A Ghost Is Born

I don't want this to sound like an obituary, but I want to tell you about my friend Stevie. He died Thursday morning. He was 34.

We found out late last summer that Steve had cancer -- and I say "we" because when I think about Steve, I think about Dan.

I wouldn't say the three of us were inseparable or anything; it was just that all throughout high school, we hung out together all the time. We ran on the same track relays. We worked the same manual-labor job on weekends in the summer. We laughed at the same stupid inside jokes. Because none of the three of us was all that smooth with the ladies back then, we were each other's default dates most Friday and Saturday nights. When we finally did get dates, for the senior prom, we rented a limousine together. We included each other in our yearbook senior quotes.

The cancer started in his colon, and progressed to his liver and lungs. This is not the sort of cancer you wish on anyone, unless you really want them to have their colon removed and have to do their business into a colostomy bag. Steve was optimistic when he told us about the treatment plan, but there was hesitation in his voice. These weren't the kinds of conversations we'd ever thought about having.

We haven't been each other's default Friday-night dates for a while now; I moved to St. Louis, Dan to Atlanta and Steve to Houston. In fact, the last time the three of us had been together was five years ago, at Steve's wedding. When we found out Steve had cancer, we made plans to go to Houston.

By the time we got there, in mid-September, Steve had had a week or so to work on his colostomy-bag jokes. He'd had his colon removed, and now he had a hole in is abdomen with a bag attached to take care of things he'd used to enjoy sitting down to do. But not only was he laughing about his colostomy bag -- and the sounds his hole was making -- he was looking at the upside of not having a colon. Sure, I have to poop in a bag, he said, but hey -- no more colitis!

Much of the weekend felt very adult. It was weird enough that Steve, forever the goofball, was now married with two kids. But to hang out with his family and the families of his two older sisters, both very adult, both with their own husbands and clans of kids -- kids who looked at me and Dan as old guys, old friends of their Uncle Steve -- made me feel awfully grown up and old. Stranger still was realizing that Steve's oldest nephew was the same age Steve, Dan and I were when we started hanging out together.

But some of the weekend felt very much like high school. For a few hours on Saturday, the three of us left the kids and the parents and went out and played video games at Dave & Buster's. We ate lunch at Whataburger, where we took fast-food pictures of ourselves with Steve's camera phone. The technology might have changed, but the mindset certainly hadn't. Dan liberated a plastic Whataburger order number tent on our way out the door as a souvenir.

And then part of the weekend felt sobering. Steve's sister had organized a fund-raiser for that Saturday to help defray some of the costs of his medical treatment, and provide some financial support for his family. On the one hand, it was a great event -- it was like being at a retirement party/roast for one of your oldest friends, with family and friends gathered to shower him with love and tell stories about him. On the other hand, as great as it was to meet Steve's new friends and laugh about those old stories, I could never forget why we were there.

But thinking about Steve now, I think about stories.

I think about how he used to come up and poke you in the kidney, then say, "Trust me -- I'm a doctor."

I think about late nights playing cards at my kitchen table, me, Steve, Dan and my mom -- who herself once had an extended conversation with cancer and told it exactly where it could take its sorry ass -- with my mom trumping us seemingly every time.

I think about Steve's laugh, a giggly, cartoon-cat hiss, and how once that laugh got started, Dan would start to laugh in his ridiculous, hiccupping cackle, and how once that happened, we were pretty much useless with laughter for about ten minutes -- even if this was happening while our track coach was talking, and we were supposed to be taking him seriously.

And I think of the night we went skiing on Christmas Eve, more than 10 years ago. Because that story can't be condensed into a single paragraph, and because I wrote a column commemorating the tenth anniversary of the story, I'm reprinting it below, for a happy memory, and as a tribute.

But before I let you get to that, there's one more thing.

I didn't cry Thursday night when I found out. I think partly it was because it wasn't altogether unexpected -- he had a pretty wicked type of cancer, after all -- but partly because it hadn't yet registered.

This morning, as I was writing this, it registered. And for some reason that I can't explain, the song "Theologians" by Wilco came into my head, in particular the final verse:

I'm going away
Where you will look for me
Where I'm going you cannot come
No one's ever gonna take my life from me
I lay it down
A ghost is born
A ghost is born
A ghost is born

Suddenly, the song meant something completely new to me. I found comfort in thinking about Stevie laying down this life, to be born again into a new one, this time in ghost form. I liked that thought. And I half expected Ghost Stevie to sneak up on me and poke me in the kidney, and that I would turn around and hear him snickering.

He hasn't poked me yet, but I'm still waiting.

So Stevie, I love you, and I miss you already. And I promise you this: your memory, and something more, lives on.

A ghost is born.

__________________________________________

A Christmas Story

Ten years ago this past Tuesday, on a cold and snowy December 24th, I drove up to Eastern Pennsylvania's Blue Mountain with my friends Dan and Steve to hit the slopes. Aside from the fact that I broke a ski pole and managed to lose Dan's driver's license, our day of skiing was a rousing success. As night fell and we headed back down the mountain, all twelve of our limbs mercifully intact, we laughed and joked, recounting the day's adventures.

Then, toward the bottom of the mountain, the battery light on my dashboard began to flicker. Since the car's prime -- it was a 1984 Chevy Celebrity station wagon, rest its soul, with genuine vinyl seats -- had long since passed, I just assumed the flickering light was but another minor malfunction that I didn't need to worry about, like the time the engine started smoking. But soon the dashboard lights and the headlights started going dim, and a few minutes later the radio died. I figured we'd better pull over.

