Zero Chances of Being Friends Again
They were A Discussed Two. In the town they lived, they were easily picked out by other breathing souls. Everything about them tended to be pronounced; their laughter was more like an explosion than the ordinary sounds one got from thirty-two teeth that had been bared in amusement.
Two resourceful teenagers they were. Alfred had just made it past Nineteen while Barry had yet to cross Eighteen... And they were the best of friends, strangely inseparable; their relationship unbreakable; their minds two mutually readable slates one could liken their clarity to a crystal’s.
Barry was the sharper of the two, yet it wasn’t the reason why he always rightly guessed older Alfred’s thoughts, just as relative maturity wasn’t the reason why Alfred, the duller of the two, could constantly sense what was occupying Barry’s time and attention.
Both of them were only neighborhood acquaintances, neither of the two of the same blood group between Genotype nor Phenotype, their glowing friendship even rather belatedly struck up, after the suddenly homeless parents of Alfred moved into the same suburb as Barry’s. Nicely, they turned out to be 21st Century David and Jonathan: A Veritable Two-some for miles and miles around. If not for the indecency in two true male friends sleeping with the same female partner they would have been doing that precisely and remorselessly.
As a matter of fact, their joint sharing of the same soap, sponge, bath tub and inner wears was something one could rely upon to surmise the rest of the unsure details about the profundity of their companionship. I want to believe that a handful person must have preceded me in noting that Barry and Alfred were liberally sharing quite a number of the not-to-be-shared, but I’m sure I was the first to draw a dramatic attention to it. On the day I did, I told Barry that I should be surprised if he didn’t know thenceforth who to hold responsible for any unbudgeted rashes on his private.
“STD, you mean? Barry asked, laughing, wanting to be sure. From me, he got no further rejoinder, as I thought his question was a classically rhetorical one. Just then, with as much unperturbed air as one could radiate, Barry strode off to a nearby shop for a cooling drink. I found this reassuring. To me, it meant that his relationship with Alfred was cast-iron. He had not acted like one trying to give a serious second thought to the unusual liberties he had been extending to another with a view to taking decisions on “tightening up a bit…” meaning also, that my name should still be one of the last to be linked, some tomorrow with, any dramatic fissure in their relationship.
And there was to be one not much later: within a space of four months. Three-and Half actually.
The truth, as I was to find out, was that Barry and Alfred were able to reach the unique length they got to in their companionship, because they were abiding by every sacrificial rule of the Sacrificial Game of Friendship while the public continued to think of their relationship as a Heaven-Made, Heaven-Sealed Stuff: Barry, for example, ordering and paying for a television with video recorder and permanently lodging it in Alfred’s apartment, as though the latter were its true owner, Alfred always selflessly suspending his routines to indulge the tender company of Barry’s younger siblings, each time their parents including Barry embarked on a long, separating journey, Barry at the market picking a dozen, inner wears and toiletries and releasing Alfred half of them, sometimes more, Alfred, weeks on end, providing Barry with money for his break time lunches at school…
Tragically, by 1st August 2020, the Barry-Alfred covenant-like friendship had ceased to exist like the Old Ghana Empire, courtesy of the many swipes they took at each other between 17th July 2020, when their relationship started caving in and 31st July of the same year! One wouldn’t have believed it – a harvest of unguarded utterances slipping from the lips of each party, as they stopped bothering about their dreadfulness…
Sadly, it had all begun with Alfred’s scintillating performance in a crucial external examination in which Barry’ own final grades were not half as super or worth casting a second glance at. The development had tongues wagged and a lot of questions raised, whose answers needed to come from Barry or his parents, particularly his mother. From Barry, they got the comforting bit that Alfred had brazenly cheated in all the papers he sat for inside their exam hall, further risking but succeeding in emergency outside-the-hall post-exam malpractices requiring the invigilator’s connivance and huge sums of money…
No doubt, they were unacceptable remarks about Alfred’s comportment inside and outside their exam hall while he was writing his papers. Whereas they made Barry’s parents feel relatively at ease, they badly unsettled the minds of Alfred’s, who naturally after picking them from secondary sources quickly reached him for clarification.
“Don’t mind the scallywag” Alfred had said in his calmest voice, his countenance completely rid of either guilt or chagrin.
“The Heavens know I’d warned him against choosing a wrong time for playing computer games and watching the Italian Mafia”, Alfred said.
To buttress his claims of A Reckless Barry during their exams, he took his parents to the comer of his room where Barry’s Television and video recorder used to be, rhetorically asking them “Are his television and video still here with me…? Do you again see them…?”
Querulously laughing, Alfred further disclosed to Dad and Mom that Barry was eccentrically of the opinion that serious academic work is better done while one’s television is by one’s side, switched on and showing pictures… An angering bit that secondary sources on that same 17th July wired to Barry, whereupon he swore to part with Alfred for good.
That was only A Very Upset Barry! He had felt scandalized by a bosom friend’s ruthless depiction of his shoddy preparation for their concluded exams, in which he had to earn dismal grades. Somehow, he couldn’t finally bring himself to implement his resolution, just as Alfred could only sometimes simply stop at waving at him from afar, still irked by his insinuations that it was his examination malpractices that had given him colorful grades.
Somewhere deep down in the minds of the two still lurked hopes and a positive program for their waning relationship. Each had a secret plan to end their lingering squabble on the 31st July 2020 by walking up to the other and boldly taking up any piece of friendly subject between them and sticking to it.
Evilly, on the 31st July each had set aside for the noble, courageous act, Relationship-killer Groups and Single Persons around them once again dropped on the palms of each the newest lousy remarks the other had made - to Alfred, that Barry bad claimed that but for him, he wouldn’t have been changing his under-pants nor wearing neat ones; to Barry that Alfred had said that his ulcer would have worsened but for his break-time snacks he was always paying for.
Comments