the visitor

A friend from college e-mails: "I will be in Tijuana for work and would love to visit". So I reply that that would be fantastic, and he sends me the data to his hotel. I call and leave a message.

Now, this friend of mine, we were in the same High School and went to the same University. We didn't become friends until the last three years of Uni and then we were really good friends and sometimes lovers - he had a girlfriend, I had a busy life, there was nothing really serious about it -. He didn't drink because, he said, he wasn't a good drinker. We knew this to be true from the photographs in the newspaper from that night when he tried to set fire to his parents' home because they wouldn't let him in.

- Thank god it was humid, it's all I'm saying -

But so when he stopped drinking, pretty much by the end of High School, he sort of got a grip on his life and he was incredibly brilliant at school. He got his degree and moved. A year later I got married and he went to the wedding. That was the last time I saw him. We don't particularly e-mail, we never speak on the phone, but then he's one of those people that you know is there. That is that.

I was happy at the opportunity to have Will meet him and have a catch-up conversation. It's been nearly ten years!

Except he drinks now. And he's unhappy about the way his life has gone. He was belligerent, stubborn, and blind. Blind in that way that you cannot see what's right in front of you, because what's right in front of you is a couple of people who love each other and are a bit scared of you getting any louder or doing something really stupid, because they really would like to be able to go back to that restaurant.

And I really would have liked it if he had not been trying to put Will down. Which is impossible, by the way, like, don't even try it because he is a master of I-don't-care-ity (he is, you should see it, it's so cool) and he is just so cool and detached, so sure of his place, that there is just no way to do it. I am so happy that he was in a good mood and didn't just punch him, which by the end I feel he was asking for.

And I really would have liked it if he had been happy with his life, because I feel that if he was, he wouldn't be looking back in a "those times where the best times and I will never get them back" type of mood. And he wouldn't have been trying to put Will down. And he wouldn't have behaved like such an incredible moron. Plus, you want to do what? Get mariachis? Because of me? Have you met me? Gah.

So we dropped him off at his hotel. He couldn't get out of the truck because he couldn't undo the seatbelt and I was scared of helping him out, that's how bad things were going. We dropped him off right in front of the lobby, I pointed at one of the bellhops: "He's all yours, now", as he was trying to find his balance after hugging Will and being not completely sure how to get out of it. I got back in the truck and we waved at him. He was standing, glassy eyed, outside the lobby. I'm not sure he realised we'd gone.

Maybe not drinking was a good plan for him. Maybe he should have married that girlfriend that he had back then, she was nice. Maybe he should have done something different at some point. But he didn't. At some point in the evening I found myself telling him that he had to take some decisions in his life because otherwise life will just take them for him. I don't think he will remember that bit.

- Of course, he's now texted me and he's forgotten all about the last three hours or is pretending he has, either way, I feel like we lived different evenings: "Gracias por todo. Traigo un dolor de cabeza que valio la pena. Sigue tan hermosa como siempre.", which, in a loose translation means: "Thanks for everything. I have a headache that is totally worth it. You are still as beautiful as ever." Damn Tequila, is what I say.

Comments

[felinesopher]

hi Maria,
thx furr dropping by at felinesophy:)
I'm glad you have terrific moment with your long time friend...

See ya around next time,

[Nancy]

Pero que triste!