We slid into an Exxon station and idled there, considering our options. Dan suggested that if we shut off the engine, it probably wouldn't start again, at which point I reminded him that our lights no longer worked and our engine sounded like a moaning rhinoceros. We agreed to kill the engine and try to start it again. I can't remember anymore why we thought this would fix anything, but we did. I turned the key, and the engine went silent.

After waiting a few seconds, I turned the key back, to no avail. But we were at a gas station. We figured we could get a jump.

I approached a bearded man in his mid-thirties who was reading a newspaper behind the wheel of a battered, late-70s OldsmoBuick, and asked if he might be able to help us out. He pulled his car over to mine, we popped our respective hoods, and I got out the jumper cables.

Despite following the prescribed jump-starting procedure, the car wouldn't start. The kind gentleman suggested that maybe the problem was the alternator. "Right," I said. "I was actually thinking that myself." I just wanted to get a second opinion.

Thus, in hopes of restoring my alternator to health, our new friend rummaged around in his trunk and brought forth a wrench, a crow bar, and a Ziploc bag containing a bologna sandwich that looked no less than three weeks old. Gnawing on the sandwich and tooling with the wrench and crow bar, he began to perform crude surgery on my engine. I crossed my fingers.

As our friend tinkered, I decided to give Dan and Steve, who were still sitting in the car, a status update. Sliding into the driver's seat, whose vinyl had begun to grow cold, I informed them that it was the alternator, just as I had suspected, and that this kind gentleman was trying to fix it for us. Dan looked at me earnestly and said, "It's Jesus, you know."

I shot him a confused look.

"It's Christmas Eve," Dan said, "and Jesus is fixing our car. I mean, look at the guy. The beard. The sandals. The halo. It's Jesus."

Just then the man tapped on the window and gave the universal symbol for car-starting. I turned the key hopefully. The engine groaned once, then came to life. The three of us could only stare at each other.

I got out to thank the man, and he said, "You'd better drive right home." I promised him we would. He asked how far it was. I told him about an hour.

"Oh," he said.

We pulled out of the Exxon and drove for maybe half a mile before the car died again. Only this time, there was no dimming of the lights or fading of the radio -- just total engine failure.

"Oh," I said.

Too far now from the Exxon to walk back, the three of us clambered over a guard rail, down a snowy embankment and across a field to the nearest lit building, a small hotel. Once inside, we called AAA and told them our story. They said they'd send a truck right over. We crossed the field, climbed the snowy embankment and clambered back over the guard rail to sit in the car and wait.

Forty-five minutes later, when they hadn't showed up, I trekked back to the hotel and called AAA again. The dispatcher said the truck was out on a tow, and that it would be with us shortly. I headed back to the car. Thirty minutes later, just when it seemed Dan, Steve and I might finally succumb to frostbite, a truck pulled up.

I was elated, but I was scared. No doubt we had disturbed somebody's Christmas Eve, and I couldn't imagine that he would be too happy about it. So when the driver came over and started speaking to us in broken English, I was already imagining what the cops would say when they discovered our bodies the next morning, frozen like popsicles.

Filled with dread but trying to remain calm, I decided it was my responsibility as the driver to try to save us. I asked if he could fix it. He said no. With a misguided hopefulness in my voice, I asked if he could at least take a look at it. I'm not sure what I thought he might be able to do for us there on the shoulder of the highway, but taking pity on me, he assented. I popped the hood, and he ducked his head and flashlight under for a look.

"It's the alternator," he said. "Let's go. Get in the truck."

It was nice to have that confirming third opinion.

The man hooked my car to the tow truck, and the four of us stuffed ourselves into the cab designed for two and began our trek to the service station. I sat silently with my hands in my lap, hoping our destination wasn't far away.

Dan, however, was feeling friendly, and started asking questions, like what the gentleman's name was, and, assuming that his accent wasn't just some odd Pennsylvania dialect, what country he was from. We found out that his name was Frank, and that he was from Italy. This got Dan excited, and he started talking about Italian soccer. Before I knew what was happening, Dan was insulting Frank's home team. Furtively, I punched Dan in the thigh, hoping to shut him up. I figured Frank could still toss us out of the truck and onto the street if we made him angry.

But Frank agreed with Dan's assessment of his favorite football team, and rather than angering him, the soccer talk warmed him up. Frank, it turns out, was quite the friendly fellow.

So friendly, in fact, that he said that after he dropped the car off, he would take us to a Dunkin' Donuts so we could get some food, call for a ride and wait in the warmth for somebody to pick us up. After we left my car at the service station, Frank drove to the Dunkin' Donuts.

And it was closed.

But Frank knew a pub down the street that he thought would be open.

It was closed.

We tried to think what could be open on Christmas Eve. Frank suggested Denny's.

"Of course," we agreed heartily. "Denny's is always open."

Denny's was closed.

But Frank, apparently not quite ready to invite us into his home on Christmas Eve, was determined to find a place for us. So on we drove, rounding every bend with renewed optimism, only to be greeted with disappointment as we found yet another establishment with an empty parking lot and dimmed lights.

And then Frank brightened. As if divinely inspired, he remembered one more place that he thought might be open. He pulled a u-turn and headed there. After several blocks, we turned a corner, and there it was, lit up like a star -- the Bethlehem Diner. And we saw the word "Open" in the window. We very nearly wept.

Frank let us out at the front door. We thanked him profusely, bid him a fond farewell and wished him a very Merry Christmas.

And then we three wise guys walked into the little diner of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with pockets full of change, keys and chewing gum, and sat down for supper.

Our waitress, a very nice woman, took our order, brought us our meal, and kept our water glasses filled. Toward the end of the meal, she brought us our check, placing it face-down on the table. "Merry Christmas, guys," she said. "You can pay me whenever you're ready."

I turned over the check to see what we owed. Below the total, she had signed her name.

It read, "Mary."