As he nearly galloped like a wild horse up the grassy way with the woman who would, within minutes, become his wife (you need to know right away that this was not an ordinary wedding), I thought, well, he seems fine, even though I really didn’t like him dressed as a Charlie Sheen double while she was in a knee-length but otherwise fairly traditional white wedding gown.  To most of the guests, there were no readily apparent signs of the previous evening’s trip to the emergency room to sort out the dizziness related to the heart disease he’d been diagnosed with last September.

I sat on my plastic chair under the white tent, the fairly calm waters of one of northern Minnesota’s clearest lakes just down and beyond the old stone stairs that connect the hill to the beach, and thought a good many things about the groom who has been like a brother to me for some 20 years now.  I probably should have been shot for wondering how generous the open bar would be, although I should not have worried one bit, as my friend has always been quite generous when it comes to liquor.  He’s been too generous with it for himself for some time now.  Same thing with cigarettes.  Yes, he does know both generosities contributed greatly to his cardiac problems.  When I would carefully measure just a few capfuls of liquor for myself when we would have cocktails together, he’d often chide me for living like a “non-celibate, eyeliner-wearing, kind of bitchy, nun.”  Yeah.

Putting visions of a Canadian whisky and ginger ale aside for the moment, I also thought about how happy and relieved I was that this day had finally happened, some seven years after he met this woman he was about to marry, and at least five years after I and a good many others started to rag on him about marrying her and once and for all leaving the life he had come to despise in Minneapolis.  Their relationship had been one built mostly over weekends, as she still lives and works in a tiny town some 100 miles from the lakeshore cottage he was smart enough to buy for his weekend respite more than 15 years ago.  For years he said the weekend arrangement suited both of them just fine.  Everyone always knew it was most probably a better deal for him than for her and many of us told him as much.

We met as quite young people when he moved into my building.  I soon learned he held a degree in interior design but worked during the day as a building contractor and at night as a deejay at one of the area’s most popular nightclubs.  I’ll admit that for about two weeks I thought he was one of the hottest men I’d ever seen in my life, a combination of Black Irish movie rogue mixed with 1970s glam English rock star (so think Pierce Brosnan blended with Dave Davies of the Kinks).  A hell of a lot of other women thought the same thing, although many of them got to do more than just think about the combination.   Sometimes when two of the women would arrive at the building at the same time, he’d hide in my apartment, even if I was expecting a real boyfriend.  Even if clad in only a towel.  “Just tell him you’ll be late, he’ll understand and he will be completely jealous when you tell him my story,” he’d say when I would whine about how his lack of conflict management skills got in the way of my making myself beautiful.

As I said, my infatuation lasted for only about two weeks.  Since my friend lived just down the hall in an apartment with a quite lovely Mississippi River view, it was a lot of fun to go there once in a while after a horrendous day at work (or just after a horrendous time getting home on a Minnesota winter’s night) and have a few cocktails and get into all manner of convivial arguments.  This was when he was still a Democrat.  The arguments we’ve had in the years since he started listening to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have been most interesting and most irritating.   Anyway, I even liked eating the Tombstone frozen pizza he took pride in doctoring with garlic and black pepper. 

The friendship grew through the years into more of a sibling relationship, as many friendships do.  He lived for a while with a woman who could have been a Playboy centerfold, although she was actually quite sweet and a terrific cook.  She used to bring me samples of fancy hors d’oeuvres she’d experimented with and whenever there was a new Disney film, we’d see it together (my friend thought we were both weird, though he used to tease us about being fairy nymphs).  That relationship ended after years of intensity that would have killed most other people.  Maybe they were just too attractive to be together.  In any case, it damn near killed me having to provide psychiatric services to my distraught friend.  But when I was engaged for about a year to a man who could not have been more wrong for me, and I for him, my friend said any guy who was so angry, so eye contact-averse, and so unable to drink more than three beers, was no man to marry.  He was right, although I do think he was too harsh on the beer judgment.

For some years we kept in touch by phone, as I spent two tours in Washington, D.C. and then did a 14-month hired gun duty out in Oregon.  Whenever I’d come back to Minnesota for a visit, I would always stay at his place.  When I returned from my first D.C. stint to work for Northwest Airlines, I took an apartment in the old building.  And when I left my second D.C. tour two and one-half years ago to come back and try to build a communications consulting practice and do some serious writing, I moved in with my friend as he said it would save me a lot of money while I got things going and, of course, I could help him with rental paperwork. 

            Things were different when I came back this last time.  We still were like teenage siblings who lived without parents but he was spending nearly all of the week “up north” at his cottage.  That actually was fine, as I liked having the place to myself, without ashtrays to empty or cocktail glasses to put in the dishwasher.  As I’d mentioned earlier, his politics had changed to mirror those of the people he was spending most of his time with, including his now wife.  We didn’t really fight but I think most of that was due to the fact that I have always been a great practitioner of retreating to one’s own quarters and shutting the door.  It also was clear that his health was not what it was even a few years ago.  Our evening discussions, if not about politics, were often about his worsening medical problems.  I started to really miss the rogue rock star, even as I could clearly see that his drinking had escalated tremendously (he said I was right, but he couldn’t help it) and that I had become more of a sorry enabler than a good friend.

            Last year, he accepted an opportunity to return up north for good.   Until his wedding this past weekend, I had not seen him since he left, which is the longest amount of time we’ve not seen each other him since we met, although we have talked on the phone nearly every week about a number of things, including the complexities of wedding planning.  All the same, it’s been, well, peaceful to live and work alone in the now partially renovated river view apartment.  And his wife is, to say the least, very different from me.  She’s always been kind but I know that absent him, we probably would not be friends because we would never have had an opportunity to meet.  I don’t blame her any discomfort she might feel about me.  She adores and cares for him in a way none of his other girlfriends could have even if they had been trained as nurses and psychiatrists.  And he’ll provide for her comfort and future.  I actually kind of envy their easy happiness.  It’s what I always wanted for him, and for myself (with someone else).

            When I was getting ready to go back to Minneapolis the day after the ceremony, he was slumped in the bed of his truck.  He looked incredibly tired, but he had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.  There were almost no traces of the young rogue.  I just said goodbye quietly and wished him the best with his upcoming doctor’s appointments, along with the best for the honeymoon.  He waved back weakly and said “see ya.” 

            Although I think we’ll talk on the phone again, I have this uncanny feeling I won’t be “seeing ya” anymore.  At this point, I don’t know how much his health will determine his future.  Still, it is all too true that life does have chapters and chapters, even chapters with many pages, usually come to an end.  We cannot fight it.

Other friends  have told me to think of things more brightly, as I now have the chance to leave home, as it were, and write a new story for myself.  It’s a very, very exciting thought.  I think I’ll do it.  And I hope my friend will be happy for me.  And around to hear about it.