A Reunion in Six Parts

Part One: An Intro That Seems Tangential At First but Eventually Ties Into the Narrative

In over a year of writing for the post calvin, I’ve never mentioned the chokehold Arrow had on me throughout the 2010s.

Yes, there were more bad seasons than good seasons, thanks to the staggering incompetence of showrunners Marc Guggenheim and Wendy Mericle. Yes, other shows—Daredevil, Moon Knight, The Punisher—did what Arrow wanted to do a hundred times better. But, like returning to the older, better videos of a YouTuber whose quality has gone the way of ad-free Netflix—I’m talking extinct!—I don’t think I can ever not like Arrow, despite the massive differences in quality from season to season.

Anyhow, the reason I’m talking about my guilty pleasure (?) show: in season five (the best season!) episode nine, “What We Leave Behind,” the Green Arrow has his first face-to-face encounter with the season’s main villain Prometheus. When Prometheus gets the upper hand in their fight, he points his katana at Green Arrow and snarls, “I’ve been waiting four years for this!”

I didn’t beat her in a fight, point a katana at her, or try to destroy her life because she murdered my corrupt businessman father (long story–five seasons’ worth) but I borrowed Prometheus’ line as I walked into Gyuro Ramen in Chicago’s Fulton Market District and enveloped my friend Brooke in a hug that had in fact been four years in the making.

Let’s rewind.

 

Part Two: Ms. Eludehcs Ym

I met Brooke in October of 2019, my junior year, her sophomore year. The interesting thing is that despite us meeting only then, she’d been a mystery figure to me for months prior. In the latter half of my sophomore year and the first month of my junior year, I’d see her all around campus, but she had the uncanny ability to be leaving as I was arriving. She’d be packing her backpack to leave the library as I was getting set up to hit the books. She’d walk out of the dining hall as I scanned in. In the English Department lounge, she’d get up to go to class as I sat down to wait for my next class to start. My curiosity piqued. Who is she, and how does she have the exact reverse of my schedule? 

UnLearn Week, an annual antiracism event on campus, rolled around, and as I headed to chapel one day there was Ms. Eludehcs Ym, standing by the chapel’s front door handing out fliers. I introduced myself and finally learned my inverse’s name: Brooke.

I kept seeing Brooke around campus, and since her schedule was still stalactites to my stalagmites, she’d still be leaving as I’d be arriving, but we were no longer strangers, so I’d say hi. When spring semester rolled around, I got a pleasant surprise: with the change of schedule, Brooke and I got lunch at the same time. With plenty of time for conversation, the enigma gradually demystified herself. I learned Brooke was from Franklin, Tennessee. I learned she studied art history (pay attention—that’ll be important soon) and English. I learned she was a reader, which I’d guessed from the English major. (Hey, stereotypes exist for a reason. Signed, another English major.) Sure, lunch, the occasional off-campus house party, and bumping into one another in the library was the most we could see of one another, but that could change next semester. This felt like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

 

Part Three: It Was…but Not How I Expected

And then everything changed when the COVID nation attacked.

When campus closed, the two of us had to part ways, me heading back to Detroit and Brooke returning to Franklin. We kept in contact (and each other sane) by text message. A text message is how Brooke let me know that she wouldn’t be returning to Calvin in September. Remember how I said Brooke studied art history? She wanted to keep with it, but between Calvin’s art history program lacking and there not being many museums in Grand Rapids for her to intern/work at, she couldn’t complete her degree at Calvin. She’d be transferring to a school in Indiana with a better art history program and more opportunities. Bummer, right?

Brooke and I didn’t not try to see one another over the next couple of years. We texted frequently and FaceTimed every so often. Brooke talked about coming back to Michigan to see me and other friends of hers still here, but nothing ever came out of that. In the summer of 2023, I proposed catching a cheap flight down to Nashville to see her, but before I could buy the ticket, Brooke told me that her roommate wasn’t comfortable having a man staying in their apartment.

