My mother drove me to my sister's house around 4:30p.m. where I collected the keys to my nephew's car so that I can borrow it and drive to a bar called Buffalo Wild Wings in the Great East Plaza adjacent the Eastwood Mall in a town called Niles. There, at 6p.m., three friends from my high school graduating class and I will meet and try not to bore each other to death.
But first I'm charged with picking up my nephew Bill from the McDonald's where he works. I'm ten minutes late because there's no petrol in the car, and the first gas station I find along the entire stretch of burnt-out old West Market Street is on the edge of downtown Warren. The name on the station is 'McQuaid's,' the surname of one of my best friends and neighbours from my youth who will no doubt not be in attendance this evening at the wing bar. No one's heard from him since the first Gulf War, where he was toyed with until his mind snapped just enough to make him disappear, or so it seems.
My nephew and I discuss the folly of politics and the state of the American government, which brings us no end of laughs. I drop him off at home, the same place from which I retrieved his car only 30 minutes before. We do a lot of circular driving in my family.
I like Bill very much. He's not got a sentimental bone in his body, and every inch of him loves life and laughter in the moment and not a second longer. The car stops, he jumps out and waves goodbye. I shout a dumb joke at him. He laughs, of course, and then I'm off to rejoin the past.
As I drive, snow starts to fall. Three miles later, it's so heavy I cannot see more than about 20 metres in front of the car. I slow to 20 miles per hour in a 55 zone and try to find the road lines. Creeping down the exit ramp at Ohio route 46, I'm on the edge of a sort of highway panic and consider pulling the car off the road. I've not driven in yonks, let alone on what has turned into the wrong side of the road in a raging winter white-out. The other cars' lights reassure me, and I follow them.
I cannot see any structures along the highway and count about three lights before turning right. A snowy tug-of-war ensues with other drivers lost in the car park. We're circling the Home Depot, I believe, and I have no idea where the Great East Plaza is anymore.
Route 46 comes up again (speaking of driving in circles) and I take it to the right. Two inches of snow have fallen in 20 minutes, then, just as suddenly, it all stops. A few right turns and a dozen speed bumps later, I've got the wing bar in sight.
Marian Robison (nee Layfield) and Veronica Diles are the first there. I haven't seen Marian in 15 years. She doesn't look like a mother of three in her 40s. She looks like a woman with an uninitiated uterus of about 33. Veronica is thinner than the last time I saw her. Apparently, marriage is doing her some favours. I'm very pleased to see them both.
A few minutes later, Tom Gober arrives. He's looking very tanned. He's expanded his business empire to include a 2nd enterprise and has moved to Akron. He seems as relaxed and easy-going as ever, and he doesn't look as old as he is, either.
We order some drinks and spend two hours in those swirling sorts of conversations that only people who've known each other since they were in nappies can have. Then the Rev. John Jaros turns up.
John and I haven't seen each other in 15 years either. We were very good friends in high school, and I don't know where the distance came from. But it evaporated almost instantly, and he slipped right into the fray.
As much as I've been happy to see the back of northeastern Ohio, I'm almost wistful for carefree adolescence. These people were not just pals: they were, and are, true friends. I was a lonely gay boy, and these nutters, these ornery, drinking, swearing, wonderful goofballs, propped me up and prevented me from feeling hopelessly alone.
We keep at it until nearly 10:00 before the steadily falling snow outside and increasingly severe travel advisories on the television screens convince us it's time to go. John helps me sweep snow off my borrowed car (Note to sister and family: get a brush and scraper for Bill's car. Thanks.), and we intend to meet again this week before I return to London. We probably won't, but the expression of our desire is sincere.
The drive home is more like a crawl, but I feel safe, warm and buoyed up. I concede that, to varying degrees, I have been hiding from people most of my adult life. I also concede that this has been foolish.
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