A friend

For a solitary man like myself summer is always a lonely time. Since my elementary school years, I often found myself indoors for weeks at a time during the summer: reading, playing video games, and generally avoiding the sun. When I went away for my first year of university I met plenty of people -- I had more contacts than I'd ever had, but still nobody to love. My loneliness was gone for awhile, but it was an empty satisfaction.

I went back home for the summer after my first year away. I greeted my family, reunited with my few friends in the area, and after a week was back in my old funk -- no leaving the house, no waking up before noon. Sitting on my floor at 2:00am one evening, I realized that there was only one thing I really wanted. I realized that without love, I was nothing. That I couldn't exist until I found somebody else. It seemed as though my chest was going to collapse -- I suppose, looking back, it was a panic attack. I felt an immense pressure around me, as though my loneliness would squash me like an insect and leave an empty shell on the floor. I was suddenly filled with what seemed like an infinite amount of energy -- I had to go find something, anything to keep me from being destroyed by this feeling.

I went outside and started walking. There is a park a couple of miles from my house -- the park I played at when I was a child, that I rode my bike around for hours back when my neighborhood was safe and children could walk the streets at night without fear. By the time I arrived at the park the panic was gone, and was replaced by a certain hollow despair. I was worse off than before -- now I was out alone, in the dilapidated park of a seedy neighborhood at 2:30 in the morning. When I sat down on the playground, I almost wished some thug would arrive and cut me, that someone would bring me fear and through it a reason, if only momentarily, to live. I sat with my face buried in my arms, in the dark, on the steps of some playground equipment.

I don't know how long I sat there trying to cry. After what seemed like hours of pain, a group of four black men started to pass the playground on the sidewalk out front. They were speaking, but so softly I couldn't hear them. I didn't have a phone or any way to escape if they decided to smash my face for fun.

The group stopped on the sidewalk perpendicular to me and faced me. They were strong young black men, just the sort one avoids in the wee hours of the morning on the street. One broke off from the group and approached me, stopping about five paces from me while the rest stood guard.

His voice wasn't what I expected. His words were spoken gently, softly, but with a precision that belied great intelligence.
He asked me simply, "Are you alright?"
I replied in a whisper, my voice cracking as his surprising kindness brought a tear to my eye. "Yes," I lied obviously.
He took the blunt from the corner of his mouth and passed it to me.
"Sometimes all you need is a friend," he said softly before turning and leaving with his friends.