by Daniel Elfanbaum
It is in the parking lot of a liquor store that I pick up a friend from college who was left there by the woman heās been living with, a woman who wants to make a home-cooked meal for us to meet over, who thinks itās a good idea that my friend and I meet up, the two of us, beforehand. Iāve been given to understand she likes to run things. I think this must be good for my old friend. I havenāt seen him in some years and it is very bright outside when I pick him up in front of the store. Two red plastic bags of beers and a half bottle of whiskey because he knows I like it. His workday uniform of ill-fitting khakis and an ill-fitting shirt sits familiar with my memory of him in ill-fitting gym shorts and tee shirts the year we lived together. The thing is that he was just so thin back then, and still is now, in the car driving in his new home town.
The highway exit ramps and interchanges loop over and around each other. Weād hugged when I got out to greet him, and I turn the music down a little as a gesture. Slow to start. We talk and catch up, a little. We exchange pleasantries about the weather and roll though our life updates in bulleted lists, and Iām happy to hear things are so good with him, these days. And these days theyāre maybe not as much so good with me, but when weād last known each other things had been at least OK on my end and not great with him. This meant that things were not great with us and our friends, and I spent a long time covering up this old friendās tracks, misdemeanors, mishaps, and I canāt say that I had liked it. Had not liked it when there was a banging on my door at one in the morning, when the woman heād been seeing started throwing shoes. Just kid stuff that shouldnāt have mattered, but of course kid stuff that felt important at the time. We were of an age for kid stuff. No more. And maybe a touch of infidelity is the kind of thing that always matters, I donāt know. Canāt really think how itās always, things Iāve seen and heard about and done, canāt think of anything as always, but weāre not talking about it anyway, because why would I bring up that sort of thing. I wouldnāt. But Iām willing to be wrong about it.
My old friend lives in the kind of town thatās oscillating between new office buildings and old office buildings and buildings abandoned and buildings coming up. The familiar mish-mash of things and peoples and peoples and things moving, i.e., displaced, and Iām wondering what kind of car my old friend is driving now in his wrinkled khakis.
āI meant to tell you, Iām getting married,ā he says, and Iām staying with him and his girlfriend, and so I hope Iāll like his wife. FiancĆ©e. This is a slip.
Me? Iām single driving a cheap Japanese sedan but at least itās clean, clean even though Iāve got my shit here and there and everywhere because I am right now in a way living here, in the car, I mean. The job I had had was over and the lease was month to month and I was so tired of putting so many things together poorly.
āI would love to be in the wedding,ā I tell my old friend when he asks.
He directs me where and I drive and soon weāre in a little suburban town with green lawns even in February, with an attractive touch here and there of pre-dusk frost on the tips of the blades of grass, and my old friend is telling me about this house his fiancĆ©e bought a while back where heās been living. Put together. They have a dog, a very good dog, and theyāve been going to church, and when we pull into the driveway tucked into the best corner of the cul-de-sac, and the house has half a brick front like the house that Iād grown up in, and I come in and meet the fiancĆ©e, this smiling woman, there is a constriction in my chest. I notice I am tense. I am pretending like I am not taking deep breaths to cool down. I donāt remember being sick or needing to cough or what Iām supposed to be stressed out about. I donāt know that this might be a kind of awe.
They together show me to the room where Iāll be staying. Thereās pictures of them at a fair and with their dog on otherwise bare shelves, a double-high air mattress where Iāll sleep tonight and the next two nights at least, unless I do something wrong again, like when I saw my friend in Tennessee. When I come back into the kitchen after putting down my things, availing myself of the toilet, after observing that the room I am in feels almost intentionally un-moved-in-to, as if they were saving it for something, something, and I know what, I walk into the kitchen. My old friend is helping his soon-to-be wife make dinner. Smiling. He hands me a beer so as to clink glasses, and I feel as if I could weep. Marriage, babies, new life. Just me and the car and couches to sleep on.
We eat fish tacos for dinner and afterwards they let me join them to wash the plates and pan. We watch a program on TV and then his fiancĆ©e goes to bed to read. She says she wants to give us some āguy time.ā I ask her what book it is, and itās one Iām a fan of. We wish her good night.
āI thought youād like her,ā my old friend says.
Sinking into their big leather couch, I tell him he seems happy, and he admits he is. Iām glad, I tell him. Iām glad.
Daniel Elfanbaum is a writer from St. Louis now living just outside of Boston. Some of his other work can be found in S/Word, Taper, and Levee Magazine.