Prologue

My phone rang.

“Hello, this is Mark,” I answered.

“Mark!  I can’t believe I tracked you down!”  The voice at the other end of the line sounded surprised, and also vaguely familiar to me.

“You did!”  I said tentatively, but with some enthusiasm encouraged by the friendly tone of the voice.

“You don’t know who this is, do you?”

“No …,” I answered.  But now I was sure I knew who this person was.  I just couldn’t place the voice.  I didn’t mind the interruption; it was a quiet day at work, on a lazy August afternoon, and I couldn’t help feeling a little curious.

“It’s me, John,” he said.

“John… John,” I thought to myself furiously.  I know and have known a lot of men named John.  Which one was this?

Fortunately, it seemed he was sympathetic to my predicament.  “From high school,” he volunteered.

“Oh, John,” I said, emphasizing his name, as if that actually meant anything.  Then I paused.  “Wow … John.  It’s been a long time.”

My mind started racing.  I hadn’t spoken to him since high school.  What had that been?  Had it really been 24 years?

“It sure has, man, it sure has…” His voice trailed off.

“So what’s up?”  I said, trying to move the conversation along.

“Just thought I would give you a call because I’m in your fair city.”

“Really?  You’re in Charlotte?”

“Yeah, I work for General Dynamics now, and they’ve detailed me to the Armaments office out by the airport.”

“Is that right?”

I kind of didn’t know where to take this conversation.  Although I’m usually a friendly person, and can talk to just about anyone, I don’t really like small talk when I don’t have a feel for its context or purpose.

But in a way I don’t experience very often, John picked up the other end of the call, and after a few minutes I found myself just listening to him talk.  A lot of times, I take the lead in a conversation.  Not because I’m pushy – at least, I don’t think I am – but just because I usually have something to say on just about any topic.  In fact, people tell me that they like to listen to me talk, make jokes and tell stories.  So this first call with John was a little unusual, because the roles seemed reversed.

That first conversation with John was unusual in another way.  My recollection from high school was that he was somewhat laconic.  But it seemed that he had matured into one of those people who can make a connection quickly, and draws you into a dialogue in a way that can even be called conspiratorial.  They can take the most mundane topic and make you feel like you’re hearing the inside scoop.  For instance, John slid into telling me how, because of his seniority at the company, when he goes on site he has a lot of leeway and spends most of his time socializing.

“That’s probably why they send people around to different sites anyway,” he said.  “Just so you get to know who’s there.  Plus, someone managed to convince ’em it would be hard to get people to go on-site, so they give you all sorts of perks to encourage you.  Like here in Charlotte, they put us up in a nice place in the city.  In fact, I’m not far away from you right now.  They have a few apartments in the TradeMark condo for people on assignment.”

I instinctively turned around and craned my neck to look out the window of my high rise office toward the northwest, where I could catch a glimpse of the sun gleaming off the TradeMark.  It was a tall, modern, glass and steel structure that was typical of the buildings that shot up in Charlotte during the boom.

“So it’s great,” John continued.  “There’s not much work to do, and I’m out early every evening to enjoy the nightlife of uptown Charlotte!”  He attenuated the sarcasm at the end of that sentence just enough to avoid insulting my adopted city, and I chuckled with him.

“So how long will you be here?”

“Probably until just after Labor Day, give or take.”

“Well, we should get together.  It’s been quiet here at work.  We’ve been slow for a while, you know.”

“Yeah.”  He paused, and I appreciated the sympathy in his voice.  I think the downturn had been tough on everyone.  Then his voice brightened.  “Let’s get a drink after work, maybe even dinner.  What d’you suggest?”

My mind puzzled for a minute.  I couldn’t remember when I had last thought about going out for dinner with a friend.  For years, I’ve socialized with people from work, or clients, or old colleagues from past assignments.  And I’ve travelled to other cities, New York especially, to visit friends.  But I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone to dinner in Charlotte with an actual friend.  So I just said the first thing that popped into my head.

“I don’t know.  Seafood?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.  There’s a McCormick & Schmick’s just a few blocks from my apartment.  How about there?”

