day’ because of testing or some horseshit like that, and you spent your time amplifying a theory about how much you could actually learn in a high school library. And boy did you find out something cool.

Your announcement about your discovery of the fact that one person could learn how to build an atom bomb just by reading certain books and materials in the high school library  raised Mrs. Krank’s paranoia levels to an all time high; got us AND our parents hauled into the Principal’s office.

Tony, you were always a bit more curious and a good deal smarter than the rest of us. Only one other person I know could put two and two together like you and have a solid reason why you came up with a different answer each time. But, honestly, your common sense was always overshadowed greatly by your intelligence. For instance, all those years riding in a car with your family and you didn’t notice, by your own admission, one important rule about driving; there is a designated lane to drive in. Yeah, I remember. You almost killed you and your dad on the first trip out with your temps. All because you thought you could drive in the oncoming lane.

But dude, that was you.

Shit man, we discovered pot, LSD, Phillip K. Dick, and Carlos Castenda together. We would sit around stoned out of our gourds discussing PKD and how his work transcended the sci-fi genre or we would go out and find the latest arcade games. Sometimes we would do really stupid things like build those drycleaner bag UFO’s at night, send them aloft and read about the ‘Eerie Sightings’ the next day in the newspaper. Ahhh…the days at Stillwater Beach, playing Pink Floyd’s song,  Money, over and over and over on the juke box at the concession stand in hopes that the girls would notice that we had excellent music savvy.

And the car accidents; I think I can count 5 all told that we were in. No one else in my life has come close to that many. That should say something about what we meant to each other.

You got me on at Trojan. You had been there about six months when I arrived and I was a little shocked at how the freewheeling drug abuse and ‘let’s get hammered and stay hammered’ attitudes of the 1970’s was prolific in the workplace. I’ll never forget my first day there. Walking by the Grinder’s bench and seeing the operator drinking a can of Stroh’s at 7 am was an eye opener. All those days, weeks…hell, YEARS of getting stoned on the way to work, while at work, and on the way home from work now have me wondering how anybody made it out alive.

My friend, I am sorry. Deep sorrow spills into my heart when I think back to you getting stabbed 13 times over the 120 plus beautiful pot plants you had growing in your apartment. I am sorry that I wasn’t by your side the whole time you recovered from that horrible incident. I am sorry because I was married, you know that as you were my Best Man, and I was allowing my life to be scraped out only to be replaced with something that wasn’t me. That stabbing marked the end of us as best of chums.

In the six months it took you to come back to work, society’s attitudes changed and Trojan transformed right along with it. Alcohol and drug abuse went underground; gone were the days of openly smoking joints at our work stations as then rehab became the ‘in’ thing. But, you refused to change.  In fact, you slipped further into alcoholism and it began to take a real toll on your life.

Twice, I hypocritically tried to get you help. Damn, you were living in a bar; literally sleeping your nights there in exchange for a tab and bar back work. You wouldn’t make it to work at a decent hour most days of the week, and when you did; you were in no real shape to work.

I say hypocritically because I was still using just as heavily as you, but I lied about it while you remained open.

Then, the last nail came. Let’s see if you remember this. I had moved into the Plant Manager position and you were still drifting in and out. You came in one day at 10 am to promptly puke the MD20/20 you drank the night before all over the time cards. At noon, when clocking out for lunch, you seriously asked, “What the hell is all over the time cards.”

I was put on the hot seat by the shop owner later that day; as it turned out I was being tested. It was a test I passed for him, but now wish I failed. He asked if I wanted to keep you as an employee, in fact he even offered that we could keep you as a broom pusher. Tony, I am so sorry that I said that we should cut you free. I was sorry when I said it then, even as my back was being patted and I was given a big ‘atta boy.’

That was the late 1980’s and I don’t know if you remember or care to, but I do. I sometimes lay awake at night hurting for the steps I didn’t walk with you; the steps I sent you down on your own.

After that, I rarely saw you and began to hear less and less about you. Here it is, the second decade of a new century and I have not heard on thing about you, or from you since before the year 2000. Maybe it’s because everything is winding down and the great karmic wheel is coming into play that I feel such terrific sorrow for you. Maybe it’s just because I realize that I fucked up. Whatever the reason, I hope things turned around for you, and that somewhere along the way you found your self-esteem as I did mine in 1999.

You know what? I’m betting that if you were where I could find you, we’d meet somewhere everyday for coffee and at least discuss Phillip K. Dick in great detail and depths. In fact, I have a hunch that you are re-reading his works right now. I know I am.

Wish You Were Here,

Alex

© 2011, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

Years ago I started writing Flash Fiction for just the sheer enjoyment of writing, and now it has turned into a full blown addiction. I can't quit the horse, man! Another dirty little secret about me is my ability to write all kinds of web content. SEO content, articles, blog posts, manifests; you name it, I'll write it. Looking for some help? My gun hangs at r.alex.crabtree@gmail.com

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This entry was posted on January 11, 2011 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Memoirs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.