Later. The beer is gone and I'm ripping the liquor cabinet apart for something stronger. Tonight is not the night to file that last article and right now I'm not so sure if I even want to write it. In order for it to be called the Final Chapter it inherently involves walking through that door and shutting the goddamn thing. The last few days have once again allowed me to cloak myself in the warm embrace of an old friendship and I just can't bare to hang up that coat just yet.........................Holy creepy Jesus, the Ipod, sitting in a nasty little, but loud, Bose station, just switched to Hotel California, one of Ralph's favorites, back in the day. That has to be Karma, or maybe......God's Will?! If its the latter, Hey, I was just joking, ok, a slip of the tongue, madness really, gibberish from an unstable country boy, so get over it.
Maybe tomorrow, eh.
The first time he started showing up in my dreams was around my birthday, a few months after he died. I didn't think much of it since that day is usually accompanied by a pervasive sense of nostalgia, melancholy and indulgence. I was a bit unsettling though, having him sit on the edge of my bed blabbering away and it woke me up wondering if I was at the beginning of an acute case of Alzheimer. Since then he's been popping by regularly, no matter what bed I was sleeping in, either talking my ear off or just staring out into the blue wild yonder. Eerie and certainly freaky.
I still love hitting the road, hiking, camping, dancing around a menacing campfire, that sort of thing, spending time in the great outdoors with all those who enjoy a bit of privacy to let things get out of hand. For the last 10 years or so we've been doing it from the comfort of a monstrous motor home. I prefer a natural setting and all it has to offer compared to the madness and hectic pace of an urban existence but I also deeply appreciate a steaming double espresso, a warm king size bed, air conditioning and all the other little luxuries that a hideous gas guzzling behemoth holds. However even there I would conjure up Ralph in my dreams. Palm Springs, La Jolla, Zion, West Palm Beach, you name it, he'd come right along sitting on the edge of my bed. Last year, while camping at the Grand Canyon, one of our favorite hiking spots, he once again showed up haranguing me incessantly, calling me a "pussy" and daring me to find the "Edge". To be honest, not many souls know where that just might be and those retarded enough to start looking for it usually go over and have not been seen again to let the rest of us us know what the exact benefits are of crossing that line.
Since the start of any Canyon hike is at the edge of a colossal chasm, most people tend to forget that what goes down must come back up, not an easy task for Joe Six pack, shuffling down the trail, hanging on to a giant Slurpee and dragging the little woman and his slightly overweight offspring down with him into the pit. Not a day goes by that not some poor slob needs to be hauled out on a mule by the park Rangers or, when things go really sideways, gets choppered out to the nearest hospital or morgue. At every trail head there are giant warning signs not to hike down to the river and back up in one day and to make it stick they show pictures of some athletic build "ubermensch", the marathon kind, who tried, failed and perished along the trail.It must have been the fourth or fifth night that we were parked at the campground when he showed up, sitting comfortably on the left side of the bed, babbling away about God knows what and everything in between. I managed to wake up from his sanctimonious sermonizing, got dressed, grabbed a few things on my way out the door and found my way to a trail before the sun came up and hoofed it down to the river where I had a warm beer and a bite to eat. During the summer the temperature at the bottom of the canyon can be anywhere from 40 to 50 C, a challenge for even the most sophisticated little cooler. I was able to make it back to the lodge before the lounge closed down. Afterwards I managed to crawl back to the motor home where I got a severe tongue lashing from those who pretend to care about "paps" when they found out what I had been up to before I passed out.
I didn't see Ralph again until a few weeks ago when we had just arrived in Boekelo, over come by jet lag and exhausted from sterile airplane food, cheap beer and the overnight trip.
I left Enschede in the winter of 79 on a planned one year sabbatical that would take me 5 years to complete and didn't see Ralph again until the fall of '84. I'd send him a postcard now and then but since he had moved, a disturbingly questionable habit he would keep up, he didn't have a clue as to what kind of mischief I had been up to. He didn't doubt for one second that my path would end up in a trail of broken dreams, tears and perhaps even jail. When I finally tracked him down and looked him up I gave him and Birgitte no cause to change their opinion. On the contrary, he seemed elated with the notion that I was seeking my fortune and fame on the other side of the pond. I continued sending him an update once in a while regarding whatever nut cracking crisis was looming over me while he would keep me informed on the by now ever expanding Herder clan. I would find my way home at least once a year but we mostly kept track of each other's adventures by mail. He'd tell me about the solid advice he got from the old man regarding challenging business practices such as insuring his exports against corrupt hacks trying to take him for a ride and I would let him know about the wonderful benefits of ganja when hiking through Ghorapani on the Annapurna trail or the pitfalls of trying to find a cold beer in Mombassa. Now and then I'd run into him, not for lack of trying but mostly because of timing issues. We'd have a few beers, laugh about the old days and true to form he'd give me another "bier viltje" with once again another address where he could be reached before we went our separate ways. Once in a blue moon I'd find him hanging out at one of the places on the west side of the "oude markt". He had gradually abandoned his old hangouts and had gotten into the habit of hanging out with the rabble that would prefer places like "de Kater" and similar establishments. Although I found it exhausting to work my way through such a brutal crowd, all drinking heavily and dressed the same way, looking like drunk bank tellers on a binge, jabbering away about the same old bullshit, I always hoped that I would find my old friend, the pirate, pretending to be just another "burger", living the good life, forever on the hunt to make ends meet. Sometimes I would. Upon seeing me he would make up some kind of believable nasty excuse, turn his back to his drinking buddies, perhaps protecting me from them and vice versa and we'd share a few drinks for old times sake, avoiding discussing anything contemporary but instead hashing up a few tales from the past, preferably in a low voice as not to raise any suspicion that all was not as it seemed with Mr. Herder.Once I ran into him and as usual, he managed to pull himself away from his posse and join me for a few at the bar. However this time around he was less concerned with those around him and we guzzled down quite a few more then he would usually allow me to buy him. While staring in his glass he told me that things hadn't worked out between Birgitte and himself and that he now had shacked up with a girl, four more kids and that they were one big happy family like the Brady bunch but without the white picket fence. It was disconcerning about the offhanded way he was trying to tell me about such a dramatic change in his life. I knew that this was the farthest thing from his mind when he started out with Brigitte. He was a private person and having to admit to himself and others that things were not as peachy as they should have been could not have been easy. We had a few more, closed of our session with a shooter and I wished him well and then watched him stagger off to his regular crowd.
