Always soupy grey
On the flip side of kindness, Sara and I were out at the Surgeon’s house the other day and I told them that Johnny and I stopped speaking.
When we were much younger, there were times I woulda called Johnny my best friend.
But, in the end, he chose money over decades of friendship.
Him: That was it? You never spoke to him again?
Me: He called me once, drunk. Didn’t pick up. There was nothing to say. I didn’t want someone like him in my life. Around me. Around my kid.
Because it’s one thing to be unkind to me, but to be unkind to a friend of mine AND betray a trust?
That I can’t forgive.
Because you can forgive most things, but you can never forgive treachery.
Which brings me to the Devil, whom I’ve not seen in ages.
Not since before COVID.
Throughout the years, I’ve ping-ponged between enemies, frenemies, and friends with him. We’ve had so many differences, arguments, times when I legitimately feared for my safety.
Yet, he was oddly never treacherous. Dangerous and heartless, yes. Treacherous, no.
Me: It doesn’t bother you? Hurting people?
He: Not particularly.
Me: Why not?
Him: Maybe they deserve it.
And now I’m left wondering whatever happened to him.
I suppose that, if he’s still out there, I wanted to say, thanks.
For so many things.
If nuthin else, a good Old Fashioned with rye.
After all these years, now that I’m older, I finally understand some of the things he was trying to tell me when I was a young and hot-headed man, and he was the older, wiser fella trying to teach me something.
I think I’ve finally experienced enough of the world to understand what he was trying to tell me all this time: That the world was always soupy grey and only children see things in black and white.
For better or worse, what I thought was cruelty this whole time was – in fact – a form of kindness, in some perverse way.
I was just too naïve to see it.
On that note, I thought about one of our very last face-to-face conversations.
Me: (later) Why do you even care?
Him: (laughing) You’re the last reliable guy in New York. In 20 years, you’ve never said you were going to do something and not do it. Out of all of them, you’re the only one that’s never let me down.
Me: That’s it?
Him: (shrugging) That’s a lot. Finding someone whose word isn’t just bullshit is a lot, Logan.
Well then, I suppose, for alla my faults, I’ve done something right.
There’s a thought that you never know whether something is a blessing or a curse until long afterward. I think the same is, roughly, true for people in your life.
Johnny, someone I once considered one of my best friends betrayed me, while the Devil, whom I called that in my head and hated at times, ended up making me so much of who I am today – in a good sense.
Even this late in the game, I’m still learning stuff.
Location: West 74th and Columbus, looking at what mighta been
Mood: wistful
Music: He’s getting ready for the showdown (Spotify)
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