He'll Always Be in the Booth

I breathed a sigh of relief as I pissed on the wall. It was one of those bars that thought having a wall of tile to urinate on made them unique—something about the innate yearning of men to piss on things that aren’t traditional toilets—but in reality it just broadens the animal stench of territories marked, increases the spray-back factor so that you leave speckled with dots of what you’ll lie is water from washing your hands (which you won’t do). I’ve always had a weak bladder, it’s inconvenient most of the time but it also gives me a nice excuse to escape for a brief period, like a smoker ‘stepping outside for a minute’. Some of my best moments have been conversations with myself in bathroom mirrors after emptying my bladder. Some of my worst, too. 

I was shaking off the final dribbles when I felt a hand smack me firmly on the ass. “Nice watch,” a voice said from beside me. I wasn’t wearing a watch. “Rather small though.” Male comradery is often exhibited through contradictions. ‘Small dick’ means ‘big dick’. ‘Ugly’ means ‘unbelievably sexy’. A slap on the ass is a kiss on the mouth. 

“Nancy seemed to think it was a pretty big watch.” Nancy, of course, was his, Brian’s, mother. 

I walked over to the sink to pretend to wash my hands. Instead, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. “How you holding up Roberto,” Brian asked from the piss wall beside me. I studied my features with something of a frown. It had been a long time since I looked at myself without the context of another person looming, wraith-like, above, below, behind me. Just over ten years, in fact. Then, my face had been covered in patches of uneven facial hair in an attempt to add age to my otherwise adolescent features. Now, the mirror showed a clean-shaven face meant to hold on to my last days of youth. The wrinkles at my eyes and the graying in my hair made this effort nearly fruitless. Thirty-five still felt young, but it didn’t always look it. 

“Never better buddy. Stellar week.”  

I left the bathroom to return to our other friends. The booth they had been sitting at was still full of half-drunken beer glasses, a few light jackets and a gym bag that seemed to emanate its putrid scent like those green odor wisps in a cartoon, but was vacated of all living, breathing things. I looked around the bar. It wasn’t full but it was relatively busy for a Wednesday night. It was one of those bars that de-aged throughout the week. Monday through Wednesday brought groups of 30-somethings desperate to fill that dreary after-work void before returning to their long-term girlfriends or young children or iPad pornography. Thursdays trended toward the late-twenties, that age when it was still okay to drink to a blackout and then show up for a 9 o’clock meeting the next morning. Fridays and Saturdays, even some Sundays, brought the young, new drinkers. The hook up crowd. All vodka cranberries and poorly concealed boners. 

I found my friends over by the basketball machine. One thing about men is we don’t have that much to talk about, so we gather at bars and stare at the TV, play drinking games, or find some competitive activity to engage in to prove that just because we have beer bellies doesn’t mean we don’t still ‘have it’, whatever ‘it’ is. “Robbie,” one yelled when they saw me peering across the bar at them. “Slob on my Rob,” another said. “Bobberrrrrrt,” said the third and final. I barely knew what I preferred anymore, name-wise. My family called me Robert, but no one else really did. “Come try to beat my high score!” “You have to actually make a basket to get the high score, dumbass.” “You have to give him a handicap because his gut makes him have to stand three feet further back.” 

“I’ll see you back over here,” I shouted, and took my place in the booth. I noticed they were all holding fresh beers and wondered if they were drunk enough to have forgotten they had beer left at the table. It was funny looking at them from afar. It was as if they all congealed into one amorphous being shouting out obscenities and belching out hot dog. Many friends are this way. As a group they are your friends, as individuals they are more like that guy you see on the street you think you know but they’re actually just an actor who had a small role on that TV show you like. I could tell you what the group did for fun. I could tell you where the group went on vacation. But ask what any individual one of them did for a living and I’d just smile and nod, mind completely blank. 

Brian was different. There are always two friends in any group that are closer than the rest. We grew up together in North Dakota. We went to college together. We left the rest of our friends to move to New York together. Even when things changed—me getting a long-term girlfriend, he having a surprise child with a girl he slept with once—our friendship stayed relatively strong. Weekly beers. The occasional dinner. Sometimes his son would come. It was weird seeing him become a father. He didn’t have his son full time but it amazed me how responsible Brian became when he was around him. Gentle. Sophisticated even. 

“Piss turned into a nasty shit.” Brian patted my shoulder as he scooted into the booth. 

“Well spoken,” I responded. Funny, too, how quickly Brian could switch from dad-mode to bro-mode. I regarded it with genuine fondness. 

Brian took one of the beers from the table and downed the remaining liquid in one gulp. He belched and, looking pleased with himself, asked if I wanted another drink. I nodded. He scooted back out of the booth and walked up to the bar to grab us another round. 

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I knew who it would be before I even looked. 

