Tremors

     “Well I never thought you were chasing after Karen and she never thought you were a creep.  Does that make you feel any better?”

     “Yes, it...”

     “She was convinced that you slept with Paris.”

     “Jesus, man really?”

     Tony laughed a little to himself then stared out the window.

     “So are you a 2000 or are you a 20 guy?”

     “What do you mean?”  I asked.

     “I mean last night I’m listening to the news and I hear them say twenty twenty-one.  A few minutes later I hear them say two thousand twenty-one.  I wish there were something a bit more consistent.”

     Tony had been a bit more focused over the last few weeks.  Things in the world seemed to take on a larger importance.

     “I hadn’t really thought about it.”  I said cracking open a bottle of motor oil.  “Now that I do I’m a 20 guy.”

     “Really?”

     “Yeah, of course.  Think about it.  You didn’t say nineteen hundred ninety-nine, did you?  You said nineteen ninety-nine.  Two thousand made sense until 2009.  Since then it’s been twenty all the way.” 

     “I guess.”  He stared into the distance.

     “What’s up?” 

     “Amber is worried about me.  You see all this craziness going on in China?”

     “Yeah, but why the fuck would she be worried about you?”

     “She’s been doing some consulting with this firm that works out of China and she says the shit is much worst than everybody is letting on.”

     “Well damn.  Look I’m hoping,” I said, feeling the warmth of the motor oil, “that this shit is all done by February.  I’m just over a month away from hibernation right now.  Twenty nineteen has been a shit year.  By May 2020 the business at the firm should be moving smoothly and things will be as right as rain!  There is no way that 2020 can be as shitty as 2019 was,” I said emphasizing the twenties.

     “That still doesn’t answer why you give a shit about two thousand vs twenty.  What brought that about?”

     “She said a few of her colleagues have had to do virtual meetings.  While they were waiting for meetings to start, meetings that would eventually be cancelled, they started talking about Twenty twenty vs two thousand twenty and she wanted my opinion of it.”

     This wasn’t an earthquake. It wasn’t a landslide but it was a slight tremor.

     “What did you say?”  I asked preparing myself for the moment. 

     “I said two thousand twenty.  She laughed and said, without thinking about it ‘That’s what my Dad would have said.’”

     “Oh.”  The beer lost a bit of it’s flavor.  Her father had passed away a few years ago.  She didn’t have great memories of him but she had a few.

     “Man, you’re at least 5 years younger than...”

     “I’m only two years younger than when he died.”

     It had begun.

     “Tone, you’re overthinking this.  You’re turning a 20 problem into a 2000 problem and we don’t even know if it is a problem.”

     “I guess,” he repeated, “but apparently I’m a 2000 guy.”  He stared off into the distance again.  It was obvious the tremors were a bit more consistent than he was letting on.