My Close Friendship That Never Was

After learning about the death of a K-12 classmate, I mourn the brotherhood he and I never fully realized

Earlier this fall, I was randomly “Internet-stalking” former classmates — as I tend to do quite regularly. After Googling one boy who I knew for a good nine years of my life, I learned of his tragic passing in January of 2021.

His cause of death was unlisted within his online obituary.

Grade School ‘Sorta-Friends’

Tyler was in the same class as me. I don’t remember the exact grade year in which we first got to know each other, but it was probably around the Second or Third Grade. For awhile, his mom and stepdad owned the movie theatre in our rural town. I remember that he would work behind the lobby’s snack bar, sometimes.

Everyone liked Tyler — and with good reason. He was a class clown, and loved making people laugh. Teachers would usually get pretty annoyed with him, but we all found him hysterical. He was like a cross between Randy Taylor from Home Improvement, Luke Dunphy from Modern Family, and Shaggy Rogers from Scooby-Doo.

One memory that stands out for me was the time when, in Sunday School, Mrs. Grosz insisted how it was important to love one another…even if we didn’t like each other.

Tyler turned to me, deadpan, and quipped: “I love you, Eichy.”

And we all guffawed with laughter, as Mrs. Grosz rolled her eyes.

But Tyler really did like me. At least, as a potential buddy. Sadly, my social skills were too lacking for me to always reciprocate in the way I wished I could have.

Whereas a lot of the boys and girls in our class loved to pick on me in meanspirited ways, Tyler always made it a point to chat with me at recess or school assemblies. He lived right down the street from me, and I remember one time he invited me to go swimming at the Lunda Recreation Center with him and Leah, another of our classmates. This invitation was filtered to me from his mom through my mom, and I filtered back that I had no desire to swim in my spare time. Aside from never having learned to swim, I also had modesty issues — the thought of appearing in public wearing only swim trunks was downright humiliating to me.

As far as I know, Tyler took it with grace that I’d declined his invitation. I’m guessing he already had an idea of how shy I was, and figured it wasn’t personal (which it wasn’t). Indeed, he continued being amicable toward me. One time, while we were walking home (since our neighborhood was a five-minute walk from the middle school and high school), he offered to teach me how to ride on his skateboard that he had with him (which I also declined to do).

Leah, on the other hand, may have been offended that I didn’t go swimming with them — seeing how, beginning in middle school, she began to regularly bully me with a cross between the uppity demeanor of Lucy Van Pelt and the vicious bile of Nellie Oleson.

“Puberty Bros”

In the Fifth Grade, our two grade-level classrooms at Third Street Elementary went swimming at the Lunda Center (which was attached to the middle school). Me and the other “non-swimmers” had to go along to watch, but we only got barefoot since we weren’t swimming with everybody else.

This was a huge “culture shock” to me, as it was my first time actually seeing other boys my own age fully naked in person. I must have been blushing one-thousand shades of red, as I witnessed a majority of my male classmates prancing around the locker room in the nude. Tyler was completely owning the camaraderie — flopping and flaunting his “goods” along with many of the guys from our two adjacent Fifth Grade classrooms.

Part of my “Should-I-Be-Seeing-This?” bashfulness was due to my sheltered social existence as a kid with undiagnosed autism.

And part of it was probably due to my closeted homosexuality.

Then, seven months later, we’d all enter middle school. And I knew what that meant…

Mandatory communal showers after gym class.

As a non-troublemaker and a fairly obedient preteen, I knew I had to bite the bullet and shower in front of my classmates. The first several times, it was more than a bit awkward…but, within a couple of weeks, I managed to ease into the “group showering” experience.

Tyler had Phy Ed with me on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. I remember, for the first two or three occasions when we all had to shower after class, I couldn’t figure out how to turn the hot water on. It was actually quite simple (keep turning the faucet counterclockwise) — but, since I had never used these communal amenities (and because I took tub baths, at home), I didn’t have the prior experience.

Initially, while taking my second or third cold shower after class, Tyler happened to be using the showerhead next to mine. He could residually feel the chill from the ice-cold deluge that was pelting me, and he expressed shock that my water was so cold. I tried to laugh/shrug it off as though I liked cold showers…not wanting to admit my ineptitude.