I knew the place.  “On Tryon, right?”

“That’s right.”

I turned to my desk and clicked open my outlook calendar.  “Tomorrow’s sort of busy,” I said.  It wasn’t, really, but I did have one meeting in the late afternoon and for some reason, I didn’t want this to be rushed.  “How ‘bout Thursday?”

“Fine with me,” he said, “I haven’t got any plans.  Seven o’clock?”

“Seven it is.”

“See you then.”

“Bye,” we said, simultaneously, and hung up.

I turned to look out the window again, resuming the daydream that John had interrupted.  The clouds had made quite a bit of progress across the sky while we spoke.

“That was interesting,” I found myself thinking.

* * *

The rest of that afternoon, Tuesday, August 3, 2010, was quiet.  I work for a financial consulting firm; most of our clients are the big banks in Charlotte, but we have others scattered all around the world.  It’s interesting work and I like it a lot.  I’ve been there 16 years; ever since finishing grad school.  I get to meet a lot of people, and learn about their jobs and their concerns, but I also get a fair amount of time to myself, and to write, which I really enjoy.  Although my job is often hectic, August is usually slow.  I had taken vacation in July, and was looking forward to enjoying the remaining weeks before Labor Day.

Around 7 pm, I closed the door to my office and changed into shorts and a t-shirt.  I like that even though I have a nice view of the city (I can never get enough of looking down to watch the people pass back and forth on the sidewalk below), no one looks directly into my office, so there’s no need for me to ever close the blinds.  That day I had to change before leaving the office because I had ridden my bike to work.

Although I’m not a committed bike commuter, I enjoy it when the evening light lasts longer, and so long as I can reasonably predict when I’ll be leaving work.  It’s only about six miles out to my house.

So it was with a little spring in my step that I headed down to the garage, collected my bike, and headed out.  I really enjoy biking, and always have.  I don’t try to go especially fast.  I just stay in a high gear and get into the rhythm of pumping my legs.  For some reason, I find that really helps me think.  I concentrate best when I’m biking, walking or running.

And I like to think.  My motto is from Socrates – “the unexamined life is not worth living.”  I think about all sorts of things.  Why the world is the way it is.  Why people act the way they do.  Why I am the way I am.  For me, those thoughts aren’t worrisome or distressing.  They’re relaxing.

That evening, as I pedaled along on my half-hour ride, I thought about John.  I thought about why he called, and I thought back to high school, and the path my life had taken since then.

John and I grew up together in the suburbs of Atlanta.  He was one of my best friends since grade school.  He and I, and a few other kids, enjoyed talking about things most of the other kids didn’t.  Movies and fun and games and things like that.  He’s part of my happy memories from growing up.

But that changed during our years in high school – a large, 2000-student public school.  John and I had started out very good friends, but as the years went by, we drifted apart.

A girl was involved – a girl who was admired by John and me equally.

As I rode along, thinking back to the experience, it occurred to me that the reason John and I drifted apart was simply because after knowing each other for so long, we had begun to chafe against each other.  We each wanted to follow our own path, and the other had become a reminder of a childhood that was more of a hindrance than the treasured memory it would become years later.

By this time, I was halfway home.  As I neared my neighborhood, the towering trees I love so much became more numerous.  They are why I had chosen to live here in particular.  Despite all the problems they cause – dropping leaves in the fall and pollen in the spring and, what can be worse, throwing their limbs down on us and our power lines in summer thunderstorms and winter ice storms – I love trees!  I also like my neighborhood, Providence Park.  Even though the homes are smaller than the McMansions that some seem to prefer, and even though they, like the trees that surround them, cause their share of maintenance headaches, they have a quiet elegance.  Sitting primly in their well-tended yards, looking pretty much the same as when they were built 50 or more years ago, they have an air of having seen it all, and remaining calm.  They reassure me.

