Friend Indeed

 "Can you hold my watch?"

The hand that came up between the front seats had said watch dangling by the band.

"And could you turn the music down just a bit?"

I had turned it up as a consideration to myself, thinking that I didn't want to hear much if any of the muffled sounds from the back seat. I turned down the volume. Just so much, but no more. 

Meanwhile, the slap and tickle fest that was this Friday night was in my back seat continued. I put the watch on my gearshift and stared off into the darkness. The cul-de-sac where we were parked had been divined over some time and research suggested that traffic would be minimal to non-existent in this little corner of heaven. 

I sat there, looking forward instead of back since I was supposed to be invisible. Or as non-existent as the traffic for the purposes of this make-out session. 

How did I get here? I was a junior in high school. I was friends with a senior, who started dating a sophomore. He didn't own a car, so when he wanted to show his girl a good time, at least to the extent that the back seat of a 1972 Vega could be considered a good time, he called on me to drive him and his date to this one particular corner on the north end of town. 

And I went. 

Because I wanted to ensure that I would still be friends with that senior. And his girlfriend. Who might not be his girlfriend if he didn't have access to my back seat. So what I am saying here was that I was willing to allow myself to be mixed up in my friend's relationship in order to be friends with a senior. This in turn allowed me the privilege of chamfering him and his lady friend to dark corners of the suburbs. 

If you were to suggest that I was desperate for friends in high school, I would ask only that when you point at this example that you don't laugh. It's okay to point. It's okay to laugh. But it's not okay to point and laugh.