ninanevermore

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about my unlikely friendship with Patty, and how it got started.

Patty worked at the same county agency I did several years ago. We had talked a few times and she knew that I lived closed to her. She had been by my apartment one time to retrieve her paycheck one week when she had asked me to pick it up for her on a day she had off and didn't want to drive into Houston.

Patty and I are nothing alike. I am woefully middle class in my outlook and lifestyle, whereas for the last few years Patty hasn't held a job for more than a few months, most of them less than a few weeks. The year and half that we worked together was the longest she had ever held any job, and the longest she has since. I don't leave the house without wearing makeup; Patty doesn't even own tube of lipstick. I enjoy an eclectic mix of music; Patty listens to hard rock and hair bands from the 1980's and nothing more. I read books; Patty watches a lot of TV. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the picture.

One day she came into my office to speak with me

"Hey, you want to start carpooling?" she asked me. "I can't afford all this gas to get out here. I'll give you cash every week if you let me ride with you."

No, my brain said, not really. I really like driving in alone, thank you. I like thinking and daydreaming and listening to NPR. I enjoy the solitude and the freedom to run errands after work without worrying about anyone else's schedule. "We can discuss it," I heard myself say. Wrong answer, my brain said.

"Good," she said, and left. I knew that she was going to show up on my doorstep in the morning and there would be no discussion of any sort about it. I had just made a commute buddy.

Sure enough, my doorbell rang the next morning as I was getting ready for work. I opened to see Patty standing there with her hands on her hips.

"You ready?" she asked.

I sighed. "Let me brush my hair and I will be."

As we pulled out of the parking lot, she turned on the radio. It was tuned to NPR.

"My mom listens to this," she said, and changed the station to hard rock.

"Can I smoke in your car?" she asked.

"I'd rather you didn't," I said.

"Does Jeff?" she asked.

I tried to remember when I had told her that Jeff smoked, and then I accepted defeat. "He rolls down the window when he does."

She rolled down the window and lit up.

In the coming weeks and months, I learned about her relationship with her on-again off-again boyfriend and about her three children (one of whom lived in Florida with his paternal grandmother because she couldn't afford to keep him). All three children have different biological fathers. I learned about the people she was having a disagreement with at any given point (there was always someone) and about her religious beliefs (kind of a generic pagan; she hasn't bothered to read up on what kind of pagan she wants to be). I learned about the fact that she grew up in New Orleans and learned to fight while she attended a Catholic girls school there (for some reason, girls who attend Catholic schools all seem to know how to fight really well). I learned about her bi-polar mother and the fact that her father died when she was 6 because he handled too much Agent Orange while he was in Vietnam.

She learned that I'm a good listener.

Before too long, she started introducing me to people as her "best friend." The first time she said it I remember thinking that I seemed to have gotten some sort of promotion while I wasn't paying attention.

"How did we wind up best friends?" she asked one day, "We really don't have that much in common, do we?"

"Because you needed a ride into work and I was the only person in the office who lived close to you," I replied.

"Oh yeah," Patty said, "That's right."

She took a drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke out the window.

"But it's worked out good, hasn't it?"