Getting back to my thoughts, I was one of the few kids from my high school to go to an ivy league-type university.  I went to Emory, and even though that meant I stayed in Atlanta, my life changed completely there.  Many of my new friends were from New York or elsewhere in the Northeast.  I spent a junior year abroad in England.  I became ever more sophisticated than anyone I had known in high school (or, at least, so I thought at the time), and I lost touch with all of them.

After college, I continued along a trajectory that carried me even further from the high school experience that John and I had shared.  The first thing I thought of doing after graduation, having majored in History and English, was to seek out a PhD in the hope of eventually becoming a university professor.  But I knew I really wasn’t, at heart, the academic type.  Instead, I was intrigued by the corporate takeovers of the 1980s, and so I chose to study finance in graduate school.  There I developed an ability to analyze complex subjects and describe them in understandable terms.  I finished grad school just as the 1990s boom was beginning, and easily found employment as a consultant, which would offer challenging work and handsome remuneration, as they say.

But you can understand me, I think, by knowing that my other motto is also from Socrates - “everything in moderation, nothing in excess.”  I always try to find a balance.  Just as I can have the same interest in finance as in history, without choosing one to the exclusion of the other, I didn’t want to devote my life entirely to the world of big business.  So instead of following my classmates to New York (or London, Los Angeles or another big city), I headed off to Charlotte, North Carolina to join a smaller firm.  I’ve been lucky to see my career progress along with the growth of the firm and the city.

Now I had reached home and, after putting my bike in the garage, I stood for a moment and looked out at the trees, listening to the music of the chirping cicadas, and thinking about my conversation with John.  At first it had seemed like it was going to be a brief.  Maybe all he wanted was to say hello and let me know that he’d be in town.  Just being polite.  But we got to talking, and the conversation went on, and from the few things he mentioned about himself, I got the sense that his situation was similar to mine in many ways.  He liked his job, but he knew it well enough that it wasn’t as much of a challenge as it had been.  He’d travelled, so he didn’t have that restlessness about life that many younger people do.  He was married with kids, so that aspect of his life had been sorted out, too.

He was looking for something, I concluded.

That was the last in my series of thoughts, as I stood there looking out at the trees – John was looking for something.  In fact, it seemed that maybe he was looking for the same thing I was.

See, that’s why I enjoy biking.  I always learn something.  This time, I had learned that John and I were both looking for something.

Now all I had to figure out was what we were looking for.

* * *

As I opened the door and entered my home, I was reminded that I would have to put my ruminations off until later.  The best word to describe what greeted me would be “chaos,” but it was a good kind of chaos.  The kind of chaos that’s the best reward for a long day’s work.  My wife and two children were in the midst of preparations for a two-week absence – they were leaving that weekend to visit her parents.

I had met my wife in college, and we had been married 18 years.  We were blessed with two children – a girl, age 12, and a boy, age 10.  Needless to say, there was rarely a dull moment in our lives.

In the midst of all this, I mentioned to my wife that I had heard from a high school friend out of the blue that day.  For some reason I really can’t explain, I remember trying to sound casual when I said it.  But I don’t think she even paid much attention, since she had her hands full with a million other things.  I told her that I would have a drink with him later in the week, and it seemed she was relieved by this.  As long as it didn’t involve her having to pick up or drop off anything or anyone, it was fine with her.

As we got ready for bed in a quiet house that night, my wife remembered what I had said earlier, and asked me about the friend who had called.  I told her who John was, and even though she had never met him, she seemed pleased that a friend of mine had called.

As I drifted off to sleep, I mused to myself that what really pleased my wife was that a male friend of mine had called.  This would be a good time to explain that while our marriage is a happy one, it suffers from the stresses and strains that can be expected after 18 years, and two children, together.  And I am willing to admit that I bear my share of responsibility for the strains.

Although I have been faithful to my wife, you should understand that my closest friends, ever since grade school, have always been female.  As a boy, I never had trouble talking to girls, and I believe I have only perfected that skill since.  This is not to say I’m a lothario, however – it’s just that I really like women!  I like everything about them; I’m not the kind of guy who limits himself to a “type.”

One time, my wife said in exasperation, “Your problem is that you’ll always find the good qualities in a woman!”

