Fred, Rick, and Me

            I got rid of my land line years ago, but I wanted to keep my old phone number, so I ported it to a VoIP account and set calls to go directly to voicemail. That way I could still use it for businesses I don’t want to give my cell number to, and also, since I’d had that number for so many years, in case anybody from the past wanted to get in touch with me. When somebody leaves a voicemail, I get an email with an MP3 of the message attached.

            The other day I was looking through my emails and saw one from my VoIP provider with the subject: New Voicemail. I opened the message and downloaded the audio file. I listened to the message. “Hi Peter, you probably don’t remember me. My name is Rick Stahl, and we knew each other in college. You might remember me as Fred.” I did remember him, vaguely. “Anyway,” the voice said, “I’m back in Brooklyn for a few days, and I’m wondering if we could meet for a coffee or something.” He left his number.

            I was surprised to get his call. It’s not like we were ever close or anything. I remember him as a nice guy, an English major, who was in several of the same classes as me. And I remembered his transition from Fred to Rick.

            Fred was a soft-spoken, short, slight-of-build guy who wore glasses with thick black frames, Buddy Holly-style, before they became ironically hip again. I ran into him once again after college, and he was completely transformed. He no longer wore glasses, so I figured contacts. He was tanned, and no longer had the body of a 98-pound weakling; he was wearing a tight black T-shirt; clearly he’d been working out. There was a gold chain around his neck. He seemed much more self-confident.

            “Fred!” I said. “How are you doing? You’re looking great.”

            “I’m not Fred anymore, it’s Rick,” he said.

            “Oh?” I asked.

            “It was my shrink’s idea. I was complaining about not meeting women, wanting a relationship, and he told me my problem was I had the self-image of a Fred. He suggested I change my name and my attitude, and it actually worked. I’m happy, I’m taking care of myself, and I have a great girlfriend.”

            I congratulated him, gave him a very brief account of what I was up to and we parted. I was actually hoping he’d show me a photo of his girlfriend, but he never offered. That must have been at least 40 years ago, and I’d never seen or heard from him again.

            Now, out of the blue, I get this call.

            Well, why not, I thought. He was a nice guy, and I enjoy social intercourse in controlled environments with a reasonable mutual assumption of time limitations. So I called the number he left.

            “Hello?”

            “Rick?”

            “Yes.”

            “This is Pete Cherches, returning your call. Peter.”

            I had changed my name too, in a small way. I kept Peter Cherches as my nom de plume, but starting at around age 25, actually not long after I had last seen Rick, I decided I liked the breezy informality of Pete in my everyday life. It had no effect on my physique or my love life, at least not that I was aware of.

            We agreed to meet by the college, for old times’ sake, at The Campus Coffee Shop, a couple of days later.

            I got to the coffee shop first. I had looked around and didn’t see anybody the right age to be Rick. A few minutes later a bald, chubby sexagenarian walked in. Definitely not Rick, I thought, but then he came up to my table and said, “Peter?” And I thought, oh yes, Rick’s face is buried in there somewhere.

            I stood up and shook his hand. “Nice to see you again.”

            When I knew him he looked kind of like Sal Mineo. But the guy I was looking at now was more of the Jackie Coogan, Joe Besser, or Don Rickles type.

            “You haven’t changed, Peter. I’d recognize you anywhere,” he said, as he took a seat.

            “You can call me Pete,” I said, without commenting on his looks.

            “Aha! So you did it too! Changes everything, right?”

            “What do you mean?”

            “The name change.”

            “Oh,” I said. “I just like the informality of Pete.”

            “I see.”

            I said, “I was surprised to hear from you after all these years.”

            “Well, when you get to be our age those old friendships start to take on a new importance.” I didn’t mention that we were never really friends. “So I figured as long as I was coming for a visit we ought to catch up.”

            “Glad you did.”

            “Remember when I changed my name to Rick?” he said.

            “Sure, and everything changed for the better.”

            “For a while, maybe, but look at me now.”

            I hadn’t stopped looking.

            “Well, we’re all getting older.”

            “Yeah, but in my case it happened sooner than later, and it was all Chanterelle’s fault.”

            “Chanterelle?”

            “Yeah, my girlfriend. I couldn’t believe my luck. She looked like a freakin’ model. And wild in bed like you wouldn’t believe.” I was starting to envy his former self.

            “So what went wrong?”

            “She met another guy.”

            “Well, these things happen. They sting for a while, but we have to move on.”

            “I wish that were so in my case, but it was who she left me for that irked the hell out of me.”

            “Someone I know?”

            “Yeah, Arnold Markowitz. Remember him from college?”

            I certainly did, though the only memorable thing about him was what an out-of-shape schlub he was for someone who wasn’t even old enough to drink. He was prematurely bald with greasy, stringy hair on the sides, had a body best described as roly-poly, a whiny voice, and perennially bad breath. I couldn’t remember anything else about him. Was he smart? What were his interests?

            “I do,” I said.

            “I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, all buff and tanned, a regular Adonis if you don’t mind my saying, and there she was leaving me for a loser like that. I was so angry and depressed that I started letting myself go to pot. Binge eating, couch potato, you name it. Then, after a while, when I was fat and out of shape, I realized, wait a minute, maybe I had become the type she really went for. So I called her. I said to her, ‘Chanterelle, can we give it another go? I’ve changed. I know you think I was unbearably vain and self-centered, but that’s all over. I’ve turned over a new leaf.’ And you know what she said? She said, ‘I’ve told you, Rick, it’s all over. Arnold and I are very happy together.’ Then I said, ‘Forget about Rick. Rick is dead. Call me Fred. Can’t we at least get together for a coffee or something?’ And she said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Rick, I mean Fred.’”

            “So you never saw her again?”

            “Nope. Never on purpose, never by accident. But I did see Arnold once, on the street. I almost didn’t recognize him. He had lost weight, gotten into shape, and was wearing a tight shirt that showed off his pecs, with the top three or four buttons open, revealing a hairy chest. I mean Wolf Man hairy. He had shaved his head, and it looked kinda good on him. When he spoke his breath smelled of violet mints. ‘Man,’ I said, ‘You’re looking great. When did all this happen, the new you, I mean?’ And he said, ‘A few years after college. I was tired of being someone everybody thought of as an unattractive lump, so I took the bull by the horns and started working out, and everything just kind of fell into place. And I mean big time. I met this great girl. Smart, sexy, beautiful, amazing in bed, sometimes almost more than I can handle, but not quite—I couldn’t believe my luck. You’d like her.’”

            “Bummer,” I said.

            “Yeah, and then I said to him, ‘What about your name?’ And he said, ‘What about my name?’ So I said, ‘I don’t know, do you think Arnold goes with your new look? Not even Arnie?’”

            “And what did he say?”

            “He said, ‘I like Arnold. Arnold is my name. It’s who I am. I hate it when people call me Arnie.’”

            After that Rick and I made small talk, nothing worth recounting. About a half hour later we shook hands again and parted. When I got home I plopped down in my easy chair and thought about how thankful I was that I had never really considered making such a drastic change, though I was glad I had grown more comfortably into whatever, whoever, I, Pete or Peter, Pete and Peter, was.