Ding! The chime announced that the Alaska Airlines 737 had come to a complete stop at the gate and I was now free to remove my seat belt. I jumped into the aisle, and quickly removed my laptop bag and jacket from the overhead bin.
It was one of those typical hurry-up-and-wait moments. I was in the back of the aircraft, second to last row. I was going to have to stand here and wait my turn to deplane. I wanted to get out as fast as I could though.
Back in Seattle, I ran into an old high school buddy. His name was William, and I hadn't seen him in six or seven years. We exchanged a few pleasantries in line, then promised to meet up at the baggage claim in Anchorage and chat for a bit. I was more than a little anxious to see how he was doing.
William had one of the most miserable childhoods of anyone I knew. William's home-life was abysmal: no mother, drug addict brothers, physically and emotionally unavailable father, living in a state of perpetual poverty. Unlike his brothers, he reached out and the community rallied around him. He found a home with one of our teachers, gained some adopted brothers in sports, and found a creative outlet in music. William is the greatest guitar player I have ever had the pleasure to behold!
His life had seemed to come together when he met Chrissy after high school. They went through a whirlwind romance that led to a quick marriage and children shortly thereafter. In time, they moved to Nashville with one of Williams friends, Danny. All three of them worked in the personal training industry while William worked to break into the music scene as a studio guitarist in Nashville's music scene.
I finally made my way off the aircraft and found myself walking down the C Concourse in the Ted Steven's International Airport. As I walked, I kept an eye out for William, but I knew he would see me long before I saw him. In school we affectionately referred to William as 'The Angry Midget'. William was under five and a half feet tall, but he had the physique of the Incredible Hulk. All the time William spent escaping his miserable family by hiding in the gym had created a champion body-builder.
All the way through the concourse, I saw no sign of William. I walked out the security checkpoint and stepped on the escalator down to the baggage claim. When I looked down, there was William waiting for me at the bottom, a gigantic grin on his face.
I reached the landing, stepped off and was greeted with huge hug. I'm sure it looked strange to anyone else in the place, a very fit half-man hugging and almost lifting a six-foot fat man off the ground.
"Matt Kester, damn it's good to see you man!" William said upon releasing me so I could breathe again.
"What are you doing up here again William? I thought you would've had enough of this place." I wheezed out.
William did a little shoulder shrug. "My dad had a heart attack a few days ago. He's okay now, but he needed someone to come up here for a little while and help him get back on his feet."
This struck me as more than a little bit odd. I had a hard time accepting the fact that William would put his life on hold to jump on a plane and come to the aid of a father that had been so indifferent to him.
"Damn, I'm sorry to hear that. That takes a lot to drop everything to come take care of him. What are your brother's up to these days?"
"Drugs," he quickly offered, with a slight twinge of anger on his face. "Well, Paul and Mark at least. Daryl's living in Hawaii. He's working as a government contractor and doing the acting thing. Seems like he's the only one of us with his shit together."
"How's Paul doing? Last I saw him he was sucking a Camel through a tracheotomy tube," I asked.
I had started to realize how out of touch I had become over the years. I hadn't heard much of Paul either. Paul had been the victim of an unfortunate accident my senior year in high school that resulted in half his face being removed by a point-blank shotgun blast.
I saw more disgust building in Williams eyes, "Fuck my brother. He got half a million dollars five years ago, now he doesn't have shit. Drugs, booze, toys. That's where all that settlement money went."
I began to sense the big smile I had seen just a minute prior was highly unlikely to come back anytime soon in this conversation. My friend's life continued to be troubled. I figured I should try to find something safer than his brothers and father.
"How's Chrissy and the kids?"
"Oh, we're getting divorced. She got a bolt-on chest six months ago, then started screwing half the town three months ago."
Jesus H. Christ! I thought. His life is one bad country song!
"Fuck man! I'm sorry buddy," I tried. I just couldn't seem to find something positive to rally this conversation around. It begin to feel like if I couldn't find somewhere positive to go with this, he was going to run out to the curb and lay down in front of a shuttle bus.
The idea entered my head that I could deflect this to one of our mutual friends I hadn't heard about in a while, Danny. Danny played football and hockey with us, and he and William became seemingly inseparable as time went on. If there was any true brother William could have had, Danny was it. Plus, Danny couldn't be near the complete zeros Williams blood-brothers were.
"How's Danny? Isn't he out there with you guys?"
William turned pale white and just stared at me. There was pain in his eyes. He looked at me as if he just found out I had violated his mother's corpse.
"You don't know man?" he asked me in a cold voice.
"Know what? I thought he was out there living with your guys, building a business with you two or something," I panicked to say.
"Danny's the reason Chrissy and I split. He was fucking my wife!"
Please, God that I don't really believe in, get me the hell out of here!
I just stood there speechless for a second, shaking my head. I felt so awful for William in that moment. No matter how horrendous the last ten years had been for me, it was a drop in the bucket compared to the perpetual shit-storm William had to contend with.
"Man, I'm so sorry William. That's all so damn horrible," I tried to console him. The look in his eyes told me it wasn't going to be much use.
"Don't worry about me man. It'll all work out somehow, it always does. At least I still have the kids in my life," and with that I saw the faintest of smiles return to his face. There was the one bright-shining piece of hope in his life, his two adorable children.
No comments:
Post a Comment