January 31, 2006
What friends are worth
Perhaps the strangest month of my life concluded tonight.
if the all the conversations, predicaments, situations, phenomenon, and conundrums - and the people involved in them - could be stacked on top of one another like a deck of cards, they'd be stacked high, and make a horrible poker hand.
one of the easiest to explain happened on last day of 2005. now it seems totally plausible, looking back since then. but like most of my life as of late, i am trying to make sense of it. i am left wondering why and how, and trying my best to just get out out of bed in the morning and back in it a night. and this incident best way to sum it up, and i paid for it this past week:
In Columbus Ohio there are friends of mine i am quite fond of. they live on a nice street. They have a nice house. a nice porch. they have a nice ceramic tiled splash wall in their kitchen. They have nice cars.
At least until i drove one of them.
"you can borrow my car. the keys are hanging by the back door." snags said.
"thanks snags." i said.
i was headed to out meet someone i had not seen in a very long time. and i was anxious to leave.
after dinner, woody and snags showed up at the bar, whereupon we enjoyed an evening together.
like the conflict in the middle east, the origin of the universe, and who shot kennedy, what happened next may never be resolved, going down in history as a perpetual mystery both sides will debate until we are lying soundly in our graves.
Regardless of the incidents, either sides accounts, - now or in the future- that may or may not have happened; on that ride home the universe was still expanding, and i, with both hands on the wheel, drove across town.
I returned to the nice house, on the nice street and pulled the nice car up to the nice porch and walked inside and set the keys on the countertop by the nice ceramic tiled splash wall.
In the morning snags picked up the keys and walked out the door. she soon walked back in.
"something is wrong with my car." she said.
"it sounds like something is dragging when i turn."
woody walked out to the nice driveway. i followed him. we got down on our hands and knees and looked under the nice car. nothing looked wrong. we got in the car and backed it out onto the street. as he turned the wheel, something was wrong with the car. it sounded like something was dragging.
at this juncture in the morning, the mood changed.
"dude." woody said to me.
we were sitting still in the black volkswagen jetta in the middle of the street in front if his house on new year's eve.
i shrugged.
"seriously. what did you do?"
i shrugged.
he pulled back into the driveway. as he turned the wheel in the other direction, something was wrong with the car. it sounded like something was dragging.
"were you drunk?" snags asked when we got out the car. "you were drunk and hit something, didn't you."
"no." i answered. the car was spotless. not a scratch on it.
i walked back inside. woody was on the phone.
"it sounds like the front of the car is dragging whenever i turn it..." he said into the phone.
"uh-huh."
"a broken front axle. maybe both sides. um, ok." then he hung up the phone.
snags was mad.
it was new year's eve day. there would be no mechanic open. but it is not in woody's nature not to address what is on his mind, nor it is a habit of his to speak much when he is.
he picked up the phone again. a few minutes later he hung it up again.
"c'mon. i found a mechanic that will look at it. but we gotta go now."
we pulled into a well worn garage with a parking lot filled with imports packed in like bumper cars.
a middle eastern man walked out the front door. his pants were sagging and his stocking cap was leaning off of his head much like the mazda beside us was sliding off of the jack.
we opened the car and got out.
"your struts are shot." he said by the time my legs were straight and i was upright. "look at them."
we looked at them.
"when is the last time you changed them?" he asked.
woody rolled his eyes.
"let me drive it." he said.
woody got in the passenger seat and they drove away.
i stood in the middle of a pile if imported cars in a parking lot in the rain on the last day of 2005, trying to figure out how much broken axles and blown struts cost for german cars, and tried to fathom the events that had led me to that situation.
i wasn't drunk... i just stood there watching the rain fill up in the chrome mags lying on their side beside the datsun pickup truck. i didn't hit anything... i pulled my hood over my head.
the black jetta pulled back in and woody got the parts and prices for all 4 struts and mounting plates. then we went the auto store. on new year's eve day woody bought 4 new struts and plates for a 2000 4 door volkswagen jetta.
he didn't say much on the way home.
i was unaware at the time, and have since checked on the protocol for how to handle the "i drove-my-best-friends-fiance's-car-and-mysteroulsy-blew-the-struts-out" scenario.
there isn't one.
establishing my own precedent, upon arriving home i gave snags a signed blank check. i don't plan on anything ever coming between me and my friends, certainly not the undercarriage on a foreign car.
"use this to pay the mechanic for the labor. i don't know what i did, but i want to help pay for it." i said, and gave her check #139, from my check book, signed for with the amount blank.
Yesterday:
the phone rang.
stephey was on the other end. he was laughing.
"have you talked to woody?" he asked.
"not since new years." i replied.
"i talked to him." he said, still laughing. but louder.
"i want you to know, that i have known you for almost 10 years. and i have known woody for half of that. i know how you guys are. and i realize that neither of you are known for being too concerned with letting truth get in the way of a good story. so i know reality is somewhere inbetween your stories. i also recognize this is a very awkward thing for friends to deal with. but as for me, i am loving it."
"loving what?" i asked.
"well, snags car has been in the shop for over a week...."
the universe was still expanding, as it seemed. i immediately went to my computer and hit the bookmark for "Online Banking"
"are you serious." i finally said.
"yeah!" stephey said in a jubilant tone. "and the whole time woody was telling the story, snags was in the background yelling at me about how drunk you were."
i typed in my password.
"now i am not a mechanic, but i know you gotta hit something pretty hard to blow out both front struts and crack both springs."
"cracked front springs?..."
i clicked on "recent activity"
"damn, dude you must tore it up that night." he said. his voice sounded like a sports caster calling the last minute touchdown at a super-bowl.
"i didn't do anything."
"that is exactly what woody said you said!"
his voice sounded like a sports caster calling the last minute extra point to win the super-bowl.
i began scrolling down through my bank account.
"man, it must have cost him over a grand at least!"
"it cost somebody" i said. dread pulled the hair up on the back of my neck.
on the other end of the phone stephey was cackling like a witch.
check #139 had been cashed. i clicked on it to see the amount.
i have had many strange days. especially of late. much has changed for me this past year. and much will be changing more soon. but one thing i hold strong to, what will not change, are my friends. and i don't plan on anything ever coming between me and them, certainly not the undercarriage on a foreign car.
however, as i pulled open my browser window and let the scan of the check load, i wondered, very earnestly, what i was worth to my friends.
