I spend time thinking about thinking.
So much to say, so much to say.
Well, not really. I have had a lot on my mind. But finally I am starting to get it out. Only like 1/1000, but I'll take anything.
So, for your reading enjoyment, a quick little story. Comment with love, because, well, I'm vain that way.
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Friends & Their Fathers
by Vance Goffman (c)2006
I have found myself wishing my best friend's dad, Larry, was my dad too many times. John was so much closer to his dad than I was with my dad. My dad calls his parenting tough but fair. I call it drunk and detached.
Dad wasn't really a dad or a friend, and Larry just knew how to walk the line between father and best friend. It seemed even when he scolded you, you knew he was right and couldn't really get mad at him.
* * *
Late one Saturday night, John and I were in his room smoking some new kind of weed he just got from his dude. John's parents were out, with his mom at his sister's apartment having a lady's night and Larry out with his friends at the bar.
John handed the joint back to me and, with a raspy voice, asked me if I had heard the new Chili Pepper CD.
"No." Before I could continue my answer, my lungs burned and I coughed so hard I almost expected to see a hairball come flying out of my mouth. "Fuck! This shit is fucking harsh!"
"I know, and it cost too. Eighty fucking dollars. I really need to find a better dealer. Jim is fucking me over." He passed the joint back to me as he moved to stand up. "You want anything to drink?"
"Do you have any Pepsi?" The words came out fast as I tried to hold the smoke for as long as I could.
"Just diet. And diet Dew," he said as he put the joint in his mouth and took a hit while he gathered some dishes together.
"No thanks, I'm not in the mood for diet urine." John flashed that classic 'Fuck you' smile as he handed me the joint, grabbed the dishes and headed downstairs. I stood up, finding it harder than it should have been.
"Either this shit is really good, or I am just getting too old." I used the end of the bed to push myself off the floor. I turned around ready to take any lame joke John was going to make at my expense, but John wasn't standing in the doorway alone. Larry was with him.
I really thought we were both fucked. John's mom hated drugs. All we did was smoke weed and we had talked about trying mushrooms, but it wouldn't have mattered to her if we were snorting coke or shooting up heroin; it was all bad in her book.
But Larry was cool. As cool as any father could have been. After about fifteen minutes of the 'danger's of drugs' speech, which I think May made Larry memorize before they had kids, he asked us if we understood.
Both John and I were only able to muster a simultaneous "Yes sir."
"Good, now I don't want to ever catch you smoking in this house again. You know how you mother feels about it." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. "And you better not be wasting all your money on this shit." He pulled out a twenty and gave it to John. "Now go by some air fresheners or something, this place reeks. The weed in my day didn't smell anything like this shit."
John grabbed what was left of the joint, about half, and held it out to his dad. I personally about had a heart attack. Not to mention back then I was not in the best of shape, I also didn't think he had the balls to offer his dad the joint. And I really didn't think Larry would take it.
As he took the joint and John's lighter, the room was as silent as church. One of the many reasons I hated church. When Larry lit the lighter, it felt like the room exploded. I don't know if it was the sound of the spark breaking the eerie silence, or if it was just my brain exploding while watching this anomalous moment play out before me.
He inhaled and immediately followed it up with a deep cough. "Good lord this is strong. How much did you pay for this?"
Really? Larry asking John how much he paid for his weed? Someone should have pinched me, but I would have still thought it was a dream.
"Eighty bucks for an eighth. But it is really good shit...stuff." He face winced as he caught what he said.
"Yeah, it is good shit." Larry paused letting us know that after catching us smoking weed, hearing us cuss wasn't a big deal. But also, he seemed to tell us, without saying a word, he knew we were growing up. He knew he couldn't really stop us, and he didn't try.
"But I get a quarter for forty. And it's not that bad." He handed the joint to me, and all I could do is take it and smile. John had a smile big enough you could have parked his Jeep in there. "Now, remember, I don't want to ever catch you smoking in the house again." As if sensing John's question, he said we could finish the joint.
"If your mother caught you two doing this, well... I don't want to think about it." He turned to leave the room, but as he walked away he paused and turned back. "This conversation didn't happen, I didn't catch you doing anything, and I shouldn't tell your mother anything." He smiled and closed the door behind him.
John and I looked at each other, laughed and fell on his bed.
"That did not just happen." It was nice to know John was just as shocked as I was.
"Your dad is the coolest." John just smiled back at me knowing he was damn lucky to have a father like Larry.
"Hey, don't baby-sit the joint! Hand it over!"
* * *
That was the life. No worries. No pain. No death. If only I had a time ship, then I would take John back to when his dad was alive. Back to that day, smoking that weed.
