Two Friends Walk Into a Bar

Things usually bend before they break. They warn you of their failure with hairline cracks and fractures. But if you live with your demons long enough things get brittle. And when the fall happens, it happens all at once.

I’m back in town in late October, the season in Chicago when it’s not so cold yet the air slices your skin like a driven nail, but cold enough that steam billows from the subway vents making the whole city feel foggy, and the sky turns that mournful shade of withering gray. I walk the broad streets and breathe in the smells of diesel and popcorn. I want to say I miss them, but my lungs feel like they’re full of ash. A shadow passes above.

I tell myself it’s a plane because that’s what I always do, and if I don’t look up I can believe that’s true.

I call up my old college buddy Nigel to see if he can meet for beers and wings like we did in the old days. I told my girlfriend I was here on a business trip, but really I just needed to get away from… well, you know… or maybe you don’t. But I was fleeing all the same.

Nigel and I used to haunt the bars of Lakeview, but I guess we’ve grown up since then. He wants to meet at a more upscale pizza place downtown. I walk there past dark alleys and see them out of the corner of my eye, the lethal shadows hiding behind dumpsters and peeking out from around corners, dripping with ichor, and their faces full of hate. I turn up the collar on my jacket against the lake shore wind.

I settle into the booth across from Nigel and exchange the usual pleasantries. I absentmindedly tear off a piece of pizza while he catches me up on his work at the museum where they’ve received a new collection of precious stones from… well, I don’t catch that part. I’m only half listening as I gaze between the window blinds at the darkening sky, and I think I see the beating of huge wings in the haze above. I shake off the vision. Now isn’t the time. I take a sip of my beer but it’s flat and acrid.

Nigel carries on. He’s always been the life of the party. We met back in college when he would drag me to parties with inflatable pools, kegs, and pretty girls. He would dance and make friends and get phone numbers, but I never quite fit in. I just felt like people were always staring at me. Maybe I was wrong, I’m an anxious man. But they’re staring at me now.

I snap to and look out over the restaurant and everyone is looking at me, like a butcher looks at meat. I hear the rhythmic pounding of the dragon’s wings. I feel the shadows creep from the alleys, all swaddled in knives and rage.

Nigel talks about his trip to Maui and his fling with a Korean expat. He orders a margarita and I feel a pain in my gut and double over, coughing up blood on the seat of the booth. The clouds close in like smoke in a burning house. I look up and see Nigel sip his drink as the crowd cheers against the Marlins. I start to feel myself slip but I don’t call out to him. We were never that close.