On the one year anniversary of 9/11 I stood outside of a not-yet-open Borders store in Las Vegas with a bunch of people I barely knew and stared across the Las Vegas valley. The store was in a strip mall at what was then quite literally the very western edge of the city. Behind us was the…something number freeway (I forget) that circled all of Las Vegas and, just beyond that–the short road out to Red Rock Canyon. Back then nothing else had been built out quite that far so our view of the valley was unobstructed.  The twenty or so of us who stood there that morning hadn’t been working together for very long–the Borders store we stood in front of was brand new (not even opened yet) and we were its opening crew.

Someone had brought out a battery powered radio and we were listening to the speech being given by the major of the city. At some point a bunch of balloons were going to be released from city hall and we all wanted to see them.

I was standing next to…some guy. Some HUGE guy. Some HUGE OH MY GOD I ONLY COME UP TO HIS LOWER RIB CAGE guy. He was scruffy and wore jeans and a black t-shirt. Around his neck was one of those puka shell necklaces that was so popular amongst young 20 something pop stars in the late 90s/early millennium but this one had a clay wolf pendant on it.  He was a later hire–brought on to run our cafe and he had just kind of been….around all week. In that way. You know the kind where they immediately feel too familiar–like you’ve known them all of your life but you aren’t sure yet whether or not you’re happy about it but they don’t really give you the chance to decide because suddenly they are just always there kind of way.

He and I stood together but we didn’t say anything. We barely acknowledged each other except for a shared glance and a sympathetic shrug when one of our trainers had broken down sobbing near the beginning of the mayor’s speech. It was…awkward. It was awkward to be standing that closely to each other. If you didn’t know us you’d have thought we were already the best of friends who knew each other so well we didn’t really need to talk, but it was all him. I was itching to walk away but didn’t want to be rude.

I had issues then. I have issues now, too, but they’re different.

After the speech he nudged me with his elbow.  “Guess what,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“I’ve decided that you and I are going to be friends.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. We’re going to be friends. In fact, I’ve decided that we are going to be REALLY GOOD friends.”

“Um..no offense, but so far, you kind of bug me.”

“That’s why our friendship will be so awesome.”

“Okay, Abbott. If you say so,” I said and walked back inside, shaking my head. “SO not going to happen.” I thought to myself.

But here’s the thing. It DID happen. He made it happen.

Back then I was so guarded. All the time. I had this giant massive a million foot thick brick wall surrounding myself and I NEVER truly let my guard down. I had my reasons for this and I thought they were good reasons but over time I’ll be damned if that guy (with the help of his friend Mike) (but that is its own story) didn’t break through every single one of those  reasons and do his best to break down that wall…and, in a way he succeeded. I mean, it didn’t exactly ever fall down, all Berlin-style, but he did manage to smash a perfectly Abbott sized hole through it.

Over the sixteen months that we worked together we went from his deciding that we would be friends and my not believing it to being close enough to have sort of a telepathy. We didn’t need to talk.  I had never been that close to anybody in my whole life. I mean, sure we bickered nearly every single day whether or not we saw each other (that’s why phones were invented, after all) but we also shared hugs and “I love you, dumbface”s nearly  every day too.

Two days after he died it snowed in Las Vegas and stuck.  I’m not going to debate whether or not there is an after-life or a “spirit realm” or a heaven or any of that stuff with you. Your beliefs are up to you, but I can tell you that I know all the way down to the nucleus of every cell of my bone marrow that he made that snow for me and everyone else we worked with.  A week or so before he died he had promised me that after he got back from having Christmas with his parents he and I would go up to Mt. Charleston and play in the snow.  This quickly became a big group plan that, of course,because of the accident, never ended up happening. But Goddamn it, he was a stubborn STUBBORN man and if he promised me snow, he was going to give me (and everyone else) snow. I think it was his way of saying “It’s okay. I’m happy. Everything will be fine.”

Today the news came to me first over Twitter and then by way of a televised Presidential speech. Osama Bin Laden has been killed.

On Twitter and Facebook I wrote that we all know someone or know someone who knows someone whose life has been directly affected by (or lost to) terrorism.  Terrorism isn’t going to go away any time soon. It’s been around since the dawn of time. But I’m hoping our getting of Bin Laden will help offer just a tiny bit of peace to all of us.

I was thinking about 9/11 as I was putting up those posts and that made me think of that day outside of Borders.  And that is when I saw it on the news ticker and started laughing and crying and choking all at once.

Today Osama Bin Laden was killed in a town in Pakistan called….ABBOTTABAD.

That sly f*cker has to be involved in EVERYTHING.