Reunion
When it was finally sent to me, Bret had written “I’d like to hope that the Evan, Bret, Reed and Andrew foursome will someday join in the same place again, if at least for a few days, and raise a glass of beer, but I doubt somehow this will ever happen. The radicals have split, the partying is done and the past will never be relived.”
It’s a comment that has stayed with me for 25 years—that thought that maybe you can’t ever go home again, back to a place that most likely never even existed in the first place. I used to wonder if we ever would have that beer someday, but as the years past, I wound up just thinking about it less and less until if you had asked me just a few months ago I would have told you no. But a lot can change in a few months and last week after all my old friends had been found, I found myself near the cusp of a prophesy only I knew existed. I was gonna grab my friends, sit them down at a table, buy them a beer and read a passage from a faded old yearbook. In fact, the yearbook was already packed for the trip.
Then last Tuesday night, some 36 hours before my plane left for Vegas things changed—I got a phone call from Bret saying that he wouldn’t be able to make it. He was apologetic and disappointed, but the fact of the matter is he’d been unemployed for the past few months and there just wasn’t the money for him to go. I tried to not act as disappointed as I felt; after all, I knew that if he could have made it he would have. Besides, from the sound of it, no one was more disappointed than he was. Wasn’t no point in rubbing salt into what I’m sure was an pretty sore wound.
But over the course of that night it just didn’t sit very well with me. Here I had done such a good job of asking the universe for what I wanted, written it down, used names and everything and right when I had gotten the closest I have ever been to that beer, the universe was snatching it away. Being the youngest in my family I hate not getting my way.
I knew complaining wasn’t the answer, first off because I believe the universe really hates whiners, probably even more than I do, and second, because I had gotten nearly everything I’d asked for, so how could I complain about just one friend. Complaining wasn’t going to get Bret to Las Vegas.
I didn’t know what would and I had just a little more than 24 hours to figure it out..
The idea struck me pretty early on after our conversation that night, that if we were too pool our resources it wouldn’t cost much per person to get him a plane ticket, but I knew that simply asking the group for this was treading into some uncharted territory. You can’t just say to people you haven’t talked to in 25 years “you know, Bret was a good friend of mine, who through no fault of his own, is down on his luck a bit, I’m looking to fly him out to Vegas, care to cough up some money?” No, the universe was watching: The universe that had just given me close to everything I’d asked for. I was smart enough to know not to just go over the universes head and start begging, as that would make me appear ungrateful and I wouldn’t want it to think I was ungrateful. I just needed to be smart.
The next morning after Bret wrote to the group that he wasn’t going to make it, I sent a short reply email bemoaning that fact, and closed with this.
“…I would take all the money I was going to spend on a stupid steak Friday night and buy you a ticket if it was enough...and that's the truth.”
I didn’t exactly ask, I just kind of pulled the pin on the handgrenade-seed-of-hope and tossed it out there. One of my classmates Kim, bless her heart, took the little explosive kernel I offered, and planted it into a pot.
“…I too am bummed that Bret can't make it, even more so since he seems really bummed. I hope this doesn't come across as tacky cuz my heart is in the right place, but is it a money thing? If so, I bet if we all pitched in it wouldn't require much from each person to get him a plane ticket. I would be more than happy to pitch in (and extra) for that cause. I don't want to offend anyone (and I could be WAY off base) and talking about money is always a bit dodgy, but we could treat it as a birthday present.”
People started sending emails saying to count them in for whatever the cost and by the early afternoon we had enough people committed that we could afford to make him the offer.
However, I hadn’t really thought the whole thing through. It turned out I didn’t even know how to get a hold of Bret to make him that offer since when he called me the night before I didn’t ask him his phone number, and when I went and looked at the caller I.D. the next morning, it just said unlisted. I knew where his brother Barry worked so I looked his number up on the web, and gave him a call. Of course Barry had decided to take the day off from work to get ready for the reunion and wouldn’t be in. I tried calling information for his home number but it was unlisted. Time was ticking away and I knew that with every passing hour the chances of pulling this off were getting further and further away. We put out a message to everyone coming to Vegas that we needed either Barry or Bret’s phone number and by early evening, Marie somehow managed to get a hold of Barry through an email, and after they spoke called Kim with Bret’s cell phone number. Kim asked if I would make the call and ask him and so at 5 o’clock on the night before we were meeting in Vegas, I did.
I was nervous and it took me a while to get the words out right. I told him that I had a present from all the birthdays I’d forgotten and I wondered if he would let me give him this gift. I said that everyone had decided that it was unacceptable that he not show up and so had all pooled their money to buy him a ticket out there. He was gracious and said he felt honored but he would need some time to figure out the logistics. I said, how does an hour sound, and he agreed. 45 minutes later he had it figured out and by 8 o’clock that night had a ticket in his hand saying he’d be the last of us to arrive, coming in at 11:40 the next night.
We waited until the last night to drink it—four pints of Guinness from the tap. By that time we were the same old friends again. The same 15 year olds who 25 years ago never really got to say goodbye and who had just spent the better part of three days reliving a life they hardly remember.
At the time, I thought I was pretty damn clever, but now in hindsight, I realize that the universe had a plan for us all along. Our gift to my friend was just the universes gift to all of us—the gift that says our love can cover the world, and 25 years later just don’t mean shit.
You know what? That beer couldn’t have tasted any better.
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