Adventures with Erock

It was cold. Bitterly cold. And my friend Erock had only a jacket on. Thin-soled shoes. No scarf, gloves, or hat. Eventually, I grabbed a headband out of my pocket, zipped my heavy winter coat up, and tossed her my hat, scarf, and gloves before shoving my hands in my pockets. We were in the middle of nowhere. Looking for a Mormon Temple. Honestly, I don’t think either of us even knew the town in Maryland we were in. All we knew is that this Temple had a hell of a Christmas light display and we were going to see it.

We trooped through fields with Erock in her leather loafers and tears freezing on my eyelashes. The bus driver of the #5 bus had told us that the Temple was just “over there” as he gesticulated wildly with his arm. We ended up in one of those suburban-like neighborhoods with cul-de-sacs and minivans where you never see anyone because people get right out of their cars and hurry inside. The kind of neighborhood where a service tends to your lawn. The kind of neighborhood where you don’t imagine two girls from the Midwest will appear in your driveway and ask you where the Mormon Temple is. Another man gesticulating wildly that the Temple is “over there.” Another frozen field. The snow/rain mixture that is particular to that part of the country where winter can’t decide to come all the way with the snow began to fall.

Suddenly, on the horizon, there was a building. It was beautiful. Both of us stopped in our tracks, in awe. It was lit up and it was beautiful. It reminded me of how amazing I used to think downtown Grand Rapids was at night when I was young, before I knew that Grand Rapids was really a Podunk town, before I knew that those buildings were gobbling up precious kilowatts of electricity that folks not twenty miles away could use to heat their homes and feed their families, before I became that world-weary person who was stomping through the snow, tired of the life I was leading, tired of playing politics, tired of the city life, and before I would have ever searched out a Mormon Temple in the middle of nowhere with someone I barely knew with little more than a bottle of water, an apple, and a half-eaten granola bar in my pocket.

But Erock was special. I had met her months earlier and every time we went somewhere it was an adventure. And she really never gave up. And she made me stop being world-weary and stop moping about city life, and stop crying over peach juice. How could I be world-weary when there was so much I hadn’t seen? Hadn’t done? We had to do it all. Everything in the city we had to do. Because we didn’t want to leave and say, “boy, I wish I had done that.” And I did it. For myself, I guess. But mostly because I had Erock to tell me that this was the kind of thing we were supposed to do. And if I didn’t do it with her, she’d do it alone. Then she’d be trooping through some Pleasantville suburb of Maryland on her own.

A few years later, Erock was moving to Boston. I was going to help her look at apartments for her, her boyfriend, and two cats to live in. It was the opposite of that night in Maryland. It was hot. That New England sunshine was beating down on us in the peak of the afternoon. The real estate agent apparently had us pegged for some naïve chicks from the Midwest, but by this point, I had rented out several apartments in a rental market nearly as impossible as Boston's, Erock had survived two apartment searches in St. Louis, and we weren’t putting up with any bullshit. As he kept taking us higher and higher in these crappy buildings, Erock kept repeating that she didn’t want anything higher than the third floor if there was no elevator. And he kept going. Finally, after looking at an apartment on the FIFTH floor that was suspiciously similar looking to ones we had seen on the first, second, AND fourth floors, Erock lost her shit.

“What part of nothing past the third floor don’t you understand?” she railed at poor Raphael. Even now, I can see Raphael’s flabbergasted expression. “And why have you shown us three of the same apartment? I didn’t like it on the first floor!! Why would I like it in the fifth floor?”

It quickly became clear to me why I was brought on board to look for apartments.

“I’m sorry, Raphael. Can you excuse us for a moment? We’re going to just take a quick look in the kitchen again.” I hurried Erock into the other room, where I lectured her on being nice to the realtor and told her she must be thirsty and dehydrated because that’s the only reason she could possibly have for treating a man that way. Her mama, back home in Illinois, would definitely be upset about this if she heard from anyone about this little outburst.

As I lectured, I turned on the kitchen faucet. Lukewarm water came out of the cold water tap. “Drink,” I ordered her.

She shook her head.

“Drink.”

More head shaking. I’m ashamed to admit it, but at this point, I lost my patience and grabbed her head and pushed it under the faucet. You better believe it that the girl drank.

Erock got married this past weekend. Congrats to her and TrevyBear. I hope they have an excellent honeymoon and get back to the cats before I catnap them forever.