FRIENDLY

That was her name. Friendly- collector of strays and misfits. I was a bit of both. She'd been my wet dream since I first set eyes on her, just as the eighties petered out and the nineties began their pitiful fin-de-sicle run. She was 19 years old, 5' 9"- 119 lbs with her boots on. She plopped her lithe frame down on the arm of my chair and took the roach deftly from between my fingers. Her nails were long and polished and a tight, ripped Jolt t-shirt barely hid anything. "This is who I was telling you about." my friend and guitar player in my band said with a smile. She smiled back, shook my hand. "Gotta go to work." she said planting a kiss on my friend's lips and was gone. I found out later she was trained as a nurse but made the big bucks strapping little fat businessmen to high end leather and stainless tables and beating the piss out of them. I was in love.
Now, as you already know, I'm not above a little infidelity but I draw the line when it comes to stepping in on members of the band. Look, at least it's a line. Friendly and I became...well friends. I had girlfriends (good and bad). She moved next door to the guitar player. I helped her fix up her pad and painted her kitchen floor. We flirted but it was all innocent. Then one day the guitar player and I had a big falling out over the master tapes of some session and bad blood ensued. I met a woman who I ended up marrying and Friendly met another guy who she also ended up marrying and moving to California with (also dragging the guitar player along). Go figure. Years went by. I lost track.
Then one day, just when I was trying my damndest not to get a divorce, I ran into her again downtown. "Guess who?" she said covering my eyes with her hands. My soon to be ex-wife sat at my side and glared. I recognized the husky voice and inhaled her scent. When I turned, the divorce was finalized. "Hey you." she said kissing my cheek. The wife left in a huff and Friendly pulled up a chair. We caught up. The guitar player had stayed in Cali. She and her hubby had come back to take care of her ailing grandmother in Ridgewood. The hubby was around somewhere but she didn't know where. This was the start of it. Innocent enough? Yeah sure.
I've only been married twice but for some reason the divorce end of the process tends to send me into a deep funk. I get weak and sloppy. I lose all my self-confidence. I break down and blubber, becoming a sorry mess. The first divorce was in 1976. I was young and resilent. I went to therapy and before I knew it I was in another mess of a relationship- happy as a pig in shit. This time it was 1999. I was crowding fifty, hairline receding, eyes failing, tits sagging. I went back in therapy. If I'd only drank a little more I'd have been in the program. Never could find that bottom.
A little less than a year later Friendly called out of the blue. Her and the hubby were looking for a place in the country and she wondered if they could come for a vist. My claws had been filed off. My teeth had been pulled. I was a docile as a pussycat. "Sure. Come on up." I said.
Hubby was a Brit, a punk rock star from a couple of bands I'd heard of. He had a mouth full of gold teeth and the look of one of those middle age Monty Python bag ladies. I liked him. I wished I didn't. It would've made things easier. We drank and smoked and laughed. At the end of the evening Friendly got up and fell flat on her face, almost cracking her skull on the edge of the wood stove. (Footnote: three previous girlfriends passed out on me in the early stages of lust. What the hell was that all about?) I picked her up and laid her down on my bed as the hubby looked on. Then hubby and I went back to drinking. Miraculously my claws were growing back.