Stuck With Fred

Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but it is also their means of communication. It is the same with us and God. Every separation is a link.
    — Simone Weil
   
WHEN I FIRST met Fred, I didn’t know he’d be a thorn in my side for twenty years. I didn’t know yet what Dostoyevsky had meant when he’d said, “Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” I didn’t know yet that the parts of us that are the most painful, the most difficult, the least susceptible to healing are the very parts that bind us most to others.

Fred and I are both ex-drunks who met while trying to stay sober. Drinking or not, alcoholics can be challenging: insecure, touchy, charming one minute and sociopathic the next. I’m no exception (God knows), and neither is Fred. I’m old enough to realize that I’m perpetually drawn to emotionally distant, wounded males, a dynamic that has played out with peculiar intensity in Fred’s case. The first time I gave him a ride home, he complained the whole way about his shyster landlord and the Filipino “butt pirate” (Fred’s term for a homosexual male) who cut his hair. Then, when I dropped him off, he said, “Thanks, angel. That was reeeaaal nice.” I’ve been stuck with him ever since.

Ours is an unlikely friendship. I live to read; Fred cracks a Louis L’Amour novel every other year. I like polenta; he eats frozen pizza. Fred has little use for what he calls the “hipster crowd.” Anything “artsy-fartsy,” whacked-out, criminally insane, or unneighborly will cause him to say, “Welcome to LA.” Anything you have to lose, yield up, or let go of: “Goodbye, Arizona.” Every Veterans Day: “All gave some, and some gave all,” coupled with a half-hour harangue on the commies at Social Security, the morons at Medicare, and the swindlers in the White House.

But Fred’s always giving a few bucks to someone in need, a struggling drunk or a down-and-out prostitute (especially if there’s a chance she’ll sleep with him). When he’s in the hospital, as he has been a good part of the last few years, he’s often helping a fellow patient with his slippers or jumping up to whisk away straws, jello lids, and syringe wrappers from the floor. But what with his abusive childhood, his tour in “’Nam,” and the years of drinking, he can also suddenly snap at me or come out fighting. He’s turned on me for no reason. He’s given me the silent treatment.

In the time that I’ve known him, I’ve often shown up for a visit in spite of my better judgment. I’ve had Fred over for holidays. I’ve sat by his hospital bed, where he lay unconscious, and prayed. I’ve dragged myself over to see him when I’m exhausted, when I feel I should be writing, when I’m hungry, stressed, and lonely. I don’t know what it is in Fred that invites, or even allows, such loyalty. Maybe it’s the times he’s taken me out to lunch on his fixed income and, by the time I’ve arrived home, left a message on my machine: “That was real nice of you, angel. Thank you so much for coming out. You always make me feel so good. You’re a real friend.”

Maybe it’s the many nights he’s called me over the years just to “check in.” I’ll ask what he had for supper, and he’ll reply, “Aw, one of them tv dinners. Then I got my candies all lined up, my cinnamon and my Milky Ways, and my water. Hell, I’ll be in my robe by eight.”

Maybe it’s that he’s suffered a series of illnesses that would have felled an ox, never mind a guy who, before he got sick, weighed maybe 140 pounds. He’s gone from occasional visits to the er, to frequent stays in whatever icu will take him, to his current “home,” the board-and-care section of the West Los Angeles VA Hospital. “It’s 8:43 am here on Friday, March 27,” he’ll say when he calls, always careful to leave the exact time and date. (Fred has more than a touch of ocd.) He says, “Please come.” He says, “You’re important to me.” How can I — who almost never ask anyone to come see me, because I’m afraid they won’t — say no? How can I, trained since birth not to “bother” anybody, turn a deaf ear to someone willing to reveal such naked need?

Fred’s mellowed of late, or perhaps bowed to providence, but he can still be ornery. “Come sit beside me, sweetie,” he’ll say, patting the bed, and a minute later, with an edge to his voice, “Ya mind moving your leg, pal?” Or, when I get up to leave, “Bring me a bag of m&ms next time you come, couldja? Just the regular kind, no peanuts.” But the kicker was a few months ago when he asked me for two Kit Kats and — selfish, thoughtless oaf that I am — I purchased an eight-pack, then drove across town to the va and delivered them.

“I said two, not eight,” he groused. “That’s so alcoholic! If one’s good, five is better.”

“Good to see you, too,” I told him, and I turned on my heel and left.

That is it, I thought. I need to learn how to set boundaries. I need to get rid of the deadwood in my life. So the next day I fired off a note: “Where were you when I had cancer? When have you ever picked me up? When have you ever gone out of your way? I’ve done a thousand things for you, and in all the years we’ve known each other, you’ve done about two for me” — which was not strictly true, but I was pissed.

There, I thought. I’ve finally washed my hands of that conniving ingrate. I fully expected him to strike back like the rattlesnake he was.

A few days later he called. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said on my machine. “I hope we get a chance to talk soon.”

That’s when I realized I was in for the long haul. That’s when I realized that something deep in me needed Fred, and — for different reasons — something deep in Fred needed me. That’s when I realized that if I wanted to be there for Fred, he didn’t owe me a thing, not even a thank-you.

After that, something shifted. I’d drive over to the hospital alone, battling the traffic on the 405, and instead of feeling sorry for myself, I’d notice the light streaming down over the San Gabriel Mountains. Instead of feeling stressed at one more errand to fit into my schedule, I began to look forward to just sitting there with someone for whom I didn’t have to try to be scintillating or euphorically happy, or even happy at all.

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