To say Lucas was Ben’s friend required some stretching of the imagination. They had been at high school, together, and later college, not that they had much interaction at either. If anything, Lucas played the nerd to Ben’s jock. But for some reason, Ben had always taken a shine to Lucas, and Lucas could never figure out why. At school, Ben was on the football team and the swim team. Lucas played some tennis and was on the chess team. Ben was a merciless bully, terrorizing vulnerable kids, not so much to hurt them, as to demean and embarrass them, and unfortunately did a good job of it.
Lucas, on the other hand, was very much a “live-and-let-live” kind of person. For some reason, Ben had never bullied Lucas or “Little Lukey” as Ben called him to Lucas’s annoyance. Lucas would answer Ben’s curricular related questions with more than a little hint of sarcasm. Their paths crossed a few times during college when they both attended the same state university, Ben on an athletic scholarship and Lucas majoring in English Literature.
They were both only a year out of college when Lucas was surprised to get an IM from Ben, suggesting they meet for a beer. “Like we used to in the old days,” Ben had written. Lucas knew there had almost certainly been occasions in their college days when they both could have been drinking in the same bar at the same time – but with totally different sets of friends and without interacting, or even acknowledging each other.
Sitting at the bar in Dan’s Place, the two of them reminisced over a pitcher about school days and college days. They exchanged updates on the status of the few friends they had in common, laughed at some of the quirks of a few of the teaching staff and faculty, and brought each other up to date with their own lives. Ben had joined the athletic department of a high school, and Lucas was writing for a regional daily newspaper. After all the back-slapping greetings, jokes, pleasantries, and life updates, Lucas decided to share what was on his mind.
“Ben, you and I are very different, you have always treated me as a friend, and I really appreciate that. But I’ve got to ask you why. We are so different in so many ways.” “Let me tell you,” replied Ben. “When we were both high school freshmen, you changed my life.” “Changed your life! That sounds great, but when, and how, and from what to what? You were a sports jock, and I was an English nerd, whatever could we have had, or even still have in common. Other than a handful of shared life experiences?”
“We started high school at the same time, “ Said Ben. “I came from a family where winning at sports was a single, primary goal in life. Everything else was secondary at best, and anyone standing in the way or even not appreciating effort was dismissed and literally kicked aside. That was the attitude I had starting school. In the first week, I was on the student body website when I came across a poem posted on the English Blog, a poem called ‘The Unheard Voice.’ Do you remember it? You should, you wrote it. It opened my eyes to a whole new dimension of my life and a whole new list of possibilities. From then on, I would open that blog every day, looking for your postings. There were lots of them, poems, short stories, thoughts. I printed all of them and still have them to this day.”
Lucas was stunned. “Ben, I never knew you read my blog. I would never in a million years think of it as something that would interest you. What can I say? I am amazed, pleased, but amazed. “ “Well, I am pleased to,” said Ben. “But you shouldn’t be so amazed. What you wrote helped change my life for the better. Thank you so much, Little Lukey, my friend.”
Interesting characters! Well done!