The trick of storytelling is always in getting the characters right. If you can get your characters right, the rest is child’s play. But it’s a double-edged sword. Because even the best stories are three-dimensional, but personalities live in four dimensions.
And in this case, all the characters are real people, to whom I owe a debt. They aren’t pieces on a chess board. Each one, even the ones that I could not find the room to mention, changed my life in a thousand ways. I owe it to them to do them justice.
And more than any of them, I owe John.
When I set out to put these words to page, I tried in vain to get this chapter right. Time and time again I was lost for exactly how to explain him in a way that shows the dichotomy of his personality accurately. Everyone plays a role in life and in stories. Sometime he’s the hero; other times he’s the villain; and more often than not he’s the comedic sidekick. I’m sure he would see all of this otherwise.
John was born a hair’s breadth away from me on the Eastern bank of the Mississippi River. There’s something of an unofficial rivalry between the East Bank people and the West Bank. It’s all technically part of the GNO (greater New Orleans area), but we WB folks are looked at as sort of poor savages. It’s all irrelevant, of course. The East and the West are equally crime and poverty stricken. And among other things, that’s something we had in common. Both born into poor, stringently Italian-American families, we faced many of the same difficulties.
We might have met sooner had he made one slightly different choice. In the 8th grade, I’d gone to the first Catholic school to allow co-eds. Many of his classmates that year had decided a school with girls was the way to go. John was among the half that chose a different school. His school was the better choice in terms of education and attitude. Mine, however, had far superior vaginas.
Over the years, I’ve learned that we have similarly bad luck. When a kid is constantly held back from a better life, he learns to use his natural advantages. John is a react first, think last personality. For me, physicality was never an option. Thus he got by kicking down doors, while I learned to finesse locks. These traits play out heavily in our personalities. I’ve always relied on wit and humor to get me by. Language is my sword; at times I use it like a scalpel, and other times I wield it like a blunt axe. John is usually either loved or hated for his aggressive and abrasive attitude. More the latter, I think; but you might be surprised how quickly charmed you are by him. But this too, is double-edged. He has his good days, and he has his bad. And woe be to those who get him on a bad day. I’m among the few who has never backed down from his rage. It’s never come down to fists, but it has been close. Most people, though, never see that side. Some- ladies in particular- would even be shocked.
In the ensuing years I’ve had both odd and strained relationships with many of the people in these stories. Some were disappointments. Some were surprises. And while I no longer consider John to be one, his friendship was in many was a blessing for most of the past decade. We’ve been through a lot together. Mistakes, women, jobs and apartments. In 2005, when South East Louisiana was flooded and drowned, we evacuated the city together and watched as the place the birthed us turned into a third world country.
Seven years later that friendship is gone. I won’t get into the specifics, because that isn’t what this story is about. Suffice it to say that everyone plays a role. Sometimes he’ll be the hero of the story; sometimes he’ll very much be the villain. But here he is a flawed, but good man. Here, he is the sidekick.
