A Friday Sidebar: The Silent Partner

(Names in this article have been amended for privacy)

Break out a #2 pencil, and see if you can guess the answer to this simple, one-question quiz:

(Ah, the memories. I can smell the carcinogenically-laced mimeograph paper from here.)

Anyway…

“I have never seen even 15 seconds of Friends, but can name every one of the show’s characters.”

“I had a ticket to Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, and to my dying day will regret “doing the right thing,” and not calling in sick to work.”

“I can’t spell the word ‘interesting.'”

A and B are absolutely accurate. And apparently, so is “C.” But there’s a fourth truism; a little, mini life-accomplishment that I’m irrationally proud of.

It just makes me a little sad to think about it.

In my early to mid 20s, I was “between girlfriends.”

After a hard week’s work, whether I wanted to or not: I would psych myself up to go out on Saturday nights to a local restaurant about 20 minutes away. After the last dinner seating of the night, they would clear out the tables, hastily sweep up, and prepare the room for live entertainment – usually featuring what we used to call “Show Bands.”

The core members of the group would play a first set.

Eventually, a front man or front woman would make a Vegasy entrance and perform a tight, and usually entertaining set.

Because I had all the moves of an ottoman, I would do everyone a solid and just park my happyfeet at the bar, twisting my seat into position so that I could see both band and crowd whooping it up. As I sat silently by myself, it was always a relaxed feeling of contentment.

One night while assuming my usual position, a surprise tap on the shoulder revealed an old acquaintance. “No way!” a voice said. “I thought that was you.”

“mt, what are you doing here? Hey, I’m here with my brother and another guy. Come hang with us.”

It took me a good minute to recall who this guy was. The contextual “brother” thing was a welcome clue; he was a couple of years ahead of me back in high school. I made my way across the room, and he said, “mt, this is John. John, mt. He properly validated the introductions by assuring, sort of to the both of us, “Good guy.”

John offered a solid handshake and said: “Hey.”

And that was about it.

For the rest of the night, 75% of us yammered away. John was… quiet. He would give pleasant enough, one-or-two sentence answers to the usual, “So… where do you work… what’s your car… what do you think of the band,” etc. He wasn’t at all standoffish or rude. He was just… quiet.

Really quiet.

During the night’s many beers, we would declare that we were getting ready to ask that one particular girl for a dance – and of course, we never quite did.

At closing time, we said our goodnights and nice-to-meet-youses… and that was that.

While it was fun and probably mentally healthier to be more social than usual, seven days passed and I didn’t give it much thought. And dull creature of habit that I was, at 9:30 on that Saturday night I was once again sitting by myself in the exact same spot, listening to that week’s new band. Exactly 168 hours after the previous week’s events, history sort of repeated itself.

But this time, it wasn’t Brother #1. The shouldertapper was that quiet John guy. He offered a rerun of the solid handshake and said, “Hey.”

And that was about it.

I remember thinking that it was nice of him to come over and have his version of a conversation. Which is to say, I did 90% of the talking.

It turned out that The Brothers 1 and 2 were bigger fans of staying home and watching Dallas than listening to Cook E. Jar And His Krumbs. They weren’t up for a night of cheesy entertainment at a disco.

But John was. As we (mostly I) chatted, we learned that we had some things in common. We both liked sitting silently. We both liked watching the pretty girls dance, laughing at the corniness of the frontman on stage, and listening to the music. As I am typing this, I am aware of how weird it sounds: sitting with a pal at a bar in three hours of comparative silence. And somehow, it worked.

We evolved as friends, learning about each other’s lives and hobbies. I nicknamed him one day when he was being extra quiet, calling him a “Silent Partner.” To which he groaned, grinned, and high-fived me. Staying on-brand, he replied:

“Heh. Good one.”

He was a kind soul with a great sense of humor. As was his way, he could deliver a one or two-word non-sequitur that would absolutely put me away. We got close enough that I actually felt I could ask him why he was so quiet. His response was both funny and thoughtful: “Me? Nah. I talk too much. Better to listen.”

And that was about it.

He was an accomplished private pilot and a very smart, talented engineer.

We continued our Saturday night routine for a long while, finding new and fun places to watch the dancing, and adding to our “collection” of bar and show bands. He would take me for rides in his plane, and I would take him out on my leaky little sailboat.

Accidently crashing a bachelor party is one escapade that I remember, because I was the one who had to do all the talking to our really unhappy hosts. It was just one of many preposterous adventures.

Until I messed it all up by finding a new girlfriend. Or so I thought. I remember joking with him that I’d ruined our Saturday hang. He just shrugged and launched into his version of a monologue:

“Fridays.”
“That’ll work.”

One night while I was out with my new girl, we ran into her old college roommate.

She was very nice, and was open to finding a new relationship. I suggested my friend as a potential option. “What’s he like?” they both asked. “Oh, he’s very polite, and he has a good job… and… do you like quiet guys? Really quiet guys?” Surprisingly, she said that she did.

So we arranged for a blind double-date. Before I knew it, they were inseparable. I’m imagining that this newfound love had some effect on his inherently silent nature: Within six months, he clearly had mustered up enough verbiage to properly propose marriage.

By the way, for those keeping score: That’s my fourth icebreaker self-factoid:

I’ve set up two different couples on two different blind dates…
… that have resulted in two marriages.

As is often the case, friendships change when people get married. We saw less of each other – and that was fine: he was now a happily married guy (you’re welcome.) I was back to my keeping my old Saturday barstool warm, as I had broken up with my girlfriend.

Dancing with myself, as it were. Not wanting to be a third wheel, I continued to lose touch. After about a year, I was “out of the network.”

It seems immature and silly now, but because things didn’t end well with my girlfriend, we ended up on non-speaking terms. Which is the one of the reasons why I didn’t hear about what was happening with my friend until I ran into Brother #1 one day, who said to me, “Boy, that’s a shame about John.”

His wife took my call and said yes, it would be OK to visit. I was not prepared – to this day I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so ill. And I had no idea what to say.

And that’s when my Silent Partner did what he did best. He summed it all up without wasting a word.

“The Big C. It’ll get ya, but hey, I had a good run. Waddaya gonna do?”

And that was about it. I should be so lucky to have such insight.

We sat together like we had so many times before. And as ever, it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. It was just how we two oddballs rolled. And I was grateful for it.

Ten days later, I was at his funeral. As I was paying my respects to his mother and father, his younger sister came up and in an embrace, half crying, half laughing, she whispered,

“Oh, the times you two had together? He would tell the stories over and over again.”

“He’d never stop.”