I have been having very vivid dreams lately. Of course, hours later I can’t remember them. Last night though I had a dream where I do remember I yelled at Bill that I should be sleeping. And I was sleeping. It was weird, but then again it was a dream.
I have had some dreams that involved my old friend Pedro. We’d had a falling out five years ago during the pandemic and that was the last we spoke. There were some angry, pointed posts back and forth on social media which left me smelling of kerosene holding a book of matches next to a bridge.
Of course I regret those things. I can’t say he regrets them but in the dream I hugged him and cried as I told him I love him and missed him. That brought me to contact Excer, a mutual friend from those days when we used to run around doing crazy things with powders and cannabis.
The last time I saw Excer was leaving Pedro’s house in Otisville. Excer was giving me a ride to the bus terminal at the George Washington Bridge, and that must’ve been about 10 years ago.
Mutual friends have come and gone. It was good to speak with Excer though. The funny thing is, one night in the 1980s, Pedro and I were working at 2 Park Ave in Manhattan. Pedro asked if I wanted to go outside and smoke some weed with a friend who was pulling up in his car.
Of course I wanted to smoke weed with Pedro; we had done that often enough that he didn’t even have to ask. We met up with his friend, Excer, in his red Honda Civic. We sat in the car outside of 2 Park Ave, a joint being passed around.
This was the first time I met Excer and we seemed to be getting along just fine. Then, two obviously gay guys were walking up Park Avenue past the car and Excer make a derogatory comment about them. That was all I needed to hear and I excused myself and left the car.
I did not know until after the fact that Pedro told Excer off about his mocking the gay guys, stating that I was gay and Pedro’s friend and what Excer did was not cool at all. Here we are years later, Pedro and I have been on the outs and Excer and I are still friends, planning on meeting up for dinner before the winter sets in. An adult plan since neither one of us really drinks such these days, so it’s dinner.
I sit and listen to Compay Segundo once again. Solo por ti, Pedro Ramos. I really miss being your big bro. I hope someday we will reconnect, our wounds turned to scars and a friendship might bloom once again.
Not the same friendship of course, but some kind of friendship. Excer suggested dropping him a line and I just might do that.
I sent a heartfelt email if there is such a thing. I suppose the ball is in his court.
a Google Gemini rewrite as a James Baldwin essay
The midnight hour has a way of dismantling the armor we so carefully construct by day. Lately, my sleep has been visited by dreams—vivid, towering things that dissolve into vapor the moment the morning light hits the glass. Yet, last night, one fragment refused to wash away. I found myself shouting at Bill, insisting that I should be sleeping, even as I slept. It is a strange thing to battle for rest while in the very act of resting, but the mind under the cover of darkness is rarely logical; it is merely honest.
And it is this honesty that has brought me back to Pedro.
We had our falling out some five years ago, during that long, collective night of the pandemic when the world seemed to be cracking open. We traded bitter, pointed words across the digital ether—that cold, public square we now mistake for human intimacy. By the end of it, I was left standing in the dark, smelling of kerosene, holding a book of matches next to a bridge we had spent a lifetime building.
I regret that fire. Whether Pedro regrets his part in it is something I cannot know, and perhaps have no right to ask. But the subconscious is a merciful judge. In my dream, there was no kerosene, no burning timbers. There was only a hug, and my own tears, and the confession of an ancient truth: *I love you, and I miss you.*
It was the memory of that embrace that compelled me to reach out to Excer. He was a mutual comrade from those wild, smoke-filled days when we navigated the world through a haze of powders and cannabis, running from a reality we were not yet ready to face. The last time I saw Excer was a decade ago, leaving Pedro’s house in Otisville. He was driving me to the George Washington Bridge bus terminal—a threshold between the quiet country and the roaring city.
How strange the geometry of human relationships can be. Mutual friends have come and gone like ghosts, but speaking with Excer again brought me back to the very beginning.
It was a night in the 1980s. Pedro and I were working at 2 Park Avenue, trapped in the sterile belly of Manhattan commerce. Pedro asked if I wanted to slip outside to smoke with a friend who was pulling up in a car. Of course I did; Pedro and I shared a shorthand, a ritual of survival that required no explanation. We climbed into the back of a red Honda Civic and passed a joint around, the smoke curling against the windshield.
That was the night I met Excer. We were getting along well enough until two men—obviously gay—walked past the car on Park Avenue. Excer let slip a derogatory remark, one of those casual, cruel judgements that society uses to police the boundaries of human affection. It was all I needed to hear. The air in the car turned heavy, unusable. I excused myself and walked back out into the night.
What I did not learn until much later was that the moment the car door slammed behind me, Pedro turned on Excer. He defended my honor in that small, cramped space, telling him that I was gay, that I was his friend, and that such cruelty would not be tolerated.
Look at the tapestry time has woven since then. Pedro and I, who once stood as brothers, have been estranged for half a decade. Yet Excer and I remain in orbit, planning a quiet dinner before the winter chill sets in. It is an adult arrangement—no wild nights, no powders, no drink. Just two men sitting across a table, enduring.
As I write this, the music of Compay Segundo fills the room. *Solo por ti, Pedro Ramos.*
I miss being your big brother, Pedro. I find myself hoping that the years will do what they are meant to do: turn our open wounds into silent scars, creating a soil from which a new friendship might bloom. It cannot be the old friendship, for we are no longer the men who sat at 2 Park Avenue. But it could be *some* kind of friendship.
Excer urged me to drop him a line, and so I have. I have sent an email—as heartfelt as that cold medium allows. I have cast my bread upon the waters. The ball, as they say, is now in his court, and I must wait to see if the man I loved still knows how to catch it.