Friends Like These: My Worldwide Quest to Find My Best Childhood Friends, Knock on Their Doors, and Ask Them to Come Out and Play (19 page)

I had imagined, when first I embarked upon my journey with the Reinhardt Private Clinic for Young Men, that the journey would
be short, cheap, painless and successful. I certainly didn’t imagine it would make my knackers look like a weeping sparrow.

A WEEPING SPARROW??

Please contact my lawyers at Casey & Bodfish, on all future matters.

No! Casey & Bodfish!? Casey… and
Bodfish!
This… this was the work of…

Sincerely,

D. Wallace

No!
Not
D. Wallace! This was B. Ives!
Ben Ives!
A comrade! A
team-
mate! A…
hang
on…

P.S. I am writing this at work so I hope I don’t accidentally print it out on all the printers here, because I would be quite
embarrassed by that.

… a
bastard!

Ben Ives had broken the rules! He’d gone against everything that was good and holy in our world! Everything that was right
and proper! Everything we’d built up and bonded over! He’d turned me from pranker to prankee! A victim! A mark! A… a
loser!
A loser who quibbles over the high price of genital exfoliation!

And to think I’d brought him a can of Tizer.

This was terrible. Terrible! I was humiliated! Humiliated, as I walked out of the staffroom to notice a copy of the letter
on the door! Humiliated, as I stumbled past Connie from the stockroom. Humiliated, as I realized that yes—Ben had printed
out a copy on every printer in the store, and yes—those copies had been read. And passed around. And photocopied. And, for
all I knew, sent to the
Bath Chronicle
and the Associated Press.

This was it! This was war! The army had been split! Torn apart by betrayal and menace! Ripped in two by the actions of a young
maverick trying to make a name for himself! A line had been crossed. A line that now separated us. A line too wide to ignore;
too wide to reach out and shake hands across. A line that meant
trouble.

Hours later, at my station, my cheeks still burning, I caught a glimpse of Ben Ives as he came down from the stockroom. He
looked slightly apologetic; slightly shamefaced. But I knew what was happening inside of him. I knew because I had been like
him once. I knew the feeling of elation, the bubble of joy in the base of the gut that comes from a prank that hit the target.
And he knew I knew. And I knew he knew I knew. But now… now I was a different person. I had learned my lesson well. The lesson
of the victim.

I turned around. I had work to do. Good, honorable, Argos work. Those fancy, gold-plated BEST MUM IN THE WORLD sovereign rings
weren’t going to sell themselves.

But soon… soon I would come up with something to get him back. Soon I would conquer the master. I would use what he had taught
me to exploit his weaknesses; I would find the chink in his armor and, when the moment was right, I would strike. Strike like
the panther! But it had to be good. It had to be right. It had to be better than his; he’d really nailed me with that genital
exfoliation. Which is a sentence I never thought I’d write.

But guess what? As the weeks passed, as one month slopped into another… I never got Ben Ives back. Yeah, so I tried, once
or twice. But he was on to me. He found the ladies’ magazines I’d hidden in his backpack. He knew, when I phoned up in a funny
voice to tell him he’d won a competition and he was to make his way to Germany immediately, that it was me. He was always
one step ahead. And annoyingly, he knew it. Gradually, he became more arrogant about it.

“Give up,” he’d said one day, as we left Argos. “You’re never going to pull it off. Admit you’re in second place and maybe
we can start doing stuff again…”

But I was too proud. I didn’t want to be in second place. All I wanted was for us both to be in first place. The old team.
Back together. But the only way for that to happen was to get even; to prove my worth; to regain equality.

I was quite down about it. I knew, deep inside, that Ben was the better prankster. I knew that perhaps I needed him to bounce
off; to make my own pranks that little bit better. The split had caught me unawares. Now I knew that somehow he would always
catch me out; that my prank would never live up to expectation; that he’d know it was me in an instant. My confidence was
rocked.

Maybe all we needed was a bit of distance.

And that’s kind of what we got. A week or two later I was moved to the stockroom. I didn’t see Ben as much. I began to watch
Gladiators
on my own. Later, Ben got a job at Superdrug, and he started hanging out with a kid named Gary, who had his own TV in his
room. They could watch
Gladiators
whenever they liked.

Soon, my days at Argos were over, and thus, my last link to Ben Ives.

It was a shame.

Suddenly now, in London, halfway through varnishing a garden table on a bright and sunny summer morning, I was consumed by
an overwhelming urge to see him. To tell him that upon further reflection and after more than a decade of thought, his accusations
of genital exfoliation had been excellent; that he’d got me and that I didn’t mind; that I would happily take second place
if only we could be friends again…

Within moments, I was at my computer. I thought back to what Anil had implied. That these were opportunities to be grabbed.
That the past is as important as the present. That I shouldn’t pass up the chance to right a wrong. That wrongs were there
to be righted. That sometimes that’s how you make peace with the past.

I retraced my steps of the night before, and then… I found him. I knew where he was, and what he was doing. I knew some of
what he’d done, and some of what he hoped to do. I even knew what he looked like.

It was all rather impressive. Ben Ives was now a journalist. On a paper somewhere outside of LA. Writing features, and opinion
pieces… a review of a touring production of
Pirates of Penzance
… a lengthy diatribe on the links between oil and war… a feature about a strange group of people called “Furries” who enjoy
dressing up in big furry pig costumes, or bear costumes, or Snoopy costumes, and then having intimate relations, which he’d
titled
FUR THE LOVE OF DOG
… and next to them all, under his byline… a picture.

