Setting The Bar on Friendship.

Matty O and Lady Tina.

There we are. Asses planted in our usual creaky, ready to give out at any moment bar stools. ( Since been replaced!) Her name is Tina. I’m proud to say I’m a close, dear friend of this lovely woman. The feeling is mutual. We meet up at our usual pub in The West Village two or three times a week. We usually discuss what we’ve done with our week, what we are going to do with the rest of it, etc…

That’s where the similarities between Tina and I and other friends end. Those conversations bore the shit out of us. We want gossip, dirt, who’s hooking up, who’s breaking up. We are the high school friends who never should have met. Yet we did. Between the difference of age and time, the culture gap, the respect your elders notion drilled into our heads. It shouldn’t have happened. But It did. It did.

I remember the night, she was sitting between two gentlemen and she was staring at me. Almost as if she knew we were friends forever. She walked over and put her hand on my back introducing herself. She left the two men in their seats. We discussed how she found this specific pub. One afternoon, she slowly opened the door on a hot summer day and asked if she could use the bathroom. He said yes, she never left. (Mind you, her hand never left my back the whole conversation.)

One of our many walks around Greenwich Village.

In the winter, I throw snowballs at Tina, in the summer I would compliment her on the beautiful blouses she wears and her perfectly styled hair. On the rainy late nights at the pub, I fill her umbrella up with red straws, bottle caps and torn up napkins. This way, when she goes outside, opens it up, she stands their for a few seconds wondering what happened when everything falls out. Then shakes her head and refuses to look at me.

I walk Lady Tina home each time I see her. These are beautiful walks in NYC. Down famous streets, past beautiful houses and cafes. You can’t escape the life around you. It’s on these walks she tells me about her New York City. She still lives in the same apartment she was born in. It’s a four story walk up. She doesn’t mind it. We’ll take the walk slow and she’ll tell me about her appointments during the week, if she’s volunteering at the church, friends she’ll see, food she’ll buy. Her amazing trips to The Jersey Shore with her friends in her younger days.

( I also ALWAYS lose her umbrellas)

Photo by Jayd Jackson

We are not the cute respectful friends one would expect. We argue, we disagree, she turns away and waves her hand to say “I’m over this conversation.”

Yet, the best is when she curses. This is something you would not normally hear coming from someone such as Tina. NYU kids, fresh from a Middle America Cul-de-sac love to approach her. When they talk to her like she’s a novelty of the bar, she is always respectful the first time. You do it again, you’ll get the “fuck off” eyes, do it a third time, well, you get the actual words. That’s my favorite moment. The jaws open, the shock. It’s beautiful cinema to me. An Opera of Vilification.

Perfect Night

I receive birthday cards in the mail and on the holidays. She always asks how my family is. Sometimes we do brunch at Cornelia Street Cafe, after she’s dedicated a mass to someone I’ve lost.

When we meet on these Sunday’s, the old time shop owners on her street greet her, hug her hand her flowers and give her other gifts.

While I appreciate these gestures of respect, guess who carries them?

It’s a beautiful friendship that should not have happened for many reasons on the normal course of life(s).

When my Mom passed a few years ago, I was in the room earlier than the others. Kneeling at her coffin and staring at how beautiful she looked. It was quiet. The exact way it should be.

Then I heard the first people enter. There was Tina. Standing in between two gentlemen she had asked to drive her in.

She left the gentlemen in their seats and walked up to me. As I was kneeling, She put her hand on my back as I told stories about my Mom. She left her hand on my back until I was done talking

It’s forever there.

That’s my definition of love.

Don’t ever ask her how old she is. Trust me.

Photo by Jayd Jackson.