I have never felt so helpless. Just sitting in John's room. On TV the best friend always knows the right thing to say. I wish I had a staff of writers helping me be thoughtful and profound. I wish I could speak the magic words and fix every wound, mental and phyical. I guess that's friendship. In that moment of pain you are willing to pull out your own heart if it would help your friend. You could say love. But that leads down an awkward road...
The sound of the front door being pulled closed and someone latching the chain breaks my thoughts. I exhaled again faced with the weight of the situation.
The last of the guests must have left. I hate the need to have a party after a funeral. Do people feel better if they get together and mope? Why do they have to drag everyone though the motions?
Or maybe it's the cake. People love their cake, even if someone just died. Tonight, they seemed more worried about the cake than with how John is feeling.
We have been sitting up stairs in his room for the last two hours. He has been going through his CDs in the stereo. He keeps playing half a song and then skipping to another, and then another and another. Then he finds another CD, and repeats the cycle. I tried to get him to talk right after the service, but he just snapped at me. He needed me, not to talk to, but just to be there. So there I was, sitting on his bed, gazing into Bob Marley’s eyes, wishing we had some weed to smoke now.
We were saving up our money for some mushrooms and tickets to see the Dave Mathews Band. The concert was in less than a week. Talk about bad timing.
John lands on the new song by Eminem, but quickly skips over it.
“Hey! I like that song.”
“It’s shit, and it’s the only good song on the CD. You owe me fifteen dollars.”
“Yeah yeah, so I’ll pay for lunch next time. Now go back to that song.” He turns to face me.
“I just buried my dad, Jess hasn’t talked to me since Dad died, and that song is really fucking stupid, so can you just lay off me for a little fucking while?!”
I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.” There was nothing else I could say, and nothing else he wanted to hear.
He grabs his headphones and plugs them into the stereo.
“Well at least now it will be quiet,” I say silently to myself not concerned if he could hear me or not.
I lean over to grab his copy of Candide by Voltaire off his bookshelf. I could use a little help cultivating my garden right now.
Just as I stretch out on the bed and open the book, there is a knock at the door. I glance at John, but he can’t hear anything. “Come in,” I say.
Mom walks through the door and looks at John. She whispers, “How is he doing?”
“He barely talks to me and when he does, he keeps it short and sweet. He just bites my head off and goes back to doing whatever. So really, I don’t know.”
I could have been a little more understanding, I guess. But he hasn’t really talked to me for days. And the one time he did, he bitched about no one listening to him. I wanted to slap him, but I knew whom he was talking about. His mother. She has been sleeping almost twenty hours a day. I know she lost her husband, but couldn’t she be there for her son?
Mom moves closer. “How are you doing?”
“Okay.” I wanted to say more, but I didn’t. I couldn’t bitch about everything when it wasn’t even my dad that died. Mom takes a moment to say something.
“Well, I am going to head home. You coming soon?” Mom didn’t like me staying at John’s house, but while I hoped I could tonight, I didn’t know if he would want me there.
“I don’t know, but I’ll be home at least by lunch.” She didn’t like it, and I could see it all over her face. But she wouldn’t dare tell me I couldn’t stay. Not tonight of all nights.
“Ok.” With that she left. I could hear the back door open and close. Then I heard the car start and drive off down the road. I glanced at the clock. It was only nine thirty. Nothing like a funeral to make the time crawl by.
“Vance?” I look over at where John is sitting, next to the stereo. His eyes are red and watery. I had never seen such sadness in his eyes. Not until this week. And even now, every time it seems worse than the last.
“Yeah?” I replied.
“Please stay.” He spoke the words with such hesitation. Like a child asking to get into bed with a parent because they had a bad dream. But this wasn’t just some bad dream.
I paused before I moved off the bed and sat beside him on the floor. I was always careful not to invade his personal space or freak him out by being too touchy. But now was not the time for all the ‘I’m too manly for hugs from other guys’ bullshit.
I wrapped by arms around him and pulled him in tight. I guess I just knew he needed one hell of a hug. I remember needing someone, anyone to hug me so hard all the pain and sadness would be squeezed out. But that was only when I lost my grandmother, who I didn’t know really well. I couldn’t even fathom what it would feel like to lose a father.
“Of course I’ll stay.”
That night wasn’t even close to the first time I stayed over at John’s. We had been friends since elementary school. We’d had what seemed like hundreds of sleepovers. As we got older, it became less about making forts and more about talking all night and needing a place to sleep off the alcohol before driving home.
I had stayed over and slept in John’s room every night since Larry died. Normally I slept on his futon.
Tonight was different. It’s the first time we’ve slept in the same bed since middle school. I held him all night. It wasn’t sexual, and it wasn’t really that weird. He just needed someone, and since Jess was being a bitch, I was that someone.
It was also different because it was the first time this week he slept through the night.