Then, the next time all of us boys went to go shower, I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t understand what I was doing wrong…but the icy waterfall had gotten to be unbearable.

I recall that myself and maybe two or three other boys had reached the showers ahead of everybody else. Tyler, once again, happened to be using a showerhead near mine…and I worked up the courage to ask him how to turn on the hot water. I was really nervous and worried that he was going to regard me like a complete bozo, for not knowing how to operate a simple shower faucet.

He didn’t. Instead, he was more than happy to be my impromptu “mentor,” in that moment.

Casual and friendly, Tyler strolled over and stood next to me. He instructed me to turn the faucet all the way off, and then he — with totally chill banter — advised me to move out of the way “…or it’ll spray ya.”

He proceeded to show me how to keep turning the faucet all the way to the left until the water reached maximum warmth. I thanked him, and he stepped back over to his own showerhead…expressing how he was happy to help.

And that hot water felt so good, running down my naked preteen body.

If Tyler had known I was gay, would he still have felt as comfortable around me in such an intimate situation? I’d like to think so.

Our Mutual Respect

Showers were only mandatory for the next five months or so. But I could finally bond with my male classmates over the shared vulnerability of our boyhood. Tyler always said “Hey” to me, in the showers. He even started a “trend” amongst several of us boys where we would use our fingers to garishly “sprinkle” random droplets away from our waists, as the misty water rained down upon us.

Although I just emulated them, “Monkey See Monkey Do”-style, I’m guessing this ritual was a silly way of distracting ourselves from our blatant group nudity…since, as more and more boys hit puberty, we became gradually more self-conscious — to individual degrees — of our own changing bodies.

When we began our gym class volleyball unit shortly after Christmas vacation, Mrs. Mack assigned three students to be Team Captains. She guided them to a corner, where the Captains did a schoolyard pick (out of everyone else’s earshot) of who’d be on their teams.

Tyler was one of the Team Captains, and I was part of his team when Mrs. Mack announced the divisions. Later on, toward the end of class, Tyler leaned over and whispered to me…

“You’re not very good at volleyball, are you?”

Guilty plea! Everybody knew I was unathletic. It was no secret. So I sheepishly admitted that he was right. To which Tyler smiled and winked at me:

“That’s why I picked you.”

His gesture warmed my little unathletic heart!

How could I have been such a dolt, to have cluelessly spurned his overtures of friendship all of this time?

When we had our swimming unit in the late-spring, the school arranged for me to take swimming lessons in private (long story for another day!). With two separate gym classes taking place simultaneously, one class would swim while the other would do strength-training in the weight room. On one of the days when my class was swimming, I had returned to the locker room toward the end of weight-training (with the other class) — only to see Tyler and one of his pals, Andy, snapping towels at each other in a very boisterous showdown.

Tyler was butt-ass naked. Andy still had his trunks on.

The other boys were all laughing and egging the two of them on…until Mr. Olson arrived, and broke up their jovial showdown.

Getting my bare ass snapped with a towel is, to this day, a rite-of-passage I’ve never endured.

I’ve Got You, Dude!

In the Eighth Grade, our middle school computer lab stayed open for about an hour or two after the final bell for students to use. Tyler, myself, and Andy were playing computer games at each of our consoles — when the two of them decided to harass a Sixth Grader named Jeremy, who was sitting several rows behind us.

Jeremy was an obnoxious kid and the son of a Special Ed teacher at our middle school. It was clear that Tyler and Andy thought he was a little twerp. I didn’t participate in their mild bullying of him — but, regrettably, I also failed to intervene.

I ended up being pulled into a bigger conflict, here, when I received a phone call at home, the next day. Tyler had phoned me to shamefully admit that he and Andy had gotten in trouble after Jeremy snitched on them to the principal. He then told me that his mother wanted to talk to me, since I’d been there as a witness. Tyler pleaded with me to vouch for the fact that he and Andy hadn’t caused any physical harm to Jeremy (which, from everything I could tell, they hadn’t).

Tyler’s mother, Sandy, then got on the phone with me. She was initially very pleasant toward me (as she had always liked me). However, as Sandy began to describe to me the severity of the allegations against Tyler and Andy, she repeatedly emphasized how it was very important for me to tell the truth about what had happened. Her tone became implicitly more and more confrontational.

