2003-10-11 5:19 p.m.
O Sister, Where Art Thou?

I've been thinking about Liz again recently. Liz was my best friend through a lot of high school, and we lost touch a few years after graduation. She called me sometime late last November, and my Steve wrote down her message and number for me. And then we moved in the beginning of December and that little slip of paper was nowhere to be found when we did the great unpacking. I tried to do a search for her on the internet, but all that came up was an obituary for a girl Liz had been best friends with. Liz had been listed as a survivor.

She wanted to be an actress. She went to school for drama at Adelphi University. I wanted to be a writer. I didn't go to school for anything. We had big dreams, the two of us. But mostly I remember snippets here and there of the crazy shit we did together: a friend of ours dubbed us the Super Mario Bong Hit Sisters because a) we were both part Italian, and b) we amazed everyone with our stamina during smokefests, becoming the Olympic gold medalists for longest bong hits ever (segue to the Eldred Central School auditorium, Liz and I standing on the middle platform, bending slightly while whatshisname from Cypress Hill places gold pot leaf logoed medals around each of our necks, the cheers, the tears, while lesser stoners stood below us on the silver and bronze platforms, doing their best to hide their disappointment behind those fake smiles...). Every morning before school, she'd pick me up and we'd drive across the bridge into Pennsylvania and spend our lunch money on a pack of cigarettes each (cigarettes cost two bucks a pack when we started smoking), then we'd decide whether or not we felt like going to school that day. Some days we did, some days we just sat and smoked for a bit before going, some days we sat and smoked and drank Blackberry Brandy before going, some days we sat and smoked and drank and practiced making her car peel out in the gravel before going, and some days we never went at all. Once, we drove to this kid's house while we knew he wasn't home and Liz went straight up to the door, told his parents she'd left something of hers in his room the last time she'd been over, they asked no questions, and she went upstairs and proceeded to clean out his entire stash (man, did we get fucked up that night). She had nerve. She was always slightly more conservative in dress than I was, though not in attitude. She was quite liberal when it came to sex. She was not afraid of taking risks or getting into trouble. The two of us were never even careful about smoking in the locker room. Or much else, for that matter. She could talk her way out of anything. She was the girl who was always given a second, or third, or fourth chance. We made a great pair.

Whenever I think of her, I wonder what happened to that fearlessness we both possessed so much of back then. And I wonder what happened to her. I want to tell her now that I am writing, I am making things happen, though it may not look like it from the outside. And I want to know what she's doing, how far she's gotten with her dreams, and tell her not to give up. Because if there was ever anyone who could make it, it was Liz.

<< / >>