Aimee: Hey. Just wanted to let you know I finished moving out 

I sighed and clicked the screen off. Immediately it lit up again. 

Aimee: If you find those pink fuzzy socks I like can you let me know? I couldn’t find them anywhere 

I laughed at this. I threw them away a few days before. I was too nice to do anything truly destructive. No broken windshields or fires set or hitmen called. But I knew that pair of socks was something small she would indeed miss. That she’d noticed them missing so quickly made me feel a sense of victory. A small win, especially in comparison to the large blow she’d delivered a week ago. Tim or Tom or something like that. Or Sam. Whoever he was I pictured him as a 6’8” high-school-quarterback-turned-finance-genius type. I wondered if she was moving in with him or to a place of her own. We didn’t talk about it, mostly because I didn’t want to hear about it. 

“We said no phones,” Brian said as he sat down with our fresh beers. “It’s her, isn’t it? I can tell by that look on your face. It’s the same look you get when you’re about to throw up.” He paused. “You’re not about to throw up are you?” 

“No. It was her. She moved out.” 

“You want to talk about it?” It was one of those rare moments of seriousness between male friends. The kind reserved only for break ups, deaths, diarrhea. 

“I don’t know. Not really, I guess.” Brian nodded. “I’m a little nervous to go home. I don’t know what she took. Almost everything in there we bought together, so I have no idea what she considered to be hers.” 

“You didn’t talk about it?” 

“No. I told her to take whatever she wanted. I guess I didn’t want to have to deal with anything else.” 

Suddenly, we were bombarded by the amorphous blob of our other friends. Any serious conversations would need to be put on hold indefinitely. There was side hugging and shoulder slapping and ironic forehead kisses. Not a single thing of substance was said. Many beers were consumed. I didn’t think about Aimee even once, their collective presence alone a cure for my sadness. And then as the night wore on the blob became smaller. Five became four and then three and then soon enough it was just Brian and I. 

“You don’t have to stick around you know,” I said. “I know you have to get up for work in the morning.” 

“I haven’t had a night out like this in a while, no way I’m calling it before midnight.” 

I knew he was only staying out because he sensed I needed it. This would remain unspoken simply because it would be uncomfortable for either of us to admit. I wasn’t sure I needed it, really, but knowing he was willing to sacrifice his time and tomorrow-Brian's comfort for me felt nice anyway. And besides, I would have done, had done before, the exact same for him. 

“We need to get you a new look,” Brian said as he studied my face. “And maybe a gym membership.” 

“Maybe I’ll go back to the mustache.” 

“I thought we agreed we’d never bring up the mustache years again.” 

“It looked fine!” 

“It did not look fine. I can’t believe Aimee didn’t leave you then. I would have.” 

“She liked it.” 

“She said she liked it. That doesn’t mean she actually did.” 

“Maybe I’ll get a face tattoo.” 

“You absolutely should get a face tattoo.” 

“And buccal fat removal.”  

“I’m all for it.” 

“Tim probably has his removed.” 

“Who?” 

“Tom. Sam.” 

“Oh. The guy?” 

“How did I not know for a year?” 

The shift from banter to serious-talk didn’t phase Brian. 

“Every person that’s ever been cheated on has said exactly the same thing. You didn’t know because she didn’t want you to know. Until she did.” 

“We were together for a decade. Am I just supposed to move on, date other people?” 

“Date when you’re ready, it’s overrated anyway.” 

“It just feels like everything is going to change. I don’t know how to deal with it.” 

“Take it from someone who was a little too relaxed in his approach on condom use. Everything will change. And when it does, you’ll change with it. I don't think I ever really wanted kids and now I can’t even picture a life where I’m not somebody’s dad. Or I don’t want to.” 

I had a sudden urge to bury my face in Brian’s shoulder. To weep. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, do that of course. Brian knows I cry and I know Brian cries but never do we cry around each other. It’s less about being macho and more a sense of self-preservation. Instead, I went to his side of the booth and settled for a hug. Neither of us spoke, just leaned into the hug and then back out of it. 

“Gotta pee,” I said. 

“Cheers,” Brian said, and tipped his beer toward me. 

I pissed on the wall and thought about what it would be like going home. I couldn’t decide what scared me more, to see the things she’d taken or to see the things she’d left behind. What would it be like to lay alone on the couch we’d shared together for so many years? To hear our favorite records played on the record player we thrifted? 

I went to the sink and stared at myself in the mirror. For a moment I felt like crying again. And then I remembered Brian sitting out in the bar. I’d leave the bathroom and there he would be ready for a chat or a hug or a game of darts. We’d eventually finish the last of our beers and say goodbye to each other, go our separate ways, live our separate lives. But I knew he’d always be there in that booth. Despite the pain I was feeling, I smiled to myself. Brian was wrong, not everything would change.