"So let me get this straight," continued Derich finishing off the last Thai flavored wing. "You just let her leave?"
"She was up and gone before I was able to say anything else and I..."
"Poohstabber." He said shaking his head. He dropped the well picked bone into the basket. "It's been years and this still seems to be a pattern with you. Some woman is all about hanging out with you then after a little while she's all about getting away from you."
"In my defense," I started, about to enjoy one of the dry Cajun wings, "she..."
"What was the super hot Asian chick's name," he interrupted, "You know? She's friends with that chick, Paris. Twinkie, Kinky?"
"Kiki, god damn it! Her name is Kiki."
"Whatever, the same thing happened with her over and over again." He took a deep pull on his beer. "Love these wings by the way."
I had introduced him to my favorite wing place near work. It was a rare Sunday that Derich was able to get out. He was a married man now with two kids under the age of four. He was happy to do anything that got him out of the house or away from the office for a few hours.
To everyone's surprise he and the wife were doing really well. It was one of the few weddings that I actually put money on to last. The odds were so high against it that even the hardcore wedding folks didn't think it would work out.
"This is different. She said no." I dropped the bone in the basket. "As far as I'm concerned everything ends at no. Even if she wants to get down to business later I just can't. I think of my friend Marcus and how his life fell to shit."
"This conversation is far too deep for wings and things. I'm going to need shots if this is going to keep circling the drain." He bit into a dry Cajun wing and his eyes rolled into the back of his head.
"You know we can't do shots," I said. "She'll kill us. We're both lucky you're out now. If you call home two hours late, fucked in half drunk, you might as well plan on freezing to death sleeping in your car because she will NOT let you in the house. Personally, I won't be a party to that. We'll talk about it later." I picked up the last tasty Cajun wing.
He pushed himself away from the bar, crossed his arms, and tried to look into my soul. I could hear the machines starting to whir.
"You need to get out of your own head. It's like a pattern with you. Just when you are about to open things up and get to the next level you find a reason to shut down. What's going on?"
I took a quick look up and saw myself in the mirror behind the bottles. I could clearly see I was hiding but I didn't know what or from whom. The machines whispering whir cascaded to a cacophonous clanking.
"Love these wings." I said as I dropped the last bone in the bucket.
No comments:
Post a Comment