Well, not really. I have had a lot on my mind. But finally I am starting to get it out. Only like 1/1000, but I'll take anything.
So, for your reading enjoyment, a quick little story. Comment with love, because, well, I'm vain that way.
-----------------------------------------
Friends & Their Fathers
by Vance Goffman (c)2006
I have found myself wishing my best friend's dad, Larry, was my dad too many times. John was so much closer to his dad than I was with my dad. My dad calls his parenting tough but fair. I call it drunk and detached.
Dad wasn't really a dad or a friend, and Larry just knew how to walk the line between father and best friend. It seemed even when he scolded you, you knew he was right and couldn't really get mad at him.
* * *
Late one Saturday night, John and I were in his room smoking some new kind of weed he just got from his dude. John's parents were out, with his mom at his sister's apartment having a lady's night and Larry out with his friends at the bar.
John handed the joint back to me and, with a raspy voice, asked me if I had heard the new Chili Pepper CD.
"No." Before I could continue my answer, my lungs burned and I coughed so hard I almost expected to see a hairball come flying out of my mouth. "Fuck! This shit is fucking harsh!"
"I know, and it cost too. Eighty fucking dollars. I really need to find a better dealer. Jim is fucking me over." He passed the joint back to me as he moved to stand up. "You want anything to drink?"
"Do you have any Pepsi?" The words came out fast as I tried to hold the smoke for as long as I could.
"Just diet. And diet Dew," he said as he put the joint in his mouth and took a hit while he gathered some dishes together.
"No thanks, I'm not in the mood for diet urine." John flashed that classic 'Fuck you' smile as he handed me the joint, grabbed the dishes and headed downstairs. I stood up, finding it harder than it should have been.
"Either this shit is really good, or I am just getting too old." I used the end of the bed to push myself off the floor. I turned around ready to take any lame joke John was going to make at my expense, but John wasn't standing in the doorway alone. Larry was with him.
I really thought we were both fucked. John's mom hated drugs. All we did was smoke weed and we had talked about trying mushrooms, but it wouldn't have mattered to her if we were snorting coke or shooting up heroin; it was all bad in her book.
But Larry was cool. As cool as any father could have been. After about fifteen minutes of the 'danger's of drugs' speech, which I think May made Larry memorize before they had kids, he asked us if we understood.
Both John and I were only able to muster a simultaneous "Yes sir."
"Good, now I don't want to ever catch you smoking in this house again. You know how you mother feels about it." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. "And you better not be wasting all your money on this shit." He pulled out a twenty and gave it to John. "Now go by some air fresheners or something, this place reeks. The weed in my day didn't smell anything like this shit."
John grabbed what was left of the joint, about half, and held it out to his dad. I personally about had a heart attack. Not to mention back then I was not in the best of shape, I also didn't think he had the balls to offer his dad the joint. And I really didn't think Larry would take it.
As he took the joint and John's lighter, the room was as silent as church. One of the many reasons I hated church. When Larry lit the lighter, it felt like the room exploded. I don't know if it was the sound of the spark breaking the eerie silence, or if it was just my brain exploding while watching this anomalous moment play out before me.
He inhaled and immediately followed it up with a deep cough. "Good lord this is strong. How much did you pay for this?"
Really? Larry asking John how much he paid for his weed? Someone should have pinched me, but I would have still thought it was a dream.
"Eighty bucks for an eighth. But it is really good shit...stuff." He face winced as he caught what he said.
"Yeah, it is good shit." Larry paused letting us know that after catching us smoking weed, hearing us cuss wasn't a big deal. But also, he seemed to tell us, without saying a word, he knew we were growing up. He knew he couldn't really stop us, and he didn't try.
"But I get a quarter for forty. And it's not that bad." He handed the joint to me, and all I could do is take it and smile. John had a smile big enough you could have parked his Jeep in there. "Now, remember, I don't want to ever catch you smoking in the house again." As if sensing John's question, he said we could finish the joint.
"If your mother caught you two doing this, well... I don't want to think about it." He turned to leave the room, but as he walked away he paused and turned back. "This conversation didn't happen, I didn't catch you doing anything, and I shouldn't tell your mother anything." He smiled and closed the door behind him.
John and I looked at each other, laughed and fell on his bed.
"That did not just happen." It was nice to know John was just as shocked as I was.
"Your dad is the coolest." John just smiled back at me knowing he was damn lucky to have a father like Larry.
"Hey, don't baby-sit the joint! Hand it over!"
* * *
That was the life. No worries. No pain. No death. If only I had a time ship, then I would take John back to when his dad was alive. Back to that day, smoking that weed.
