Helter Skelter

We like to think we can help. Maybe sometimes we can. But most of the time, those we want to help are on their own and there's nothing we can say to change their minds. The other night I got a message from a great friend of mine who cryptically said he had a secret and left it at that. Knowing that he's been in a rough patch of highway for a while now, I thought, oh, it's either A, B, or C. I called him back, left a message asking him to give me a call and we could talk. He called last night about 15 minutes before I was going to go to bed - and it's never a short conversation with my friend. We chit-chatted for about a minute before he started bringing me up to speed. An hour later, I thought we were all caught up (he's going through a bad time, trying to make some changes and is talking to friends about it). We were laughing about something stupid and it seemed like we were just about done. Then:

"Oh, right. I said I had a secret to tell, right? Well, you knew about A, B and C. So, what was it? ... Let me see ... Was it ... Oh, right ..."

Then he dropped it. A bombshell in a whisper. Megatonnage. Off the alphabetical scale. In the 15 or so years I've known him, I would never have guessed that this would be what it was (not life-threatening and I really can't and won't go into the revelation, but suffuce it to say: Holy. She. Yit.) It's not that easy to surprise me. I was speechless.

For the next hour we talked about It from as many angles as I could think of - prodding, testing, supporting, challenging - but anything I said or asked had a subtext of "What?!" The man is reeling in just about every part of his life and I'm reeling from the out-of-nowhere revelation, wanting to help, be supportive but at the same time honest and direct. I now feel like I didn't say enough, even the simplest thing possible: don't. I want to be a friend, a brother, to help steady a friend who's off balance and flirting with some self-destructive behavior as a way of dealing with the blows life has been dealing him, but I feel helpless to that friend who needs ... something. I went through a similar, dark situation with another friend a few months back. Again, I didn't know what the hell to do but I didn't ever want to say I did nothing, so I kept calling that friend, letting him know I was there, wishing to help, so on and so forth. The one thing I took from that and will do with this current friend in need is keep calling, talking. There doesn't feel like there's anything else I can do. He is the captain of his ship, steering it into this stormy sea by choice and, no matter what anyone else says, only he can change the course of the voyage. If he wants to. He knows that and I suppose I do, too. But I just wish I knew the magic words to help him back into smoother, more peaceful water.

...

Oh, and we saw Zodiac last night, too. Really good, much better than I expected. A very intense and unsettling beginning - due to some exceptionally disturbing acts of violence - that keeps you tense for the rest of the (long) movie. Good script, great acting and skilled filmmaking ... except for the long part.

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It has been a wacky week, man.