I opened up the files from last summer to look for a photograph of an old friend from junior high but, although I have several hundred images from that trip to Seattle, there were none of him.
Then I remembered that the only time I saw him was one late night on Capitol Hill, when he heard my peeling laughter from down the block and came over to say hello before departing to play Pac-Man at Pony.
Or something along those lines.
During our email exchange about the accident anniversary Mash asked why I didn’t visit last summer, and I replied truthfully that I did not see any of my old friends.
Jeffrey got a handful of evenings of karaoke (I watch, he sings). Marisa came up for the opera. I spent an afternoon with Stevie, Anna Ruby, and Erin Scarum. Byron One, Two, and Three were all nearby, but snagged no more than twenty-four hours of my time to split amongst the group, never contiguously. I had dinner with Stella and Al. I ran into Scott one day on the sidewalk in front of Bauhaus, but we didn’t even sit down for a cup of tea.
I would like to say that I spent more time with my offspring, but I only ran into my grown-up daughter randomly one afternoon in Portland at the Zine Symposium. I snatched a few days with my son, in the middle of his visits with grandparents and friends.
The main reason for the trip was a funeral, and I did go back to the county for the gathering of the clan.
I stuck around only for the afternoon.
I certainly wanted to spend more time with mother, grandmother, and cousins – but the situation was simply too complicated and painful.
We all mourn in our own ways. Last year I sought the solace of the strange.
By dinner time that day I had been deposited, funerary attire still sprinkled with the ashes of my aunt, at the big rock show known as the Block Party. I met Laura, previously encountered as a Crescent DJ, and her pal Jody, someone I had only befriended days before, to watch bands I had never listened to play for a massive crowd of strangers. When that ended I went downtown and stayed out all night with the Himsa kids.
That formed the pattern for the rest of the summer. I hung out with Mark Mitchell and went to the Bus Stop. I deliberately though unconsciously surrounded myself with friends, but they were all new, with no shared memories of my aunt, no need to talk about growing up together.
It might seem counter-intuitive to lament the suicide of a junkie by disappearing into the nightlife of the city of our shared youth, but from the distance of a year the whole thing makes sense.
Most of my new friends have faced the same sort of dreadful damage my aunt sustained, but they somehow managed to stay alive. Several have kicked serious drug habits. They were all, without exception, willing to accept my precarious and perilous self at face value.
They didn’t ask for or need anything at all, and I had nothing to offer.
Last summer I took a break from being trustworthy, mature, and responsible. I needed the vacation.
Of course the new friends I made are now entwined in my life and other relationships.
But for that brief, precious, decadent summer – they let me laugh.