You go see him, I can’t (March 8, 1998)

March 8, 1998

 Jimmy is peeved.

 For weeks he's warned me about Garrick, the way three years ago he warned me about Frank, his dreadful ability at predicting doom annoying the hell out of me.

 "He's hold up in a room in his aunt's house in Totowa," he told me on the telephone yesterday. "He's depressed again or something. He hasn't been to work."

 Garrick's not going to work was a significant omen. Garrick always went to work, even if he didn't do much when he got there. He was always in the midst of one job or another, for a long as I've known him, doing stuff with rock and roll or polishing stone for his jewelry business. Lately, he's pumped gas and worked at a quality control inspector in a Franklin Lakes factory.

 "Did something happen?" I asked, recalling Garrick's last serious fit of depression when we lived together in Passaic. But that was 1975 and caused by a bitch named Jeannie who used him and then threw him away. We all presumed Garrick had gotten over that, at least, for the painful part.

 "He had cyst of some kind, and he thought it was cancer, but I've been told the test came out negative," Jimmy said. "But he's just lying around, looking for sympathy or something. If I have to come down there and roust him out of that bed, I'm going to kick his ass."

 The worry dripped through his anger.

 "You want me to go see him?" I asked.

 "You live close to him," Jimmy said. "I can't get down there right now."

 Jimmy didn't have to say more. For some reason the fear has been on me for days. I thought it was because of the third anniversary of Frank's death, coming up within days. I had the ache to listen to Simon and Garfunkel again, and was in a general funk over Frank's passing, bringing a photograph to his mother of his last days.

 My moving to Haledon brought it all sharply into focus. My life seemed to have centered around this town, from 1968 when I came here to visit Frank (who grew up here) to 1979 when I came through here on my way to college.

 Jimmy had been talking about Garrick for weeks, saying that Garrick had gained too much weight, growing fatter and more depressed over his inability to halt the growth. Garrick and I had fought the weigh issue during the 1970s, when we both edged over 200 pounds. I fought back and lost weight. He grew more and more fat. He exceeded 290 at the beginning of the year.

 I noticed the weight gain when we had him over to our Jersey City apartment. He seemed unconcerned at the time.

 "Garrick's sister thinks he's been depressed for quite some time," Jimmy told me. "She thinks it’s over his parents getting a divorce."

 "That happen recently?" I asked.

 "Hell, no, it happened 15 years ago," Jimmy said. "That's what bothers me. How could he still be depressed about that?"

 Perhaps he never got over his first depression, when his first love, Jeannie through him out of the house, and every year and every instance made the matter worse, age breaking down his typical defenses, his declining health turning him towards despair.

 "I'll call him," I told Jimmy. "I'll let you know what I find out."