When Obama-bashing ends friendships

I lost a lifelong friend today. Not to cancer or to Alzheimer’s but because of a riddle.

“Do you know why Obama hasn’t been assassinated?” he asked. I couldn’t bring myself to be a partner in this riddle by playing along. I couldn’t bring myself to say, “No, why hasn’t Obama been assassinated?” It made me sick to my stomach when I shrugged my shoulders just to placate him. I felt I had to participate after all these years of loyalty to this life-long friend. I had to stand and take it – to stand and listen to him repeat his riddle yet one more time.

“Well, do you know why Obama hasn’t been assassinated yet?” he asked again. His reiteration caused me to turn and look away, knowing that the answer would be vitriolic. “Because,” and he began to laugh. “Because it would be a waste of a good bullet,” he continued laughing while slapping my back.

Now, this man had been a friend since before we could talk. Well, we could talk, but no one understood what we were saying because at 5 years of age we both had such strong speech impediments that he and I had, in the beginning, our own special insular world that no one else understood. We grew up and played sports together, double-dated together and went to UNC-CH together. Jobs and military service separated us, and it took awhile to get back together, but we did. Moving back to North Carolina was that much sweeter when I learned we would be only an hour’s drive away. Our first reunions were as if we had never been apart. And then there was a change.

My friend became rich, and he deserved every penny. He worked hard, long hours, but as he moved up the income bracket, he seemed to equate the size of his bank account with a sense of being right – about everything. There was no room for discussion. I began to make excuses for even a quick barbecue sandwich together.

My wife encouraged me just to talk to him. “Tell him that you enjoy and treasure his friendship, but make it clear that there will be no more talking about politics.” I knew my wife was right, but when I did try to mend fences, it was not the same. I could not get past his dark heart. So I went about making new friends.

Then followed my favorite niece’s wedding where I was certain there would be joy and a respite from worldly thoughts and tiresome politics, but as my niece’s new husband soaked up the champagne, he rolled out conspiracy after conspiracy with Obama’s place of birth at the center of his paranoia.

I walked into the kitchen where my wife was making tea, steeping the bags in a large glass pitcher, and I watched the swirling liquid turn darker and darker.

“Here,” my wife said. “Drink this. It will make you feel better.”

“If it were just that simple,” I said to her. “If it were just that simple.”

This story was originally published July 24, 2015 at 5:03 PM with the headline "When Obama-bashing ends friendships."