When I was a kid, my sister and I would spend at least a couple of weeks every summer in Mississippi. There we would stay with our friend April and her family, who used to live in Fort Smith. I remember the small town they lived in with one stop sign, where we made our fun by splashing in cheap, plastic swimming pools in the backyard, hanging upside down from trees in the front, and walking along the cotton patches while dragging sticks behind us in the dirt. It’s funny the memories that stick with you, like the feeling of the antique chair that needed a new spring in the seat, the taste of cold milk in a glass mason jar, the clink of silverware on blue and white patterned china. Even now I can’t look at a kudzu vine without thinking of April and Carrolton, Mississippi. It seems all of these things are tied together in a knot that’s so tight I can’t imagine it will ever come undone.
Recently I came across a three-ring binder in my parents’ garage overflowing with handwritten letters from April. I guess when we were young, she was my best friend, my confidant, and we used to write each other ten, twenty, thirty-page letters about every little thing that happened. As kids, we all went to summer camp together. As teenagers, April and I worked at that same summer camp, a place I called home for nine summers of my life. I don’t have the time or space to tell you what that place meant to me, but I don’t think I ever drove back home to Arkansas without crying.
For a couple of summers, April and I taught canoes together. We used to get pretty silly, so every day we’d teach the campers a different way to spit water out of their mouths. I’m sure the parents didn’t realize they were paying for this sort of education, so I considered it like a bonus. Sometime you’ll have to ask me about the water pump spit, the inverted water pump spit, and the sprinkler spit, but until then, here’s a picture of a spit whose name I have forgotten. (Damn if my pecs didn’t look fantastic.)
As we got older, April and I grew apart. Life takes everyone in different directions sooner or later. April got married, had three children, divorced. She and my sister reconnected, but April and I weren’t even friends on Facebook. A lot of people at camp used to say that April and I would get married, and even though we never dated we were so close, so it felt weird, maybe intrusive. Plus, I hadn’t come out to anyone at summer camp. I simply didn’t know how to handle any of it, so I didn’t.
They say time changes everything. A few years ago, April and I spoke online. She talked about her family. I said I was gay. She said she figured, didn’t matter. Since then, we’ve kept up in messages, not like the ones we used to send–about every little thing–but still in long, uncensored, run-on paragraphs that feel familiar, comfortable like an old t-shirt you like to sleep in.
A few months ago, just when I moved back in with my parents, April sent me a message that said, “Get your butt to Texas. You can stay with me.” Even now I’m a bit floored by the offer. I mean, I haven’t seen her in ten years. Who says that? But I guess the answer is a dear friend. A dear friend says that.
Yesterday April noticed online that I’m currently in Austin and sent me a message that said she was coming into town with her boyfriend to have dinner and would like me to join them. So Bonnie loaned me her car (a convertible!), and I went. April got there first, and she sent me a text that said to walk to the back. Well, I looked everywhere and was just about to go back to the front door and start over. But then out of nowhere April swooped in and gave me the biggest hug.
As we sat down, it felt a lot like any reunion. How are your brother and sister? Where do you work? Whatever happened to the other counselor in your cabin? For the most part, it was nonstop like this for two hours. April’s boyfriend joined in, but it was mainly the Marcus and April show. As the night went on, I kept thinking how much both of us have changed, how much shit we’ve both been through.
Some things are timeless, safe from the grips of gravity.
Sometimes I look back at that kid in the swim trunks at summer camp, and I can still remember what he was thinking, the way he loved singing Bill Grogan’s Goat and giving the kids piggy back rides, the way he hated the mosquito bites almost as much as he hated saying goodbye to his friends. When I think about camp, there’s so much that’s palpable, but when I look in the mirror and see pictures of other counselors with other campers online, I’m reminded that “they” are right–time changes everything. My days at camp are a distant echo. I’ve been through hell and back since then. Parts of me are still the same, but so much is dramatically different. I know it’s the same for April too.
“Remember when I accidentally hit that one girl in the face with my canoe paddle?” I said.
“Yeah, that must have hurt.”
“I mean, she seemed to take it well.”
“Marcus.” April put her elbows on the table and leaned in. “A face is a face.”
And then it happened. Both of us reared back in our chairs and burst out laughing. In that moment, I realized I hadn’t actually heard April’s laughter in over ten years. To my delight, it sounded just like it did when we were children all crammed in the backseat of a hot car, just like it did when we were teenagers and we’d tump over a canoe full of kids on purpose.
Yes, twenty years changes a person. His chest falls, his waistline slumps like the seat of an antique chair. Everything fades with the seasons, the way unpicked cotton eventually falls to the ground. In the end, gravity wins, changing our bodies the way that hard times and disappointments change children into adults. But some things, I think, are timeless, safe from the grips of gravity. Among them are memories of cold milk in glass mason jars, children riding piggy back, and canoes filled up with water. But perhaps the best thing that doesn’t change is the sound of a dear friend, reared back, laughing. A friend’s laughter, after all, takes us backward and carries us forward simultaneously. Growing only richer and deeper with age, it’s a beautiful sound indeed, best enjoyed by one who has heard it hundreds–if not thousands–of times before.
Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)
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Love stands at the front door and says, “You don’t have to change a thing about yourself to come inside.”
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