An odd phone call

I got a peculiar phone call yesterday morning. It was from a guy I knew in college—so, forty-some years ago. We were buddies then, but I've really had almost no communication with him since. Oh—one exception: when I went to my fortieth class reunion two years ago (as mentioned briefly in this post), he was active in planning the event so I communicated with him a fair bit in the run-up to the reunion. And we chatted several times at the reunion itself, catching up on the last forty years. Although … now that I think about it, he really didn't tell me much about his life, or his circumstances. But he was good at asking conversational questions.

I'm going to have to give this fellow a name, so let me call him Alfred, after the great Alfred E. Neuman. (There are … reasons … that this isn't a crazy name to choose.) Anyway, Alfred sent me a text message Friday asking for a call over the weekend. He said he wanted my advice urgently on something. So we set up a call for 10:00 am on Saturday. He was cordial and pleasant, asking after my news and then asking what other college alumni I'm still in touch with. I told him I talk to Marie and to Schmidt, and he asked about them. Then he asked about my professional work, and about my professional opinion about a topic that has been in the news a lot lately. By this time we had spent almost an hour in conversation, and it felt like we hadn't gotten to the point yet.

Then he asked me for money.

Of course there were reasons. His mom had been sick for many years and finally died, and he had been caring for her. He had spent down a lot of his savings while doing this, and neglected the tutoring business he had run for years. And so now he was in a financial pickle. He said he was calling multiple people, and hoped to raise a total of maybe thirty to forty thousand dollars; but even if I could spare "only" a few thousand, that would be great! 

He offered to pay me back with interest. He offered collateral. He said he was willing to sign anything. 

For my part, I explained that I'm not working right now, and that I live like a graduate student on a meagre draw from my IRA. I didn't definitively turn him down, but I said I'd have to look at my accounts and see whether I could spare anything.

After I got off the phone, I started to think of more questions. Most basically, Alfred explained that his mom died several years ago. So how is it that his finances have only become a problem today? Obviously he has been living on something between then and now. So why is he suddenly in a crisis? Normally I would assume that he could have seen a pinch coming a long ways off, if he has had several years since her death to get himself oriented. Shouldn't that mean he had time to prepare, and not to get caught by surprise? Or, to put it another way, if something bad did take him by surprise, then that's the real cause of his current difficulties—not the spend-down while he was looking after his mother. I'm certain that the spend-down while looking after his mother did drain his savings, thus making him less financially resilient overall. But at that point it's only a contributing cause, not the proximate cause.

Also, why is he willing to offer repayment terms and interest? Does he really think his prospects are going to improve? Because if he does think that, then it's either because circumstances are changing or because he is going to do something new. But I can't tell that any circumstances are changing in the tutoring world. So it must be that he's planning to do something new and different. Only, if that's the case then why isn't he already doing it? Again, he must have seen this coming. Surely he should have had time to react. But he didn't do it.

I sent him an email asking these questions, and I got back a very gracefully-written reply that told me exactly nothing new. Yes, he thinks his prospects for the future are good because he has some new plans in place. And yes, it was looking after his mother that hobbled his finances so badly. Nothing that he hadn't already said before.

And then he closed with this:

Most of all, I appreciate your friendship. I really want to stress to you that you do not need to worry about “talking too much.“ [It's not a worry, but I had made a joke about talking a lot at the beginning of our call, mostly because that was a stereotype of me back forty years ago.] Perhaps I’m biased, because I have always found everything that you have to say some combination of fascinating, clever, brilliant and hilarious; but it is important for you to surround yourself with people who appreciate the many gifts that you have to offer.

On the one hand, it was a very gracious thing to say. On the other hand, what does he mean when he says he appreciates my friendship? Sure, we were buddies forty-five years ago. But—except for the reunion two years ago—we never spoke after that. Not a call, not a card, not a word. What kind of a "friendship" is that? What is there to "appreciate"? Maybe he just felt like it was a nice thing to say anyway, but there's a cantankerous and misanthropic corner of my brain that reads it as pure flattery, "that glib and oily art, To speak and purpose not."

(To be clear, it's not that I blame Alfred for the silence. I'm sure that I am at least as responsible for it. Likely more so. My only point is, why is he praising me when I've given him—over the years—so little to praise?)

Anyway, I haven't finally decided what to do. Yesterday afternoon I went to get a haircut, and mentioned it to my barber. Today I had lunch with Son 1 because—surprise!—it's Father's Day. (I've never been good at remembering those things.) Both my barber and Son 1 read the story the same way: Sounds like he's behind on payments to his drug dealer, and getting desperate! On that reading, the most significant sentence in the whole phone call would have been when he said he would sign anything. Anything? Wow, is it that bad?

I don't know if this is the result of drugs. Back in the day, Alfred was pretty much a straight arrow. On the other hand, these days people can get addicted to something for totally straight reasons, not just as part of the counterculture. It would be grim if that were the real story. Of course in that case it's also unlikely that sending him money could help.

I don't know what to do yet.