My best
friend growing up was Nick Halaby.
Somewhere in this world there exists a picture of us on our first play
date. It’s of Nick and I sitting in the
bathroom at his house covered in powder, surrounded by strewn makeup, with
toilet paper in hand, and soap leaking out onto the floor. We were preschool classmates at Faith
Lutheran and lived down the beach from one another- so it, of course, made
sense for our parents to ensure we became fast friends. This picture, however, was the jump-start to
the mischievous childhood Nick and I would lead together throughout our
adolescence.
Nick and I
were what you would call troublemakers.
If you ask any of my siblings (especially Megan who often had to deal
with our plots and ploys) they will tell you what little shits we truly
were. While we were both contributors to
the many scandals that fell into our laps, Nick was always the leader and I was
always the follower. He would often come
up with a plan, I would support him 100% (most of the time), and together we
would wreak havoc. And when we were
caught, we always went down together.
Sometimes there may have been an, “it was his idea!” or the infamous,
“but I didn’t do anything!” that began the discipline, but quickly it would
turn into us going to our respective homes and spending a few hours… days… or
weeks apart until our next attempt at defeating the adult constraints in our
lives.
Nick was
always the more attractive one. I was a
bit chubby, inelegant, and confused as a youngin’ while Nick was always athletic,
confident, and had a girlfriend. I knew
I was the less attractive one. I knew
when we went and hung out at the roller rink (which we did nearly every
weekend… if not every night during the summer), all the people following Nick
around the rink to hang out with him wondered why I lingered around them the
way I did. I always felt out of
place. I had roller skates that had worn
wheels that made me slip on the slick court, I couldn’t play roller hockey for
the life of me, and when we “shot the duck,” I was always the first one
out. My pants were never as baggy, my
clothes didn’t have the “Tommy” logo, and my skates were from
Target. I quickly learned through Nick
what money means and how it plays on popularity.
But the thing
about Nick, is that when I was with him, I never felt like I was the "poor"
one. He made me feel rich. His grandparents owned the skating rink so
we’d go and play laser tag for free (most of the time just running
around acting like idiots and hardly shooting), we’d have unlimited quarters
for the video games, and we’d always get a candy bar and pretzel from the
concession stand that we would eat in the back room. I felt cool when I was with him, like we
owned the world. Everyone wanted to hang
out with us when we were there, because if you got into the gang, you got to
sit in the Party Room. Nick gave me that
“power” in my years of chunk and awkwardness.
I learned
everything I know about sex with Nick.
We learned together as we secretly watched Skinemax on his little TV he
had in his room (I would have never had a TV in my room growing up!) and saw
Playboy movies that gave us our first glimpse at the ever confusing breasts
and “bush.” We talked about rumors we
had heard regarding all the explicit terms out there to describe doing the
dirty. We discussed in detail what a
girl’s body might look like, what we’re supposed to do to make them happy, and
how it feels to kiss. Once we got a bit
older, we stayed up late in his garage lifting weights (many times me watching
him lift weights), sitting around on his 4 wheelers and sea doo talking about
girlfriends and family and the ever present knowledge we'd be going to different high schools soon. We talked about everything. There wasn’t a subject missed.
We also got
scared shitless together. Nick was
into hunting for a decent part of our tween years, and so I would often go out
with him and we’d try and spot a deer by perching ourselves on a branch over
a wheelbarrow of sugar beets. We saw
lots of doe and small fawns, but never a buck.
Until that one day we decided to stake it out on the ground instead of
hauling ourselves up into a tree. We
were sitting behind an oak whispering as quietly as we could to one another so
as not to scare away the creatures we did not know were around us. Then we heard it walking through the
leaves. We quickly shut our mouths as
our adrenaline started to rush. And then
it heard us. It was huge (as my memory imagines),
and it began pounding its hooves against the ground with a vengeance. For a moment we were both frozen, grasping
each other thinking we were about to meet our doom. The buck had to have only been a few feet
away. Together we agreed to just make a
run for it, so we got up and just started screaming at the top of our lungs as
we sprinted through the dark forest to his house, convinced the giant buck with
spear-like antlers was hot on our trail ready to ram us up the rear. We got to his front gate, made it into the protective
shelter, and split a pop tart to calm our nerves.
We did stupid
things. We poured oil on a small
campfire and nearly burnt our eyebrows off.
We poked
holes in my screen door, threw stones at his parked boat, and tormented baby sitters by
locking ourselves in my attic. We fell
through the ice more often than once in sometimes deeper water than we should
have been standing over. We sneaked out of the
house to hang out with our neighbor’s cousin from out-of-state. We rode Nick’s
moped over a patch of ice, crashed, and crushed a bucket of minnows all over
our snowsuits. We stole our first sip of
whiskey from his dad’s liquor cabinet.
We flipped sea doos, shot songbirds with bee bee guns, and switched
people’s mail. And we got caught just as
often as we got away with our sport.
We also did
fun things. We rode our bikes daily to
the marina to sit on giant yachts in the salesroom, Mussel Beach to devour some
greasy onion rings and soft serve, our friend, Christina’s house to swim in her pool
and veg out in her basement, or Dutch Village to play putt-putt and lie about
our hole-in-ones in hopes of winning a free game for the next trip. We beat Crash Bandicoot together in one
night, reading the full description of each villain in the booklet included
with the game. We played power rangers. We built forts, wandered the swamps, and swam
up and down the shoreline until our skin was pruned. We discussed in depth the reality of Santa
Clause, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.
We encouraged each other when the other was feeling down. We were always there for each other, no
matter what.
Nick is one
of the only people in my life I don’t recall having a full fledged argument
with. Sure he annoyed me sometimes, and
I annoyed him. Sure I’d get upset with
him for being a jerk, and he’d get upset with me for being lazy, but as far
as I can recall we never fought. If we
got upset, we’d go home, watch TV or go play in the sand; and usually an hour
later we’d be calling each other again to go run through the woods or build a fire. We were literally the definition of best
friends.
And then high
school happened. I was a year behind
Nick, so he went off to be a big kid before me, leaving me alone at Faith to
fend for myself. Then I went to Western
and he went to Valley. He played hockey
and I swam. He developed his group of
friends in Saginaw and I developed mine in Auburn. Of course
we always had summers, but then we started working. The next thing I knew we would only be
hanging out once a month… then only once a year… soon maybe catching up if I
drove past while he was walking out of his house. Then we went to college and we pretty
much lost all contact. I don’t know what
made me think of Nick and our amazing friendship growing up together today, but
I know that a lot of who I am, the friendships I create, and the
understanding I have of the woman’s body is in great thanks to the many lessons
we learned together. He is one of the
people who helped me feel confident and important when I felt insignificant and
hopeless. I still consider him one of my
best friends, even though we haven’t talked in over a year, because certain
bonds can’t be broken.
I was Googling my son Nick Halaby when I ran into your blog. My Nick was born in Palo Alto in 1967, grew up in Rdgewood, NJ, and now lives in the Boston area. Could you provide me info on your friend Nick, like hometown and parents? Thanks, Rurik Halaby
ReplyDeleteRurik@halaby.net