My Friend Belinda

My friend Belinda was entertaining, larger than life and would give you her last dollar. She left colorful (and some rather sordid) stories in her wake. I will share a few, not necessarily in order. Out of respect for the lady, I can't tell the juiciest ones. My acid test: I'll start typing and if I hear "shut up Jer!" I stop. I then hear "THANK YOU!"

Belinda taught me one of the most important skills a young man can have in the 21st century: how to meet boys online. It was 1997 and she helped me get a head start on the new century. "Don't you know about AOL chat rooms?" My internet experience so far had been limited to browsing Driveways of the Rich and Famous, ICQ chat and sending a few emails on a quarter eating coffee house computer near my Glendale apartment. You're not online? Let's get you a screen name! Wild8hrt was born. She had a Mac, a flatbed scanner and photoshop. "Do you want a smaller ass?" I watched in wonder as she scanned a couple of my pre-digital photos and created my profile. I was terrified and naïve. I did chat with a couple boys but never met any of them--that came a couple years later. I loved watching her playfully chat with men she had no intention of meeting-- "you can be anyone you want to be." Regardless, she was always straightforward, that's one of the reasons we got along so well. She had just moved into an apartment in Hollywood. It was brutally hot that summer and she had no air conditioning. Fond memories of sweating as we were soothed by the sounds of her tropical salt water fish tank, our giggles echoing through the small ground floor apartment as we played juvenile online boy games.

I got a ticket and had to go to traffic court. "Court is my biggest fear but since I love you, I'll go with you." She had just returned from a cruise and showed up in a low-cut top. The courtroom was crowded and the wait was long, adding to my nervousness. Case after case, I listened to the judge sentence people who didn't have the money to pay their fines to do hard labor with Caltrans. When I was finished, I scanned the courtroom but didn't immediately find her. Ah, there she was, flirting with the bailiff! "Do you think I've had too much sun?" she asked him, leaning over to give him a view of her sunburned charms. He was blushing. Outside, she was triumphant: "I got his number!"

I had a friend who was a porn star, her talent was looking like Christina Applegate. One day, I told her I wanted to be "porno star blond" and she gleefully volunteered to bleach my hair out. When Belinda saw it, she wrinkled her nose. "Jer, your hair is orange." I told her I didn't think it was, but with the T-tops of her 300ZX Turbo off and the summer sun illuminating my locks, I realized it was true. Until that moment, I felt pretty good cruising in her sports car with her 6 foot Boa Constrictor named Boaz and a fresh bleach job. "I can fix it, let's go shopping." She took me to a beauty supply store, parading me in front of the staff "his other girlfriend did a box job and I'm going to fix it". I learned she was actually a licensed cosmetologist and had worked in a salon. She was full of surprises. That evening, she did a tint back and tasteful highlights on my 90's shag that would have cost me plenty in a salon. She was all business with no chit-chat and steely determination as she de-whored my hair. The results were a little demure for my taste but in looking at photos years later, I realized it was the best my hair ever looked in that era. "Promise me you'll never do a box job again". She hated drug store hair color.

Belinda had no "type" when it came to men. One day I was driving her car, cruising up the freeway and I noticed her flirting with a good looking blond guy in a Toyota 4x4 truck. The next thing I knew, she was fishing around in the back of her sports car. She scrawled something on a piece of paper and pressed it against the window. "I wrote my phone number as large as possible. Do you think he'll call me?" He did. The best story I have about Belinda is the time she was dating a black stripper named Antoine. He was really good looking and had a killer bod. She actually moved him in for a little bit. I can't tell this story and wish I could. Just know she lived with a stripper and it was colorful but didn't end well. I tried to warn her but I make it a point to stay out of my friend's love lives. She always stayed out of mine as well, treating whoever I was seeing with jovial charm, even if they were jerks.

I can't talk about Belinda without telling the train story. I had met Belinda through 12-step recovery. The day I met her is another colorful story I promised not to tell. We swapped numbers and talked on the phone once but didn't become friends right away. Christmas Eve 1996 I was on the Coast Starlight, choo-chooing up the California coast to have Christmas with my family. I was 15 months sober and things hadn't gone as I had planned. It was the only time in my sobriety I have made the decision to drink. I rose from my seat, walking to the bar car. It was then I heard someone yell my name. It was Belinda. She snatched me by my shirt, yanking me into the seat next to her. She entertained me with colorful banter, playing at grabbing me inappropriately as she kept me in one spot. "Funny thing Jer, the airline I was supposed to fly home on went out of business yesterday. I bought the last ticket on this train." Divine intervention? All I know is I didn't drink that day and it was because of her. I exited the train knowing I had dodged a bullet and I hadn't done it alone. We caught up after the New Year. I asked her if she knew what I was about to do that day on the train. "Yeah, you were going to drink."

One of the challenges for any young person who is newly sober is boredom. Up until this point, my life had been going to meetings, chain smoking and drinking bad coffee on the patio of the Windsor Club and waiting tables at the Olive Garden. My life is over, I thought. It was better than booze and drugs but I didn't know how to have fun. Belinda took care of that. Shortly after we became friends, she celebrated 7 years of sobriety which seemed like an eternity to me. After the meeting, we played laser tag. Such a simple, juvenile activity--running, sweating and shrieking in that dark maze, shooting total strangers and the people who came with us--filled me with joy. Part of it was seeing how happy it made her and I think that was the point. Whatever the premium package was, she had paid for it. Afterwards, we feasted on Baja Fresh, sending us all home with collector cups. She was a premium, upgraded, collector cup kind of girl. She did something for me that was absolutely essential to my lasting sobriety: taught me how to have fun sober. I was in awe of her ease and comfort as she navigated life with fearless gusto.

I have many more stories about her but can't tell the best ones because I promised I wouldn't. Damn. One of the things we were going to do and never did was go to Fiji to scuba. She loved to scuba and ski and was anxious to go with me. I've been meaning to get certified and hope to make it happen this year. I think she would like that.