Borderland by Stuart Evers

“if you ever want to find me,” he said as he left me that last time, “if you really want to know me, just read this.”

In my hand, like it was his heart on a salver, he placed a tobacco-thumbed book: Border Country by Raymond Williams. I took it and clasped it to my chest. Yes, that sounds like the kind of thing I would have done; I was a one for clasping back then. I clasped the book to my chest and I promised to read it, but knew I wouldn’t. I thought I knew him absolutely; I didn’t think additional study was required. The book was an insult held to my beating, stuttering heart.

When I got home, I saw he’d written a dedication to me on the inside cover, a vandalism in lithe green ink. In anger I refused to read even that, and the next day took it to the Oxfam on Bold Street. What must the person who bought it have made of me, the Annie of the dedication, the discarder of such a token? They would be harsh on me, I am sure. But if I were ever to meet them, I’d tell them they knew nothing about it. Nothing of me and nothing of him. Nothing of that time. Nothing of what it was like.

Which makes it sound dramatic, important. It was neither. Gwyn and I were just friends. Close friends, ruinously close friends, friends like we were inventing friendship from the ground up, yes: but just friends; those kind of friends. Those for whom the world exists in orbit around the twofold unit; those for whom others are mere distraction. We were friends like that, and then not. The presentation of the book sealing it. Gwyn with a duffel bag and guitar case, as