poem

 Group Chat

Our friend group goes back nearly 30 years but we rarely see each other. We live in different cities now and our kids are all growing up. Group chat is the last thing we have left. At one time we were really good friends in the conventional sense but this is something different and no less essential. Otherwise we’d never stay in touch. Usually it’s banter about sports, sometimes current events, sometimes pop culture. Pictures of kids and family milestones. Politics is discouraged. The weirdo will occasionally post late-night poems. Another guy always posts his gambling ticket stubs when he wins. But there’s one guy going through some changes. Got divorced. Estranged from his family. Younger girlfriend, the love of his life, just dumped his ass. Bankrupt. Has cancer. Found out he’s going to croak. Every night he tries to stir the thread to life. I mean, every single night. We’re his friends and all, but we’re busy with our lives. There’s only so much you can do for friends who only exist on a small digital screen. One night he texted “anyone want to talk about global warming and its implications for Florida real estate?” And you know what? Not really. Not one person on this thread wants to get into that right now. So nobody says anything and it’s that horrible feeling where you’ve sent a shout into the ether expecting an echo and nothing comes back. So the rest of us got together and decided we would take turns responding to his attempts at connection. The good thing is, there’s 10 of us in the group chat so it’s only three or four times a month. It’s like being on call. The last time I was on duty he wanted to talk about the effects of heavy snow on the underlying foliage, in particular that 24-48 hour period right after it all melts, you know, the way everything is flattened, sort of like the way they depict flowers in cartoons after an 800 lb. anvil falls on them. He wasn’t just trying to be obtuse. By now you can tell when he’s trying to push things in an abstract direction. Subsequent digressions can go on for hours.  But I kept him at arm's length. Yes, the dead leaves from fall look like a cobblestone street. Yes, the scraps of paper trash could be the debris left over from the cut-out dolls you used to make for your daughter.  And yes, the dog shit. People are such assholes and the grass is so flat, almost supplicant, as if it had been woven into a mat. You almost want to kneel on it and beg for forgiveness.  I reassured him that it doesn’t stay like this forever. The shit eventually gets picked up and the grass rises again. So much so, you’ll have to cut it again in the spring. He seemed to ponder this awhile and the resultant pause in our exchange gave me an opportunity to tell him I had to brush my teeth and get ready for bed and he responded with a thumb's up emoji. I put the phone down with a sense of heightened self-regard. Once again, I had done my job. Another few hours and I could pass the baton. Next man up. When he dies, we’re probably going to have to go back to talking about sports again. We all expect the same treatment. Each of us in our turn. Until there’s only one man left.

3/8/26