The Odd Couple

I took my phone off of airplane mode as we taxied in at Dallas Fort Worth airport. It "exploded," as is the common expression denoting a cacophony of tones and vibrations. I'd received a number of text messages. One, from a cycling companion, gave chilling news.

A friend - a cherished work friend - had taken his own life.

Over the course of the next hour, awaiting our flight to Nassau and vacation, I processed with other men and women who knew my friend well. In the early hours there was little additional information. No explanation.

We taught Report Writing together at the police academy. We had for a number of years. We'd polished and honed, examined and reexamined the curriculum. He called us The Odd Couple. 

I was Felix, fastidious and exacting. He was Oscar in the blue collar sense. It had less to do with our personal preferences and more with our presentation styles. I am contained, controlled. Structured and refined. Liberal polysyllabics, virtually no profanity. Decades in the classroom teaching law has gotten me there.

He was six feet of "In Your Face." He told stories painting with a broad brush. Were it not for a liberal use of profanity he might have been struck mute. He could make a point the way street cops make them - bark on, zero quarter. It was the way he saw it - like it, don't like it...all the same.

Of course, like all couples we fought. Like all writers, too. I'd express a point of order. His eyes would light up, his back straight and he'd take a sip of his omnipresent iced tea. "Oh?" he'd say. But that was never the end. He was profoundly patient with his little friend. He would listen, we would discuss. In the end, it wasn't an uneasy truce. We had an accord.

We would begin every new academy with a story he told, the moral of which was to write good reports. It was of his best friend, a young man with his whole life ahead of him. His friend committed suicide at age 16, something that still haunted him all of those years later.

I thought about that, gazing at the stunning waters off Nassau, Bahamas. Beside me, the love of my life. We touched glasses and made a toast to my friend. When I got home, clearing on-line messages, I found an exchange between my friend and me. Early April, a promise to get together for margaritas and Mexican food. To discuss business, but...also, just 'cause. It would have been today.

Fair winds and following seas, partner.