There was this weirdness once, I was playing my regular gig at Pasta Bella a couple nights after I finished my master's and had some revelations surrounding the pervert producer I'd been working with on a new record. I must've been ovulating or something, but my hair was down, and iii was there and he had that Look. The Look you get from dudes who fall victim to the siren effect, bless their hearts. It's not something I aim for, it just happens and I know the Look when I see it. So anyways, later that night we were at Goodfellows and he kissed me and it was weird and I made excuses as to why we couldn't evolve (his ex-mutual friend of mine was my first reason). Haha, so he calls me the next day (my phone accidentally recorded it so listened to it over and over for years!) and he's all "hey how're you doing?" and I said "I'm doing well, ya know..." and he interrupts me and blurts out, "Hey why'd we make out last night?" and I'm all uh "I don't know man, it was your idea!!". So funny! So we were alright and it wasn't that big a deal. It was just funny we'd been so dumb.
I think it was after this, we'd had an angry whiskey-pounding night. I mean we were bitterly broken-hearted, suffering it through together. Well I felt like fighting or having someone beat me up so I talked him into a Fight Club sort of thing. We went out in to the alley behind Goodfellows and had a few swings for a couple seconds, nothing too major but still satisfying, until he dropped me on my elbow. That sucked. And I was like, "Oww man, I'm hungry!". So we walked up the hill to Hector's for burgers. Mmmmm.
Well, he was leaving a few months later for his first big boy job out of college at Carolina, so for whatever reason I started thinking that him and me together made perfect sense. He'd been off and on with some ho we'll call Maria that none of his other friends liked (you know how that goes). It was dumb. I think I wanted to feel that way about somebody and he seemed logical and safe, but of course after he got up to DC he was cool enough to reject me straight up and say he'd rather be with her, which was aight. We're still buds.
I think it was after a long while that he'd been up in DC learning Arabic or something at Georgetown that he finally came home to Raleigh to visit. He came out to meet me in his driveway, and he lived in a bunch of woods off the road. We stood out in the driveway shooting baskets for no less than an hour, just talking. We were surrounded by the most brilliant display of North Carolina in the autumn - oranges, yellows, bright red, it was surreal but fitting. I'll never forget that afternoon.
Now, we aren't as close as we used to be. Wish we could talk more but he works on the other side of the world half the time and we both have our different lives. iii is just another very special guy friend who has graced my life (Bill Cape would be a comparable example) and I miss his company.
