Hi Dad and G.  I was sitting here the other day listening to music, and decided to listen to the album New Jersey by Bon Jovi.  It’s actually a pretty good album, with nearly every single tune being really good.  Then I got to the song blood on blood, and it really made me stop and think.

So “Blood on Blood” is a song that talks about Jon Bon Jovi’s two childhood friends (fictional or not, I’m not sure).  But in the song, it talks about them as kids, cutting each others hands to become brothers, and then talks about some of the hijinx they get into while growing up.  The song finishes by saying one became a lawyer, another a doctor, while Jon himself is just a singer, but how he’d be there for them if they needed him.

The song made me kind of sad.  I had friends like that growing up.  We never cut our hands, but we were as tight as brothers.  I thought they’d be my friends forever.  Well, I can tell you I was wrong.

Let’s start with G.  I met him in 9th grade, and we became quick friends.  We worked together at Galaxy skateway where we both eventually became DJs, and that is where he met his wife, D.   D and I had this love/hate relationship.  I loved to hate her.  Ok, maybe it wasn’t THAT bad, but she was definitely a thorn in my side at times.

[ I have removed a bunch of what I had written here about G.  It has come to my attention that what I had known as facts may have been not so factual.  As such, I have removed them.  I talk more about this in my Reflecting on the past post. ]

So, that leaves us with my other long term friend, C.  C and I met in middle school, about the age of 12.  Sure we were a little different (I liked to bathe, he didn’t) but we were kindred spirits in a lot of ways.  We both liked D&D, computers, comic books, yeah all kinds of things.  Just a couple of aspiring nerds.  We stayed friends beyond high school, and he remained my best friend even through all of the crap with G above, and beyond that while I went through my divorce.

An issue with C is that he isn’t very motivated.  Sure, he wants things, but he doesn’t have the get up and go to get them.   He got a degree in computer programming and never bothered picking up his diploma, and missed out on the job placement he should have gotten.  So he went back to slicing meat in the deli.

I ended up working for a company where I needed to bring in someone under me to handle some programming and other things, so I thought of C.  I brought him in, giving him a salary over double of what he’d ever earned before, and taught him the ropes and kept him under my wing.  Nice guy, right?  You’d think he’d be somewhat grateful.  I didn’t ask for any kind of acknowledgement, I mean, he was my boy.  Friends help friends.  Nuff said.

A lot of stuff happened at that job, but one of them was because we hired someone that was a good friend of the owner as my assistant.  The company merged with a company in New York, and I became their CTO.  But, they wanted me to travel back and forth to NYC on a weekly basis, and I had 5 kids at home, and just couldn’t do it.  That’s where Jack came in, to be my eyes and ears on the ground in NYC and in our office since it wasn’t so easy for me to travel.

About a week before I left the company, I got a phone call from M, C’s wife.  She told me that C and Jack were conspiring to get me fired.  And that Jack had offered C a raise ($5k if I remember right) and to give him my company car if he helped.  And that C was going along with it.  I laughed it off.  C and I had been best friends since middle school.  We’re talking like 30+ years.  There’s no way he would betray me for a little money and a company car.

Yeah, once again, I was wrong.

The way I look at it, C not only betrayed me, but he betrayed my family.  He helped take away the very income stream that put food into my kid’s mouths.  He stole from my kids.  For a measly $5000.  For that reason, alone, I haven’t been able to forgive him.

So listening to the song, which used to be one of my favorites on the album, I am reminded of the supposedly lifelong friends I had, and how both of them stabbed me in the back in a really big way for pretty small and stupid reasons.

This probably explains why I have problems now making real friendships.  Sure, I have a bunch of friends and even more acquaintances, but not like I did with G and C.  I don’t know if it’s even possible for me to make friends again on that level.

The dumbest thing of all that I realized while listening to that song?  I miss them both, the closest I ever had to having brothers.  Even though I don’t know if I’ll ever speak to them again.