I met Eric in early Fall during our senior year of high school, shortly after my folks uprooted me from the heart of the City where I had spent my entire life to that point for the greener pastures of Suburbia. This sudden upheaval disoriented me. Virtually overnight, I was displaced, alone and friendless, living in a strange neighborhood, going to a new high school.
At first, whenever I had free time between classes, you’d find me hanging out on the periphery of the large student lounge, listening to the jukebox music, sneaking outside to smoke a cigarette, but mostly quietly observing the various small cliques in action, identifying the key players. In due course, I was welcomed to one such group; several of us remain close friends to the present day, and Eric is one of these.
Among our group, Eric was the only one I’d see in a classroom as we were assigned to the same Advanced Placement English section. I appreciated his intelligence. He respected mine. However, unlike me, Eric was always a serious, nose-to-the-grindstone student. Therefore, upon our high school graduation, Eric attended a prestigious national university and received a top-tier education. Meanwhile, for poor reasons I don’t recall any more, I stubbornly refused our large state university –a good one, to be sure- instead, opting to attend a second-rate directional school.
Eric met his first wife, who came from a wealthy family, while attending university. He was the first of us to marry, a disaster of epic proportion as it turns out.
After law school, Eric was hired by a reputable firm here. He and his wife obtained a large, well appointed apartment and furnished it lavishly, including a grand piano for her use. One day, he came home to find an empty apartment and a terse note from his wife, stating she had decided to depart for points West. To add insult to injury, her father, a very prominent attorney in another city, promptly sued Eric to recover the money that he had invested in Eric’s future.
In his despair, Eric quickly fell into the arms of an upstairs neighbor. Unfortunately, she proved to be even worse than the first one, and following their inevitable divorce, she made it her life’s work to destroy Eric financially and emotionally. I did as much as I could to prevent this from happening, including making frequent forays with him to a nightlife district. These efforts did nothing to help Eric meet someone new but provided a brief distraction and a bit of fun. And, in the process, I became a decent disco dancer.
Roughly during this same time, Eric lost his lucrative job as an in-house lawyer for a large, international business, caught up amidst the executive politics and corporate power plays of individuals well above his pay grade. By then, my law practice was well established, so I offered Eric the opportunity to work with me. We formed a partnership (technically, a limited liability corporation) that had lasted nearly twenty-five years when Lee died, and I quickly lost interest in working full time. During our working years, we were like the Odd Couple: I played “Felix” to Eric’s “Oscar.”
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Last night, I enjoyed dinner with Eric and his current wife, Julie. Bringing things to the present, Julie and Eric have been married for many years and have two grown sons. I consider her a good friend.
As for Eric, except for speaking to him on the phone a few times, we have had no contact since January, before Lola and I departed for Arizona. It didn’t take long for us to fall back into our familiar patterns. After all these years, we are a pair of comfortable old shoes.
