Chapter two (2)

Let’s meet one of the Lottery winners, Joe, and his friends.

Warning: it launches with substance use, because that’s a big part of who Joe is. Mature Audiences only.

The last of the foursome crowded out into the confined alley as the joint was just being lit up. The pungent odor of cannabis sativa filled the nostrils of the eager participants as Frank spoke up first.

"I am SO looking forward to this …", exclaimed Frank Lawrence, a 32-year old businessman, visiting on a business/pleasure trip from over 120 miles away.

"I cannot believe it has been this long since I’ve seen you guys! And to be gettin’ high with you, again, just like the old days …Man! I can’t tell you how stoked I am!", continued their former classmate.

"Yeah, yeah, we aims to please, Frankie Boy. You know that! It’s just as good for us to see you," provided Joe Sullivan, as he again embraced his old pal’s shoulders. “Two years is a long time; the year 1997 seems even longer ago than two years.”

"And as the perfect hors d'oeuvres to the perfect evening, we thought you’d enjoy a little butt-kickin’ reefer to get you primed for the Good Humour Band!".  Just as Brian Zacharias finished his sentence he hit the joint hard, inhaling several times quickly and making a rushing air noise through his mouth. "We hope you go nuts!"

“Frank took the doobie from him and, as if talking to the cigarette itself, responded in a soothing voice, ‘I’m sure I will, guys. I’m sure I will.’”

Frank took the doobie from him and, as if talking to the cigarette itself, responded in a soothing voice, "I’m sure I will, guys. I’m sure I will." He too inhaled as if this was to be the only chance he’d get for the intoxicating hit. He passed it to Doug.

Four men, all over thirty years of age, stood in the alley behind a cobblestone-faced bar known as the DewDrop Inn. Their reason for gathering this late summer/early autumn Thursday evening was to celebrate the homecoming visit of Frank, who had not been back to his high school town in over two years. While his reasons for being here were somewhat ill-defined, their reunion was a shot in the arm, at least in theory. The other three had never moved away from the suburban Ashby Heights. This fact was both a testimony to their conservative roots as well as their lack of ambition. Life changed little in this town of 70,000.

Ashby Heights was a former boom-factory town. The Lilly River supplied the power needs for many pre-1800 mill machines, and the use of the river for power and for transportation continued through and up to the mid-1960’s. A railroad hub was located within two miles from the river and so in many ways Ashby Heights was a crossroads of merchant travel.

Yet, earlier than most middle America cities, one by one some of the bigger factories began to close, and more and more “Ashbians” started to lose their jobs in “the Heights”. The lack of employment brought frustration to the town, and with the lack of taxes came a degradation of public works and public services. The town was completely different now, in 1999, than it was in 1979, and two of the boys in the alley’s Posse’ were lucky to be working at all, never mind in one of the remaining solvent factories near town. 

All of the ceremony ran its course, as was tradition. Someone coughed rather hilariously, someone made mention of someone else wetting the joint’s end, and the obligatory roach clip was brought out as the stick neared its dying moment. The honor of the final nose hit was left to the guest of honor. He accepted.

"I cannot believe how long it’s been since I've gotten high, man," said Frank as he scratched his nostrils clear of smoke debris. "I’ll bet you I haven’t seen five joints since the last time I was here. You guys are bad for me", he shared with a false guffaw.

"Yes we are, and we are actually sorry for having to twist your arm as violently as we did to get you out here," shot back Joe.

"Yeah, Frank. You waited all of about a half-hour before you asked me if I had any. That’s what—a record for you?" quipped Brian.

Frank was now starting to feel the effects of the potent marijuana kick in, as well as the beginnings of a weekend of razzing and abuse from his high school chums. "Well, you know me … I’m always ready …"

"Yeah, We KNOW you," interrupted Joe, Brianand Doug, in chorus.

Without saying so, the three knew that Frank was most likely going to repeat his similar pattern of talking about pot, babbling about pot, and rationalizing heavily about pot. For a man who claims to never think about it, never find any, never run around with friends "back home" who smoke it, he sure seemed obsessed with it.

It was the assumption of all three of the Ashby Heights crowd that Frank was rarely very far from a connection and that his talk about abstinence was balderdash. For each request he makes to get high comes at least two suggestions that he is the last one of their group who needs it

Standing in the alley strewn with recycled cans and bottles of stale beer, next to garbage waste and paper trash was a below-standard gathering point for the "Posse". So without saying anything , the four left the 65-degree weather outside and ventured back into the 35-seat bar/restaurant to continue their pitchers and exaggerated stories.

The crowd at the Inn, although fully cognizant of the recent whereabouts and do-abouts of this gang of 30-somethings, cared little about their reentrance. The men talked openly as they removed their jackets and headed toward their booth on the side.