 

Part Four: Chicago Ex Machina

Then in spring of this year, the good news: Brooke told me that, with her lease ended and a remote job meaning she wasn’t tied down in Tennessee, she was relocating to Chicago. My sister lives in Chicago. My good buddy Rodney, who I spent Memorial Day of ‘23 running around the city with, lives in Chicago. (Pay attention—he’ll be important soon.) I’d taken trains to and from Chicago multiple times. Granted, she moved when I was unemployed and money was tight, but theoretically, the two of us were one train trip away from breaking our four-year call-and-text-only streak.

That opportunity came in the middle of October when an invitation came and a month at a new job meant I had spending money. Rodney had told me months before he planned to buy either a house or a condo, and he succeeded. He invited me to a housewarming party during the first weekend of November. I talked to Brooke, got the confirmation she’d be in town that weekend, and broke the good news.

Four years of only seeing and hearing each other as text bubbles and voices on the phone would come to a blessed end in a few days.

 

Part Five: The Other Shoe [It Never Falls]

Brooke, my sister Chloe and I decided to meet for lunch Sunday afternoon, a few hours before my train home pulled off. The original plan was Saturday, but Brooke’s phone needing an overnight rice soak after she dropped it in a puddle postponed it.

I enjoyed hanging out with Chloe, befriending her roommate’s dog, Rodney’s housewarming party, and the pleasant surprise of bumping into my friend Jesse at church. But as the time drew closer, my inner pessimist spoke up and started to rattle off all the ways lunch would get sabotaged.

She’ll drop her phone again. In a lake this time!

She’ll get lost and won’t find the place until 3:00.

We’ll get lost and not find the place before the train takes off.

There’ll be no parking. We had the Great Italian Ice Hunt of 2022; now we’ll have the Great Gyuro Ramen Fiasco of 2024.

Brooke will wake up with diarrhea.

That potato salad tasted a little funny. Maybe I’ll wake up with diarrhea.

We’ll get there, and there’ll be a truck driven through the front of the restaurant. 

Surprise health inspection that they don’t pass. The place will be locked up when we get there.

One of my college mentors told me I had a problem with catastrophizing, but this was getting ridiculous.

I was twitchy in church, waiting for Brooke to text and cancel or something. Even when Chloe and I were in the car headed for Gyuro Ramen, I waited for us to get T-boned or a tire to pop or to look out the rearview and see the car’s tank had been leaking gas for the last hundred feet right before the engine died.

We made it there. The restaurant was open. We found parking easily—the street was practically empty.

Chloe and I walked in. I scanned the room. I didn’t see Brooke. My heart sank.

I saw movement in my peripheral vision. I looked to my left and saw a familiar head of red hair. Brooke had picked a corner table, one I hadn’t seen when I’d first walked in.  I turned in Brooke’s direction. I pointed my invisible katana at her and said in my best Michael Dorn impression, “I’ve been waiting four years for this!” Then I gave her one of those hugs where you rock side to side.

We talked, we ate, I ate the duck slices in my ramen too early and threw the whole dish off, and then we went around the corner to this donut shop, Voodoo Doughnut. Before we parted ways, Brooke and I took the photo for this month’s post, the first picture we’ve taken in five, almost six, years of knowing one another.

If Brooke has any back problems, the hug I gave her before she left served as a temporary fix.

 

Part Six: A Rambling Conclusion for My Most Offbeat Post Yet

Takeaways?

I guess it’s true what they say: absence does make the heart grow fonder. A good friend is one you can not see face-to-face for four years, but when you do finally see one another, you pick up right where you left off. There are only so many circumstances where a line from one of television’s most underrated villains applies perfectly to the situation at hand; take full advantage of those moments. The worst case scenario is rarely the scenario that plays out. When eating ramen, make sure you consume noodles at the same time as your meat of choice so as to maintain the balance of the dish. And the most important takeaway of all? Voodoo Doughnut sells a pastry called the Cock ‘n’ Balls, and yes, it looks exactly how you think it looks.

I couldn’t find an organic way to work that into the narrative.