A man of many companions may come to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
I have a friend. He is, how do you say, an interesting character. His parents named him Ryan, but he is known to most people as Jamal (that’s a story for another time). Through some serendipitous circumstances, we have known each other for almost 20 years. If you’re investigating the cause my my utter ridiculousness, Jamal might be a person of interest.
I met Ryan in preschool. We went to a private school in Fayetteville called the New School. I don’t have the strongest memory, but I think both he and I were the “social retards” who didn’t make friends on the first day. One thing I do remember, however, is that our teacher pretty much put us together. We were fast friends.
Those were the times! Learning to read; chasing girls around the playground; nearly getting expelled for bring a (1in. long) knife. The highlight of those years must have been the time this kid Andrew climbed up the cargo net on the Big Toy, pulled down his pants, and let loose a golden stream directly onto Ryan’s head. It was disgusting, yes, but he got to go home with one of the (smoking hot) interns who lived close by and take a shower. That was a nice little consolation.
I moved away after Kindergarten, but then moved back to Fayetteville for 2nd grade. On the first day, guess who I saw on the playground rocking the four-square? Our friendship was instantly rekindled as if no time had passed. In gym (just before recess) we developed a system of hand-signals to argue over whether we would play four-square, x-men, or perhaps the odd game of soccer.
It was really tough for me when his parents divorced, and he moved to Tennessee in the 5th grade. For the son of a single mother, it hit me really hard to see most stable relationship in my life torn apart. I felt terrible for my friend, and he had to leave.
As the year progressed, I made new friends, and started playing nerdy games like Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons. Imagine my surprise when Ryan visited his father over the summer, with a Magic deck in hand. Even though we hadn’t stayed in contact, our lives continued in directions that brought us closer together in the times we did have.
We had great summers, blowing up plastic army men and playing various role-playing games with Ryan’s older brother, Thomas. After 4 years of summers, Ryan’s mother found a job working for the Fayetteville School District. My best friend was back in time to start Junior High. Junior High turned to Senior High, and we often ran in different circles. I was going through a rebellious phase, and he was in all the AP classes. However much time we spent hanging out with other people, whenever we did get together, our relationship was always natural. We just got along, and we knew it.
When we turned 16, we started “experimenting”. I was not not in a good place in my life, and I looked to intoxication and romantic relationships to fill a void in my life. I can’t give a motivation for Jamal, but he pretty much went off the deep end as well. During the summer of 2000, I was working two jobs, a 40hr./week internship, and a 20hr./week at a local ice cream shop, and going out after work and partying every night.
After a while, Jamal got out of a longterm relationship (he’d been cheated on), and started to settle down a little bit. I was still going full-steam. It seemed that Ryan and I were finally going our separate ways. He started going to church, but I had a strong dislike for all Christians, so that would certainly not be a place I would soon be following.
However, when after a particularly bad week, I became introspective, I realized that my actions were failing to get the desired result. I considered the friendship of a Christian co-worker, and realized that I had no basis for my strong dislike of Christianity. I considered the great influence on my life that Ryan had been, and decided to ask him if he’d take me to church…
To this day, we are still great friends, and I’m honored that in a couple of months I’ll have the opportunity to be a groomsman in his wedding. I’m hoping that, in the way our lives have intersected, I will find such a great lady to spend my life with as Jamal has found in Sara.
note: this is a response to a prompt from my English class.
Note to Slef 