"I am not your enemy" my companion said as they tasted the cold, frothy beverage that I placed in front of them, and then let out a satisfied sigh" I glanced at them, a person I had known the better part of a decade, and wondered how much of what they was telling me was anywhere in the neighborhood of the truth, or were they just telling me what they thought I wanted to hear, and would say it was true regardless? I struggled not to give a detailed lecture on the Manichaeism temptation, the one that decrees that "if you aren't my friend, then you are my enemy." That temptation is just that a temptation a very alluring view of the world. Either you're with me or you're against me. It makes the world very black and white, divides it clearly between good (my side clearly), and evil (their side clearly). It makes it very simple, and very easy to place objects in their place. That is if objects will just stay in place, funny thing about them is that they tend to move about.
I doubted my present drinking buddy had ever heard of Mani, the founder of the religion that leads to the temptation that bears his name, and I very much doubted they wanted to hear me fill in the blank space on their map of knowledge on this subject. I am not pedantic, but have been told that I would be a better person if "I learned to keep my mouth shut." "In fact, I would like to think that I am your friend." I nodded, let out a sigh, and figured that the "mouth shut" theory wasn't going to work this time. After all, only so much of a conversation can be carried on when all one person does is nod and smile, or grunt and grimace. The nature of the word conversation mainly implies that two people are going to be, at some point, talking (hopefully not at the same time, but that is how a lot of my "chats" with people end up going). I took another long sip of my beverage, mainly in order to give me time to think of a reply, but also because it was fucking delicious, and replied (as laconically as possible) "I know that." I figured the fewer words I supplied in this conversation the better, for multiple reasons. One, I wasn't exactly sure I believed them, and therefore I couldn't be sure how much of what I said was going to be reported back to my actual enemies (of which my companion is very well acquainted). Two, I also wasn't sure I wanted to have this conversation, after all I was just here to get slightly drunk, and wake up tomorrow with a headache, but with no regrets about what I had said to them. Or worse get very drunk, and not remember what I had said to them, and worry how much of my theory on Mani, and his temptation I had shared.
However, I could tell that three words weren't going to be sufficient to finish this conversation to their satisfaction. Pity that, because I wasn't really prepared to reopen the wounds that they wanted to discuss, but Custer didn't exactly didn't get to pick the ground for his "last stand." I had hopes this wouldn't be quite that bad of a disaster, but when I'm involved, one never knows how badly things are going to go. I did feel some sense of regret that we were having the conversation in the first place, after all my actions (to be fair I was acting in concert with someone) were what led us to the point of having to "clear the air" with this conversation. I never figured it would get this bad, but that is what I get for not expecting the worst to happen. If you expect the worst, you are rarely disappointed, and usually (if the worst doesn't happen) can be happily surprised. Sadly, in this case the worst (or at least it's first cousin) had happened. No one died, but a lot of trust, belief, and companionship were grievously, perhaps fatally, wounded. Those smug bastards that have a saying for everything will tell us "that time heals all wounds." What they leave out is that time also deals wounds, serious ones that hurt like the dickens, and feel fatal at the time. Time has to pass for them to heal, and it decides its own pace, and when you are wounded, time's march seems to be a crawl.
I decided to try a simpler, more widely known approach. I bought them a shot, and hoped they got to the state of drunkenness that allowed me to just talk about sex, sports, and nothing of any particular importance. Sadly, I was wrong, they seemed to be trying to make a point about this "friend/enemy" thing, and cheap liquor wasn't going to sidetrack them. In fact, I think it might have made it worse, it made them more determined to talk about it, and neglect a perfectly good looking fellow barfly across the way trying to get their attention. One had to admire their determination while rolling ones eyes at their inability to spot a clue when it was placed in front of them. They were well into the "we've known each other a long time, and we've seen a lot of shit" portion of the friend speech, when I finally cracked, and put up a forestalling hand. I wasn't prepared to trot out Mani and his temptation, and therefore figured a more popular (if slightly different) world view might explain my theory on the situation.