"So Doug, why so silent, Man? You haven’t said three things in an hour," inquired Frank.

Joe and Brian’s eyes met sharply in anticipation of the response. No one had warned Frank of Doug’s recent changes in his home life. The silence that met the question told Frank that something wasn’t right; the giddiness of the pot buzz disengaged his tongue-restraint-processor.

Doug’s gaze was glued to the floor, his response negligent.

Frank continued. "It’s not like you to be so quiet, man. What’s up?   You can’t hold back on me, dude!"

His mates came to the rescue, in their own special way.

Joe first. "Doug is having a few… um … challenges at home."

And then Brian, with all the tact of flatulence in an elevator, said "Yeah, he hasn’t gotten laid in about four months." Doug cut an icy glare to Brian.

As Joe playfully thwacked Brian across the top of the head, Frank leaned forward with both elbows on the table. All four men picked up their beers for a stalling tactic, with Doug taking the longest pull from his frosted mug.

The response was put on delay when two couples entered the DDI boisterously. The crowd turned to see who disturbed the imbibing serenity. A wave of hellos from a majority of the crowd of 30 greeted the foursome. Their loud comments were now directed toward Frank and his booth.

"Oh sure! You get back in town and it’s straight to your watering hole! Just forget about the dinner invite we sent you,"   said Myra, with sarcasm and insult dripping from her voice.

"Gosh, I meant to call you to RSVP, but …" backpedaled Frank. His pot-soaked brain was losing it’s normally quick, comeback-snappy-answers.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll just bet you did," Myra continued. "Bob said to not even bother to put out a plate for you, but I thought that surely you’d have grown up enough to let me know." Myra had both guns a-blazing now and would be fine after she got in a few more digs.

Frank simply sat there—disinterested it seemed. Flushed in the face, but guiltless in his heart.

As the four newcomers took off their coats, a table was pulled over to butt up against the booth, in clear violation of at least two fire regulations. Soon eight folks were loaded up with new pitchers and glasses, three out of the eight lit up cigarettes, and traditional "How’ve you beens?" were passed around the gathering. Six out of the eight were 1985 graduates of Dwight D. Eisenhower High school; five out of these six were inebriated on marijuana, while all eight planned to drink on towards happiness.

The Good Humour Band was to open at 9:30 in Marie’s Inn, the only other bar on aptly-namedHigh Street. That gave the eight-some, and their four later-arriving guests a good two hours to get their dinner, their catching-up on lives, and their blood-alcohol content aptly elevated. There was a lot of moving around within the cavern of the DewDrop Inn; Joe and Frank managed several periods of uninterrupted conversations.

"Tell me about Doug, Joe. He looks shell-shocked," began Frank.

Joe inhaled a long breath, then drained his beer. "He’s in a bad way; he’s really been run through the ringer. He looks bad because it IS bad, Frank.

"Brenda really never gave him any clue she was unhappy, if she was. I don’t know, she just … met him on a Tuesday afternoon after he got home from work and said she’d been sleeping with someone from work. She said she didn’t love Doug, and there was little or no chance in changing her mind. She gave him no input, the dumb witch. She ripped his heart right out … and made the poor guy move out!"

Frank nearly choked on his beer. "HE moved out? Why?"

"I’m telling you, man! He was devastated. He had no clue as to what to do. You know Doug, he’s never been a woman-chaser. Brenda was IT, the only girl he’s ever paid attention to. The only girl he ever cared for or even showed any emotion over."

Frank interrupted. "Not that he showed very much, even with her."

"Yeah well, he doesn’t have too wide a range of feelings, does he? And so, when the woman who he came home to every night, the mother of his two kids, the only gal who ever gave him the time of day tells him that his love, life and heart are no longer needed … well, it knocked him on his ass. He may not get over it for awhile." Joe knocked back a huge drink while Frank hit him in the solar plexus with the next question.

"Kind of like your divorce, eh Joe?"

For reasons he would only know later, that comment began to take on a life of its own.

Joe was stunned.

The stoned visitor provided further evidence of his lack of sensitivity. Normally, that kind of a comment would come out without a response, but Joe did not view the question as rhetorical.

Frank continued. "That kind of puts you and ole Brian in the same boat. Seems somehow poetically fitting."

That comment changed the mood of the conversation, as well as the evening.

"Yeah well, some of us have feelings Frankie Boy. Some of us give a damn about those whom we say we love," retorted a somewhat visibly teed-off Joe.

"Karen couldn’t love you that much, Pal. She asked you to leave too, right?"

The next moment seemed like an eternity; Joe neither drank nor changed his facial expression.

He stared at the man who has been making thoughtless comments through most of the 20+ years of their friendship. For a brief moment, Joe considered throwing a glass of beer at him, or lifting the table up onto him, or merely expressing his dissatisfaction with the question in the sternest, most vulgar words possible.