A few years passed before I ran into him again. By now I knew where to find him if he was out on the town. I had made my way back with the whole gang, Jan and our 3 kids, attending another wild and wacky traditional family function of dubious origin. A few of my friends and associates had also flown in to see Jan and to check on the quality of our offspring. While the ladies stayed at home, trading secrets as how to keep their men in line, I dragged the boys downtown to check out if the beer was still as good as I always had been raving about whenever I was in their illustrious company. As per tradition we stopped for a few at Ralph's hangout, to the dismay of my guests, who expected a different, somewhat more stimulating setting for a night on the town. After more then just a few beers I found my way to the bathroom upstairs, staring at the wall listening to Frank Sinatra, Bennett, or some other washed out has-been plying his ugly trade when all of a sudden the guy next to me whacks me on the shoulder, looks at me like a fox who had just found the key to the chicken coop and yells "Hot damn Wim, what are you doing here?!" I stuffed my business in my pants and before I even had a chance to wash my hands he gave me a bear hug, right there in the middle of the men's bathroom. To see my old friend, the Pirate, in all his fiendish glory was such an unexpected treacherous twist of fate and overwhelming treat that I hugged him right back before he could come back to his senses, which he did when someone else walked into the bathroom and ran right back out when he saw us doing the jig. He had a fine twinkle in his eyes, a devil may care attitude and smiled with his whole being. God, it had been more then 20 years but here he was, all juiced up and unrepentent, the boy I knew so well and had been looking for all these years whenever I'd find my way home. We talked, laughed and cried until both of us reluctantly rejoined our respective parties. We finally had reached an age where we both had met our fair share of the bitter realities
of life allowing us to overlook each other's perceived shortcomings. From there on in I was always able to find the boy inside the man he had become.
We kept in touch and on occasion I'd phone him, harassing him viciously, either threatening to come over to drag him away from his beloved business so I could lay a hideous beating on him or at least accuse him of being a goofy sex fiend just to hear him laugh. No matter where I'd find myself on January 24th., I would phone him, hoping to find him healthy and juiced up. The last time I talked to him he had just phoned my place, interrogated my kids for a while since I wasn't home and had left specific instructions that I should phone him back. We talked for a while about the economy, portfolio's, blah, blah, blah but then the conversation slowly started bending over to parents, kids and life in general. He became emotionally engaged when I suddenly realised he was doing it in front of Andrea. I didn't feel quite right and I remember a cold shiver running up my spine and asking him several times if he was ok. He never budged but neither did he retreat into his arrogant alter ego whenever things didn't go his way. I knew something was up. I knew it. I goddamn Fucking knew it............................................................... It just failed to register because I had 3 teenage kids, a meeting to attend, stocks to trade or bonds to buy, dogs to walk, a cake to bake or some other make belief inconsequential crisis to attend to.
It's been 2 years since he's been gone. I hope he got to roll around naked in front of a roaring fire squeezing his woman, I hope he hugged his kids as often as he could, jumped up and down on the couch whenever his team scored, went goofy with a few good mates, enjoyed long walks in the snow with a dog following his every move and got to freak out on everyone giving him grief. To some these things might not seem to fit with the person they knew but he was all that and more.
I'm finally starting to grow up and only now, in the middle of a full and rewarding life, understand the full measure of our old friendship and the values that sustained it. I would have loved coming full circle and still wonder about where that ride would have taken us but, alas, it wasn't meant to be, the shithead upstairs called him home, whatever that means, and the world got to be a lesser place.
I'm sure that my own erratic journey will have me looking for the "edge" time and time again and perhaps will take me over it one of these days. Maybe we'll see each other there so we can catch up,
Until that day old friend,
Willem
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