Yesterday, the Official VM Wife and I headed into NYC to see a performance of Measure for Measure. It was directed by John Castro, a lifelong friend who stopped talking to me in September 2003 because of a girl. I think.
I mean, I know she’s a girl, but I’m not exactly sure exactly what John’s reasons were for not returning my calls for a year, since he’s never told me. Even though he finally deigned to write me, he’s never managed to put together a free evening to get together with me, and his responses to e-mails are intermittent at best.
He missed my wedding last March, for what I assume were reasons relating to the founding of his new theater company, Hipgnosis. That invite was pretty much my last attempt at salvaging 30 years of friendship, but I figured I’d perform some sort of friend-like duty and see his play before its run finishes tonight.
It sounds like a going-through-of-motions, I admit, but I prefer to describe it as an “echo of friendship.”
God, that all sounds like it was a depressing evening, but it wasn’t.
In fact, I had a great time, because another friend of mine, whom I haven’t caught up with in 11 years, joined us for dinner and the play. This guy was a Navy vet I knew in college, and we hadn’t seen each other since I took him to the airport in 1995 to send him to his teaching gig in South Korea. He had just helped me move into my new/old home, and we had some adventures getting the moving truck up from Annapolis to Ringwood.
Cap’n Nemo (fortunately, I didn’t have a college nickname (that I know of)) was filled with riotous stories about his sudden deportation from SK and his life in the last decade, his unique political & linguistic perspective, and obligatory college reminiscences. He’d never seen me drink–much less drink gin–and when we made introductions yesterday, he laughingly replied to “This is my wife, Amy” with “Never thought I’d hear that from you.” It was great to see how we’ve changed and could still stay close.
Joining us for drinks but not dinner or Shakespeare, was my buddy Elayne and her friend Jill. We had (what I consider to be) a lovely time, shooting the breeze, telling stories, and crisscrossing our lives into one another’s. Elayne joined us early in a bar where Amy & I ended up to get out of the heat.
We watched the second half of the France-Brazil match, then watched a loud patron hit on the Czech bartendress, with whom I bonded over the virtues of pop music, as characterized by Hanson’s “Mmmbop!” which was playing on the jukebox.
Is the play the thing? I suppose I should get around to writing about it, but I don’t have much to say. I enjoyed it, but the theater-space was overbearingly hot. I haven’t read the play, so I didn’t have any preconceptions about how it should be staged. I don’t even know how to critique actors at this point, except to say that none of them embarrassed themselves, and no one seemed out of place, although the Duke came off as a bit wooden in his soliloquies.
John & I didn’t have any tearful reunion/reconciliation. I don’t think life works like that, at least not in your mid-30s. He happened to be outside the theater-building as the three of us were approaching, and he zoomed across the street to greet us, giving me a big-ass hug. I introduced him to Amy & Mark, and he shook hands and then headed off for whatever stuff he needed to get done, pre-play. We didn’t stick around after, but we had some fun conversation on the way to Mark’s subway entrance.
Coincidentally, another friend of 20+ years got in touch with me during the afternoon, calling while Amy & I were walking through the east village. The thing was, we heard loud cheers coming from several of the bars and restaurants on the street, so we assumed there was a goal in the France-Brazil game. Since the cellphone-call came an instant later, I figured it had to be my dad calling. It turned out to be my friend, who also missed our wedding, but just came across her present for us, and is hoping we’ll come by today to pick it up (and see her and her family).
Friendship takes a lot of turns.
(Wanna see some pix from our east Village meanderings? It’s a little photoset, but it includes a pic of the place where Amy & I had our first date).
