Our last encounter was at Mike’s funeral.
“I hope you’ll agree to meet with me Joe,” she wrote, as the letter wound down. “Much time has passed and you need to know the truth.”
It would be an unhappy, but necessary reunion. I wanted her explanation of what happened, as well as the chance to express my feelings.
If God gave people the ability to build a best buddy, Mike Arnold would have been my creation. Since the day we met as freshman roommates at the University of Connecticut in August 1992, he was the true definition of “that special friend.” It was he who donated twenty evening hours to prevent me from failing chemistry and avoid academic probation our second semester. He also deserves most of the credit for helping me, a shy eighteen-year-old male college freshman, achieve what was then a much more important goal.
“Either you’re gonna do it, or I will,” he said, as he lifted the cordless phone off the charger that night. “But, if you don’t, I’m gonna make a bigger fool out of you than you ever could.”
Ten minutes later, I mustered the courage to phone Brigitte Garceau and asked her to hang out with me that weekend. As fortune would have it, that call enabled me to, at last, hang the “do not disturb” little red balloon around our doorknob.
In November 1992, Mike started dating a stunning blonde volleyball player named Daisy Joao. She stood at five ten, spoke four languages and came from one of Brazil’s wealthiest families.
Mike only witnessed the beauty. I observed her ugliness. During an October weekend in 1993, I’d been invited to a pre-Homecoming bash at a keg house. Mike was on the road with the soccer team. While wandering around, I came across a side room just in time to watch Daisy bounce the balls of star basketball player Barry Nichols. They didn’t notice me and I exited within seconds, having no desire to see the slam dunk contest to its completion.
The entire following day, I was in full panic mode, equipped with sweats and palpitations, while considering whether or not to confront Daisy, in addition to thinking of how to or even if I should tell Mike. I decided not to face off with Daisy, but was prepared to inform Mike. He bolted through the door about half-past seven.
“Hey buddy,” he shouted, as the suit and tie-clad star midfielder for the Huskies dumped his large Adidas sports bag in the center of our room.
My heart thumped, as a feeling of intense nausea set in.
“How’d it go?” I asked. “Still undefeated?”
“Yep,” he said, as he propelled his athletic, five-foot ten-inch frame onto the bed with his New York Rangers comforter.
I reached into the fridge and snared a bottle of water.
“How was the party?” he asked.
My pulse accelerated. Sweat poured from my forehead. I reached into the middle drawer of my desk, grabbed the prescription container of Xanax and sucked one down.
“Oh, pretty interesting,” I said.
He sat up in bed as he loosened a dark, blue tie.
“Ooh,” he said, “did someone get some extra lovin’?”
He leaped up and placed his arms around my shoulders. I jerked away.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, while stepping towards his dresser.
As awkward as it was, his words provided me the opportunity for a perfect segue. My mouth and throat were dry. I chugged another healthy sip of water.
“Turn around,” Mike said.
I followed suit.
“Okay,” he said. “It’s safe again.”
When I whirled around, Mike was adorned in UCONN shorts and a New York Yankees t-shirt. I dropped my head and fixated on a new pair of slippers.
“Uh Mike,” I began.
I glanced up for a second and noticed he was clutching a photo of him and Daisy taken at an athletic banquet.
“Can’t wait to get lucky again,” he said, as he gazed at the picture. “Man I missed her this weekend. Two days felt like two years. God, I love that Amazon princess.”
I couldn’t utter a word. After observing how happy he was, I maintained silence for the first of many times I shouldn’t have. I deluded myself into thinking she was young, mistakes happen and she wouldn’t commit such a serious offense again. Wrong.
—
Prior to first term finals of our junior year, Daisy paraded herself into our room and dug through Mike’s desk drawers.
“Voila!” she said, as I rested on my bed, trying to read.
“What?” I asked, keeping my head down.
“Got Mike’s paper for American Government,” she said.
This time, I opted to confront her.
“You know,” I began, “both of you could get kicked out for that.”
She perused the pages of the report and didn’t face or acknowledge me.
“No one will,” she said. “First, the professors here are clueless. Second, no one would dare challenge me given all the money Poppy gives to the UCONN Scholarship Fund and third, you wouldn’t.”
“How do you know?” I asked. “Why would you risk hurting him like that?”
