Saturday November 2, 2024; 8:49 AM EDT
- New Jersey transit from Manhattan to New Brunswick. Somewhere along the route, a man comes up the aisle looking for a seat and spots an old buddy from high school, not seen for years. Joins him in the seats across from me. They fill each other in on the last many years of their lives. One asks, kind of tentatively, if the other is still in touch with the third member of their high school buddy group.#
- Yes and no, once in a while, it turns out. The tentativeness continues in the conversation, slowly receding as an old openness returns, tempered maybe by the insight of early middle age. It becomes clear that they grew up somewhere in New Jersey or New York where young people are at risk of being swallowed up by the streets, by the choices and risks there, by the narrow paths out and beyond. #
- One of the buddies seems to have gotten well free, seems to be doing fine. The other one seems to be doing reasonably well, but he alludes to struggles and maybe not a large margin of error. The third buddy, it becomes clear, has not escaped, has not found stability. He comes around from time to time asking for help, for money, maybe for a place to stay. Maybe he is carrying and looking for someone to party with, too. He's reaching up for a hand to pull him a little way out or to pull you a little way back in.#
- The two buddies in this public place know how to say just enough about their old friend to acknowledge the risks and the costs of that old life, the burdens when one steps closer to the edge of it or hears your name called from the edge of it.#
- The more successful buddy doesn't seem at any risk, but he well remembers. His friend has had his share of struggles and is on his feet. He remembers, but not from such a distance in time and space. He remembers and feels the urgency more keenly in the here and now. But they both know.#
- Their missing friend could turn up. They would recognize him and his situation very well, they are themselves not among the naive or indifferent of our fellow citizens. But that doesn't mean they know any special magic to apply to the wounds of their old friend, of whom they have spoken for twenty or more minutes now, at first tentatively and indirectly, then more frankly as the journey through New Jersey continued. Their train arrives at destination after destination, but the instructions over the loudspeaker are full of static and garbled. If you don't know the route, if you aren't paying attention, you could easily miss your stop.#