Directions

I.
Bob and I met my freshman year at Loyola. He was a sophomore and would spend his remaining years in the same place we met—the dorms of Campion Hall. Our initial encounter was particularly strange for me because at the time, I didn’t get his dry sense of humor. He was playing with me and I thought his game was unusual. We became friends because of one simple word: Glenview. He would see me in the halls of the dorm, on the streets of the campus, on the way to class and mouth the word without sound. Glenview. It takes a couple of times trying this procedure to get what he was attempting to jest, but the word would become synonymous to true friendship. Try it. Stand in front of a mirror and repeat the word over and over again. It will make sense. It always makes sense.

II.
Bob and I were standing outside the dorm on a cool September afternoon. The sky was filled with thick clouds as we prepared for the task at hand. We stretched for a few minutes. We needed to make a decision: run north on Sheridan Road toward Evanston or south toward downtown Chicago? Either direction would provide exactly what we needed: a release from classes, a respite from college autonomy, bonding between friends. We kept asking, north or south…north or south…north or south? Men, women will profess, have difficulty with commitment and have difficulty asking for directions. This notion was painfully obvious as Bob headed south and I headed north, each with a new frustration to work out.

III.
I was working at Hamiltons—a Loyola hang-out—until early in the morning. The last time I saw him, Bob was drunk and talking with a girl I didn’t recognize. At some point, he had put his hand through a plate glass window in the back of the bar. His hand was bleeding so much that the blood left a long trail. He left the bar without telling me, and he never made it to the Oasis later that night. The next day, I thought about going back to the bar to follow the trail of blood, which possibly had clues to where he wound up. I called his room repeatedly and the familiar sound of his outgoing song parody, Bob to the Bone, provided me no further information. This was long before cell phones and constant connectivity. Just after dinner, as I was leaving to go back to Hamiltons for another shift at the door, Bob called. He asked me to pick him up at St. Francis Hospital. I called in sick and drove north to get him. Ten stitches later, over several games of computer golf and a couple of Vicodin every four to six hours to numb the pain he was ready to tell me what happened. He was talking with that girl at the bar and they were in a passionate discussion, fueled by a common disappointment about military rejection. When Bob gets mad, disappointed or frustrated, his first response is to hit something. I had seen it many times before. She told him that the Army rejected her. Two weeks before, Bob had received similar news from the Navy regarding his application for Officer Candidate School. The plate glass window, he told me, was supposed to be a wall.

IV.
Before I met him, Bob had a friend named Dave. Dave betrayed Bob’s trust. He never told me why they are no longer friends and I have never asked.

V.
Bob called me late one night to tell me that his hopes of becoming an officer in the Marine Corps were over. He was ten weeks into the 12-week Officer Candidate School program, and he was suffering from a stress fracture in his leg. He had wanted to be an officer as long as I knew him. His uncle was an officer in the Marines, another one lost his life in Vietnam, and his brother was a couple years past Basic Training. It was the sort of commitment everyone expected out of Bob because of his dedication to doing things right and his love for his country. It slipped away without a clear understanding of why. Some things, I would tell him, happened for a reason. I had to repeat these words a few years later as I prayed with him at the hospital, as his two year-old niece was slowly dying.

VI.
We did it again. Bob and I agreed to do my brother a favor and drive my sister-in-law from Chicago to Las Vegas over the Thanksgiving holiday. My brother took a job with a shoe store in Vegas and he went ahead to get things settled. He didn’t want her driving her car all the way by herself and since we didn’t have a lot of money to drive there in one car and fly back home, we had to take two cars. We left on a Wednesday and drove back on a Sunday. Somewhere in Salt Lake City, Bob and I had a rare turn driving together. We had the most honest conversation we had ever shared about life, about death, about living. It was pure, total friendship.
On our way back home to Chicago, we drove into a severe blizzard in St. Louis and screamed at each other over directions; missed turns and exits, right and wrong, stupidity and tiredness. Two days after I dropped Bob off (some might say kicked out) at a gas station in the middle of nowhere during the continuation of the horrible blizzard—where his family had take many risks to retrieve him—I was shocked and relieved when the phone rang and it was him. I like to think Utah had something to do with that.

VII.
I was living in Mesa, Arizona when Bob flew from Baltimore to save me. I moved out of the house I shared with a married woman who had three children. She was going through a divorce from her second husband. She and I had been together for close to a year and a half and I caught her in bed with her boss’ son. I had been sitting in my apartment in the dark for days not sure what my next move was going to be. Bob took out a clean shirt and jeans from my closet, opened the first of many beers we would share that weekend and escorted me around a city he knew very little about but was eager to explore. We rode horses around South Mountain and hiked the Superstition. At one point, we were driving back to my apartment and I noticed a shooting range. Bob insisted I pull into the parking lot. “You have to do this,” he said. “Trust me. Emptying a box of bullets will be cathartic.” I grew up with a father who toted a handgun just about everywhere he went. I was never a big fan of shooting, but I listened. We rented and shot a .357 at the gun range. I purged myself of the fear of being alone and the sadness I carried. I envisioned the paper target as being a real person—the boss’ son: Jim. My aim was perfect. Shots grouped nowhere else but the heart, a giant hole of torn paper. Bob pulled the paper target from its clip, looked at me and smiled. He knew the look of relief on my face. The weekend would end, stumbling down the street, drunk, once again, until we both passed out. The sun came up the next day.

VIII.
As I drove through New Mexico, I repeatedly listened to the Counting Crows sing about Raining in Baltimore and couldn’t help but wonder what Bob was doing in that very city.

IX.
Bob should have been my best man at my wedding. Instead, he agreed to be one of many groomsmen. My brothers and I made a pact when we were very young—a decision fueled by our father—that we would each serve for one another on our respective “big day.” My oldest brother, Darrell, was first and second and to marry so we made good on the pact early on. Ira was next and I would repeat the honor for him. When my turn was up, I had no choice. Darrell is six years older than me. Growing up he was always trying to push me away from him. I never felt like he was my “big brother” in the true sense of the relationship. We barely knew each other; we were more like acquaintances. I didn’t even have to ask Darrell. It was just assumed. When he gave the Best Man speech, Darrell did not have any profound words of wisdom. He didn’t retell any special moments we shared with one another throughout our lives and as I watch my wedding video year after year, I can’t help but notice how uncomfortable he looks when my wife tries to be affectionate with him and hold his hand during the speech. Bob could have spoken for hours about our life together and he would have gladly locked knuckles with his best friend’s wife. I want to yell, “do-over!”

X.
When Frederic was born, Bob was the first person I called to share the news. Cyndi and I decided he would be our son’s godfather with hopes of making up for a wrong committed several years before. Even though Frederic only sees “Uncle” Bob a few times a year, he adores him as much if not more than his father. When Frederic turns 21, we have plans to take him to Vegas. Just the guys reliving a lifetime of memories, teaching a child what it means to be a man and know it’s okay to say Glenview.