Friends

FRIENDS

MY FRIEND VICKIE walks the one block from her office at the phone company down to the bench that sits on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Everyday she sits on this bench and eats her lunch and watches the ocean rise and fall. The bench is simple: two slats of wood--one for the seat, one for the back--on two iron posts. She eats fruit--either an apple or an orange (never both); the other items of her lunch vary, but she always eats fruit. She sits on the bench and watches the ocean. The cliffs drop off sharply, and out in the ocean rocks rise up--sharply--from the water. She sits on the bench and watches the ocean rise and fall and listens to the sound that she finds very agreeable.

I have many friends who begin each day with a smile, with hope, optimism, and great faith. Almost all of them, within a half hour--and often sooner--have lost their faith, their hope, their optimism. And all of them have lost their smiles.

My friend Mikel worked on a mink ranch for awhile and said that during the pelting season the animals are killed by placing one electrode in their mouth and another up their rectum, and then giving them a jolt of electricity.

Twice a year, in January and then again in July, Vickie sits on her bench on the cliff and watches the whale migrations. She uses binoculars because the whales are often several miles out to sea, and they are difficult to locate with the naked eye. Occasionally, she will see one of them spouting, a sight she finds extremely satisfying.

Stephanie, my friend who went to work for an orphanage in Romania, tells how during the Ceausescu regime the artists and other dissidents were rounded up by the authorities for questioning. They would be placed in a room and told to wait for the interrogation to begin, but then no one ever came. These human beings would wait all day in the room, and no one ever came, and they just sat all day long waiting. By the end of the day, they would be told that they were no longer needed for questioning. But within a year's time, they would all be dead--dead from the radiation poisoning.

My friend Janet told me that a friend of hers, Donna, got divorced and was having a pretty rough time of it--emotionally, economically, socially. She needed friends; she needed money; she needed help. Her ex-husband knew all this and would occasionally call her up on the telephone and offer to give her a certain amount of money if she would have sex with him.

The ocean is beautiful in the summer.

Mikel said that there is a particular skill to killing the mink; for if they are given too long a shock, or if the voltage is too high, it can damage the pelt; and that's a lot of money to go up in smoke.

My friend Jim and I went to one of the last concerts the Beatles ever gave. Dodger Stadium. 1966. The crowd was wild. I remember after the last song we dashed out quickly behind center field where the limousine was parked and waiting. A chain-link fence--ten, twelve, maybe fifteen feet high--separated the crowd from the car; two ropes formed a makeshift pathway through the crowd for the group's escape. The police kept shouting for everyone to stay behind the ropes and to keep the way clear. Suddenly the Beatles appeared and got into the car; then, as soon as the gate was opened and the limousine started to move forward, the crowd broke loose and was upon it. The police were shouting and trying desperately (and without much success) to push the mob back to make way for the car's departure. But there were too many people. The limo began to retreat, inching its way backward, and then, as soon as they could, someone closed the gate.

Stephanie said that in the orphanage, she had to watch the children very carefully because often, no sooner had the infants been changed and given new clothes than they would be stripped again by some of the other workers when no one was looking.

Vickie sits on her bench and watches the ocean, the cliffs, the rising and falling of the swells, the whales (when they're there) off in the distance. She bites into the new fruit she has brought for lunch--a nashi. It seems to be a blend between an apple and a pear; she's been told that it comes from Asia, on the other side of the ocean. As she is eating, she concludes that it is without question the most delicious fruit she has ever had.

Janet's friend Donna hates herself each time her ex-husband comes over to help with the finances.

Mikel said that sometimes--not often, but sometimes--when they give the mink the juice, the electrode in the mouth will pop out, which can cause some problems; for when this happens, the mink will not always die immediately. The operator must then make a quick decision whether or not to hook it up again.

My friend Pat once told me that life insurance policies deny payment to beneficiaries when the cause of death is determined to be suicide.

In basic training, the drill sergeants, most of whom had recently returned from Vietnam and who claimed to be our truest friends, wondered out loud what all the fuss was about My Lai. They said that this was war and, for example, it was a common practice, when they had captured a Viet Cong or a North Vietnamese soldier or informer, to take them up in a helicopter. There they'd wrap a cord around the prisoner's penis and scrotum and begin the interrogation.

