Albert Sidney Johnston the Fourth

[flamingsword]

When I look around, I think this: this is good enough.
And I try to laugh at whatever life brings,
'Cause when I look down I just miss all the good stuff,
And when I look up I just trip over things. - Ani Difranco


I can't talk about Albert, really bring him to you, without telling you about how when he was happy the pitch and emphasis of his voice would bound all over his sentences like an over-excited Labrador. I can recall for you his face and the timbre of his voice saying, "If I took half the advice I gave, I wouldn't have these problems."

He did have problems. He wouldn't ask girls out unless he was certain what they would say. He didn't feel like rebelling by doing things he wasn't interested in, so to separate his identity from his parents, he joined the Marines. Which ... worked, as far as such things go, even if it did seem a little extreme at the time. When he came back he was less awkward, still quiet but more relaxed, chiller than a snow cone.


I probably met Albert a few times while he was in high school with us (he was a senior my freshman year), but I didn't talk to him much back then, catching rides home with his younger brother in their ancient umber pickup truck, Stimpy. Stimpy was a good truck even if he was old enough to drink legally, and he liked showing off for us womenfolk. Richard, the brother in question, claimed that he liked giving girls rides home because the truck would always start when we were around. It may have been a convenient lie to get more hang-out time with Tina, Rachael, Carolyn, me; but I did once wander up when Stimpy was making that grinding, i-don't-want-to-start engine noise, only to hear it turn over and catch when I leaned on the door, so who knows? That goofy redneck truck was part of the family, and somewhat representative of the whole tribe. They had their own dynamic, seemed to follow their own sort of crazy logic.

One of the gamers, the geeks, one of the Nonconformist Orcish Philosophers, Albert would hang out at Denny's with us drinking coffee and discussing issues relevant, irrelevant, or purely conjectural. Sometimes he would pick a point to defend at random, probably just to get under Scott and Tony's skins. And he was damn good at making any bullshit sound reasonable, which was hilarious and awesome.

Albert was the person who helped me realize that not only are people different from each other, the world responds differently to different people. It took years to notice why Albert was always faster at getting somewhere than the rest of our friends. Mostly I thought it was just that he was driving too fast, but Albert almost never stopped at red lights. He never had to. He always seemed to catch he traffic light on yellow (& we would slap the roof of the car for luck), so he only had to slow down to turn. Eventually, when I started analyzing the world statistically, I noticed that that didn't happen with anybody else, and shouldn't happen with anybody. I mentioned it to him once and it stopped happening for a month. Centipede's dilemma. He blamed me for his being late to everything, and eventually stopped thinking about it. And stopped being late. Yellow lights gave it up for Albert Johnston like they were his own personal bitches. They loved him and shone down on him to light his path. And I learned that when the world loves you, it will give you gifts you may not even notice, will use the lenient set of rules wherever you are.

We were all so beautifully dysfunctional, and I miss us. As painful as living it was, as much as I would never go back to being that way, I miss what we were to each other and how vital and intense everything was between us. I miss the Al-specific part of that as much as I do anyone else.

I miss the wake-and-bake commando days when he was all wide, happy grin like sobriety was something that happened to other people. I miss watching him play Tekken, Baldur's Gate, miss listening to him rant while we watched Jenn kick Tetris in its geometric teeth. I miss him sometimes singing along (somewhat badly) to The Vagina Song. I miss him dodging out of frame when someone was taking a picture, and the way we were easygoing and sensible and comfortable together.

I wasn't in love with Al. But I would have been, if I had let myself go there. When wizardpen and I first got together, I told him that we were going to have an open relationship, because I'm not built for loving only one person at a time. I eventually told him that I had planned on Al being the person we opened up the relationship for once we got ourselves stable. But I didn't get better at romantic stuff fast enough to catch him before he was gone, and now I'll never know what might have been. I have some ability at predicting the future from how people interact, but it never worked on Albert. There was always too much there, and so little of it showed above the surface. But I think we had a lot to give each other, and while it wouldn't have lasted forever, maybe I wouldn't miss him as much if I had been a little quicker at getting to love him.

"

Comments

[jslorentz.livejournal.com]

[hugs!] Sounds like a powerful connection.

[rens-sanctuary.livejournal.com]

I know just what you mean about connections. -hugs-