Long-term friendship, especially the kind that spans across decades, can be tricky. Such is the case with Julie and me. The reason we became friends in the first place -- mainly, that we went to a slumber party at Tina DeLoreto's house in sixth grade and played Truth or Dare and Julie chose Dare and then mooned the cute boys next door out of the window which was the best thing ever and I immediately decided she needed to be my best friend -- doesn't have much bearing on our lives today. And with her living over in Ireland with a baby, in a situation I have a hard time being supportive of, has led to us having whole topics that are off limits when we do talk. And because she no longer tells me what's really going on in her life, because I'm likely to say, "For fuck's sake, Julie! Just come home already!" I find myself not wanting to share the intimate details of my life, either, which results in a state where things are either tense between us, or we don't have anything to say to one another.
It breaks my heart a little that my best friend has never met the boyfriend I've been with for almost a year and a half, or visited my new apartment or tasted any of the food I've recently learned how to cook. I miss playing
Ripley's Believe It Or Not, and laughing until we both nearly hyperventilated about the notion of pigs that also loved bacon. I miss the ear-piercing octave her voice reached when she got drunk. I miss her
misunderstood song lyrics. But most of all, I miss sharing everything with her.
Today I got a package from Julie in the mail. Scribbled on the box in Julie's handwriting, which hasn't evolved even a little bit since eighth grade, in green marker, was this:
Jess,
Just a little something to remember the old days. Merry Christmas.
Love,
JulieAnd in the box was this:
Julie and I attended many a metal show togather in our high school days, but none were more memorable than Pantera at the Palace Theater on the Vulgar Display of Power tour. My boyfriend at the time offered to be our designated driver, so Julie and I got to drinking. I got buzzed, and Julie, in typical fashion in those days, got very sloppy drunk. By the time we got into the theater, she could barely walk. Eager to see Pantera from the venue's 7th row, I was more than happy to lay her across two seats and let her pass out for as long as she needed to.
This was a metal show, mind you, so when Pantera took the stage, everyone from the middle, back and balcony rushed the aisles up front, and the three security guys the Palace had hired for the event couldn't do a thing about it. This left us trapped in our seats. Julie snored away behind me.
As the familiar first notes of "Walk" began, I felt a gentle, yet insistant, tug on my Metallica "Metal Up Your Ass" T-shirt (The one that had the hand with the knife coming out of the toilet. You remember it, right? Of course you do!). I leaned over.
"I'mgonnathrowup," Julie slurred. "Pleasetakemetothebathroom."
I looked around me. The aisles on either side of us had become two giant mosh pits. I weighed my options, and then hoisted Julie up out of her seat, threw her arm around my shoulder, told a very worried boyfriend that we'd be fine, and went in search of a bathroom.
"She's going to fucking hurl!" I yelled at a volume meant to overcompensate for the fact that we were two rather short, very skinny girls, and pushed through the crowd of angry, moshing boys. This was a surprisingly effective way of getting them to move. In no time at all, I was holding her hair back as she kneeled on the floor of the woman's bathroom, retching up a McDonald's medium-sized cup three-quarters full of vodka.
"You missed 'Walk'," she said sadly, knowing of course that it was my favorite Pantera song. (In fact, it's the ringtone on my cell phone now.)
"I'll live," I said. "But if I miss 'This Love,' I am seriously going to kill you."
We made it back to our seats and watched the rest of the show without incident. Julie even perked up a little at the end, standing up and swaying ever so slightly in time with the drumbeats to "Hollow."
So what I'm saying in the most roundabout of ways is, at least for right now, that one little CD made me remember why Julie and I have remained best friends despite the physical and metaphorical distance between us. Once you've held someone's hair back while they puke, they're a friend for life. It's a proven fact, and you can't argue with facts.
