We're In This Together

Let’s talk, you and I. Let’s talk about best friends. What makes a best friend?

As I write this, it's a little after 9 pm. It’s raining outside, and the winds blowing an overgrown palm tree into the side of our red tin roof. I'm sitting up on the bed with my elbow resting on Mud’s butt as he’s snoring asleep. Dirt’s on the floor to my left. I can feel him when I let my arm hang off the…

You still there? Sorry. Dirt jumped on the bed and sat on my chest, knocking the computer from my lap. He likes reminding me he's near.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, best friends.

These two fellas are my very best friends. Friends I love with all my heart. And I believe they love me with all of theirs. They also happen to be dogs.

I’ve been fortunate in my life to have met a great many people. People from all over the world. It’s one of the perks of changing schools nine times before finishing high school. In fact, every year in high school, I started somewhere new. And two of those years happen to be boarding schools. One in Florida and another in Maryland.

I was lucky, though. The trick of making new friends came easily to me. I didn’t mind the typical “new kid” stigma or the laughter during roll call at the start of each class…

“Small? Small, Johnson?” The teachers would say, always looking down to double-check their little list of names.

“Here.”

“Do you go by Johnson?” They’d ask with a slightly perplexed look as to why my parents would choose a name of such dignity and class.

After a while, I got fairly clever with my responses. “Well, I’d prefer ‘Big,’ but ‘Johnson’ is fine.”

Self-deprecating was my attempt at letting my classmates know I could take a joke. Even the teachers would partake once they saw it didn’t bother me. It is a pretty funny name, after all.

Towards the end of my high school adventure, I noticed I’d become a pro at making friends but an amateur at keeping them. I’d become a chameleon. Constantly changing colors to blend in; I changed who I was if it meant being liked.

One of my best friends lives in Guatemala. I wish I could see him more. And I plan to in the coming years.

Even though, at times, we let years pass between visits, I know, without a shadow of a doubt, he’d have my back in a second, and I hope he knows that feeling is reciprocated. I’d drop everything and give my last penny if he needed it, maybe with the only exception being during Turkey Season, but from May 10 - March 21, I would do anything for him.

He was my roommate in Florida, and he risked his future to save my ass on more than a few occasions. I know this because although we didn’t realize it back then, we tested it. Or maybe I tested it. At least, that’s what he’d tell you.

I’d go out with some of the upper-classmen and come back with some chewing tobacco or having drank a beer or two, and he was always there to shuffle me in the side entrance of West Dorm. He’d tell me the best place to hide my chewing tobacco, and I’d tell him to take it easy on the cologne.

I know it’s hard to imagine a fifteen-year-old student running an entire school, but he did. I’m not sure why the rules didn’t apply to him, but they didn’t. Come to think of it, they still don’t.

I asked him recently, “So you’re telling me, in all of Guatemala, out of all the places they could have put that brand new 5g cell phone tower, they just happened to choose the most convenient spot, literally, on your farm?”

“This is what I’m telling you.” He said, laughing.

“Right.”

I’m just glad he’s on my side.

Best friends don’t care anything about money, status, popularity, mistakes, where you’re from, or how much time or distance is between them. They’re just there. Waiting to pick up right where they left things. They can’t judge because to judge their friend would be to judge themselves.

Back in my younger days, I remember thinking about the requirements as if it came down to a math equation or scientific calculation. But I’m not sure it would matter, even if we did have a formula.

There’s this unspoken agreement. It’s this mutually decided belief in some unexplainable faith or chemistry. It’s just kinda understood.

You know those stories? The ones that float to the surface when you’re three whiskeys deep with your closest allies? The ones we tell many times over? Well, I’m partial to think we do this to honor them as the moments we forged the connection of the unspoken bond of ride-or-die companionship.

Story is king. It’s everything. Not just in writing, but in life. Our lives are nothing more than a series of stories being told within the main arc of our life’s story. All the plots and themes, characters and moods, conflicts and resolutions are just there to assist the story. We can have the best plots, characters, heroes, whatever, but if the story drags, no one cares how colorful it is.

I’m stretching a bit now, away from the point of this story, but it’s not quite out of reach. My brain seems to dog ear circumstances where a story can create some linkage to the human condition with the mundane yet relatable world around us. And for right now, my dogs seem to be as good a conduit to use as any. They also happen to be my very best friends.

I didn’t choose to write about these topics. As if we even have a choice. They're just the dog-eared pages of the story in my head.

I think a person should only be able to count on one hand their true best friends, dogs included. Any more and things start to get out of hand. Not to mention it would just be too many damn mouths to feed if the world came to an end. And if I couldn’t feed them, I'm not certain I would want to stick around.

If best friends do derive from some mystical centrifugal force, I think it’s the moment two friends have the realization, “Well, I guess that’s it. We’re in this together.”

There it is. That’s the zinger I hoped would show up. It took a minute to dig it out, but I hope you stuck around for it. If so, I greatly appreciate it. If not, well.

The rain has started to pick up now. It’s turned into a real downpour. I can’t believe the power hasn’t left us. I wouldn’t mind if it did. I got my boys with me.

Thank you for sticking around thus far. I’m gonna kill the light and get some rest. Have a great Monday.