It just doesn’t seem right.

I’m dating Christine. How odd.

I’m managing to avoid all those sticky questions like…Alison.

The raging question is what’s going to happen? It’s only raging because I’ve done the
dating-your-friends-that-you’ve-known-forever thing and it’s always ended bad. Always.

I understand that I’m a good person to know and a bad person to date. Now, what’s going to happen?
So we have this ritual, I pick her up, we go to Denny’s, we say hi to Katelin, we talk, whatever.
We get to Denny’s, we sit down, Katelin takes our order, everything seems to be moving along as it usually does. Then Tammi wanders out from in back.
Tammi somehow manages to ignore/be oblivious to me waving so I ask Katelin to get her attention for me.
“Hey,” She says. “Table seven has a complaint about you.”

Tammi turns around, sees me.

A…look…I can’t identify passes on her face. It looks like she doesn’t know whether to cry or run screaming. She walks over, sits down hard next to me, gives me a hug.

“Oh, Jack,” Up close it looks like she’s going to cry. “John has Hodgkin’s Disease.”
I don’t know what to make of this. I don’t think I know what Hodgkin’s Disease is. It does, however, involve the word ‘Disease’ so it can’t be good. Seeing as John is my Most Favorite Person in the World this isn’t shaping up well.

“Uh-huh.”

And she goes on for a bit about their new place in Ben Lomond, about how they’ll have to be leaving soon, live with John’s parents…
I think I’m going through a limited form of shock. I’m still back on ‘Hodgkin’s Disease’ and I can’t seem to move on, Isn’t that like cancer? Isn’t cancer terminal? Somehow I’m not suprised by all of this.

It’s been awhile since any of my friends died, but it used to be a fairly common occurrence. It’s interesting that it’s almost the anniversary of my daughter’s death, a link? I think I’m just being paranoid. I should nod some more…
“…85 percent cure rate, so it’s not that bad.” Tammi says. A ray of hope? No…Couldn’t be. But it is, and a damn big one at that.

The night is definitely not shaping up as I had imagined it.

“Well, that’s good.” I’m talking again. Progress.

“You should come over tomorrow, I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you.”

“I think I will.”

And we talk for a bit more, then we go outside to smoke. I come back in, eat, talk to Christine, say good-bye to Tammi and Katelin, take Christine home, go back to Denny’s, end up spending the night at Katelin’s.

Weirdness piled on weirdness recently. It’s better than Evil Incident after Evil Incident though…

After much slow driving I’ve finally arrived at Tammi and John’s new house. Apartment. Residence above a garage.

Knock. Knock.

The door opens and there’s John, He looks well, little pale and what looks like it’s gonna be a two maybe two and a half inch scar just below the left jawbone.
He looks over his shoulder “Sorry about the mess.”

“Not a problem.”

I follow him back to the living room, dodging clothes and boxes. John sits on the couch, curls up with a blanket, looks for all the world like Little Timmy home from school with the Chicken Pox.

“Hi Jack!” Tammi, from the kitchen. She always seems too happy whenever she sees me. I’m still getting used to it. At least she doesn’t giggle.

I walk into the kitchen, offer my wrist for her to slap.

I told her I might be staying at Katelin’s last night. She wasn’t very happy with that thought.

“You didn’t.”

“My position is one of no comment.” And people say I’m not evil.

“I’ll find out. She’ll tell me.”

“Then you’ll find out. Are you gonna smack me?” And she does. Hard. I make my way to the living room and John.

“How goes it?” I ask.

“I’m falling apart Jack.”

I look for someplace to sit…Find some space on a chair after I move the large pile of paper on it.
We talk for awhile, about medical stuff, about life, about me living in San Francisco, about RPGs.

The phone rings. Tammi answers, it’s Warne. John’s former housemate and a very close friend of his. I like Warne. We get along well. Alison is his ex from way back.
Amusing, no?

Warne and John talk for awhile, decide to maybe do something tomorrow. Tammi and I have, in the time they were on the phone, plotted to have a picnic. We inform John after he gets off the phone.

Wandering through the Ben Lomond market we rack up quite a few disturbed looks. Tammi and I notice this, point it out to John. He tells us we’re paranoid. We know The Truth. The Lomondites are going to ambush us and beat us down. Or maybe just me, I am the token Goth of our little ka-tet.
I buy wine. One can’t have a picnic without wine now can one?

We pay for our stuff (Some lunchmeat, rolls, cheese [It seems to me that the ‘It’s the cheese’ ad campaign is targeted at people like Tammi. We left that place with three different types of cheese], wine, bottle opener, non-alcoholic drinks.), leave. We’re not ambushed. Maybe John was right.

Twenty minutes later I find myself walking the ‘redwood loop’ at Henry Cowell State Park.

Me. Out in nature. And during the day. Mark your calendar.

I have an odd sort of muted feeling of elation mixed with grim sorrow, it makes the colors around me seem a little brighter, the sunlight a little more gold than it should be.

Why?

I’m with the two people I most treasure, one ‘falling apart’, the other…Seeming to hold herself together with sheer willpower (She gets more credit now than I was giving her then…). Why am I enjoying being here? Shouldn’t I by rights be off brooding about what this portends?

Yes.

But who am I to run from these people? They’ve stood by me when I needed it (“Oh, Jack, how’s the floor?” “Hard” “You want to move to the couch?” “No, that’s ok I’m enjoying my drunken stupor here on the stairs.” “Ok…”), and they’re of the few who are really my friends…

Still, it strikes me that somehow this is wrong. Maybe it’s just the surreal factor this weekend.

We make our way down the trail, eventually settling down near a bench.

None of us seemed to remember one rather essential element of picnics. Something to lay out.

No problem. My trenchcoat is quite versatile. Besides, it’s done everything else. Another battle honour, aye, so it is.

So we sit. We eat. We talk about things…

The whole thing seems surreal. Trees, people wandering by, birds, the way the sunlight lances through the trees…I don’t know…

When were done we continue down the trail, looking at nature things.

Eventually, we make it back to the car, go back to the residence.

I’ve discovered that in this place, I feel…safe…therefore it leeches away energy, makes me feel lethargic, tired (it doesn’t help that I was up way too late last night…).

So its time I go, I need to get coffee, get psyched for X-files.

We say our good-byes and I head down towards my vehicle, wondering at the strange days I live with, wondering what’s going to happen, and, for the first time in a long time, letting myself hope that there’s a bright light at the end of this tunnel.