FRIEND GONE QANON

 The first time I heard about QAnon I was riding shotgun in my best friend's car. We were taking a drive to the Massachusetts border to check on a property that would soon be put up for sale. "Did you know that Hillary Clinton is involved in some really evil stuff? They use a pizzaria as a front, but in the basement Hillary, and others are using children as sex slaves, and they push child porn out into the internet. A lot of people are part of this underground society - Senators, Jews, Hollywood, they've all bought in, but you can trace it all back to the Clintons. QAnon is an eye-opening source of information, they're bravery is incredible. If you're not afraid to read the truth, check them out. Google QAnon, Q-A-N-O-N." It wasn't the first time I noticed my friend was veering to a place I deemed unsettling. A couple years before we had met up at a diner near her tony apartment in the city. Her son was back from military school and had showed up in uniform and somewhere between the tuna melts and rice pudding he jumped up from the table and did a goose step clearly for my benefit. My friend had said something about "the Jews" and right on cue he sprung into action with his well-rehearsed hate choreography then plopped himself down with a self-satisfied smirk. My friend's level of admonishment was slight as if her son had burped, or dropped his salad fork. They paid for my sandwich as some sort of consolation but on my long subway ride home to Brooklyn I couldn't shake the event. I called her when I arrived home and probed about her son's disturbing display and her underwhelming response. "Oh, my, GOD - he's a CHILD, Claudia!, I'm sorry you're upset but really, I can't believe we're still talking about this!" It was the first time I had spoken a word, in the moment I was stunned as the 15 year old spun tableside with his F'd up display. "Well, it's incredibly offensive, and you might have a word with him because he doesn't seem to get it. And P.S., He's not a child." She shrugged it off, I could tell from her demeanor and doubted she would circle back with "the child". "Anyway, it's no big deal he's sorry I love you, I'll talk to you later," she rushed me off the phone. I had listened to her ramblings and buy-ins to all sorts of fringe culture, I mistook her interests as a yearning to belong, a quest for knowledge beyond the media's "trusted" sources. And that day in the car I shook my head, inside my head, looking out the window waiting for the conversation to circle back to which farmstand we would stop at on the way home. The truth is I wasn't ready to say goodbye to one of my best friends. A friend that had been always been loyal, extremely generous, caring, and had always been a better friend to me than I had been to her - she was the closest thing I had to a sister. But the year went by, I was seeing post after post on social media - the tenor was ratcheting up. The hate for the girls in the pink pussy hats, those stupid b*tches ordering crocheted hats from Etsy, uploading march selfies on Instagram, her anger made me uncomfortable. Still, I was doubting myself. Where did I stand exactly. Things had gotten so confusing, where did the truth lie? Should I be angrier with the establishment, are the libs fronting? Am I missing the truth? I'd always had so much love and respect for my friend, her intellect, her intelligence, she had never steered me wrong. But one day it became clear that she had jumped the shark a long time ago. I blew up on one of her posts, and an angry death match ensued, some of her friends jumped in to have her back. I unfriended and blocked her and in 30 seconds - undid a 30 year friendship. She called me moments later, I had run from my building trying to get some air - she was clearly blindsided, I'd never uttered a word around her devolving revelations, "what the f*ck is going on with you??" she implored. I started screaming into the phone, I had no idea what I was saying, I couldn't find the words so I hung up mid-sentence - we haven't spoken since. And now that Q is in the forefront, and the source of such horror, disgrace, and death, I remember that scenic drive through New England on that beautiful Fall day. For me it bookmarked a a horrific turning point for our country, a stunning reveal of our violent and ugly underbelly, and the inception of a heart-wrenching loss of an irreplaceable friend.