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Authors: David Gilmour
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was Justin Strawbridge.
You can’t explain why you love someone, why a best friend is a best friend. It always sounds oversold, never quite convincing. Better take the route of the sixteenth-century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne. Talking about the death of his closest friend, he said in one simple, heartbreaking sentence: “Si l’on me presse de dire pourquoi je l’aimais, je sens que cela ne peut s’exprimer qu’en répondant: parce que c’était lui, parce que c’était moi.” (“If you were to press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he and I was I.”)
In our early twenties, Justin and I had a tiff over a Polish girl (sexy in a consumptive way). She played us both for fools, and we didn’t see each other for many wasted years. And then one night more than a decade later, I found myself nostalgically tipsy in a bar and I called him. It took only several seconds to dial the numbers and even as the phone rang, it seemed odd that so simple, so brief a gesture—dialing a number—had kept old friends apart for a decade.
We met a few days later in a dark, sordid strip club downtown. (His idea.) The years had hardened him physically. He looked thin and greasy, hunched over the Formica table, shovelling some kind of salad into his mouth with a too-small plastic fork. He had a room upstairs, over the bar, he told me. Two men passed the table wearing three-quarter-length brown leather jackets. Small-time thugs. He nodded at them. They sat over in the corner and looked at us. One of them said something and the other laughed and I had the uncomfortable feeling they were talking about me, about what a wimp I was. The waitress came over, dollar bills spread between her red-tipped fingers. I ordered a beer; Justin shot the waitress a look, as if just the act of my ordering bothered him.
“Bobby?” she said. She was talking to him. To Justin.
“I’m good,” he said. The waitress went over and stood by the bar.
“Bobby?” I said.
“That’s what they call me down here. Bobby Blue.” He said it with a dusting of mildly aggressive pride, as if being called a tough-guy name, however absurd, was, for a rich kid slumming it “down here,” some kind of accomplishment . Notwithstanding the fact that it makes me nervous when people change their names: there’s almost always something wrong with them, a mine shaft right through the middle of their personality. But I pushed the thought away. I didn’t want any of that today.
We chatted about this and that, but Justin seemed stiff, rather formal. It was as though, after my phone call, a videotape of the “incident” with the Polish girl (a drunken, late-night visit) had started up in his imagination and his thoughts had taken an unforgiving turn. After a while (me nodding, finishing his sentences, laughing a touch too heartily), I noticed a man standing by the bar, looking this way. I’d seen him on the way in. A weightlifter’s body in a black turtleneck sweater and beret.
Justin put down his too-small fork and reached for his coat on the chair behind him.
“Are you going ?” I said.
It was disgracefully rude, he knew it, and for a second he lost his resolve. “I’m meeting my mother.” There it was again, the phony, parent-pleasing frown that I had distrusted even as a child. (It always signalled a betrayal at hand.) Except now he was thirty-five. From the corner of my eye I saw him join the man at the bar. Then Justin Strawbridge, wearing a long-tailed cowboy coat, disappeared into the bright light of the doorway, the ape in the beret following.
What an absurd coat, I thought. What could he be playing at?
But sometimes it’s simply too much trouble to stay mad at an old friend, and I suppose that’s what happened with us. Again memory fails me, who contacted whom, I don’t recall, although I have a feeling it was Justin who phoned. Why, I’m not sure, perhaps a last grasp for a life raft.
Six months
You can’t explain why you love someone, why a best friend is a best friend. It always sounds oversold, never quite convincing. Better take the route of the sixteenth-century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne. Talking about the death of his closest friend, he said in one simple, heartbreaking sentence: “Si l’on me presse de dire pourquoi je l’aimais, je sens que cela ne peut s’exprimer qu’en répondant: parce que c’était lui, parce que c’était moi.” (“If you were to press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he and I was I.”)
In our early twenties, Justin and I had a tiff over a Polish girl (sexy in a consumptive way). She played us both for fools, and we didn’t see each other for many wasted years. And then one night more than a decade later, I found myself nostalgically tipsy in a bar and I called him. It took only several seconds to dial the numbers and even as the phone rang, it seemed odd that so simple, so brief a gesture—dialing a number—had kept old friends apart for a decade.
We met a few days later in a dark, sordid strip club downtown. (His idea.) The years had hardened him physically. He looked thin and greasy, hunched over the Formica table, shovelling some kind of salad into his mouth with a too-small plastic fork. He had a room upstairs, over the bar, he told me. Two men passed the table wearing three-quarter-length brown leather jackets. Small-time thugs. He nodded at them. They sat over in the corner and looked at us. One of them said something and the other laughed and I had the uncomfortable feeling they were talking about me, about what a wimp I was. The waitress came over, dollar bills spread between her red-tipped fingers. I ordered a beer; Justin shot the waitress a look, as if just the act of my ordering bothered him.
“Bobby?” she said. She was talking to him. To Justin.
“I’m good,” he said. The waitress went over and stood by the bar.
“Bobby?” I said.
“That’s what they call me down here. Bobby Blue.” He said it with a dusting of mildly aggressive pride, as if being called a tough-guy name, however absurd, was, for a rich kid slumming it “down here,” some kind of accomplishment . Notwithstanding the fact that it makes me nervous when people change their names: there’s almost always something wrong with them, a mine shaft right through the middle of their personality. But I pushed the thought away. I didn’t want any of that today.
We chatted about this and that, but Justin seemed stiff, rather formal. It was as though, after my phone call, a videotape of the “incident” with the Polish girl (a drunken, late-night visit) had started up in his imagination and his thoughts had taken an unforgiving turn. After a while (me nodding, finishing his sentences, laughing a touch too heartily), I noticed a man standing by the bar, looking this way. I’d seen him on the way in. A weightlifter’s body in a black turtleneck sweater and beret.
Justin put down his too-small fork and reached for his coat on the chair behind him.
“Are you going ?” I said.
It was disgracefully rude, he knew it, and for a second he lost his resolve. “I’m meeting my mother.” There it was again, the phony, parent-pleasing frown that I had distrusted even as a child. (It always signalled a betrayal at hand.) Except now he was thirty-five. From the corner of my eye I saw him join the man at the bar. Then Justin Strawbridge, wearing a long-tailed cowboy coat, disappeared into the bright light of the doorway, the ape in the beret following.
What an absurd coat, I thought. What could he be playing at?
But sometimes it’s simply too much trouble to stay mad at an old friend, and I suppose that’s what happened with us. Again memory fails me, who contacted whom, I don’t recall, although I have a feeling it was Justin who phoned. Why, I’m not sure, perhaps a last grasp for a life raft.
Six months
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