“Look,” she said, as she snaked her way onto the edge of my bed. “Why don’t you go back to being the insignificant, invisible piece of garbage you know you are? Stop getting in Mike’s way. He’s wasted too much time carrying you around. One word and you’ll end up like Luke. Don’t want that happen now do you?”
I bowed my head like a naughty child awaiting a spanking. Luke Stevens was a baseball player she’d dated for a short time prior to Mike. A few weeks after their split, Luke was jumped and beaten during an attack that occurred in Hartford. The investigation went nowhere. I didn’t doubt she could be capable of such an act and her brazen confession of having involvement in the crime scared the crap out of me. So again, I had a reason not to tell Mike of her unscrupulous ways.
As our university days waned, Mike landed a job with Merrill Lynch and was preparing to move to New York City. He’d also earned Academic All-American honors for achieving an almost perfect grade point average through four years of study. One week before graduation, another major announcement came.
“She said yes!” Mike ran into our room screaming. “She said yes!”
“Who and to what?” I asked.
“Daisy accepted my proposal you idiot,” he said. “We’re getting married and she’s moving to New York with me.”
That moment had come. I was at bat. Bases loaded. Two out. In a few minutes, I could have hit the grand slam and revealed everything I’d known about Daisy. I whiffed. The sad part was, I chose not to. This occasion proved to be the easiest of all to remain silent.
As our college days waned, I saw less and less of Mike, who spent the majority of his time with Daisy. I feared that, had I said anything, I’d never see him again and our friendship would be history. The thought of losing it was far too painful for me to bear. Once more, I was a lousy friend.
The duo remained engaged and married the following July. Five years passed and life progressed well for both Mike and I. Mike rose to the position of Sales Manager at Merrill Lynch and purchased a home in Saddle Brook, New Jersey. I became a sports reporter for the New York Post and settled into a Dobbs Ferry, New York home with Brigitte. Neither she nor I could stand to be around Daisy, but I still managed to see Mike once a week for our constitutional racquetball game in Manhattan.
Late in 2000, Mike developed a bad cough that lingered. In February of 2001, it progressed to the point where it landed him on the floor during one of our games. He gagged several times, seemed to have difficulty breathing and spit out a decent amount of blood.
“Dude,” I said, as my voice cracked, “this ain’t right. Had this for months. Better see your doc.”
He eyed me and nodded, before beginning to sob without warning. I rushed over to him.
“Don’t know what’s happening,” he bawled. “The cough’s only part of it. For months, I’ve been tired. My stomach feels like shit, and I’ve been getting these terrible headaches. Think this’s bad man.”
The call came February 10. After a staff meeting, I noticed my cell’s screen read ‘One New Message.’
“Have something important to tell you,” Mike wept through the voicemail. “When you get a chance, please get back to me.”
During lunch, I phoned him.
“Hey,” he said.
I needed to blast the phone’s volume to hear the Brooklyn accent that always boomed.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “You sound terrible.”
“Don’t quite know how to tell you this,” he said, as his voice’s tone lowered further and broke up, “um, um, I’ve got AIDS.”
The phone slipped from my fingers and crashed onto the desk. A long pause ensued. My vocal chords felt paralyzed. It took almost two full minutes, but I was, at last, able to muster some kind of comment.
“Holy shit,” I said, as my heart thwacked.
I trembled more than when my Mom revealed she was dying of stomach cancer.
“They sure?” I asked, knowing full well this wasn’t the type of news he’d joke about or share unless he was two hundred percent sure. “Can you get retested or get a second opinion?”
“They’re positive,” he said. “I expected something bad, but this. How the hell could this have happened?”
In a word, Daisy. She’d waved her conniving and deceitful ways in my face like a dirty sock. I wanted to air the grievances but again held back. What difference would it have made now? A pang of guilt sprung upon me faster than a panic attack.
“You should feel like shit,” my conscience yelled. “Should’ve done that back in college.”
I knew Mike had some serious issues to contend with and wanted to give him all the space he needed. Two weeks went by. While commuting home one evening, my cell chimed its guitar ring. Mike’s number registered.
“What’s happening?” I asked, unable to think of anything more clever to say.
“A lot,” he said. “As it turns out, the bitch had HIV and didn’t bother to tell me. Said she didn’t know how or when she got it but only found out last year. Guesses it was before we started dating. We had a big blowup. I threw her out and filed for divorce.”