I stuck to the facts. I told her that, yes, Tyler and Andy were both standing behind Jeremy, hovering over him as he sat in front of a computer in the lab. But, because I was several rows away, I couldn’t quite hear what they were saying to him. However, I truthfully informed Sandy that I hadn’t seen her son (or Andy) put his hands on Jeremy at any point in time.

Sandy kept grilling me, asking me to recount the situation a few more times. She also reminded me, once again, how important it was to tell the truth. I’m assuming it was because Tyler had been in trouble at school before; she feared her son might be lying to her, so she was appealing to my angelic “good kid” side to help her get to the bottom of what had happened.

Verbally, I dug in my heels and stuck to the facts. I withheld my instinctive suspicions that Tyler and Andy were probably indeed trying to intimidate Jeremy — because, in all honesty, I *HADN’T* been able to hear what they were saying to him.

Sandy thanked me for my cooperation and honesty, and she asked if I could remember anyone else being in the vicinity during this incident. I told her that Avi (our assistant librarian) was at the checkout desk and might have been able to see them through the computer lab windows; but I couldn’t guarantee that Avi would have any better context than I did about whatever had transpired.

Once again, Sandy thanked me — and she told me how she was going to confront our principal, Mr. Rosin, and demand to know why Mr. Rosin hadn’t collected my testimony earlier (since Tyler had presumably mentioned that I could vouch for him and Andy). She told me how she’d always thought I was such a polite and well-behaved kid, and she wished she could see me more often.

I could read between the lines. Sandy was trying to hint how *I* would be a good influence on Tyler. How, perhaps if I was closer friends with her son, I might have been able to intervene and gently “rein in” Tyler and Andy (as their peer who could relate to them better than adults could) before that situation had escalated.

Another ‘Friend-Fail’ From Me

A couple of years later, when Tyler and I were high school sophomores, Sandy called my mom to tell her that Tyler was coming dangerously close to failing Geometry. Sandy had put her foot down and insisted that he get tutoring, and she asked Tyler if there were any academically-gifted kids at school by whom he would prefer to be tutored.

He requested me!

So I headed over to their house, the very next weekend. Sandy greeted me at the door, and she was bubbling over with excitement since it had been years since she’d last seen me in person.

She brought me down to Tyler’s basement bedroom, where he was playing video games. He seemed completely disinterested in my presence there…even though he’d been the one to name-drop me when Sandy told him he had to get a tutor. She left us alone, but returned to the basement every so often to do laundry and check up on us (probably to make sure Tyler wasn’t trying to goof around).

So I did my best to give Tyler a lesson in Geometry. I could tell he was bored by it, but he did slowly pick up on some of the concepts. When we were done and I was getting ready to leave, Tyler asked me if I wanted to stay and play video games. But I had no interest in video games whatsoever…so I politely declined.

Sandy offered to pay me, but I wouldn’t take her money. They didn’t continue with having me tutor Tyler…either because Sandy didn’t think it would make a difference, or they found a more professional resource than my basic B-average math skills.

I wish I’d stayed to play video games. Even though I knew NOTHING about video games…I wish I had let Tyler teach me. We could have further connected.

I never saw him again.

The very next school year, Tyler and his family moved to South Dakota (for reasons unknown to me). I didn’t learn about their relocation until after they’d already left town.

According to his obituary, Tyler had become a single dad…and he left behind a young daughter, along with four older brothers (whom I’d never met) and their parents.

He died a mere five days before what would have been his thirty-ninth birthday.

My memories of Tyler are positive and fond — even though we were never extremely close. But, looking back, I can tell that he probably would have liked to have been closer friends with me.

In hindsight, the feeling was mutual. I wish I’d been willing to let my guard down. I wish I hadn’t turned myself into such a social hermit.

From this day forward, if I see opportunities to forge new interpersonal friendships (especially with other dudes) — I resolve to put myself out there. Complete with all of my gawkiness, affection, candor, loyalty, and awkward neurosis!

I’ll be doing it in honor of Tyler.

In honor of the boyhood connection between the two of us that I was too cowardly to embrace.