Matthew Thompson

 I just texted a message to a friend which ended with the word "amenable."

It's a good word...and one that I use on a pretty regular basis.

And every time I use it, I hear a sentence behind it:

"Some spirits are not amenable to propitiation."

It's a line from the novel How Akira Was Restored to Life by Matthew H. Thompson. 

Don't bother Googling it, though. You won't find it. God knows I've tried many times over the past two decades or so.

I have a copy of the novel sitting on my bedroom bureau. It was sent to me by Matthew H. Thompson, who was one of the best friends I've ever had on this planet.

We met in 1977, when I joined what was then the 101st Airborne Division (Operations Security Platoon) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Matthew, who had trained as a Chinese linguist, was working as the supply sergeant. If that makes no sense to you, then you've obviously never been in the military. Matthew seemed very odd to me initially--a bit distant, a bit haughty, even--but it didn't take long for me to see that he was exactly the friend I needed to help me survive two and a half years in the United States Army. 

I remember the time we stayed up all night drinking ice tea and talking.

I remember the day I bought Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town, and we sat in the rec room playing it over and over again until the words and music had been ground into our souls.

Speaking of Springsteen, I remember the time we drove down to Nashville to see Springsteen in concert.

And the time we listened to David JoHansen's first solo album together.

And the time he got busted for writing notes which were signed, El Lobo, and I took over, writing notes signed Le Obol.

And a lot of other times. Music and books and Lucky Strikes ("Let's smoke, cunt!"). 

We stayed in contact for a good long while after we got out of the army. I even flew to New Jersey to visit him once. And we wrote long letters and exchanged manuscripts...which is how I came into possession of How Akira Was Restored to Life...and I thought that we would be friends forever. Hell, my first son's middle name was Matthew...after my best friend.

But somehow...I lost touch. I really don't know how it happened. I lost most of my mind when my first wife divorced me, and that was probably part of it. And eight years later when my second wife divorced me I lost what little of my mind had been left after the first divorce. Still...how could I have lost touch with Matthew?

I don't know.

I've Googled and searched Facebook and written emails to likely candidates, but I have never managed to get back in touch with him. 

But every time that I use the word "amenable"...there he is. And there is the ache for the loss of him.