Saturday, July 11, 2009

Trevor’s Guardian Angel

Do you have one of those friends that things just seem to happen to? Not good things, or bad things, but just things. I had one of those friends growing up. In fact, he was my best friend. We did everything together; made forts, giant bowls of cereal, and discovered porn. When we were young we used to get into three-hour brawls. He was a skinny biracial twig and I was a white, chubby sloth. Our brawls would consist of him getting angry and worked up over something stupid and meaningless to most normal human beings. My defense was to sit on him for three-hours until he calmed down. He had a temper and if it was not for my childhood weight I am not sure if we would still be friends today.

We spent a lot of time together growing up, in our teen years, mostly smoking weed. He was the type of guy who just did things his way regardless of the consequences. He knew the “rules” he mostly just chose to disregard them and make his own, and I always envied him for that.
He wasn’t a bad guy, but he certainly did not grow up with a Jewish mother. We were always getting into some sort of mischief together, which usually resulted in one of us getting grounded. But at the end of the day when I would go home high and eat dinner with my family and then pass-out in front of the TV, his adventures still continued. He would come to me with the most fantastical stories about having sex with a businesswoman on the train on the way to visit his grandmother in Boston, or meeting Melissa Joan Hart in the mall an asking her out on a date. Some stories were more believable then others.

The day he told me about the woman who claimed to be his guardian angel is a day I will never forget. We were in High School at the time and I was over at Trevor’s house for dinner on a warm, summer Saturday evening. His mom was in the kitchen preparing the food and his dad and two sisters were in the den watching TV. Trevor and I sat on the porch smoking a cigarette he stole from one of his parents. We sat there sharing drags and he told me the story of his most recent adventure. The story goes like this; earlier that day Trevor was skateboarding with a few friends. He was minding his own business, like usual, when a middle aged white woman came up to him and engaged him in conversation. The woman lived around the corner from where Trevor was skateboarding and was just out for a brisk walk. When she bumped into Trevor there was just something about Trevor that drew her over to him (My guess is that he ran into her with the skateboard). Trevor and this woman began talking about how difficult Trevor’s life was. Being a stubborn, biracial, teenager with parents who love you, but have no idea how to deal with your behavior can be hard. She told him how special he was and how she felt this strong connection with him. She told him how she wanted to buy him a car if he does well in school next semester and that if he ever needed anything at all he can always ask her. “I think I am your Guardian Angel,” she said to him. I took this tale with a grain of salt. Honestly, who the fuck does that happen to.

Trevor’s mother called us in for dinner and his family and I sat around the kitchen table and ate. I always looked forward to dinners with Trevor’s family. We laughed and joked and mainly just made fun of each other (I mostly made fun of Trevor which is part of the reason his family loved me). After dinner Trevor’s family went upstairs and Trevor and I remained at the kitchen table scheming of ways to find weed (I actually don’t quite remember what we were doing at the kitchen table but I am 95% sure that was it). As we sat there talking we heard someone knock on the front door and a woman’s voice yelling “hello”. “Stay here”, Trevor tells me. Trevor peeks his head around the corner and then comes back to the kitchen table and tells me that we need to hide. It appears that his guardian angel decided to come by the house and “save him”. I wasn’t sure what to think at this point. One, I was almost positive that Trevor was making up the story (or at least greatly exaggerating it) when he first told me about this guardian angel and two, she seemed a lot more crazy in person then when he originally described her. So, we hid in the corner of the kitchen. This was a decent plan in theory except for the fact that the front door was unlocked. I think it is notable to mention that guardian angels do not give up easily. Trevor’s guardian angel took the unlocked door as an invitation (or maybe a sign) to let her self in the house.


She walks into the kitchen and sees Trevor and me hiding in the corner. “What’s going on here?” She slurs with concern. It didn’t look good. Trevor assured her that everything was fine and that there was no need for alarm. I was a little too stunned to say much of anything, but I nodded my head in agreement. “No” she said, “something is not right here”. “And what’s going on upstairs”? As if things didn’t look bad enough, Trevor’s mom and sisters were upstairs goofing around and screaming at the top of their lungs. They were tickling each other, or having a tickling fight if you will, and to Trevor’s guardian angel, their screams sounded like calls of distress.
With this mixture of the loud, horror filled screams coming from the upstairs and the fact that she found Trevor and I huddled in the corner of the kitchen looking like frightened world war two victims she had herself a case. We moved our conversation into the front hall. There she continued voicing her overwhelming concern “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I know I was sent here for a reason”. “I am here to help you Trevor”. “Why is your friend over so late?” “This is no way to live!” No matter how hard we tried to explain that everything was ok, she just wasn’t having it. Also, her breathe reeked of Vodka (only Trevor would have an alcoholic guardian angel).

Also standing in the hallway was the man who drove Trevor’s guardian angel to Trevor’s home. He was a tall, middle-aged man with thinning blond hair and was presumably this woman’s husband. Through the entire interaction he stood silently by the front door with a look of awkward embarrassment on his face. I remember wondering why he agreed to drive his wife over to some strange kids house. He didn’t look like he bought into the whole guardian angel bit. I assume he was just happy that his guardian angel wife was focusing her attention on someone else for a change. I cannot even fathom the persuasion that went into getting her bashful husband to go along with this plan, but I imagine that it ended with “ Fine, I will drive you where ever you want if you please just shut up”. Either that or she asked him to make a quick stop at a friend’s house on the way back from the local pub.

This interaction in the hallway must have lasted 5 to 10 minutes with Trevor and me trying to hold back our laughter the entire time (and not doing the best job of it- yes, we kind of laughed in her face a little). Eventually, Trevor’s guardian angel asked Trevor to summon his mother downstairs. She wanted to discuss her child raising methods. Trevor did as he was told and down came Trevor’s confused mother followed by the rest of his equally confused family. “Can I help you?” asks Trevor’s mom. “Hi…. Something just doesn’t seem right here,” responds the valiant Guardian angel.
“Well, what seems wrong”?
“I don’t know, something”.
“Well, what would you like me to do to make it better”
“I don’t know something just seems not right… off”
“Well I can’t do anything if you don’t tell me what you want”
“I am concerned about Trevor” (“aren’t we all” I assume Trevor’s mom thought)
“Ok, well what would you like me to do”?
“I don’t know, I just feel like I need to be here”

The conversation went on like this for about another ten minutes with long pauses of awkward silence. Finally, the guardian angel’s husband stepped in. “I’m sorry about this”. Him and his wife exchange some glances and a few words and he somehow convinces her to leave. I don’t know if you have ever met a drunk and determined guardian angel but I assure you that this was no easy task. The man apologizes one last time before he closes the door behind them. This time we lock it. Needless to say, Trevor never received his promised car and his guardian angel never tried to save him from his tyrannical family again.

To this day this is still the strangest event that I have ever been involved in. For weeks I prayed to god, nightly, that I would never meet my guardian angel. I had a sneaking suspicion that she would end up being a meth-head.

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