It’s very early Sunday morning when my phone rings.  Getting calls at odd hours – late at night or early in the morning – makes me nervous. Will it be my mom calling in a panic because something has happened at home?

I glance at the ID. “Dean.” Relief… just a crazed Irishman who probably hasn’t slept in days reaching out.

“Bob, do you have tickets to see the Dead at Fenway?  No?  Well, I do and you’re coming with me.”  Before he hangs up he tosses out a request for drugs … any drugs. Some things never change. “I’ll see what I can do.”

We met in 1992. I had graduated college a few months prior and was working at a retail store called Lechmere stocking shelves.  Not exactly a career move especially when you consider I had more education that everyone else in the place, but it put money in my pocket while I pondered my options. I had already crossed off so many of them – moving to California, moving to New York, backpacking around Europe, road tripping to Alaska or Mexico … or anywhere.  I’d throw out these ideas to friends (and my girlfriend) and politely told ‘no thanks.’

One day a new guy started working over in the vacuum cleaner section. I walked over and introduced myself. Dean looked like the love child of John Lennon and Elvis Costello – rail thin, over-sized black & white houndstooth jacket, impossibly nerdy glasses with thick frames, an air of subversion. We made each other laugh immediately … and sometimes you just know.  A few days later he insisted I visit him at his Dorchester apartment. “Bring 24 tins, man.  I’ll pay you back. I’m good for it.”  I brought the case of beer and we drank outside on the second-floor porch while inner-city gangsters roamed the street below us.  He laughed at my discomfort.  “They’re cool.  I’ll introduce you if you want.”  

We spent a lot of time hanging out, my circle of friends became his and vice versa. I introduced him to skiing, his first American girlfriend, BBQ, and … the Grateful Dead – a band he fell in love with. He moved to Dallas for work in 2000.

Since then I’d only seen him once.  I was just about to start a new job and for the first time in my life had both time and money. So I flew to Texas and hung out for a long, crazed weekend. That was 2004.

In the intervening years we’d call each other periodically – a few times a year.  I considered this on the train into Boston. Is this gonna be awkward?  We used to be great friends, but let’s be serious … we haven’t seen each other in almost two decades, and people change. I know that better than most.

I take elevator up to the fifth floor and pause before knocking. I’ll just focus on the music if things feel weird. The door flings open and a stout man in shorts and a t-shirt I barely recognize grabs me in a bear hug. “YOU SKINNY MUTHER FUCKER!  LOOK AT YOU!” he shrieks.  “JESUS CHRIST MAN, YOU’RE GETTING YOUNGER!”

The awkwardness I feared melts away. We laugh like we used to, sharing and reminding each other of our history. During one tale Dean laughs so hard he breaks the chair he’s sitting in.  Which only makes us laugh harder.

I could have sat in that hotel room all night long, but there was a concert to attend.  We have adventures that night (I don’t think I’ve ever been kicked out of a concert before) and lots of fun.  Before we part ways, he cleaves through the layers of exuberance and gets serious, “How you doing these days?  How is everything at home?  What ever happened with … “

On the train ride back I sit alone in the second to last row of seats … and ponder how so few relationships can effortlessly transcend time and distances and last forever while others slowly fade away … or shatter like glass in your hands and leave you bleeding.

That was July 16th.