Needful & Needed

The reason we get so little done, my friend Michael tells me as he snatches at his disaster of a desk, sending papers and discarded boxes and unpaid bills and cologne bottles awry, is that we spend half the time looking for things I've lost!

Clutter borders on chaos in his small office and I can't find it in my heart to contradict him.

What is it now? I ask with a sigh.

My wallet! he snaps impatiently, I've looked everywhere!

I doubt this - he has what I can only describe as a violent flair for the dramatic - but I also know that until the missing wallet is found, he will rant and rave himself into hysterics.  I step over the dogs, clear one of the leather chairs of magazines and unread mail, a cashmere sweater, an empty cigarette carton, several plastic covered binders, a retractable leash and several yards of credit card tape.

When, I ask him, dodging a flurry of flying bank statements and nearly tripping over the smallest dog as she runs for cover, is the last time you remember having it?

Out in the yard, he says and throws up his hands in frustration, It was trying to come out of my pocket.

There's no sense in telling him to calm down or take a breath.  It's best to let him storm it out.

Tell me, I persist firmly, exactly what you did when you came in from the yard.

He sinks into a chair and jams his hands into his sweatshirt pouch.  Sulking, I've learned, is the first step on the road from flying objects rage to simple exasperation.

I don't remember, he mutters.  Sharp. Stubborn. Petulant. Defiant.

Yes, you do, I tell him patiently, just tell me what you did after you came in.

He's sullen, angry at himself, disgusted with his own carelessness and it's like pulling teeth but he lets me lead him through it.  He remembers coming in, going upstairs to change and watch tv.

Where did you change?  I ask, What did you do with your yard clothes?  What were you watching?

It takes another twenty minutes and he snaps and snarls like a wounded cur dog, curses colorfully, hating every minute of it and being ashamed that he brought it on himself.  He's irritable with the dogs, flailing at me and trying to change the subject with every other breath.  Luckily, I can be as equally obstinate.

When you empty your pockets, where do you normally leave things?  Did you do laundry?  Did you go back out? Did anyone come by?  

The answers aren't all that helpful - his habit is to leave clothes wherever he happens to shed them, the contents of his pockets on whatever's handy - the wallet could be sunk in the mud of the flower beds or buried under a half ton of leaves, in the trash or under the bed and half eaten by dogs.  He is the most thoroughly disorganized, most easily distracted person I've ever known.  There's not an iota of neatness in him, not the first hint of a predictable routine or pattern or need for order.  Scatterbrained, my grandmother would've said, but I know better - he's overwhelmed by his own flaws, his tendency to hoard, his lack of focus.

Drink your coffee, I suggest, and take your meds.  I'm going to look upstairs.

On the second floor, the first thing I see is the faded red hooded sweatshirt.  It's out of place somehow, tossed thoughtlessly onto the stair railing and hanging there, mud stained and disreputable.  Not a single other item of clothing is within ten feet of it and I have an immediate sense that the crisis is about to be over.  When I pick it up, it jingles and when I slip my hand into the front pocket, I discover a wad of crumpled bills, a front door key, a handful of coins, and of course, the missing wallet.  Everything is thrown together but intact.

Looked everywhere, I mutter to myself, Yeah, sure you did.

But, to paraphrase Arlo Guthrie, I didn't come to talk to you about a lost wallet.  I came to talk about the dynamics of relationships.

We could hardly be more different, Michael and I, or more alike.  We have many of the same flaws, many of the same virtues, a few of the same vices.  We clash as often as we agree but in the end, he needs someone to look after him just as I need someone to look after.  It seems to work more often than it doesn't and maybe that's how life is designed, like a grand, ambitious jigsaw puzzle with a thousand pieces.  With a little skill, a little more luck, and the patience of a couple of dozen saints, everything eventually fits.