Connection

It's strange how we connect with people in this life. I met my best friend, Wayne, in 4th grade (1983) and we've been like brothers ever since. There was a set of twins at our elementary school and he was friends with one and I the other so eventually we met. It seems strange now that we hit it off as we did because at that age your either scholastically inclined, physically inclined, or both. I was more scholastic and, lucky for me, he was both. He was always active on the playground in games of kickball and the like which I never really participated in on a regular basis. I used to play on the bars and the rings which weren't so competitive. I think we made a connection because he lived a half a block away and he knew friends of my brothers. I immediately took to him after an incident while walking home from school one day. Near his house, there was a house that had a small hedge with a low brick wall around it. Wayne easily leapt over it and, trying to impress him, I made the jump too. I cleared the hedge but came down on the brick wall and twisted my ankle. I couldn't stand, let alone walk. I hardly knew this kid, how do I ask for help? I didn't have to. He lifted me onto his back and carried me to his house where I called my mom and got a ride home. I'll never forget that, we had only known each other a short time.

After that, we were inseparable. He would come down to my house each morning so my grandma could drive us to school. This was the age when you usually show up at school a half hour early to play on the playground, but we would wait at my house until the last possible minute just hanging out and laughing. His habits at school changed as well and he and I took to walking around the outer edge of the playground just making up funny stuff, doing Mad Libs, making funny shadows, creating a list of X-rated Garbage Pail Kids. I recently reflected on our odd pairing. I was into imaginative play and he was as athletic as the best kids in school. He could have easily gone that route but he chose to hang out with me. He did still participate in some sports, I remember a flag football team that I was "Manager" of so I could be there to support him. Last year I had to ask him "Why did you befriend me?" He answered my strange question with "I don't know. I liked having fun and laughing. I liked being around you and your brothers." (We are quite entertaining.) He fit right in with us. He could even hang with my brothers if I was busy. We rarely got angry with each other and everything we did was to have a good time. We take our friendship for granted sometimes and don't realize that most people in this world never make such a deep connection with another human being that it lasts 25 years. About 4 or 5 years after high school, we went into a store and ran into a guy we knew from elementary school and he couldn't believe it: "You guys are still hanging out together?" Till the end.

I mention all of this because when I started to verbalize my outrageous ideas he was the first one I opened up to and now we have all kinds of odd coincidences occur between us. These new incidents reminded me of the first time I thought we had some kind of connection beyond this reality. After such a strong bond in elementary school, of course we moved onto junior high and faced all those experiences together. We skipped school a lot to hang out in a field and smoke cigarettes (our favorite movies were The Outsiders and Stand By Me) and it wasn't long before we started experimenting with drugs. Talk about just hanging out and laughing. We devoted days, weekends, and summer vacations to getting high and having a good time. There was a local liquor store that was a block away and we used to walk up there to buy candy for when we got the "munchies." We were also getting very interested in Reggae with artists like Peter Tosh and Bob Marley. I recall a very amazing instance in which we were walking home from the liquor store and, while munching away, I had Bob Marley's Redemption Song running through my head. "How long shall they kill our prophets? While we stand aside and look." And out of nowhere, Wayne looks over at me and sings "Yes, some say it's just a part of it, We got to fulfill the book." I was frozen in my tracks. He had followed up what I was thinking with the exact lyrics. He was confused by the look on my face. "What?" "Why did you just say that?" "I don't know, it just popped into my head." I explained my disbelief and we laughed it off as "trippy" which is what you do when your young and high, but I never forgot that. Somehow our minds were connected and this connection would manifest itself more frequently, as I said, after I told him about my ideas of something beyond this reality. I recognize that early incident as a flash of what was to come. Like Luke Skywalker blinding himself with a helmet in his duel with a remote that he could almost see even without the use of his eyes.

"You've taken your first step into a much larger world."
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Star Wars, 1977