A Love That No One Can Destroy
I don’t know, but I’ve been told
If the horse don’t pull,
You’ve got to carry the load
I don’t know whose back’s that strong
Guess we’ll find out before too long
— Grateful Dead, “New Speedway Boogie”
Last night dreamed about someone who’s been dead for thirty years. Unlike a lot of my recent dreams, this was a nice quiet dream about holiday shopping. I was in Christiana Mall for the first time in years (once you’ve worked there, you tend to avoid it) and I saw my old friend pass by in the crowd. It must’ve been in some alternate timeline, because he was the age he would be now, instead of the age he was at his death.
Anyhow: I recognized him and waved, and he paused briefly to talk.
“I haven’t seen you in so long,” I said. “What are you doing here in the States?”
He said he was only visiting for a short while; he was spending the actual Christmas holiday back in Johannesburg. He showed me pictures of his family — he had two adult daughters — and asked after mine.
Then we hugged, and he whispered: “I’ll meet you at the laundromat.” Then: “Don’t worry. It will be fine.”
I awoke feeling haunted. I had to sit on the side of the bed and collect myself. The reference to meeting at the laundromat referred to a time when we used to meet every Saturday when I was a grad school to do laundry and have those kind of deep philosophical discussions you can only have when you’re in your mid 20’s.
I knew why I had dreamed about him too. A friend from California had called and as usual we wound up talking about the upcoming election. He was nervous, as was I, but I told him I’d done all I could physically and financially do, and that I just had to wait and prepare myself to deal with whatever happens.
*****
There are some friendships made to last a lifetime, and there are some made to teach you things about yourself and the world. My friendship with him was the second kind.
We met by accident. I never liked to study in my assigned carrel because it was down in the basement, and it was dark and dingy down there, so I would study anywhere but. By chance I happened to find a fabulous hidden room in the main library. I never found out what its actual purpose was, but it had comfortable furniture and plenty of windows. There were also several bookshelves, but all the books were old (like early 20th century) and hadn’t been touched in years. During the first few months I studied there, no one ever found me. I never even heard footsteps in the hallway. Soon I began to think of it as my secret spot.
So imagine my surprise one sunny afternoon when this tall, skinny David Bowie looking proto-goth kid comes to invade my space. At first we glare at each other like, how are you in my spot?! But then we silently call a truce and study side by side.
Afterwards, he introduces himself. He’s a senior music major. I tell him I’m a grad student in Psychology. I detect an accent which sounds vaguely British, but not quite.
“Where are you from?” I ask.
“South Africa,” he says.
“Oh,” I say. Now this was before the end of apartheid; Nelson Mandela was still in prison, and Winnie Mandela was keeping the dream alive. The South African government was taking out huge propaganda ads in the WALL ST. JOURNAL, and divestment protests were a thing college campuses all across the country. So I’m already thinking unkind thoughts about this kid I’ve just met.
Then he asks if I would be interested in attending a divestment protest on campus later that week.
“Uh…no,” I say. “I don’t have time for that.”
But he won’t take no for an answer and he has no filter. “Somehow I think someone like you would be interested,” he says.
“Why?” I snap. “Because I’m Black?”
“Why not?” he snaps back. “The struggle is the same.”
“Look man,” I say, “I’m just trying to survive this place! I suspect every other Black person on this campus is too.”
I was telling the truth. I was struggling. I’d dealt with toxic competition; I’d dealt with racism, but I’d never dealt with an institution without a conscience. In high school and undergrad, I can guilt trip the administration if it didn’t do right, but that didn’t work here and I was having severe difficulties with that.
Anyway: just when this encounter is about to go completely south, and I’m about to lose one of the few pleasant places on campus to study, he notices I have a book of John Cage’s writings in my tote bag.
“Do you like John Cage?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say.
“I like him too.”
*****
We became friends and jam buddies after that. It was nice to know a music major because it got you into the practice rooms, which meant occasionally I’d get to go and bang on a piano for a while when the pressure got too bad.
He played me recordings of South African protest music way before Paul Simon ever thought of GRACELAND, and probably before the Rough Trade compilation was released, although I’m not sure about that last thing. Time compresses when you get older.
For him, the fight against apartheid was personal. There were talented musicians out there he’d gotten to know as human beings and they deserved justice. Through illicit jam sessions, he’d discovered everything his parents had told him about Black people was wrong, and he hadn’t spoken to his parents for well over a year.
I couldn’t imagine not speaking to my parents for over a year, so I asked what had happened.
Apparently he was someplace he shouldn’t have been, wound up getting arrested, and spent several weeks in jail because his father wanted to teach him a lesson and refused to bail him out. While in jail my friend got the crap beat out of him, and when his father finally did get around to rescuing him, his father said, “I hope they kill you next time.”
To which he responded: “Then I would gladly die … for music.”
That’s when he turned to me and asked, “Is there anything you would die for?”
And that’s when I realized I was a lightweight because, other than my family, I really couldn’t think of anything.
To which he said: “Well…you need to find something. You need to find a love you’ll let no one destroy. You might need it one day.”
*****
Though I considered myself to be a good person in my twenties, I really didn’t have a true moral center of gravity. All I believed was what my family had taught me. Now, some forty years later (Has it really been that long?) I’d like to think that I do. All this to say … whatever happens two weeks from now, I’m ready.