I could see what she meant, but I thought to myself, “That’s hardly a problem, is it?”  I will freely admit that I ignore a woman’s faults and focus only on her good side.  I always give a woman the benefit of the doubt.  I don’t know why this is, exactly.  Part of it, I think, is simply because I believe women get the short end of the stick in lots of ways, and I feel I should make up for that.

So you can imagine that with an attitude like this, I don’t have a problem making friends with women.  And it’s not rare that I will go a little bit further than friendship, while always remaining a gentleman (which, by the way, I’ve learned makes a man even more attractive!).  That is, I’ll also freely admit to being a bit of a flirt, and even more so as I’ve grown older and gained the confidence that comes from experience.

The only reason I mention this now is to explain why I think my wife was happy that John had contacted me.  Like I said, I don’t really socialize with anyone other than work colleagues and the parents of our kids’ friends, and I believe she feels sorry about that.  She’ll sometimes mention that I should find a guy friend to bike with, or to share the burdens of home maintenance with, or really, just to share some of the stresses of modern life with.  She probably thought John could fill that role.

The last thought I remember as I went to sleep, in fact, was wondering whether he could.

* * *

I woke up early the next morning, and had the feeling that the rising sun itself was feeding me energy.  I’m not really a morning person, but sometimes on a quiet, cool summer morning, I have no problem being the first one out of bed, making a pot of coffee, and just taking a moment to enjoy being alive.  On that morning, as I sipped my coffee and looked out the window at the trees moving in a gentle breeze, I decided I’d ride my bike to the office again that day.

A half hour later, I had changed into shorts and a t-shirt, and was pedaling toward the office.  I’ve never lacked motivation to exercise; at least, not as an adult.  As a child, I never exercised and never participated in any sports, and was quite the chubby kid because of it.  But around junior year in high school, something changed for me.  For one thing, I began to go to a low-key gym that had a full set of Nautilus equipment.  I found that I loved it – maybe because it didn’t require any coordination!  I think another reason was the atmosphere at this gym.  This was before the whole exercise phenomenon really took off, and it was a sleepy little gym with the weight room and a few racquetball courts.  I wasn’t intimidated, even though I was a complete beginner.  I just had my little chart for the weight machine circuit, and as I gradually increased the resistance at each station, my muscle tone increased as well.

At the same time, I got into biking.  This was also before cities started to build bike trails, so I just rode around the neighborhood.  When I had the time, I’d head out along the quiet roads near the river not far from my house.  As I raced along, trying to go as fast as I could, I focused on the feeling of the blood flowing to the muscles in my legs, hips and butt.  I liked that feeling; I liked the feeling of my muscles burning as they pumped harder and harder.  That’s the real reason I like exercising.  It’s very sensual for me.

On that morning, heading in to work, I was somehow motivated to ride just a little faster than usual.  That pleasant burning feeling returned, and I soon found my thoughts returning to John.

I thought back to when I had last seen him.  It was in the fall of 1986, when we were each in our freshman year of college.  He had gone to Southern Polytechnic – a state school known for its engineering program, which was located about 20 miles away from Emory University, where I was.

He had always been an engineering type – a quantitative, black and white kind of guy.  Numbers.  I was the liberal arts type, shades of gray.  Words.

Anyway, a few of my friends had gone to Southern Poly and I went out to see them not long after college started.  The whole thing was very awkward and uncomfortable – for the obvious reasons associated with seeing people from high school after you’ve made the transition to college – and I’ve pretty much put it out of my mind.  At some point during the weekend, I do remember going to his dorm room to see him.  We talked for less than five minutes.  Just enough time to realize that we had nothing to say to each other.  And that would be the last I would ever hear from him, or of him.

For you to understand why the last time I saw him was so tense and awkward, and especially why the prospect of meeting John again now was so significant for me, I have to back up and tell you all about everything that happened between me and John in high school.

But before I go back to the fall of 1985, let me acknowledge that I’m not completely comfortable with all my high school experiences – who is?  So be it; life is often a little messy.