My friend Charlie.
For a while now he has been lost to me.
This is not a eulogy.
The friendship frayed without knots of animosity.
No storm we both weathered.
There is no pattern or patch that I can point to and say:
‘Yeah, that’s unraveled it,
‘That’s how we untethered.’
I’ve always been my own microcosm. When I was little that meant I didn’t talk much, and, up till four years old - at all. When I was a teenager that meant that whatever I said to other people was often either bland or random. Around the time I began to hang out with Charlie, however, I felt like I was in a whole other universe. Both creatively and personally. Or maybe they are just one in the same thing?
I hadn’t even met Charlie. At least, not really. Not in the normal way that normal people meet other people at normal places doing normal things. We were talking before we knew each other's names. We had even planned to travel 868 miles by plane an additional 284 miles by car to my farm in Mpumulanga before we even knew each other's names. And yes, just in case you’re wondering, that plan actually did follow through. But we at least knew each other's names by then.
Charlie was like my mirror image. Not my exact copy mind you. Far from it. More like what I just said, a mirror image. Yeah, wave your left hand in front of the mirror and the right hand waves back. Wear your favourite shirt in front of the mirror and the mirrorman will wear it (text or image) - backwards. That was our friendship. We mirrored each other the way true opposites do. Oh, and then there’s the fact that we were both named Charles. But he was ‘Charlie’ and I was ‘Charles’ waaay before we met, so we didn’t have to fight much over name rights.
By the stage I had found Charlie, discovered him for the shining freak that he was, he was already beyond infamy as - and in the adolescent stages of being - a ladies man. I, was neither a ladies man nor did I want to be at the time. I was, and still am, a romantic. Yet, one can’t help be impressed by something someone else has. And, being impressed by something someone else has, especially if you don’t have it nor are any close to getting it, tends to make you think you want to have it. And not having it tends to make you want to blame those for having it for not having enough to go around.
Besides you know what they say “Be careful of what you wish for - because you just might get it”. But then again, you also know what you feel when you hear trite sayings like that . That you’ve heard all these goddamn sayings about a billion times, understand them even. But that your life is far too boring to be considered proverbial; Far too vanilla to be mortally reckless.
Yeah, that was me. Where wisdom; common, cryptic, and everything in between; was far too interesting to be applicable. If there was ever such a thing as passive hubris, I embodied it then. It wasn't many hops from there to becoming a ladies man type myself, all conquests and consequences included. But this is all totally besides the point. This isn’t meant to be a humble brag about being a casanova. I haven’t even read his autobiography. I’m just your typical, post-free love millennial. At least, I hope, I was.
But anyways, Charlie was more than just a resource or an object of envy. Charlie was a heck of a lot of fun. A heck of a lot of fun-loving. And, to an amateur photographer who wants to play with people's faces like Michelangelo did to marble and stone - Charlie was the perfect experiment.
Eh, excuse me - candidate.
I don’t quite know where I’m going with this story about Charlie. There’s a whole lot of missing pieces. Unopened, or, perhaps, unwritten chapters. In fact, I believe having lost touch with him - keeps me from seeing the whole picture. As if it’s frozen behind my mind, waiting for the warmth of our friendship to return.
I guess I should just give him a call.
©2017 Charles Harry Mackenzie. All rights reserved.
My one and only entry into @Jasonrussell ‘s portrait contest, this week judged by 