A Chat with a Friend

I chatted with a friend today. We hadn’t spoken in a few years. It’s odd. Having someone’s whole life suddenly converge with yours. It’s like two trains, each going their own way. They cross but simply pass through each other. I’m sitting in my seat. I glance up from a book or screen and see, ahead of me, just over the heads of the old lady and the business guy, another train driving through. No crash. Just another scene. There’s my friend. He’s looking up as well.

He’s got a house in another city. Two kids. Two dogs. His wife has a cat. He works nights; she works days. They’re sleep deprived. Kids get up too early. Job is alright. Not great, but you know how it goes. He hasn’t seen that one groomsman since the wedding some four years ago. He still talks to that one. One broke up with his girlfriend. He’s still friends with them both. I didn’t ask about the others. You know how it goes. People get busy.

The train keeps going. We’re both looking at each other. I have to move to one side to get out from behind the old lady. He ducks slightly underneath an athletic woman standing up to check her overhead bag. The woman shifts to one side and then sits down. We’re able to see each other clearly.

He tells me his salary. It’s double what he was making originally. You see, he started at Company A. Then moved to B. Then C. And now he’s back to A. He has a team of 14 people under him and now does fairly well for himself. His wife does something, but I can’t recall. I think that is in another car of the train. The days go quick for him. His team is apparently incompetent, and much of his day revolves around momma-birding instructions to them with a cudgel. That sounds about right.

We were chatting later into the night. I was getting sleepy. Work tomorrow. There’s a kid he knows who won’t mentally progress past the age of 2. I’m not sure what life looks like for the parent. He said his son was born on time at 39 weeks. His heart stopped, so they had to do an emergency C-section. The baby came out and immediately was dashed off to the NICU. The baby had a hole in his heart. He was turning blue when he came out because he wasn’t breathing. They thought his left nostril had grown shut. They were left in their hospital room. She was on all the painkillers with her body cut open. He was there, beside her.

Waiting.

His son was fine. They were able to get him breathing. His nose was fine. He had just been smashed against something inside. He did have an extra valve, and a hole in his heart, but after a long time, they were able to go home. That was almost a year ago. The baby’s healed the hole in his heart and he’s doing well. But he’s got scoliosis by the looks of it.

Our conjoining train cars have almost moved past. I tell him that sounds rough. He says that he doesn’t have much to complain about. It could have been worse. I schedule another call in 3 months. A check-in. I tell him I love him, he says the same, and our trains go off into the night. I’m still thinking of our talk.