Sassafras

“Sassafras?”

On a curious whim, I texted an old friend to see if he would respond. We met online as teenagers, over fifteen years ago. Fifteen years later, despite much early correspondence and even meeting in person once six years ago, we still don’t know a lot about each other. I hadn’t heard from him since “Happy New Year” of this year, and before that, “Merry Chistmas if that’s your custom” just days before. Fifteen years and he did not know my custom.

“I am awake.

This is the correct number for Sassafras.”

Always robotic, it was as if calling out my nickname for him was what prompted him to exist. A man of vagueries, all I ever knew about him was that he was a man of physics, had three sisters, enjoyed violin music, and rode a bicycle. When I met him during a solo road trip in 2016, we were both about 30 years old. He had gotten a degree or two in physics but was back home in Massachusetts, living with his mother and father, and working as a transcriber. He had been in a bicycle accident that led to him quitting cycling. After going on a hike where he showed me a lot of gypsy moth destruction, we went back to his house where he showed me his tomato plants. Then I left for Hyannis, learning nothing else about him despite all the talking we did. Just like all the years before.

I voiced my perplexity many times, telling him that despite us being friends, I couldn’t imagine a personhood for him. I couldn’t imagine him amongst his three outspoken sisters, one of them a twin. I couldn’t imagine him walking on sidewalks or making a meal. In my imagination, my sweet friend Sassafras was always quietly pondering the universe, thinking lowly of himself, listening to violin music, or riding a bike. After meeting him, I was able to add transcribing, planting tomatoes, and reading the news. And after years of working in mental health, I imagine that he is on the spectrum. I imagine that he has had a nervous breakdown, as they sometimes call it.

While hiking with him in 2016, I told him about my new puppy Silas. This led to him sharing a memory of a phone conversation we had a long time ago. During the call, my then dog Annabelle must have been in my way while I was pacing and talking on the phone. He remembered me saying “Move, you dumb dog.” The fact that he remembered must have meant that he did not like my typical, teenaged tone. I apologized to Sassafras as we crested a rocky overlook above his hometown.

There was graffiti and broken glass all around us, but looking outward at all the vague unknown, what a view.