From the Vintage Archives:

When Your Friends Start Fighting

By Rick Horowitz

When your friends start fighting, there aren't holes in all of heaven deep enough to hide in. When the battle breaks out right in front of you, where you go? What do you do?

No one's throwing knives, or even dishes. These friends of yours are civilized. The weapons of choice are words: the first word, the snappy retort, the last word. The last-last word. The word after that.

It doesn't end. There are truces, but never a treaty. If they're not refighting the last war, they're arming themselves for the next one. And there you are. You avert your eyes. You avert your ears. You avert your legs.

"I'll be in the living room."

You can walk, but you can't escape. Even through the double doors, you can smell it. Minutes pass.

"You can come back now -- we're finished."

So you do -- but they're not. There must be a gentle way of calling your loved one "you jerk" when other people are around, but they haven't stumbled upon it yet. If practice makes perfect, though, they will. Meanwhile, you're sitting there.

You phone before you visit: "You guys alright tonight?" Another evening of cut-and-slash isn't your idea of fun. You'd rather know before you get there.

"We alright tonight?" she asks him. He says yes. Then he says something insulting. She fires back.

"That's OK," you say. "Maybe some other time."

Or you spend an afternoon watching the blood flow over the sandwiches, and then get one of your friends off alone. "So, how are you guys doing?"

"Oh, much better, thanks." You check with your experts: Everybody argues from time to time, they tell you. That's these folks, no doubt about it -- they argue from daytime to nighttime, and then back again. It's just the way some people communicate, your experts tell you; it doesn't mean anything. They may even enjoy it.

So why do they look so unhappy? And why do you have this burning sensation deep in your gut every time the "communicating" starts?

You're being too sensitive, they tell you. It's true. You're not at all like your friends; you'll go to any length to avoid a confrontation. When one catches up with you anyway, you're devastated; the fact that you've fought is almost worse than whatever it was you fought about. That's ridiculous -- haven't you ever heard of "kiss and make up"?

You've heard -- you just don't listen. Maybe you should. Maybe if you didn't treat every little blowup like it was Nagasaki, you'd have a full-time sparring partner of your own by now.

Just like your friends. There they go again -- somebody said something. No slight unnoticed, no fault ignored.

You talk to the baby.

You think you hear your mother calling you.

You've got a plane to catch.

It's not that bad, you tell yourself. At least they feel so comfortable with you that they can slug it out right in your presence. And they don't try to enlist you on one side or the other. They don't ask you to referee, or keep score, or declare a winner. You could be the couch.

You're their very good friend; they have no secrets from you.

Please -- have a few secrets.