It was him! It was
definitely
him!

But as I looked into those eyes—and this is something I am deeply ashamed of—I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of annoyance.
A twinge of regret that I never quite managed to get him back. It sounds silly, and childish, and stupid, but looking into
those dark Ives eyes brought something else out in me…

What had Anil said again? That I shouldn’t pass up a chance to right a wrong? Well, here was a wrong to be righted. The letter
on the Argos staffroom noticeboard! That was the real wrong! Not the falling out of touch with Ben Ives—but the catalyst.
The kick-off. The
reason.
This… this was a wrong worth righting!

But no. Wait.

That is not what Anil meant.

No. He meant I correct the past nicely. Make
positive
moves.

Yes. I’ll forgive and forget. Email him nicely. Ask him how he’s doing. Lay the past to rest. Ignore the fact that he’d informed
half of Bath I’d been undergoing an intensive course of genital exfoliation which had left my knackers looking like a weeping
sparrow. Ignore the fact that he’d gotten away with it. Gotten away with it because we’d never got
even.
And we’d never got even because he was
expecting
it.
Waiting
for it.
Wanting
and
willing
it to happen. And how do you get even with someone who
wants
you to? Who’s
waiting
for it? None of my plans had ever been quite good enough, quite
right
enough to carry out… because now I see he was
expecting
retribution.
Expecting
a comeback.
Expecting
my revenge!

And now, as I sat in London, a million miles away from such immature and childish things, a million miles away from having
to
prove
myself… a strange and satisfying thought occurred…

Would he still be expecting it after fifteen years?

To: Ben Ives

From: ManGriff the Beast Warrior

Subject: YOUR “ARTICLE”

Dear Ben Ives,

I got your email from a friend of mine, Domino Bullets, at the recent FurCon in Miami.

My name is ManGriff the Beast Warrior and I am a Furry.

I would like to speak with you about being a Furry.

You appear to have a problem with us Furries. Your article FUR THE LOVE OF DOG describes us thus:

“A bizarro world of animal love and human failings… they dress up as animals, but why these people think they can hide behind
their costumes is beyond even the most eccentric mind…”

This is outrageous. We enjoy dressing as furry animals, talking and, yes, sometimes making love. You do not. So what?

You may well know you have become known as Ben Lie-ves by some of the higher powers at FurCon—Ujagi Mokanda and Panda Al in
particular. Your duplicity at once united and split many at the DeathStar BBS in Washington and the MidWest FurFest and you
have been the subject of many debates (you have come to represent the media as a whole for many thousands of Furries in the
US of Americans).

I am coming to LA in the next month or so and I will be coming by your offices where you work to see you. I would welcome
the chance to tell you how it really is. I think that you should write another article about Furries—one that shows things
how they REALLY are.

Can you let me know your availability for the next month please.

ManGriff

(Tom)

M
y email to Ben Ives had filled me with childish glee. I had tried to
hook
him. Reel him in. ManGriff the Beast Warrior was on his way, and there was nothing Ben could do about it. I’d been slightly
worried, though. Ben was a smart cookie. Hard to fool. But that had been when we were in Bath. He was in LA, now. This kind
of thing must happen to him all the time.

The next morning, however, I was concerned. I hadn’t heard back from him. Maybe I’d pushed it too far.

By mid-afternoon, I knew I hadn’t.

To: ManGriff the Beast Warrior

From: Ben Ives

Subject: RE: YOUR “ARTICLE”

Er, hi ManGriff/Tom,

Just picked up your message—I’m just about to go into a meeting for the rest of the day but I’m more than happy to meet with
you—in fact I would welcome the opportunity.

I realize that I upset a number of Furries thru my piece—I got some nasty emails about it—but certainly I didn’t realize it
had become such a hot potato in the US Furry community. And in fact I think I have been well and truly misrepresented. I don’t
know who Domino Bullets is, nor what DeathStar BBS is, perhaps you could fill me in? It would be interesting to consider a
follow-up piece, depending on my editor’s feelings.

Do you have any particular date in mind? I could do the afternoon of the 21st. Are you in LA?

All the best,

Ben Ives

Ha. This was
great!
Ives was
mine!
Now all I had to do was keep this going for a while—at least until he’d booked a meeting room or shown some sign that I’d
tricked him, and then I would reveal all. Revenge! Revenge was on its way! After fifteen years! Well done, Wallace!

I bounced around my room for a moment or two, thinking about what to write next. Ben Ives would rue the day he’d made a target
out of me. But the best thing was, he was currently ruing the day he’d made an enemy out of the Furries—those poor, misunderstood
people who innocently enjoy the simple plea sure of dressing up as animals and having sex. This was for
them.

I decided to up the ante. Which, if you add the word “lope” to the end of that sentence, sounds like something a Furry might
do.

To: Ben Ives

From: ManGriff the Beast Warrior

Subject: RE: YOUR “ARTICLE”

ROOOOOOOAAARRRR

Ben,

This is EGGSELLENT news. My girlfriend, the Stormy Leopard, has asked me to ask you this: in her “human” form, she is developing
a per formance piece based on being a Furry, which she has developed over the years. She wanted me to ask you whether you
and your staff would be interested in a small performance of this piece when we meet. For my part, I believe it is among the
only things that will truly help you understand the way that we Furries have to live. Here’s to the follow-up story!

With thanks,

ManGriff

There. I was introducing a new layer: a new player. A new Furry for Ben to deal with. The Stormy Leopard. Who was she? I had
no idea. I would find out when Ben did.