I’ve been
thinking recently about an old friend of mine, Al. I haven’t seen or talked to
him for about 15 years. It’s not that we lost touch; it’s that Al felt he needed
to cut me out of his life. What did I do that was so bad? Nothing, I’m just a
“trigger” from his past and our years of substance abuse together.
Al was the first person I ever got
high and drunk with and he was my best friend through High School. I started
smoking pot when I was 15 and pretty much didn’t stop until quitting cold
turkey when I was 28. Al on the other hand kept going and not just pot, he
loved alcohol.
When I first meet Al in 1970 at the
start of 8th grade he was on crutches because of hip surgery to fix
problems from a 6 inch growing spurt the previous year. Even on crutches he was
a better basketball player then I could ever be. We were different in most
ways, he was tall and thin, I was squat and husky, he was outgoing and I was
introverted, he was athletic, I was not. We had different tastes in music, I
was still into the Beatles and he loved Motown.
Our upbringing and family lives were
also very different. Al was born and raised in Flint; I had lived in 5
different states and 2 different countries. His family went to Church
regularly, my parents didn’t believe in God. He had a close extended family
with his grandparents living just 2 houses down from his. My closest relatives
were 3000 miles away and in the previous 10 years my grandparents had only
visited from Argentina twice.
I guess the biggest difference was
that Al was fearless and I was afraid of just about everything. I still remember
the first time I saw him get drunk. We were at a schoolmates Bar Mitzvah
reception and there was a table filled with glasses of sweet Kosher Wine. When
no adults were looking Al just started pounding them, probably 4 glasses in a
couple of minutes.
Within a couple of years we started
smoking cigarettes and pot. When I got my drivers permit at 15, Al who already
had his license and a car would let me drive around the neighborhood while we
smoked joints and listened to music on the radio.
That kind of sums up our life in
“high” school, just spinning our wheels looking for the next buzz. We
experimented with lots of different drugs but still managed to survive and
graduate. Because we didn’t enjoy school or studying, neither Al nor I really
thought too much about going to college. Al got a “summer” job at a General
Motors factory and I already had a job (driving around smoking pot) as a
currier for a medical laboratory.
A year after graduation I decided to
go off and try my hand at selling meat (see my column archives for that story)
and Al just stayed a “shop rat”.
After a couple of years on the road
I returned to Flint where I bummed around for a while but eventually I got a
real job where I stayed for the next eleven years. I also settled down, got in
a relationship then married, bought a house, and quit smoking pot for good.
Al and I still hung out but not as
much since we did have “adult” lives now. Al had a few relationships but never
got too serious, in part because his substance abuse got in the way.
When I last saw Al he was still trying to kick his habits. He
had been on and off again with counseling and AA. He was also talking about
getting married but I don’t know if he did.
So that’s a little of the story about me and my best friend. Obviously
there is so much more to the story of our 30 year friendship. What I didn’t
mention until now because I didn’t want to prejudice your feelings about us, is
that Al is black.
Now my question to all of you is honestly, what was the
mental image you had while you were reading the column? I’m sure it wasn’t of a
younger me smoking a joint with a black dude. Does knowing the color of his
skin now change your image, attitude, or empathy for Al? Should it make a
difference?
To view the column in it's original form go to page 17 of the following link. Winters Express 4/21/16
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