It was a little early in the homecoming for these kind of feelings to again be resurrected.

He took his next best shot. He said nothing, butstared angrily into Frank’s eyes. Frank shifted uneasily.

"Can you tell me why?" he nervously began, hoping to smooth things over with his 6’2”, 260+ pound friend, who could perhaps cave in his sternum with one fell swoop. Joe is a former football player who carried his weight in his thighs, his saggy chest, his beer gut and his broad shoulders.

"Not because I want to dig up that pain again, but so that I can learn how to miss the pratfalls myself?" Even as he attempts to correct a stupid comment, Frank manages to selfishly turn a sensitive question into one centered on himself.

"You’ve hit the pratfalls dead-on, Mr. Philanderer. Several times, in fact. If you weren’t such a great bullshooter—or should I say liar?—you’d be paying so much child support and alimony that you couldn’t afford this dinner out. Why don’t we talk about that for awhile? Why don’t we talk about how you can’t seem to honor that little vow you made in front of a couple of hundred people? TWICE, in fact!" Joe was getting hot.

Frank was a wiry, middle-sized guy, with a mustache and perfectly styled hair. A grin broke out across Frank’s face, yet he chose not to make eye contact with his angered friend.

Joe continued. "Why don’t we talk about your eight-year-old who won’t even talk to you, eh Frankie? Why don’t we talk about her NOT loving you, eh? You want to discuss missing pratfalls … how’s that for an attention-getter? Am I getting close?"

No eye contact still, but the grin was now removed from the-businessman-on-a-homecoming-visit’s face.

And just as the evening was about to take a dramatic turn, the first of several conversations in Frank’s visit was interrupted by two, then three friends from a nearby table. Crisis number one averted.

A mixed blessing, for Joe and his unthinking friend, Frank.

For a few minutes, Joe found himself sitting alone at the booth while the party went on around him. It was an all-too-familiar position to be in.

Frank has always had the capability to push my buttons, thought Joe. He’s always looked out for number one, always taken care of his side of the street before he considered everyone else. He’s always operated from the perspective that many or most of the people in his life wake up every morning hell-bent on finding ways to make Frank happy. He seems to believe that everyone wants him pleased and satisfied.

In addition, especially during a night of intoxication, Frank regularly utters heartless things, mindless thoughts that should never have left his own mind. And while that crack about Joe’s wife not loving him hurt him, Frank can be defended with the understanding that he wasn’t trying to hurt me specifically, thought Joe.

He was simply too insensitive or uncaring to realize that holding one’s tongue is also an option. Nonetheless, the caustic comment bothered Joe for the remainder of the evening. And while he would never let others see that it got him down, it was a more somber and less enthusiastic Joe who spent the remainder of the evening in a pensive mood. He was not his usual self while they finished their dinner of beer at The Inn.

He followed along quietly as the group of friends switched locations to be able to hear Good Humour. This five-member band was nearly the age of the Posse’ and they usually brought the house down with nearly perfect cover versions of classic ‘70’s tunes. Tonight, they had a sixth musician sitting in with them. The band was tight, musically and relationship-wise. They featured an incredible guitarist named Mike McArthur, who could have earned a living in music had he not made so much money as a computer network engineer. Playing guitar onstage at Marie’s seemed to be one way this talented man could merge his artistic right brain with his mechanical and mathematical left brain.

While the other four—bass, keyboards, rhythm guitar/vocals, and drums—were quite talented, they did not approach McArthur’s talent. However, the bassist was extremely humorous and had for years kept the Posse’ laughing with his antics. A convinced Party Animal, he had engaged the boys in the Posse’ into many stints of late-night drinking and carousing. Tonight may well be no exception.

Joe was not the one who started most of the applause or hooting/hollering while watching the Posse’s all-time favorite local band cover some of FM radio’s greatest album hits. Joe didn’t drink as much as the others throughout the remainder of the evening, although it is doubtful that he would have passed a sobriety field test. Ergo, he became the designated driver, specifically because no one else in their crowd even approached being appropriately sober for driving.

When he deposited everyone back on his apartment’s living room floor a wee bit before 2:30 am, most had expected this type of conclusion, just like the old days. Despite the fact that it was a week night, there were no complaints from the concert-goer/partiers. All but Joe had "enjoyed" too much to drink and drive. Beddy-bye time was, naturally, following a round of hot cakes and flap stacks at the truck stop on Route 11. Frank did not join them for eats, having stayed behind at Marie’s Inn.

All this was after Joe had churned The Comment over in his head and his gut an additional twenty times.

Morning came early that next day. Yet the thoughts remained. They were not happy thoughts and they were not inclined to improve.

Again, an all-too-familiar position for Joe Sullivan to be in.