Jim and I rode our bikes over to Wallace Lake to check out a lifeguard, Laura. I can still see her, 16 years old, in her white bathing suit, gazing over the splashing crowd.
That sounds creepier than it actually was since, at the time, almost half a century ago, Jim and I were also teenagers. Jim and Laura have been married for 43 years and have two daughters and five grandchildren.
Kier and I drove to New York City once. We had dinner at Thai Hut on Devon Avenue, then 12 hours straight east, hitting Manhattan at dawn, just as Little Feat sang, “Don’t the sunlight look so pretty, never saw a sight, like rolling into New York City, with the skyline in the morning light.”
And Cate, well, where do I begin? She wanted to be one of my groomsmen, but my wife-to-be put her foot down. I did throw Cate a bachelor party when she got married, with our mutual friend Robert, that involved securing a banquet room at the Como Inn, writing a script and hiring actors. Which was only fair, because Rob and Cate did the same for my bachelor party, at the old Get Me High Lounge in Wicker Park.
Oh wait, that’s four friends. I’ve gone over my limit, according to Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, who imagines the average American “has fewer than three friends” — where did he come up with that figure? — and could use AI buddies to hang around with. Which he will be happy to sell us.
The idea being that we’re going to pour out our hearts to our AI soulmates and they will — what? Reassure us? Suggest comfort food to buy on Amazon?
Is that what friends do? Sometimes they’re just there. I’ve been working on not trying to fix friends’ problems. Just listen, nod or say, “That’s terrible.” Will that be any use coming from a silicon chip? Won’t it be like writing “there there” on an index card and referring to it when you’re blue?
There are levels of friendship. Outlined above are the best kind: old friends. There are also new friends, work friends, friendly neighbors, Facebook friends, friends-with-benefits, fair weather friends. Friends who are always there when they need you.
Those friends tend to be situational and transactional, to quote my friend Lynn Sweet’s useful description of Barack Obama’s approach to relationships. They can be quite real when we’re all in the same lifeboat, furiously bailing. Then quickly fade back on dry land.
Friends ideally are around your level on the struggle up the greased pole of life. I’ve had good friends who, inflated with success, float off, as if cash were helium. Loyal myself, I cargo cult them, staring at the patch of blue they vanished into. Sometimes for quite a long while. Years. But eventually I sigh, turn away, resigned they they’re never coming back. And they never do.
Some friends are like comets — gone for quite some time, then suddenly back, illuminating the night sky again. My former college roommate Didier worked with Catholic Relief and never calls.
We would have the best conversations — when I phone. I used to say, it’s because if he called me, he’d have to take the rag soaked in sugar water off the lips of whatever emaciated child he’s succoring. If he ever phoned, a child would die.
I feared he just didn’t want to talk with me. But when my older boy needed to spend the summer at an internship in Washington, D.C., where Di lives, I called him to ask about the various sketchy neighborhoods my kid was considering. Is this safe? Is that?
He kept saying, “I have a spare bedroom. He can stay with me.” The third time he said that, I responded: If you make that offer again, I’ll take you up on it, and you’ll be sorry. He did. I did, and both parties seemed to enjoy a fun summer together.
You go out of your way for your friends. Friendship is not, Zuckerberg take note, a moneymaking scheme. And they do the same for you.
I only lived in Los Angeles for three months, but Jim and Laura, freshly married, came to visit. One night Laura stayed in, and I took Jim in my 1963 Volvo P1800 to go clubbing. At one point he said: “Neil — you’re a writer in Los Angeles. You’ve got this sports car. I’m still in Berea, working for my dad. Why are we friends?”
We were at stoplight on Sunset Boulevard. I turned and looked closely at Jim, then gave an answer that stuck with me:
“Because most people are a——-, and you’re not.”
