{"id":25,"date":"2011-03-25T05:15:23","date_gmt":"2011-03-25T05:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/?p=25"},"modified":"2024-04-02T01:45:58","modified_gmt":"2024-04-02T01:45:58","slug":"what-makes-a-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/25\/what-makes-a-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"What Makes a Friend?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Part of my Not Playwrighting<\/a> series\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I know<\/strong>: My father was abandoned as a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I believe<\/strong>: He was emotionally stunted because he was abandoned as a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I know<\/strong>: Starting at the age of six, my grandmother sent my father to live with family and friends of the family, many of them unkind and interested in child labor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I believe<\/strong>: She shipped him off because my dad looked like his father (she kept my Aunt Iris with her.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I know<\/strong>: My father was three years old — I think — when his father left. I'll verify this with my brothers. He saw his father once more, at a train station, when he was ten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I believe<\/strong>: (Simplified version) Because his father left when he was so young, whenever a man would befriend my father later in life, he never questioned their friendship. He was desperate for their companionship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I believe<\/strong>: People smell desperation. Healthy people are repelled by it and parasites are drawn toward it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What I know<\/strong>: In my lifetime, my father's two closest friends were con men he met in A.A.; not necessarily good con men, but con men nonetheless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friend #1<\/strong>: Let's call him Dusty, because, well, that was his name: <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

James Dusty Rhodes, a convicted child molester who died in prison. Dusty appeared one day, after my father got sober. They'd met at meetings, though I don't remember Dusty at meetings. Writing this, I wonder if Dusty continued with his sobriety. I have no idea. I do know that Friend #<\/strong>2 didn't.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I know<\/strong>: (Caveat: These are the recollections of my childhood. As I write, I feel the skew of a child's mind. Dusty appeared when I was about nine and went away when I was sixteen or seventeen. I base this on the fact that my dad got sober when I was eight and one of my final memories of Dusty is him teaching me to drive- Hello, Paula Vogel!<\/a><\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dusty wore a lot of polyester. I picture him in mauve or beige or powder blue or brown. This was the seventies, but, again, I want to bounce this memory off my brothers. Have I made him into the sleezy lounge singer that I see in my view-finder mind? It was<\/em> the seventies. This could be correct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dusty slept on our couch a lot. When he wasn't crashing at our place, he seemed to live out of a station wagon. Although I don't remember this specifically, I do remember the clothes hanging in the car. Perhaps he was couch surfing. I really don't know. I do know that he had a tumultuous relationship with his ex-wife. I shouldn't have known this. (For some reason the name Siggy just appeared in my brain. I think that was the ex's name. Must check with brothers.) <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My dad and Dusty had many business ventures together. The one I remember most vividly was Rhotronics, their electronics company. My father was completely non-mechanical, had no engineering experience, and, to the best of my knowledge, neither did Dusty. They also had an engine cleaning business, and I think Dusty was initially part of my dad's tool selling enterprise. Every venture my father got into either peripherally or directly involved Dusty. I don't know anything about Dusty's education or work career beyond the schemes that he convinced my father to join.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dusty was around, and then he wasn't. My dad told me that Dusty was in prison for writing bad checks. When I was 22, I asked him again why Dusty was in prison- because it seemed like a long time for bad checks.\u00c2  My dad told me, He's in for child molestation, but he didn't do it. Let's just say, I know he was not falsely imprisoned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My father continued to visit Dusty while he was in prison, even after I told my dad that Dusty belonged there. He told me about his visits to Dusty; he told me Dusty said Hi. I asked him to stop telling me anything about Dusty, so he did. I don't know how long he continued his visits. I do know that my mom didn't believe me when I told her that my dad visited Dusty. (My mom's issues will have to wait for another blog, another play.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To my knowledge, my father's denial about Dusty continued until my dad died last year. About ten years ago, my cousin Rich tracked Dusty down via a sex-offenders website. My father didn't believe it was Dusty. I looked him up. It was him. I may not know if he wore polyester or not, but I'll never forget that face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dusty's last address was a Florida state penitentiary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friend #2<\/strong>: Let's call him Sonny Saunders, cuz he's still alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part of my Not Playwrighting series\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 What I know: My father was abandoned as a child. What I believe: He was emotionally stunted because he was abandoned as a child. What I know: Starting at the age of six, my grandmother sent my father to live with family and friends of the family, many of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}