Volver

"I'm meeting someone," Jim said to the hostess. "She's right over there. Thanks."

Jim made his way to the booth where Jill sat. 

"I got you unsweet tea," said Jill, as he slide into the both opposite her and began pushing the usual lineup of salt and pepper shakers, sweet-n-low packets, and dessert flipboard advertisments to the far end of the booth.

"Thanks."

"So how was your trip?"

"It was good."

"And did you see Elliot?"

"Yeah."

"So..." said Jill.

"So what?"

"So how'd it go? How was he?"

"Fine," said Jim. He's fine. It was fine."

Jill watched Jim as he thumbed through the menu. This kind of reply was irritating, but she was used to them. She waited. They ordered. She had the pot pie, Jim the blackened catfish. He added a Long Island Iced Tea, and after he had taken two sips of it, he began.

"I knew it was the last time I would ever see him," said Jim. "I had asked my parents to let me know when they saw his grandma's obit, and they did. That was the last remaining tie he had, the only reason to ever go back. He has no reason to return, and when my folks are gone, I won't have any reason either."

Their order arrived. The waitress set their food in front of them, delivering each plate with a sort of backward curtsie motion at once elegant and efficient.

"All we thought about when we were kids is how we were going to get out of there. Happiness was our hometown in the rear view mirror. It wasn't that simple, of course, but we weren't totally wrong either. I thought it provincial and small, and it was provinicial and small."

"Still is," Jim added, taking another drink. His food in front of him, untouched.

"I wanted to get away from that, and he wanted all the adventure he was sure was waiting there just out of reach over the horizon."

"I was running away from all the things I had rejected," Jim continued, "and he was running toward all the things he never had."

"Neither one of us ever made it very far." 

Jill began picking at the plate of catfish, reaching across with her fork and rifling through the French fries. 

"What happened between you two," asked Jill. 

"I dunno," said Jim, finishing his drink. "Nothing, really. Life. We just went separate ways. What's remarkable isn't so much that our friendship waned but that we were friends at all. Even then, we weren't much alike. Even then, he was blue collar, and I was white collar. He liked to fix cars, and I liked to read books."

"But you both liked to drink and smoke weed." 

"Yes," said Jim. "We had that in common."

"And now he's into all this conspiracy theory stuff," said Jill.

"Yeah. He thinks FEMA is setting up some sort of thing to overthrow the government."

"Well," said Jill. "That's not so hard to understand. You were party friends. Party friends don't last. You grew up and got responsible; he grew up and went off the deep end."

"No," said Jim. "There's more to it than that. We were friends that partied a lot, sure, but we weren't just party friends. We spent one summer trying to build a sweat lodge, digging a hole at least three feet deep in caliche and gathering up railroad ties that were somehow supposed to go together as a roof, all because I had read saunas could be used to induce altered states of consciousness in a book I checked out from the library. My party friends weren't exactly lining up to help me with that one. You gotta be on the same wavelength to embark on a pointless struggle like that with someone for no other reason than it's the last time in your life when you have the luxuy to embark on pointless struggles."

The waitress returned to their table to ask if there would be anything else. "Just the check," said Jim.

"Well," said Jill. "I'm glad you got to see him, and he's doing okay."

"Yeah," said Jim. "Me too."