When it rains, Vickie still walks the one block down from the phone company to her bench by the cliff so she can watch the ocean and eat her lunch.

Stephanie would like to write more letters home, but she does not believe that they will make it to her friends or family. After the first three months, she had received only two letters, and in both of these the pages were out of order or sometimes missing altogether.

Donna's ex-husband finds that this new arrangement provides him with the best sex he's ever had in his life.

The smell of the ocean is pleasing to Vickie's senses.

The workers get used to the smells on the mink ranch.

The smell of the rain cleanses Vickie's head.

Donna would like to find a way to clear her head.

Once the limousine was back behind the chain-link fence, the Beatles got out and jumped the center field wall to get back into the stadium. John was last, and I remember seeing him pause for a moment, straddling the top of the fence ten feet high--one leg on each side--and smiling--laughing almost--down on the crowd and shaking his head before dropping to the other side.

Hegel, a friend only in the most metaphorical sense, tells of the two individuals who meet and begin to quarrel and then to exchange blows--to actually come to a fight to the death. Just as one is about to claim victory--is about to kill the other--the defeated one offers to become the other's slave. The victor agrees, and the relationship becomes that of a master and a slave; but, of course, in time, the roles reverse.

Vickie finds the nashi rather expensive, but quite worth that monetary sacrifice. In fact, she does not see it as a sacrifice at all.

Sometimes, Donna thinks that she could kill her ex-husband; sometimes, she thinks that she could kill herself.

Mikel said that when they move the mink from one cage to the other, the best way is usually to try to catch them by the tail and carry them off squirming. You have to hold them far away from your body because they'll bite and claw at anything they can reach. If you're quick, you can grab their tails, for the mink run to the back of the cage when the latch is first opened. But if you're not quick enough, the mink have time to turn around and face you. And then the task becomes much more difficult and troublesome.

The blade of a harpoon is sharp and heavy and attached to a long, strong, thick line.

Stephanie said that when she arrived in Vienna by train, after having spent four months in Romania, she couldn't believe all that she had forgotten: that there existed anywhere on the planet restaurants with food and wine, hotels with showers in each of the rooms, streets with lights, that there were actually things like convenience stores stocked with little bags of chips and M & M's and gum.

Lying on her bed at night alone, Donna suddenly realizes that this is the only life she has.

The cord, fastened securely to a post in the helicopter, seems to dance as it rushes out the opened doorway; then it tenses for a moment--taut--before going slack again.

Donna is not always sure how old she is.

. . . the teeth of the mink are very sharp and often bite through the thick gloves of the workers; their claws are like needles. . .

When Vickie is at work at the phone company, she wonders if perhaps she does not spend nearly enough time looking out over the Pacific Ocean.

Janet thinks that she ought to visit Donna more often.

Mikel worked on the mink ranch for two years before he started looking for another job.
Donna's next stage of development included the recognition that although life is indeed very short, it can often seem very, very long.

Walking back to the car after the concert, my friend Jim and I saw a fight. A crowd was already there making a circle. A young man was in the center. My memory is very clear about this: he's crouched like he's ready to spring, weaving back and forth on his legs, his head and eyes moving about like a caged animal. In his hand and above his head, he is swinging a chain two feet long--threatening, daring anyone else to come near. The crowd is staring at him, eyes transfixed. To me they look terrified, but that may be because I'm terrified. At the edge of the circle is another young man, but this young man is lying on the ground, moaning. His shirt is ripped and torn, and his stomach is ripped and torn and bleeding, and the expression on his face seems to reveal that he too cannot believe what has happened.

My friend Pat tells all of his clients that there's not a city block in this entire country where at least one person is not dying of cancer.

Donna often wonders how her children will turn out.

When Stephanie first got to Romania, she learned that the organization that sponsored her trip did not, in fact, even exist.

Jim, my best friend in high school, once stared at the sun--not until his eyes went blind, but until the light began to burn through the cornea to the retina and the smoke issued from the sockets.

Donna is scared to death to get back into the work force. Before she leaves the house, she stares at herself in the mirror for a long time, practicing how to smile; and as she gets to the office where the interview is to take place and sees her reflection in the window, she wonders how on earth she will ever be able to open the door.

The interrogators pull the cord back up into the helicopter. Once it's inside, a few of the men inspect the end carefully, where the knot is still tied tightly.