| Friends
Like That
by Nicole
Sarrocco
--You can’t
find your address book and that’s no way
to start a weekend. On second thought, maybe it’s
not such a bad way to start a weekend; there’s
for sure a good twenty or thirty people in there
you could stand not contacting for any reason
whatsoever for an indefinite period of indeterminate
time. In fact, it’s probably a good idea
every two or three years or so to drop your address
book down, say, a sewer or into some other irretrievable
maw, chasm, or gateway to the hollow earth. It’s
the closest you’re going to get to the legitimacy
of amnesia without actual pain and work loss.
With minimal inconvenience, really. Think about
it: anyone in that book that you actually love,
you know how to find. You’ll be telling
them by the end of the afternoon about your lost
address book and the pain in the ass that is your
day, etc. Similarly, anyone in that little tome
that loves you will certainly seek you out with
minimal delay. That leaves the rest - do I even
have to identify them? Do I have to tell you anything
about them? OK. They have a party. They have lots
of parties, actually. To which you will not be
invited. Good parties. Parties with fantastic
foods. With bands. On boats. With famous people.
maybe not very famous people, but people you are
pretty sure you would have heard of, but you won’t
be there to recognize them, to drink too many
margaritas, to insult the hostess, to hear the
band play that song you are crazy about but don’t
know who sings it and you always just hear that
last little bit of it when it plays on the radio
and then the damn dj, he just never, ever says
who it is or the name of it, not once, but he’s
at the party, that dj, and when the conversation
finally turns to you - and let me tell you, it
will, and when it does, you know what they will
have to say and that it will not be nice, you
haven’t called, you haven’t written,
they don’t know what to make of your behavior,
it’s not like you, but then it is like you,
you were always so ungrateful and inconsiderate
of others’ feelings, and you all used to
be so close, but maybe you moved away, you’re
in rehab, maybe you lost a family member, maybe
you lost your mind, maybe you lost your address
book but nobody’s that stupid, that careless,
it’s sad, they say, they kind of feel sorry
for you has anyone been in touch? has anyone heard?
they’ll ask and ask staring into their fancy
glasses full of blue liquers and little umbrellas,
they’ll stare and stare clear-eyed and silent
until that dj - he’s been listening the
whole time, he doesn’t know you but he’s
been listening to them and to the band playing
a lousy cover of his favorite song, he wants to
say how lousy it is and he’s trying but
everybody keeps talking about this person, this
person he doesn’t know, and it’s rude,
so rude, and by the time the music stops he opens
his mouth to say something about the lead singer,
good-looking kid but man, man, and instead he
says WHO? Who? Fuck ‘em. With friends like
that.
return
to Letter X |
