Wanted: Friend

I last saw Robert the evening he joined us for dinner at our house.  It wasn’t the first invitation that took. He’d once texted twenty minutes before his scheduled arrival that he had to beg off because of his peaking anxiety at the prospect of sharing dinner with me and my wife. It was disappointing and a little confusing, though ultimately understandable and forgivable. We invited again.

Robert can best be described as eccentric–the type of man who clothes himself in thrift store finery and fedoras.  He didn’t always smell so good, even beyond the persistent ashtray smell of the cigarettes he smoked. Less kind observers might note that he showered himself and cleaned his clothes far less often than seemed necessary.  The words “smelly weirdo” might be used by the least kind of us.

Through this fog of hygiene habits shone a persnickety intelligence that marked every interaction with him that I either experienced or witnessed. I can only hope my own brightness shines so strongly.  My weirdness surely blinds some to whatever else might come from me.

From our first meeting, I had viewed Robert as a potential friend, quirks or no.  He is smart and funny, and I saw in him, too, some of the hauntedness that I carry.  I don’t have many friends. Beyond some of my siblings and my wife, none really.

I look forward to making some in this fifth decade of my life, and I certainly hoped to change Robert from a guy who chatted and laughed with me while at work into a person I could call in crisis, or just for a movie, or to share life’s joys and sorrows, or just some food over a midday meal.

When he finally came, the dinner Iris made was wonderful and we all got along, laughing and talking as we ate.  Still, Robert seemed nervous, but that behavior was consistent with what I’d seen from him in the workplace where we’d first met.  It’s easy to forgive foibles one shares.

Iris and I each ate some of the awful BigY dessert Robert brought after we’d all settled into the living room’s comfort.  The remainder of the sticky, store bought chocolate treat was thrown out as soon as he drove away that night. It was kind of him to have brought it.

We talked and our evening progressed.  We watched some comedy on television and shared some laughter at the silly narcissists bouncing around the screen. It was the most demonstrative I’d ever seen Robert, being more used to his somewhat serious and engaged manner in the workplace.  He was the sort of guy who ensconced at his desk, surrounded by piles of paperwork, hunched behind his keyboard and monitor.

I learned that I was right about that ghost I thought was plaguing Robert.  He fleshed out the details of his difficult childhood–beatings and emotional privation in his years as an only child.  His later choices in adulthood, his time as a devotee of Vicodin and vodka, did not entirely surprise me.

I found myself happy that he’d come through that period seeming whole, working a good job and making a way in the world.  By lots of objective measures, Robert was successful. We did not serve any alcohol, nor did he request it. That was fine.

At the door, Robert hugged me on his way out into the winter cold.  He did so with a fervency I’d normally associate with reunion of long-lost relatives.  I could smell the cigarettes and his different standards of personal care as he clung to and thanked me. Then he was gone.

I had emailed Robert a couple of times in what wound up being a couple of years.  Brief, even one-word replies were all I got back, friendly and prompt as they sometimes were. I had left the job that united us months before we shared that dinner. As mentioned, friends are scarce in my life and world.  I lack the knowledge of the logistics and frequency of contact so necessary to building relationships. So we drifted, each our own way.

Life went on.  We moved. I had several operations to fix my crumbling bones.  I spent a lot of time at home with my wife, much of it horizontal on our mattress. Not even family really visited, at least not from my family.  I began to think of Robert again, and friendship. I sought Robert. I knew from checking the website of my former employer that Robert, too, had become “former”, and I had no sense of where he had gone.

Consistent with my social reticence, I did not call our old employer to ask after him.  I had only his old work e-mail, and a phone number for him that told me only that it was no longer in service.  I did what all of us do then–I asked the internet where my kind-of friend could be found. I learned just exactly how haunted my would-be friend is, and ever was.

Robert had turned himself in on the active warrant in his name and was arrested in Connecticut, hours from where we’d worked together. He’d been living in the same town in which I’d grown up, having landed a quite good job at a town institution. His address, as listed in several of the news reports posted to the web, was on the same street as a long-term family friend.  I had ridden bikes on the street, played capture the flag across its yards.

Let me tell you why this matters.

I was multiply, serially, sexually abused as a child, from maybe age four to age eleven.  By relatives, but then, also, not-relatives. My family, my neighborhood, my school, my church acted in concert to squelch and stop my voice, on this subject and many, many others.  I learned to live in suspicion, distrust and uncertainty. I learned to doubt everyone, including myself. I’ve always known. Always. I could not talk about any of it, even to myself.

Statistically, there was strong probability for me to have turned out quite differntly than I did–incapacitated, imprisoned, interred.  My neighborhood of the flies, where I was almost drowned by others, hit in the face with a 2×4, tortured and teased, would have been more than enough to strangle my trust and twist my psyche.

But then, the other stuff, the manipulation and coercion, the brutality, nakedness and disregard. All this happened, it was real and happened to my and I can finally acknowledge it. That place, those people, formed who I am and was.

So see me, Catholic school boy, biking and playing near my friend’s on Crooked Mile Road.  Robert lived on that street when his arrest warrant was issued, seeking him for obsecentiy, promoting a minor in obscene performance and illegal possession of 45 images of child pornography. These images were found across various digital devices he owned. He turned himself in, ultimately. I don’t know even how he knew to do so. At arraignment, he pled not guilty.

He seemed far more forthcoming at time of arrest, at least according to news posted to the web, admitting to a long-term obsession with sexualized images of children, claiming never to have acted upon his fantasies, seeking assistance from AA.  One source cited his own self-destructive ideation at time of arrest. He knew his life was over, they tell us, regardless of conviction or sentence, because of the nature of his profession and the severity of the charges.

The images accompanying these stories reveal a doomed-looking man, a person in deep despair, standing in a courtroom with a lawyer.  One article also notes the grim faces of his parents behind him. I think perpetrators of all sorts should despair in trial settings.  After his plea, I can find nothing more of his legal story on the internet, though that court date was almost a year ago.

I am not sure what I would say to Robert now, if I even knew how to reach him.  That I played in the streets as a boy where he lately lived. That I understand despair.  That my childhood was no paradise, either. None of these things really suffice, alone or in combination, to encompass the welter of feelings that greeted my discovery of his offenses.

I understand now, though, why no real friendship developed between us.  It could not have. His secrets were deep, ugly and shameful. Mine too.  He really decided for us both that the strands of our lives would never be entwined.  I thank him for this mercy.

He kept me ignorant of the damning choices he had made.  Some grace kept me from similar decisions, if not the shame from the choices others made for me.  I never imposed my ghosts on others. I would give him some of what I have, that grace, if I could. God will need to be the intermediary.