An old friend reached out to me yesterday.
We talked for a long time.
We have been friends for a bit over fifteen years.
He was so effusive about how my life has turned out and all of the challenges I have faced to get to where I am.
“I know what you did, it’s amazing, you pulled yourself up from literally nothing and worked harder with constraints that few people I know would have been able to get through,” he said.
He witnessed me in my first year of sobriety when I literally had nothing, could barely make the rent, even cheap, rent controlled rent, barely had money for food, let alone a bus pass or taxi cab.
He took me everywhere.
He had a scooter and a convertible Mercedes Benz.
I was either on the back of that scooter or I was in the passenger seat of that Benz all the time.
We were joined at the hip.
Everyone.
EVERYONE.
Thought we were dating.
But nope.
Nary a kiss, never a date, nothing.
Although we would do things that if I was witnessing others do, especially a man and a woman, I would think, oh yeah, they’re totally together.
He took me out to lunch and dinner all the time.
He bought me clothes.
I was so broke in my first couple of years of sobriety, so broke.
He took me out dancing.
We both loved to dance.
We saw djs all over the city.
Sometimes we would just drive around in his convertible with the top down and blast music and find spots to dance–Twin Peaks, the little cove down by the base of the Golden Gate Bridge, random parking lots in the SOMA, Treasure Island.
It was a night out at Treasure Island, with no fog and a warmer than usual temperature, the city across the bay sparkling and magic, that I asked him after we had been dancing in the headlights to music and had collapsed back into the car to drink water and catch our breaths.
“Why aren’t we dating?” I asked.
He paused.
He was quiet for a long time.
He said, “well, I mean, I guess I could see you giving me a blow job, but where would it go after that and we’re such good friends, I mean, it just doesn’t seem worth going there.”
I punched him in the arm, “you could see me giving you a blowjob?!”
“Well, yeah, I mean, you know, you’ve got a great mouth,” he replied and grinned at me.
“Yeah, good luck with that,” I said and looked back out over the water.
I never gave him a blow job.
We stayed friends.
Thick as thieves.
And life happened.
Life happens.
My best friend died, he know I had a crush of sorts on my friend, and would tease me once in a while about that, but also in a way that didn’t really razz me up.
When Shadrach died in General Hospital someone reached out to my friend and said, “come and get Carmen and take her out and feed her.”
I was shellacked.
I had been in that ICU by Shadrach’s side or with his family for seven days in a row, eight maybe. My friend had not been able to make it in to say good bye to Shadrach.
But.
He showed up that night in his Mercedes and took me to Chow on Church and Market and he told me to order a steak and eat it.
I did.
Then he took me out to Treasure Island and told me, “talk about it.”
I did.
I told him all the stories and the sadness and the horror of watching Shadrach die and he just held my hand and let me cry on his shoulder.
He was a good friend.
He always was.
Sometimes a bit intense, sometimes suddenly unavailable, but someone I could talk to for hours, someone who made me laugh, someone who always was up for having and adventure.
The time we went to see Gary Neuman at the Fillmore and then got out of the show with enough time to whip over to the Castro Theater and see Tron.
Or Goldfrapp at the Fillmore.
Or Sunshine Jones in so many different clubs.
Or Eric Sharp at some underground deep in the SOMA in a warehouse.
Or when he got a projector and we found a deserted parking lot in the SOMA next to a huge white painted wall and watched the Daft Punk Movie Interstella 5555.
Or sitting in front of Ritual in the Mission, before they had outside seating, on the sidewalk drinking lattes, with a boombox blasting Michael Jackson.
He taught me how to play dominoes, “bones,” and then would brutally beat me at it all the time.
I could name a lot more.
There were many, many, many adventures.
The weekend in Vegas.
And there were many, many, many girlfriends.
Some who liked me.
Some who absolutely couldn’t stand me.
My friend dated women I worked with, mutual friends, women I sponsored, (Shadrach joked once, “why doesn’t he just go right to the source,” meaning me), friends of other friends.
All sorts of ladies.
He got serious with one of them and I really liked her, hell I even lived with them for a couple of months when I had lost a job and my apartment in Nob Hill with seven years sober and ended up taking a huge pay cut and going to work at Mission Bicycle Company as a shop girl, she was sweet.
They opened a hair salon together.
One or the other of them was always doing my hair.
I was my friend’s hair model for a long time.
I got to rock some ridiculously fabulous hair.
Most of the time.
Every once in a while he did something that I was like, “dude, no, cut it off.”
The time he gave me a tail.
That only lasted two days.
Maybe only half a day, now that I think about it.
He also went to school to learn make up and to this day I credit him with teaching me how to do makeup.
And to love glitter.
When he reached out to me recently I told him I had stopped dying my hair crazy colors, after he and his girlfriend moved away, I went to a mutual friend who took me blonde and then hot pink, to be a therapist and have a professional look.
I even toned down the make up for a bit.
But it snuck right back in.
I couldn’t give up the glitter.
He texted me, “NEVER give up the glitter.”
A lady likes a man who isn’t opposed to glitter.
He got engaged.
He bought a house.
They broke up.
He moved to L.A.
That’s where he’s at now, muddling through the pandemic as an essential worker.
I can’t even imagine, although a number of my therapy clients have indicated that they consider me an essential worker, I just can’t imagine being out in the public as much as my friend is.
We reconnected back around July or August, played a lot of phone tag, and didn’t actually get to talk until after Thanksgiving.
And it was like riding a bike.
We talked for hours.
Every week or so we’d text a little.
And we caught up after the holidays and.
And.
Well.
Ha.
He’s interested, all these years later, in dating.
I was surprised as hell.
Although, when I have had some time to think about it I realized he’d asked a few times what my dating situation was.
“Non-traditional,” I replied once.
And.
He sent me a song one day on Spotify, “I Adore You,” by Goldie.
I loved the song.
I looked up the lyric’s, well, huh, those are some interesting lyric’s.
This seems like a love song.
Is my friend sending me a love song?
Maybe.
When all is said is done
After the run we’ve had
Let me be the one
I’ll be there for you
Better to let, better to let you know I was a fool in love
Just enough to want you more I adore you
And I’ll never let you go I adore you When all is settled dust
After the storm has passed
Let me be the one to shine on you
Better to let, better to let you know I am a fool in love
Just enough to want you more I adore you
And I’ll never let you go After the run we’ve had
After the tears we’ve cried
On all those lonely nights
I still want you in my life I see you in my mind
And now the sun don’t shine
And I’m just getting by
So why can’t you be mine?
It sounds like a love song!
And then.
One night, it came out, he was texting me and he said, “would it be crazy if we went on a date?”
What?!
We texted back and forth for a while and decided, maybe it would not be.
We went a few weeks without talking about it and he did his thing and I did my thing.
But.
It’s come up again and we talked yesterday, for a long time, and we’re going to give it a shot.
Holy shit.
I mean.
I still can’t quite believe it.
He’s going to take some time off from work and come up over a weekend and stay at an old friends house and we’re just going to see what it feels like.
HOLY SHIT.
I’m excited, nervous, think I need to lose five pounds, happy, curious, all the things.
We both agreed that whatever happens, we’re just investigating and we won’t stop being friends.
It could be a hilarious wrong turn.
Or it could be a dance party.
I don’t know.
He doesn’t have a Mercedes anymore.
But he does have a Cadillac.
So I expect we will cruise around the city and revisit old haunts.
And maybe.
Make out?
We shall see.
More will be revealed.
Auntiebubba 