The Phone Call

I hadn't talked to Aaron since his wedding which was about a year and a half ago. When the phone rang last night, I was on the treadmill, running, sweating profusely and trying to lie to myself saying it was all worth it. The insistent harshness of a phone is a burden to my sanity; it tears into my ear drums - interrupts all train of thought. In short, the phone generally puts me in a bad mood. One ring. Two rings. I ignored it (I just assumed Christine would get it as I was in the midst of something). After finishing my 'workout' (I always wondered why it was called that) I traipsed up the stairs, legs shaking, holding on to the railing for dear life and asked Christine who was on the phone.

"I don't know. I didn't answer it." She responded.
"Why didn't you answer it?"
"I was in the middle of something." I looked and saw that she was in her favorite reclining chair wrapped up in a blanket reading a book. She was caught up in the wonderful world of imagination, like good ol' Mr. Rogers used to say, and the insistence of the phone would not persuade her from her reverie. Annoyed - I noticed how I had placed more importance on my pastime than hers (I'm a selfish little beast sometimes), I went to check my phone and a blast from the past came up.

Aaron.

When I first met him Aaron was a long-haired, surfer dude, guitar playing, Minnesotan who had spent quite a bit of time in California. Almost all of his sentences were added with an emphatic word: "Man." For example: "You should have seen the great waves I saw in California, Man." or "I love these beans, Man." And my favorite "Yeah, totally, Man." I didn't actually know what that meant but it was usually stated after something positive happened in his life like playing an exciting guitar riff or eating at McDonalds.

Aaron and I hit it off instantly. He was the kind of 'rock star' that I had always wanted to be. As we were preparing to travel the country playing Christian rock and roll music, it was nice to have someone on our band that had actually played rock and roll music before. Oh wait, our drummer did, too, but the ladies and I were ignorantly unaware of what it meant to play rock music. My idea of rock in the early 90's was to throw some guitar into an MC Hammer song. Too Legit, Too Legit to quit - squealing guitar and then a few dance moves. I digress.

I joined the band as the bass guitar player having played all of three months for my jazz choir in college - now that's true rocking out. After a week of training, the three men on our team staying up late every night getting to know each other, we traveled to a place in South Dakota for even more team bonding and training. Our team, Watermark (truly a rock and roll name if you've ever heard it - but I suppose it's better than Captive Free - I hope I don't get accosted for saying that. I suppose it's like having a rock band called Savage Garden: that's a real scary name.) we all rode in the same 8 passenger van laughing and talking for the 12 hour drive to the remote western parts of South Dakota, Lee Valley ranch to be exact.

As we entered the ranch, the sun greeted us. It was almost like taking our own personal vehicle into the Garden of Eden. All the teams (12 teams about 80 people) exited the vans and glanced around in dropped-jawed wonder. The smell of pine trees was overwhelming; it was quiet except for the groaning, grunting stretching that was emanating from disembarking passengers. The director of the camp told us that we would each be staying in our own personal tents on wooden flats with mattresses. He happened to say that not all mattresses are equal and forgetting one of the greatest of Jesus' sayings "The first shall be last and the last first" Aaron looked at me and said, "The first shall be the first to get the best mattress, Man." And off he sped across the valley toward the little white abodes in the trees.

We secured for ourselves two of the best and, it so happened,we were right next to each other. After staking our claim we went back to the van to retrieve or things and placed them in the tents - setting up tent, if you will, placing our bags and necessities in proper positiosn. We were going to be there for a week.

As it so happens, there were so many things to do at Lee Valley that at times I forgot to do things that had been natural for the first 22 years of my life. I forgot to brush my hair, I forgot to change clothes (I had a perpetual pair of overalls that eventually stood up by themselves) and I decided that bathing was optional. I justified it by telling myself I was preserving the environment by not using so much water.

Throughout these days of, what now seems, bliss, Aaron and I decided to play some practical jokes on each other. First there were venial sins that could be forgiven with great ease - pine cones in the sleeping bag, dirt in the orange juice - easy stuff. But then, trying to outdo each other, Aaron ramped up the 'sin' and went directly to mortal. I didn't know this until that moment, but if you put raisins in someone else's toothpaste, the raisins absorb the toothpaste and get stuck in the tube thus denying the owner a chance to cleanse ones chompers. Well, Aaron snuck into my tent one afternoon after procuring a few raisins from lunch. When I went to brush my teeth at night found that I would be borrowing toothpaste from someone else. As I went to borrow from Christine (we hadn't been romantically involved yet, but there was still a stirring somewhere in the pit of my stomach), I could hear Aaron giggling away with his braying, donkey like laugh.

I vowed revenge.

The next night before sleep, Jill, another one of our teammates, and I dug up some earth worms and placed them under Aaron's pillow. As Aaron went to bed that night, we silently waited outside his tent and then the sound, "Aaaaah!!!" a rustling and then the giggling started. I can't actually tell you what he mumbled under his breath, but it was funny to hear him deal with his own conflicting emotions. Jill and I covered our mouths and headed back to our own respective tents thinking that I had finally gotten the best of him.

All was forgiven in the morning and a few days past. Every once in a while I would catch Aaron staring at me, expectantly as if waiting for something. Finally, when he could contain himself no longer, he approached me sniffing the air. "Don't you ever take a shower, Man?"

As the rules of my life had changed, and laving had become optional, I said, "I'll get to it soon."
"You stink, Man."
"Fine, I'll go and shower." Off to the barn I went (strangely enough, the showering area was in an old shed). After washing off the dirt and grime from the week I went back to my tent and I happened to notice Aaron sitting in his tent peeking out the zippered door like a prairie dog examining the outer world from his burrow.
"What are you looking at?" I asked.
"Nothing, Man." He was smiling like a fox in front of a chicken house.
I entered my tent and proceeded to change. Then, I took my deodorant from my toiletries bag and took off the cap. There, to my horror, was one of the worms that we had put under Aaron's pillow. The worm had absorbed the chemicals from the deodorant and turned a beautiful aquamarine color. The smell was revolting.

"AARON!!!!" I shouted. All that I heard from the short distance was the hyenic laughter and zipper being opened quickly. I showed him the corpse.
Through his laughter I said, "You've committed murder. That's one of the commandments, Mister. You've just purchased a one way ticket to hell." Aaron held up his hands. "Nuh uh. YOU committed murder. If you would shower more than once this week, the worm would have been saved." I smiled at him. He smiled back.

There truly is nothing like a good friend.

We gave the worm a proper Christian burial with music and prayers.

So I got a call from Aaron. It had taken him a long time to settle down and get married; and when it finally did, he married a wonderful woman, Beth, from Wisconsin.

I called him back and even the way he answered brought back a flood of emotions of every memory from almost fifteen years ago. The same cadence to his voice, the same inflections - the same laughter. His voice was almost like being wrapped up in that old blanket that you've kept in a drawer for a while. Good friends are people who, when you talk to them after an extended period of time, never forget where the conversation stopped. I realized that I'd missed him without realizing I'd been away from him. In some ways, all good friends and family take up residence inside your heart and arrange themselves in their own personal tents. They set up shop, placing favorite memories within easy reach. My memories of Aaron keep getting better after all these years. I would guess that all of you have specific people that keep getting more beautiful with age. And that is one of the rare beauties and mysteries of life: the imprints of other people on your own soul.

Aaron called to say that he and Beth are expecting a child. I am so happy for the world to get a replicate of a good friend of mine.

Sometimes life really is good.