How To Forgo A Best Friend

   First, dig deep. It’s second grade at a Manila all-boys parochial.  His name is Michael C. You throw paper airplanes at one another and across the classroom, eliciting giggles behind Miss Tomas’ back as she demonstrates cursive loops and tails on the chalkboard. Together you corner the market in coveted Snoopy and Woodstock stickers during recess, fetching as much as a PB&J. You divvy up your loot, cutting it diagonally into perfect halves. You are thick as thieves, hanging like bats on the monkey bars, daring who can hold out the longest, cackling as blood rushes to your heads.       

     Then one day, you crumple your face, asking Miss Tomas to repeat what she has told you. It doesn’t compute that Michael is gone for good. She gives no reason why. The entire class climbs onto a bus, as if on a field trip, only to arrive at an empty church except for the silver coffin you tiptoe over to peer inside. But you’re not tall enough and all you see through the glass window is a ruffled wall of white satin.   

     Dad’s a roving academic, so you switch schools four times across four countries in four years. Sure there’s Stephen M.  And Robert E. And Lars D. Each with an abrupt end date. Each leaving a scar no one sees. You attend the same high school throughout. The same for college. It’s the supposed golden age to forge friendships that later in life you will count on your hand. But your mojo is to hang with a crowd, have forbidden crushes on a few, and keep to yourself. You believe no one gets you. And that everyone’s sure to shun you the moment they understand the real you.               

     You land your first job. Executive Trainee at The May Company, Cleveland. You and Neil F. are assigned to Euclid Mall.  You, young men’s. Him, households. You bump into one another at Numbers. It’s go-go boys night. “What are you doing here?” you exclaim in unison, startled, though not surprised. Out of context but soon in sync, comparing notes over Heinekens as prospects parade by on Saturday nights.     

     You call him past midnight after the police show up. Label it a lovers’ quarrel and you’re sustaining a bloody nose. He drives in the relentless rain from Lakewood, west of Downtown, to Hunting Valley on the far east end. He brings you back, prepares the couch and tucks you in, not leaving your side until your tears have run dry and you are fast asleep. Together you find a two-bedroom. Rent, utilities, and escapades split down the middle. Even after you move to New York (hey, it’s Macy’s) you never miss your Sunday calls.               

     Not even a year on, spring blossoms and you’re to reunite, to take Manhattan by storm. But the phone rings. It’s his boyfriend offering more questions than answers. You rush up to Buffalo for the funeral and break down before the open casket. You’re whisked away and made to sit down behind the curtain. No one wants a scene. You say to yourself, he’d have something to say about the giant rosary clutched in his hands.    

     Whenever a plane crashes, there’s bound to be two more in the wings. It’s the threat of threes. You give credence to the Kennedy curse. And how a black widow spins her web. Working in your favor is that by your age, most, if not all, in your circle are spoken for.  And that stealing another’s is but a plot twist on a telenovela.  Besides, you may have become too set in your ways, unable to make room for others.      

     This is your defense. As well as a defect.  

     You’re settled in the suburbs. Twenty years and counting. You’re popular. Fun to be around. Fully comfortable in your own skin as you work the crowd. Everyone knows of you. Yet you prefer to stay close to the surface. Shallow is safe. Some have suffered as a result. Still, why stray off script?  

     Go ahead, build your social network and choose your family. Call them brothers. Even lovers. But for the love of God, don’t get so damn close.      

Jobert E. Abueva of New Hope, PA is Writer’s Advice winner for flash memoir and recipient of the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation Literary Award for historical LGBTQ+ short fiction as well as two National Arts Club prizes in non-fiction. Credits include The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He is working on a boyhood memoir. More at www.jobertabueva.net.