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Lost in transition
for my friend and the life we once knew
ImetPatrickwhen I wasfour, having just moved to a new neighborhood on the Northwest side of Chicago with my parents and older sister. Because this was a time in my life when I was still forbidden to even cross the street by myself, meeting new people, needless to say, wasn't very easy. My mom gradually eased into the new setting, though, and came to realize that I wasn't going to be kidnapped every time I stepped outside alone.
Taking full advantage of my newfound freedom, I was granted permission to ride my bike up the block as far as the
crooked tree, which marked the furthest boundary still visible from our house. It was a tree that just happened to sprout up directly across the street from Patrick's house.
Perhaps it was the comfort of familiarity that struck me the first time we saw each other; a boy about my age, playing much in the manner I played, on a lawn much like my lawn, in front of an upper-middle-class house much like mine. Or perhaps it was the fact we looked identical, each sharing the same pale, freckled, oh-so-easy-to-burn Irish-Catholic skin and a mess of red hair in need of a combing. Whatever it was, the connection was instant. "Hi," he said. "Hi," I said back. And with that, I crossed the street.
Nothing much changed over the following 12 years. Pat and I, with a few more friends along the way, went through nearly everything from first through twelfth grade together. Then came college. I decided to head to Kansas and see what life held beyond the Illinois border. Pat, as well as the majority of my good friends, dispersed among various state schools within the confines of the Land of Lincoln. Although it went unsaid at the time, both of us knew that the dynamic of our friendship would never be the same.
The adjustment was trying at first, but within two months I settled in and began to realize college life was for me. Pat tried
a couple of different schools before deciding college was not what he wanted at that point. And as Lawrence began to feel more like home, ties to the life I once knew began to weaken. We remained close, but I went home less and less. Such is life.
It wasn't much of a surprise when Pat called me about a year and a half ago telling me he joined the Marines. That's Pat — a month before enlisting he had planned to pursue an
acting career in Hollywood. Now he was a Marine. His decision sounded thought out and he seemed happy; therefore, so was I. Pat started basic training as I started my final year in school, both of us beginning something new, unaware of, but excited, about what the future held.
After months of talking intermittently, he called me on a Thursday, late last May. Our more recent conversations had become somewhat guarded and this one was no exception. It was neither of our faults; it was the world that was different. The United States now occupied Iraq and more and more U.S. troops were being shipped out every day. I'd been aware of this, but always refused to entertain the notion that Pat would be chosen to go.
Reality hit me hard on that coffee-colored evening in May. He told me flat-out, almost devoid of emotion, that he'd gotten the call: He was being sent to Fallujah the third week of August to serve as a machine gunner on convoy. He knew I didn't agree with the war, that I wasn't too crazy about our president who got us into it, so he didn't sugarcoat it.
With his departure imminent, the military let Pat come home for a few days the first week of August. I drove up to Chicago for the going away party and wondered,
among other things,how it would be with all of us together,the last time for at least 7 to 14 months,Pat's expected stay in Iraq.It was a long drive for someone with so much to think about.
Whatever it was, the connection was instant. "Hi," he said. "Hi," I said back.
The short visit home was just what we needed, but after a few days it was time for both of us to leave again. Pat to his station in North Carolina and me back to Kansas City. I loaded my car with whatever goods I could escape with from my parent's house and started driving down our block,
set for the seven-hour drive back to reality.
Pat, coincidentally, was packing his car as
I passed. I pulled over, in a blue Honda now
instead of on an old black Huffy with training wheels, and parked in front of the crooked tree, now just a stump. And in that moment, we were both four again. Pat's hair grown back to a wild mop from the military cut he now sported, and I, on my bike, pressing ever closer to breaching that forbidden boundary. "Hi," he
said. "Hi," I said back. And with that, I crossed the street. We turned our backs to the road, unconcerned with what lay behind us, and paced eagerly toward his backyard. The world, simple and untouched, sat waiting for us.
9.9.04 Jayplay
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