Edubabble and other Blither

When Tripper was in college, he shared a dingy, freezing, beer-soaked apartment with a guy named Greg. Greg lacked commitment to academia-- a sometimes full-time, sometimes part-time, sometimes no-time student. From the Iron City, he loved the Steelers, my roommate Heidi ("Chrissy, she's hot as hell," he confessed once, and from that day on we referred to her as Hotashellheidi.), and partying. He spoke gruffly, without realizing it, loudly, ungrammatically, but usually not unkindly. No one was sure of his major, but we all knew that Greg-- nicknamed Brady due to the absolute lack of resemblance between him and that icon of cheesy 70's purity-- could always be counted on to chill a keg happily on Thursday night.

Because of this certainty, Trip was loathe to answer the phone on Thursday afternoons. When he did, it consistently turned out to be some dumb blonde freshman demanding the scoop for the night so she could invite a dozen of her dumb friends. Occasionally they spent the night at the apartment, waking up with Brady, compliments of the thunderous pitter-patter of little feet belonging to the large Malaysian family who lived upstairs and delighted in this early morning revenge after each party. "The fuuuuck? Are they holding goddam football practice up there?" Brady would ask.

The problem was not a hangover, spilled beer, ashtrays in the refrigerator, or even angry neighbors. The problem was that Brady had a long-time girlfriend, a high-school sweetheart I think, who wasn't a fan of the dumb freshmen or anyone else sharing Brady's bed.

Trish, the girlfriend, was a nutrition major on a soccer scholarship at an out-of-state school, so she didn't visit often, but occasionally news of a tryst here and there would reach her. When she did visit, the two of them would often argue, usually after drinking, sometimes after Trish's angry confessions about her own few spite-fucks. Once one of them got hold of a knife and accidentally stabbed Tripper in the arm when he tried to intervene. Eventually the roommates told Brady they'd prefer if she stopped visiting.

I remember talking to Trish a few times in college, once in particular. I was chasing after one of Tripper's other roommates while periodically sleeping with my own high-school ex-boyfriend. This drama kept my mind off my parents' recent, bitter separation to a fabulous degree. Somehow we ended up standing in a corner of a musty, avocado-green-splashed basement apartment, complaining about Greg Brady and Zach, my own bad habit. Zach and I had been broken up for two years, but touched base here and there and had now passed third base and headed on home numerous times in recent months. I'm not sure what I wanted out of that arrangement, but I spent a lot of time upset about both guys and what they didn't offer me, what I didn't demand for myself. Of myself.

I remember thinking that night that Trish and I had some things in common. We both still clung in one way or another to a high-school relationship that clearly wasn't all that great for us, that didn't make any of us, guys included, happy. Neither guy was evil. We were pretty girls, accomplished in one thing or another, and deep down inside knew we were impostors.

I gave up on Tripper's roommate a mere three or four years later, conveniently lost touch with Zach, too, and found myself living in Tripper's hometown. Tripper found himself there, too, and then we found each other. Trish and Brady got married. They called us about five years ago, after no contact for about ten years. They were passing through the area, so we met them at a local restaurant and had a couple beers. Their two tiny girls were with them. No one got drunk or stabbed. There were no freshmen. They were a happy family, Brady a silly daddy who blew kisses at a daughter who gleefully caught them and dashed them to the ground. "Why you throw Daddy's kisses away?? Why? Why?" he teased her.

Trish looked exactly the same as she had in college-- natural, cute-as-shit, fit. I'm sure I found my own post-college appearance lacking, and probably imagined that it was all they could talk about on their way home. Trip and I talked about how nice it was to see them, how fatherhood looked good on Brady, how nice it was that they were able to get it together finally, how you never knew how things would work out.

Brady calls again yesterday afternoon. No, he can't go out for a beer 'cause the kids are with him. When they all arrive, one extra kid since the last time, we herd them into the living room, pour pop and coffee, and dump our barrel o' Legos all over the floor, much to the kids' delight. Trish isn't there.

I am about to get some water for the girls, who don't like pop, when Brady, ineloquently and directly as always, offers this: "Trish passed away a year ago next month." When sufficient time passes for Tripper and me to be quietly shocked, he continues. "You'll never guess what she died of. She drank herself to death. All that drinking we all did in college, and she's the one who ends up an alcoholic, the registered dietician." He says he had noticed signs a couple years ago, that it had been really rough for a while, both before and after her death. She had tried outpatient and inpatient rehab a couple of times, but it just never worked.

A babysitter comes to their newly constructed home in the suburbs. She helps out a lot, but he's Holly Homemaker, he admits, and it's one time he doesn't sound gruff. He bakes fifteen dozen Christmas cookies and builds gingerbread houses, sleeps outside for a Wii, and enjoys a few of the dozens of quarts of vegetables he cans from his garden. He coaches soccer, makes sure Trish's family sees the kids, and does it all without a trace of self-pity, and I think maybe the gruffness has, all this time, been a shield of sorts, a persona perhaps. But you know, as much as I hurt for Brady and their three young kids, a part of me grieves more for that girl who won't see them grow up, the girl I suspect never grew into herself, never chased away the imposter, a girl I really barely knew and knew all too well at the same time.

Looking for some online record of the obituary after they leave, I find a brief one that links to an on-line guest book of sorts. There are over eighty entries, and I pore over them like a voyeur, reading hackneyed expressions of shock, prayers, and memories Brady and the kids will always have to comfort them. A couple of these really stand out, though. They touch upon the difficulty Trish had dealing with silence, being with her own thoughts. They comment that her striving, her competing, these burdens are finally gone.

The first time I ever spoke to Tripper, it was a Thursday, and he assumed I was just another silly young twit looking for a party. In a way, I was exactly that. He was gruff with me, and I tease him about this now, but I know every day how lucky I am that I allowed myself the freedom to find him, and me.