May 17
Charles Bivona420, About My Dead Best Friend
Your brother saved my life. Everything that I create has a part of his mind in it. If I ever find myself in a position of great wealth or power, your family will never have another sleepless night of worry.
Unfortunately, I’ll most likely be poor forever. It’s the thought that counts.
Just don’t torture yourself, Jen. That’s the one thing Sang wished he could change about you. He used to always say, “I wish my sister would just be nicer to herself. That would be awesome.”
It’s still a good plan, I think.
Love, C
Possibly Related Posts:
May 06
Charles BivonaAbout My Dead Best Friend
Best Friends for Dummies
by Sang Lee (1966-2010)
He slammed the door, knocked over a fan, and yelled. He had never expressed his anger like this before – at least not in front of me. He kept yelling, slamming more doors and throwing a few things around. He wasn’t mad at me. He was just mad. Furious with himself. Finally, all his energy spent, he slumped down onto the couch and wept. We had known each other close to 14 years, and this was the first time I had seen him cry.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “No need to be, man.” His girlfriend held him, consoled him. A few weeks later I was back at his place. We sat back after a toke and settled into a night of conversation and reflection.
“Okay, so I have this 5th site now where I organize all the other sites.”
“You have five sites now? Dude, you’re gonna have more sites than the porno industry; Google’s servers will implode from the sheer weight of Chuck’s Content.”
“Why do you have a problem with this?” He was getting agitated.
“Dude, since the last time I was here, which was like six days ago, you went from one site to five. And one of them is solely devoted to organizing the other four. As your best friend, I’m allowed to bust your balls about it,” I said laughing.
He laughed too. “Best friend. I keep saying, ‘best friend’ and I’m always afraid that you’re gonna think it’s gay,” he chuckled.
“Well, if you said ‘the bestest of friends,’ than, yeah, maybe.” I counted out the money for the Chinese food guy. “Why would I think that was gay?”
“I don’t know. I just did.” I knew why he thought it. He thought I was just playing along to spare his feelings. That I had been pretending to be his friend all these years. I knew that because he had told me a week before.
If I had charted out my life – between the ages of 29 and 42 – into colorful slices of pie, the largest single piece would be labeled: Time Hanging with Chuck. We were best friends. I always thought Chuck knew that. And he did. He had to – his pie-chart looked an awful lot like mine. Then, something occurred to me.
“You have no idea what that means, do you?”
“What? Being best friends?”
“Yeah. You’ve been waving that gun around all this fucking time, and you never even knew how to pull the trigger. You need a copy of Best Friends for Dummies or something, man.”
“Yeah, I really do,” he laughed. I laughed too.
I laughed because I wanted to tell him what it meant to me. I wanted to tell him that if it was me or him on the Titanic, he got on the lifeboat. I wanted to tell him that if I won the lottery, he’d never have to take a job he didn’t want; he’d never have to worry about being homeless as long as I had one; he’d never have to worry about needing a kidney or a liver, because if mine didn’t match I’d find ones that did. I wanted him to know that I loved him. But I laughed, instead. I laughed because thats what damaged men do. We laugh to avoid expressing what we want to express the most; we hide from the world what we treasure the most. So no one can find them – again.
Chuck had been physically abused when he was a child. I had been molested and ignored. We had taken different paths but we ended up in the same isolated place. We found each other in the same neighborhood, waved from our respective yards, and made sure we looked out for trespassers when one of us was away. We kept our distance, as good neighbors do, and lent each other some duct tape and DW40 when the need arose.
But lately, we’ve been having conversations over the fence. We’ve been having smokes out on each other’s porches; having a beer out there now and again – no one’s gotten to see the 50” plasma, or the pool table in the finished basement, yet.
He had never cried in front of me before. He had never allowed me to see him when he was nakedly vulnerable. I would never have gotten this close with anyone before I met Chuck. No one else I knew had grown up on the same block.
Maybe, after the snow melts, we’ll have a barbeque. We’ll get to know each other better and find out we have a lot in common. We’ll have a couple of steaks, shoot the shit, smoke some cigars and play some pool. Maybe I’ll even show him my comic book collection.
