Missing A Friend

Missing A Friend

A true friend is something rare indeed.  I have one and his name is Richard.  I met him working loading semi-truck trailers at the local plastics factory’s shipping docks.  The type of place who makes those plastic trash cans and storage bins you can buy at the Dollar Store.  The same type of place where underachievers find menial temporary occupations which last a maximum of ninety days before you are booted out the door so they don’t have to pay your health benefits.  It’s the type of place where you work until you can find something better and never expect to find anyone or anything of value, except maybe some cheap pot from one of your less than model co-workers.  There were days when I would load trailers with housewives working a second job, and of course, the occasional sex offender or murderer.  Then one day, there was Richard.   Everyone hated him.  He has a 45 year old, overweight, pimply faced Steelers fan with a heart of gold who talked about all the hookers he had slept with.  That is a bad combination in Northeast Ohio.  Everyone started s**t with him, and we instantly became friends.  I’ve always rooted for the underdog as a former victim of bullying myself�"the high school variety.  We were just two losers passing through and we knew it was all a joke. 

Within a couple days Richard and I started hanging out.  It became apparent real quick that he really hadn’t succeeded much in life and those are the type of people I can relate to.  While I had attended college and lived a charmed life, I eventually dropped out to discover the world the hard way, mostly by hitting rock bottom but my parents still helped me when they could.  Richard didn’t have a car and lived in a rather small dingy apartment with his demeaning wife who acted as a secondary mother of sorts.  I later concluded that possibly due to his mother dying when he was around 25, it had somehow psychologically stunted his growth or even traumatized him.  I later found out that he and his wife took the quarter million inheritance money and lost it all in Vegas in less than a month.  Richard was a momma’s boy without a mommy.  At any rate, I adopted him has my younger, older brother of sorts.  I had money and no one to share it with.  I would pick him up and take him to the bar.  Eventually, there would be times when I called and cussed him out -- called him a user or a leech, but eventually we would make up and hang out together again.  The truth was we were the only friends one another had �" best friends by default but true friends.  A few times when he would get in a fight with his wife he would walk over to my house at 3 in the morning, some five miles away.  ‘Take the couch,’ I’d tell him.  He’s one of those guys that, if this writing thing ever takes off, I’d like to buy something nice for.  A girl can dream, can’t he?

Anyways, I really don’t know why I am writing this other than to simply say I started to cry earlier.  I’m missing my friend.  For someone like me, I don’t cry that often�"not even at weddings or funerals.  However, every now and again I’ll have a memory, something which means something to me more than anyone could even fathom.  This time, it’s Richard and I sharing a few pitchers of beer in our local shithole bars.  Both my grandmothers are sick and not doing well, my grandfather just had open heart surgery and here I am crying about not being able to have a beer or two with my best friend.  It may seem insane, frugal, petty, or even selfish, but I get it.  It’s something I miss and something I need �" just two friends shooting the s**t.  It’s freedom, almost the same as you get from writing.  Speaking whatever is on your mind and not being judged for it.  What a rare commodity, rather, a gift. 

I just hope if you have a friend like that you appreciate them, hug them, tell them you appreciate them, and count your blessings.  It is a position I wish I was in today.   To my brother Richard, I wish you happy birthday and will see you soon. God willing, I can buy us a couple pitchers and we can sit down and talk about nothing.