I really can't say that I had a lot of good friends when I was in elementary school. I thought I did, but I really didn't. However, I had one good friend in the fourth grade that I actually considered my best friend. His name (for our purposes) was Wild.
Wild was probably about a year older than me and had gotten left back at some point. When you got right down to it, we probably didn't have that much in common, but we enjoyed calling each other best friend. When you're that young, there's not a lot else that seems to matter.
He actually came over and spent the night at my house one Friday night. We had a good time. We went out to a junior high basketball game. I kind of made a fool of myself by running out on the floor at one point. (However, I should add that the basketball court floor was very wide and I was yards away from where the game was happening.) My mother yelled at me in front of him because she felt like everyone could see me doing that and it embarrassed her. As you'll see in future posts, that happened a lot. To tell the truth, I got really bored at school sporting events.
I honestly don't remember what we did on Saturday. I know he just spent the one night and that we had a good time, but he never spent the night again.
The next year, I wound up going to a different elementary school, so Wild and I were no longer best friends. Back then, if you were a kid, you were not permitted to use the phone to call ANYONE. If grandparents or aunts or uncles wanted to talk to us, they would call us, or your parents would call them for you. But you NEVER picked up that phone to make an outgoing call.
When we wound up back together at the Intermediate school for 6th grade, we did not resume our "best" friendship. We didn't even have any classes together. That's a real friendship killer. (However, in a later post, you will see how he stepped up to defend me at one point.)
We are now going to fast-forward about four more years. I was a junior in high school. Wild had dropped out when he turned 16. Back then, you could drop out at that age. Most students who dropped out either worked for the refinery or the City of Artesia. I guess Wild went to the refinery.
Around this time, my mother saw his name in the paper in which he was arrested in connection with a shooting. What supposedly happened is that Wild and a friend of his were out in a field at night and were just shooting guns in the air. One of the bullets struck and killed someone. He wound up spending time in jail for that.
A few years later, I was in college. I went to a convenience store near the campus and I heard someone call my name. He looked very familiar. I then realized who it was. "Wild!" Despite my excitement my first thought was, "When did you get out of jail?" He appeared to have been chatting up the girl behind the counter. We exchanged pleasantries and I never saw him again.
About a year and a half ago, Ms. Ogolon and I were driving home from a road trip. My phone rang. I was driving, so I could not answer it. Whoever called left a message. Ms. Ogolon called the voicemail and said it sounded like it was Bob Suchandsuch. I said, "I don't know a Bob Suchandsuch, but I know a Wild Suchandsuch." The phone rang several more times before we got home. I was never able to pick it up and no more messages were left. When we got home, I called the voicemail. It was indeed Wild.
He had gotten my phone number by calling my father. He basically called to apologize about stuff that happened in the past. Now, I have been the victim of a lot of mistreatment in my youth, but he was definitely not one of my tormentors. Over the course of the very long conversation (with him sounding drunk), I told him not to worry about it.
I had previously told my father that, under no circumstances, he is NOT to give my phone number out. What he was supposed to do is take their information and call me with the message. He had done this a couple of times before and it hadn't been a problem. I called him up the next day. He apologized and said that Wild sounded drunk and was very insistent on getting my number, so he gave it to him to get him off the phone. I then told him that if anyone else ever needed to get a hold of me, they could look me up on Google and find my e-mail address. That way, he wouldn't have to take a message.
Over the next few months, Wild would call me up. Sometimes, I would answer the phone. Sometimes I wouldn't. It's bad that my main impulse was to get him off the phone, but we really didn't have much in common anymore. After he called a few more times and I didn't pick up, I stopped hearing from him. However, I had let go of him as a friend almost 40 years ago, so there was no real emotion there. I do feel bad that he wasn't as willing to let go.
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