I have never felt so helpless. Just sitting in John's room. On TV the best friend always knows the right thing to say. I wish I had a staff of writers helping me be thoughtful and profound. I wish I could speak the magic words and fix every wound, mental and phyical. I guess that's friendship. In that moment of pain you are willing to pull out your own heart if it would help your friend. You could say love. But that leads down an awkward road...
The sound of the front door being pulled closed and someone latching the chain breaks my thoughts. I exhaled again faced with the weight of the situation.
The last of the guests must have left. I hate the need to have a party after a funeral. Do people feel better if they get together and mope? Why do they have to drag everyone though the motions?
Or maybe it's the cake. People love their cake, even if someone just died. Tonight, they seemed more worried about the cake than with how John is feeling.
We have been sitting up stairs in his room for the last two hours. He has been going through his CDs in the stereo. He keeps playing half a song and then skipping to another, and then another and another. Then he finds another CD, and repeats the cycle. I tried to get him to talk right after the service, but he just snapped at me. He needed me, not to talk to, but just to be there. So there I was, sitting on his bed, gazing into Bob Marley’s eyes, wishing we had some weed to smoke now.
We were saving up our money for some mushrooms and tickets to see the Dave Mathews Band. The concert was in less than a week. Talk about bad timing.
John lands on the new song by Eminem, but quickly skips over it.
“Hey! I like that song.”
“It’s shit, and it’s the only good song on the CD. You owe me fifteen dollars.”
“Yeah yeah, so I’ll pay for lunch next time. Now go back to that song.” He turns to face me.
“I just buried my dad, Jess hasn’t talked to me since Dad died, and that song is really fucking stupid, so can you just lay off me for a little fucking while?!”
I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.” There was nothing else I could say, and nothing else he wanted to hear.
He grabs his headphones and plugs them into the stereo.
“Well at least now it will be quiet,” I say silently to myself not concerned if he could hear me or not.
I lean over to grab his copy of Candide by Voltaire off his bookshelf. I could use a little help cultivating my garden right now.
Just as I stretch out on the bed and open the book, there is a knock at the door. I glance at John, but he can’t hear anything. “Come in,” I say.
Mom walks through the door and looks at John. She whispers, “How is he doing?”
“He barely talks to me and when he does, he keeps it short and sweet. He just bites my head off and goes back to doing whatever. So really, I don’t know.”
I could have been a little more understanding, I guess. But he hasn’t really talked to me for days. And the one time he did, he bitched about no one listening to him. I wanted to slap him, but I knew whom he was talking about. His mother. She has been sleeping almost twenty hours a day. I know she lost her husband, but couldn’t she be there for her son?
Mom moves closer. “How are you doing?”
“Okay.” I wanted to say more, but I didn’t. I couldn’t bitch about everything when it wasn’t even my dad that died. Mom takes a moment to say something.
“Well, I am going to head home. You coming soon?” Mom didn’t like me staying at John’s house, but while I hoped I could tonight, I didn’t know if he would want me there.
“I don’t know, but I’ll be home at least by lunch.” She didn’t like it, and I could see it all over her face. But she wouldn’t dare tell me I couldn’t stay. Not tonight of all nights.
“Ok.” With that she left. I could hear the back door open and close. Then I heard the car start and drive off down the road. I glanced at the clock. It was only nine thirty. Nothing like a funeral to make the time crawl by.
“Vance?” I look over at where John is sitting, next to the stereo. His eyes are red and watery. I had never seen such sadness in his eyes. Not until this week. And even now, every time it seems worse than the last.
“Yeah?” I replied.
“Please stay.” He spoke the words with such hesitation. Like a child asking to get into bed with a parent because they had a bad dream. But this wasn’t just some bad dream.
I paused before I moved off the bed and sat beside him on the floor. I was always careful not to invade his personal space or freak him out by being too touchy. But now was not the time for all the ‘I’m too manly for hugs from other guys’ bullshit.
I wrapped by arms around him and pulled him in tight. I guess I just knew he needed one hell of a hug. I remember needing someone, anyone to hug me so hard all the pain and sadness would be squeezed out. But that was only when I lost my grandmother, who I didn’t know really well. I couldn’t even fathom what it would feel like to lose a father.
“Of course I’ll stay.”
That night wasn’t even close to the first time I stayed over at John’s. We had been friends since elementary school. We’d had what seemed like hundreds of sleepovers. As we got older, it became less about making forts and more about talking all night and needing a place to sleep off the alcohol before driving home.
I had stayed over and slept in John’s room every night since Larry died. Normally I slept on his futon.
Tonight was different. It’s the first time we’ve slept in the same bed since middle school. I held him all night. It wasn’t sexual, and it wasn’t really that weird. He just needed someone, and since Jess was being a bitch, I was that someone.
It was also different because it was the first time this week he slept through the night.