My Friend Kenneth
By Michael Woyan
Page 1 sex Page 2 drugs Page 3 sin Page 4 lust Page 5 envy Page 6 fortune Page 7 evil Page 8 pirate Page 9 thief
Page 4
So we traded Jim for Todd that season, a transaction of which for the short term worked in our favor, but resulted in a losing proposition over the long haul. For the months that the three of us lived together the household ran more smoothly and amicably than it ever had. After Kenneth left, the circumstances of which I'll detail later, Todd went from being one of the best roommates I ever had to positively the worst, becoming verbally insolent and swindling me out of a not insignificant sum of money not only once, but as an ultimate insult, twice. I never saw any of it coming.
Todd was employed as a sales/service sort of person at a well-known company when he interviewed for the apartment, but was let go shortly thereafter. After a summer of frolic with his impertinent suburban friends with cars, lawsuits and feigned affections in pursuit of gratuitous sex on their minds, he buddied up to Kenneth in hopes of having him secure employment at the Exchange on his behalf. Of course Kenneth was up to the task and in fact, Todd, a man of moderate though clever intelligence, was well suited for the conscienceless endeavors of the Exchange, and he did well there. These duplicitous qualities were less welcome in my home and of course, it all ended badly.
What I gleaned from Ken in these associations was that unlike what we learn growing up in America from cinematic westerns, people are not nearly as good or as bad as they seem; there's some of both in all of us. Kenneth managed these and all his relationships successfully. When his friends from the Exchange would come to the apartment they were always uncharacteristically polite, in distinct contrast to the boorish relations of misplaced testosterone familiar to their profession. It occurred to me later that most of these courtesies were probably of Kenneth's doing. He demonstrated a compassion for Jim and a bottom-line control of Todd that I could not. In all cases, he demanded respect for the things he respected, not the least of which was his life. If we were to reduce Kenneth's workings here to a least common denominator, I'd have to say that just like the old Temptations song said in quite a different context, "where ever he set his hat was his home." Thus, an imperceptible transition took place from him staying at my apartment to 219 West North Avenue becoming our home.
This transformation, like all matters having to do with Kenneth, occurred with resounding punctuation. I had been working particularly long hours managing the mortgage and contract administration areas for a condominium developer whose sales reach always exceeded it's operational grasp, thus leaving my areas of responsibility holding the proverbial bag of accountability on an ongoing basis. The perpetual process of making promises of appeasement and the struggle to meet them was maddening. After completing the most recent of several straight twelve-hour days, I entered my kitchen to find Kenneth and his old girlfriend Anne Blackmore drinking beer and laughing in the cadence of traditional Irish music. She engaged me right away, but not without an ounce of discomfort which passed over Ken's face. After all, we weren't going to be one big happy family; that's what I dictated from the beginning and Ken had indeed respected it.
This seemed to be of no concern to Anne however, as she was extremely curious about who were the characters in Kenneth's American life, one that had taken him from a twelve year career of security at Ireland's largest bank, where she worked and they had originally met. After two or three shared beverages, I cracked, and suggested that we go somewhere local for some social cocktailing. My thumb no longer in the dam of friendship, a flood of heady and often funny conversation followed for many hours. An ancient evening of old world feel, it was a discovery of commonality of which I thought we only found in the best of our boyhood camaraderies. Kenneth having to rise at a considerably earlier hour for work than I, left the job of entertaining Anne to my charge, which proved to be a thoroughly enjoyable endeavor. On a night of rare human recognition, this was an act of trust that was not lost on me. For the kinship that followed in the years to come, I remain unmistakably in Anne Blackmore's debt.
Kenneth and I got along famously in the flourishing lounge scene on Chicago's near north side in the months to come, with a generosity of spirits, stories and laughter for everyone near. It was like holding salon without the pretense prohibitive to Middle American social sensibilities. Being young men of some vitality, one of our favorite pastimes, we would say, was to engage in the appraisal of passing ladies with the eye of a jeweler and the conscience of a burglar.

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Written By Michael Woyan

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