Good morning again, Michigan.
This one isn’t going to be easy to write. Or much fun to read. But I am going to say it plainly anyway. No need for flowery verse. Or clever wordplay. This isn’t the time.
Because I wish that the people I care about would just quit fucking dying unexpectedly.
That would be absolutely ducky.
Another transcontinental text; another fallen friend. Another gap in the collective hive-mind of memory. Another empty seat at a table whose ranks are rapidly dwindling with each passing new year.
And that widening void breaks my fucking heart.
I have been writing long enough to understand that our stories are themselves living creatures. Constantly evolving. Adding pages. Taking notes. Absorbing punctuation. And occasionally, delighting in the masochist freedom of a properly timed edit.
Chapters inevitably end. That’s just a natural part of the cycle of things. I get that. I just don’t think they are supposed to end like that.
Because it hurts too fucking much. And leaves me a casualty of repetition.
Too many times. With too many arms; with too many holes. Too many texts; too many funerals. Too many fucking broken hearts left behind in the forever absence of those connections.
Connections sometimes made randomly. Like Freddie and I. Back in 2006 at LaGuardia. Her return flight to the Land of Lotus-eaters was terminally delayed. I was stuck standing by for mine. We both found ourselves swallowed by that airport bar.
She was hiding behind transparent vodka tonics. I was trying to wash the stink of Ireland off me with 80 proof shots to the face. Somehow we ended up on the same side of that conversation. And we got stuck there, despite our opposite destinations.
She was flying back to a life she missed; I was flying back to a life I loathed. She had chased her dream all the way to her personal Mecca. Flamed out and crashed hard. But despite the heavy baggage of a freshly acquired addiction, I still envied her.
Because unlike most wannabe pretenders, she fucking gave it a shot. And I will forever wish that it hadn’t gone in her arm.
She told me after an awkward third round that her name was Erica. But liked being called Freddie. I admitted I didn’t really know who the fuck I was, so I was tripped up by that inebriated introduction. After hearing about my recent travels, she christened me Fen.
It is a name that not many will understand. Or have even heard. But it is a name I will miss hearing. Like I often did during all those “What the fuck am I doing? It’s 2 a.m. and I’m gorked out of my head again” panicked phone calls from the left side of the country. I will miss reading it in the beautifully rambling letters she used to send. The ones always sent on floral printed paper. And written in purple ink.
It is always the little things that get me.
Those snippets of memory. The little vignettes caught flickering inside my head. Looping over and over, frame by frame. Sticky details of personality that I can never seem to fully shake.
How she held her cigarette. And the rather aggressive fashion in which she snapped away the ash to punctuate her conversational point. The way her chestnut hair smelled–an indeterminable mixture of coconut and girly things I’m not sure I will ever fully understand. How the crookedness of her smile that night made the rest of the Empire State seem suddenly…insignificant.
More than anything, I will miss her gift of directness. She was extraordinarily talented at cutting through all the clutter of me. Getting right to the point. Digging deep and finding small slivers of worth amidst all the sin.
And she was never shy about telling me to get my shit together. Boundaries I quite clearly still need.
But now lack.
We were incredibly tight in that New York minute. And that association survived across decades. State lines. Divorces and reunifications. Visits to psych wards. And emergency rooms.
We shared everything. Except the bedroom. We somehow knew instinctively that mashing our naughty bits together would ruin things. And for the first and only time in my life, I was truly okay with that arrangement.
Because she gave me so many other wonderful gifts. Hers was an extraordinary generosity. One which I had always hoped to one day repay.
But her unbroken addiction robbed me of that opportunity. And I will forever hate that dragon she dragged back from Gotham City. The one she could never seem to slay.
Forty-six is just too fucking young; California is too fucking far away.
Michigan is empty tonight. And bellowing.
I howl wicked words at a strange city I don’t think I will ever understand. But there just aren’t words to adequately capture the extent of my experience.
I am alone in grief.
I am a fox who has been hurt; I am a fox who is hurting.
I fucking miss my friend…