And maybe – when the time is right – we’ll both move the fuck out of this shitty neighborhood… and never look back.
Possibly Related Posts:
Mar 29
Charles BivonaAbout My Dead Best Friend Sang Lee
First Published: Jan 5, 2010
They are sorry to hear about Sang’s death.
We are so sorry about Sang, Charlie.
Sang died. Sang’s dead.
We know. We are so sorry.
Sang’s watch is in my apartment. He loves this watch. I have to call him and tell him he left his watch here. Sang died. Sang’s dead. They found him face-down on the bathroom floor. Is this real?
I’ve never felt this way. I can’t wait to talk to Sang about it. We should invite Sang over, but Sang’s dead. He died.
They found his body yesterday.
What happened?
Well, Mr. Bivona, when you take into account the high blood pressure and diabetes—it was probably a heart attack.
Heart attack? Forty-three!
It happens.
Heart attack, smoking, high blood pressure, financial stress–his heart was broken.
Why would you worry about death in your thirties? Sang and I were debating. It’s a Buddhist practice, I responded: so, when death comes I will be calm and ready. Dude, Sang replied, you and I are going to live to be at least seventy-five. It’s the average life expectancy. We’ve got a lot of time. Chill out.
Sang died. Forty-three. I’ll never see him in three dimensions again. He will never smack me on the shoulder or call me dude, ever again. He will never listen to one of my wild get rich schemes—comic strips or our own brand of greeting cards—Black Death Cards: for fucked up occasions. His response to every one of my crazy projects:
Let’s fucking do it!
You really want to try this with me?
Yes!
Then we worked out a plan. We had so many plans. We were going to create a winning t-shirt logo, or bumper sticker, or screenplay, or commercial—whatever. We would make a million dollars, open a school and a pot bar—in the same building—and just hang out–talking with people and writing. Then we were going to stop at Amsterdam on the way to Korea.
But Sang died.
I hope the casket is closed at the wake. I don’t want to see his body. I left before the police brought the body bag out. I went back later. Don’t worry, the police opened the windows to let the smell out. And I should tell you, there’s blood on the floor. Are you ok with that? The landlord was my friend.
I walked up the dark staircase. To let the smell out. The police opened the windows to let the smell out. The smell. Chuck, listen, Asians don’t have BO. Our bodies do not produce odor. There is no fucking way my body smelled. Dude, come on! I smiled.
The door is open, the landlord hollered, Sang never locked it.
There was blood on the bathroom floor. I found his glasses on the windowsill. I found a large bottle of Tums on his bed and half empty bottle of Pepto Bismol. What he felt as heartburn was a lingering heart condition. The autopsy showed signs of strain on his heart. The heart attack was brewing for months.
I found his watch on his desk. I slid it onto my left wrist. It was a little too tight. You lost all that weight when you found out you had diabetes. Even your wrists are thinner than mine. Asshole. Hahaha.
Why are you dead? Are you fucking with me?
I took the watch off and slipped it into my pocket. I felt the watch band slip out of my hand. He loved his watch band. It was his greatest story. His family lost their business. He had just been fired from his job. His mother and father were depending on him for survival. He was driving home in disgrace and then:
I just didn’t want to see my family yet. So, I stopped at this jewelry store. I had seen it on my commute every day. I always wanted to check it out. So, fuck it, I went in.
That was where he saw his watchband. It was his trademark. It’s heavy silver with large black opal stones—large ovals, very gothic. Sang loved vampires. He loved the idea of living forever and just accumulating knowledge.
The band was $200. He had $300 in the bank. He had $300, and not a penny more. I said, fuck it, and got the damn watchband. I wanted it. I said to myself: ‘You aren’t going to end up homeless. You are not going to starve. You aren’t going to die. You are going to find a job tomorrow. You’ll be fine.’ And he did find a job. The watch band was his symbol of self-confidence.
The watch reminded me of that story. I sat in his desk chair and sobbed. Sang’s dead.
Possibly Related Posts:
Older Entries
RSS