"You watched enough westerns to know the general idea of the Wild West, so I will try to explain my theory in that context. The good guys wear the white hats, and the bad guys wear the black ones. That's the general conception, of course like most general conceptions it's wrong. I mean sure it's true of the Roy Rogers western, but even the cowboy world isn't that simple. You don't ride around in a white hat on a white horse saving the day from clearly defined (by their headgear) bad guys, and get the damsel in distress to fall madly in love with you, and maybe cook you dinner. That's not how any of this works. In the real world the "bad guys" aren't that well defined. Few of them are all the way bad, just like you (the hero of your own story) aren't all the way good. If you're honest (with yourself at least, lie to others, but try to be honest with yourself) you might realize that good and bad is a situational kind of thing. In someone's story, I am the villain, the bad guy that doesn't love his mother enough, and probably kicks dogs for fun, and I need to be the one "eliminated." This isn't as simple as the world where the "only good Indian is a dead Indian." That's just a dream world that some fellow who has never sat on anything other than a carousel horse dreamed up at some desk in some posh office in an urban jungle."
They nodded, and didn't reply, so I figured they had decided to let me ramble, and I decided to oblige them. "This isn't the world where the barkeep" and here I motioned to the fellow behind the bar, a fellow of long standing acquaintance, and a few shared drinks, "doesn't just take your order of whiskey, and place a whole bottle of it in front of you, and wait for you to drink it down like a good boy. That world isn't real, sure he will give you whiskey, but in measures he pours not you. That is probably symbolic of something, but I am not clever enough to figure out of what. Certainly no one wants to be the villain, no matter how good we look in black we all want to be the good guy. The guy with the strong jawline, strong chin, and an even stronger sense of morality. No one really wants to tie the damsel to the railroad, and wait for the train to slice her into neat halves, no one wants to shoot the teller of bank we are robbing for the sake of a few dollars (and out of greed). No one really wants to have to shoot the sheriff or his deputy. No one wants to be a tool, and become a cardboard cut out or a poorly drawn picture on a wanted dead or alive poster in the post office. Generally circumstances quite beyond our control decide the "good guy/bad guy" dichotomy, and we are just left to play the part to the best of our ability, or to try to convince the "director" of this passion play that we have been grossly miscast as the villain."
Another nod, and another sip was their reply, and I wondered if they were listening out of habit, or listening in order to remember and repeat. At this point I was no longer sure I cared. I had had enough of that whiskey, and it was possible that I was talking to myself, and they just happened to be sitting next to me. It didn't matter overmuch then, and if it did later, well that was a problem for sober me. Sometimes you are the only audience you need, and that audience needs to hear what you are saying out loud for a change the running monologue in your head needs to be spoken aloud sometimes. I continued with my monologue "The one thing you don't want to be my friend is the little kid in the western." They arched an eyebrow "little kid?" "Yes" I replied. "You don't want to be the little kid that always somehow wanders away from his or her loving mother and winds up in the street standing between the two gunfighters about to settle their score the only was the West knows how. That is not the place for you, or for anyone, sure you hope the good guy won't shoot the kid, but if he doesn't will the villain shoot him for hesitating? You also like to hope the bad guy won't shoot the kid, but fuck he's the bad guy, he didn't get that hat because he loves kids, apple pie, Jesus, and his mother. He got that black hat for a reason and it wasn't a gift from the benevolent society for all his (or her no need to be sexiest, you ladies can be villains too) good works."
"Shooting a kid, on the way to shooting the good guy might just be what our villain would call the price of doing business, and if the good guy wants to play by some code of honour or a set of rules that they put into place for themselves, then more the fool to him. Just because you follow the rules, doesn't mean the rest of the world has to (there are rules, and there are RULES), or will. Certain people are basically above the rules, and the sooner you learn both that, and that you aren't one of them the easier your life will be." Finally, I began to realize they were still listening, but not really hearing what I had to say. I had reached the tipping point of giving them too much to ponder, and not enough time in which to ponder it. Knowing we to 'exit stage left' is a very difficult art to master, but it has to be done on occasion, and now was the occasion. I called for our tab(s), paid the friendly bar too little for the drinks, but over tipped him a ridiculous amount, sat down my, now empty, glass, and gave them one last parting gift. "Tomorrow you will have a massive headache, and will regret this night of boozing. But remember those drinks, think of them as individual moments in your life. Treat them like a relationship, sure it ended in pain, but you drank them all of your own accord, and enjoyed ever drop on the way. And in this world of shit, that's really all you can hope for. Bon chance."
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