“Jeez,” was all I could say.
He sobbed for several minutes but regained composure long enough to apologize and say he had to go. It should have been me who begged for his forgiveness. Upon ending the call, a horrible wave of nausea enveloped me, and I raced to the restroom. There was always a reason I didn’t have the guts to speak up. Now, my best friend was dying because of my cowardice.
Four months elapsed before we spoke again. I reached out several times, but Mike said he wanted to be alone. I understood and respected his wishes. While nosing through The Bergen Record on the train one morning, I came across a story about a twenty-seven-year-old man named Michael Arnold, who’d been busted for committing his second DUI over the last three months.
That night, I called him, hoping he’d wish to meet. He agreed, and we got together the following Tuesday. As I sat sipping a Bud from a booth inside the Cyclone Diner on Flatbush Avenue, a man with dirt blotches all over his skin and whose breath reeked of whiskey settled down across from me.
“My God,” I shouted. “Goodness. What the…”
He’d lost a good deal of weight and had sores up and down both his arms.
“I know,” he said, while he cried. “Don’t need to tell you how it’s going.”
I shook my head at a deliberate pace.
“Been great,” he said. “Sold my house. Moved back with my parents and was fired.”
“Shit,” I said.
He sunk an ashen face into his hands.
“I adored her,” he wailed. “How could she kill me twice?”
I stayed silent one last time. It would be hard to argue against the fact I’d killed him many more times than that over the years. We didn’t see each other again. He died October 19, 2002.
The “reunion” between Daisy and I occurred at Husky Blues Bar right off UCONN’s Storrs campus. I arrived at the landmark hangout at a quarter to one in the afternoon. I paid little attention to the thin, white-faced, limping woman who approached me as the clock struck one-thirty.
“This seat taken?” she asked.
“Afraid so,” I said. “Waiting for someone.”
She eyed me.
“I know,” she said, as she attempted to clutch my right hand.
The realization didn’t cause the slightest reaction on my part. I yanked my hand away.
“Wow,” I said. “Can’t be.”
“It is,” she said.
Her anorexic-looking body slinked into the other side of the booth, before she wheezed and went into a coughing fit, spitting a fistful of blood into a napkin.
“Want a drink?” I asked.
“Rum and coke,” she said, as she cleared her throat.
She observed me. I let my eyes wander to anyone or anything but her. After several minutes of an uncomfortable silence, she again cleared her throat.
“I know you’d kill me if given the chance,” she began. “You feel like I murdered him and, to be honest, you’re right. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him, but I swear I didn’t know until long after we were married. I don’t expect to be forgiven, but I owe you an explanation nonetheless.”
I didn’t speak, but nodded
“I contracted it from a drunken fling I had with Barry Nichols during homecoming weekend sophomore year,” she said, as her voice cracked. “Despite my reputation, I’ve only been with three men. Luke, Barry and Mike.”
This time, I knew she wasn’t lying. A few months prior to our encounter, I’d read that Nichols died of AIDS-related brain cancer while playing hoops in France. Nonetheless, I couldn’t and didn’t want to face her. The pronouncement only enhanced my anger. It was another proverbial electric shock treatment to the balls. I witnessed that whole affair and, if I’d been honest from the jump, perhaps Mike would have broken it off with her and not been infected with the fatal virus.
“I’m serving my penalty,” she continued. “I’ll be dead within six months.”
I didn’t hate her. At least not for the reason she thought. Reality stood in front of me like a giant statue.
“As much as I want to blame you, I can’t,” I said. “I knew and saw who and what you were and are but always found an excuse not to do what I should’ve. He may not have believed me, but had I tried, we might have been looking forward to this Thursday’s racquetball game. I think I’m worse than you.”
After placing my hands at the edge of the table, I ascended at a measured pace.
“Good bye Daisy,” I said.
I lumbered to the counter, paid for the drinks and stormed outside.
Matthew H Emma is an on-hiatus journalist currently pursuing his dream of becoming a full-time creative writer. He’s written numerous short stories, the first draft of a novella and is working on his first screenplay. Five of his short pieces have been published and featured in such online literary magazines as Alfie Dog Limited, Linguistic Erosion, The Vehicle and Agave.
