I’ve had money, and I’ve had friends.
Friends are better.
If you don’t respect money, it will leave you. Should you disrespect a real friend, he may make you the butt of jokes for a while, or punch your face into scrapple. He’s still there, though.
I remember once when my car needed towing out of a ravine. I had driven to give an old friend a jump. His car got started. We had to angle the cars kind of funny because he was on the expressway. After jumping him, my car couldn’t make it back to the road. It slid farther and farther down into the ditch.
People honking as they drive by. A state trooper pulls up. She’s cute, but no nonsense in the way only troopers are. After firing off a barrage of questions, another vehicle pulls up.
It’s my friend’s brother. He just got off duty. He’s a cop, too.
He swaggers out of his car the way cops do. I don’t know if the trooper caught the uniform first, or the swagger. Cops got their own language. Even though he was local and she was state, there was recognition there. He looked over the situation, lit a cigar, and smiled at the statie.
“My older brothers,” he said. He pointed at me. “He’s the smart one,” he pointed at my buddy, his biological brother. “He’s the asshole.”
I’m a writer. My friend is an attorney. MY attorney. The trooper giggled. I didn’t know they were programmed to do that. Damn correct assessment, though.
“You got this?” she asked him. We were out of the picture. “It’s getting cold and the drunks are out tonight. Make sure these guys get this car out and get home safe. Don’t want somebody to take advantage.”
“Yeah, got an outfit does towing for us coming down. They got a dumbass unit just for stuff like this.”
The trooper nodded knowingly. I thought I was in the Twilight Zone. Five minutes ago, we were questionable menaces to society. Now we were victims.
She looked at us and smiled our way for the first time. “You guys be safe. Be careful out here!” She gave a cop farewell to her compatriot, got in her cruiser, and pulled off.
When the tow guy arrived, I was a bit worried. Tow trucks in Chicago are a bigger rip off than our politicians, and price scales slide. The driver seemed lit. He looked at my car, clucked, wound out a wedge and got me out of the ditch. He then came over to me with a hard look on his face.
“That’ll be…”
Little brother comes over again. “He’s family.” Arms in back pockets, badge on bulletproof vest. No mistake here. We don’t work for FedEx.
“Well, I gotta call it in…”
“Fifty.”
Fifty dollars for a tow in a Chicago winter is like paying a couple hundred bucks at Tiffany’s for some earrings for your lady love. A steal.
The driver looks hard. The cops sniffs at the air as the driver exhales. The driver stiffens and looks a bit spooked. I hand over fifty bucks. The driver smiles.
“Have a good night!” he calls as he heads back to his truck.
I gave my little brother money for some gas and more money for a drink that we all needed. I promised to meet them at the house and toss a back a few with them, although it was 1am and I had an appointment at 10. Friendship has rules.
He arrived at the house a while later. Turns out he backtracked quite a bit to buy the drinks.
“All this stuff,” he said as he unpacked a ton of bottles, “was ten bucks. I took so long because I went to the store of a guy I know. Far side of town. My partner and I eat our lunch there daily and hang in the parking lot between calls. We have the other guys on shift eat there, too. Play cards in the back room there some nights when we’re off. ”
Friendship has its privileges.
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