The Dream

The weather had been unseasonably cold and damp here in Colorado. “Three hundred days of sun my ass!” I cursed under my breath as I reached for the door, opening it hastily. The warm air of the pub hit my face like a rogue wave, instantly fogging my glasses, as if I were looking through a plastic bag. 

I removed my glasses – wiping them clean – then replaced them on the bridge of my nose. It took me a minute to see through the busy mayhem of the pub, my eyes still adjusting to being indoors, but then I found him. He was seated at a high-top table near the back and off to my left, two full pints of beer waiting patiently in front of him. 

“Hey Mike!” He called out, getting up from his chair as I made my way through the throng. His classic infectious smile – always offset to the right – beaming at me across the crowded room. 

“Hey Buck,” I replied, opening my arms slowly to match his. We hugged each other briefly, with two or maybe three taps on the back before releasing our grasp. The international male sign for saying “I love you”, without either one of us being forced to actually say it.

Buck, was short for Bucky, which was short for Buckhaulter. Brian Buckhaulter had been my best friend since college. We were roommates freshman year and had hit it off right from the start. We both had been athletes in high school and were also big movie buffs. We would spend hours and hours getting drunk and watching stupid movies we’d both seen a hundred times before. Yelling out the classic lines and laughing our assess off until our stomach’s hurt. The dominoes pizza and cheap beer we consumed by the pallet load didn’t help our stomachs either.

The funny thing about Bucky though, was that when he wasn’t busy getting wasted with me in front of the TV, he was working his way towards a 3.9 GPA and a degree in structural engineering. After graduation he landed a job at a local engineering firm. He had spent his whole career there, working his way up the ladder into a management position, in charge of a whole team of engineers contracted to large projects for the state. In that time he had also managed to marry the girl of his dreams and start raising two beautiful daughters.

I, on the other hand, had been a different story. Within the first year at school I had changed my major and quit the lacrosse team, which I had been recruited to play on and up to that point had been the sole reason I had chosen that school in the first place. Then, four months before graduation, I had decided I didn’t really like my major after all and wouldn’t be pursuing that as a career. The next 8 years had been a revolving door of dead end retail jobs and half baked fantasies of what my life could be like if I decided to do this –or that. None of them panning out.

”How are things?” Bucky asked, his enthusiasm peaked as always.

”Alright,” I replied, mostly operating on social autopilot at this point. “You?”

”The same,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, his smile shrinking slightly. “It’s good to see you. Man, how long has it been?”

”A few years at least. Just before COVID right?”

”Yea that sounds about right,” the smile finally falling from his face completely. He coughed into his hand.

”You alright? Coming down with something?” I asked.

”Nah I’m good. Just a little crud I can’t seem to kick. This damn weather”. He wiped his hand on his napkin, then took a big slug of his beer. 

“How are the girls?” I asked, the smile now returning to his face.

”They’re good! Getting so big. Katie’s losing teeth by the minute, and Holly keeps asking her Mom how many days are left until Santa comes. Can you believe that? Man that kid loves Christmas”.

I laughed. “Santa? The fourth of July’s in less than two weeks!”

”I know,” he said, shaking his head. “She just can’t seem to let that fat fuck go”. We both laughed at this.

”Do you miss them?” I immediately regretted asking the question.

”Everyday,” he said slowly, staring down at his beer, rubbing the sweaty glass with his thumb. “But I make sure to be there for the big moments you know,” a slightly forced smile poking through the right side of his mouth. He coughed again. Now seemed like a good time for me to take a big slug of my beer.

We talked and drank for the next couple of hours, reliving old college days mostly. The highlights. Days when we both remembered feeling like we had it all figured out – and whatever we didn't have figured out yet, well, we were young. There was time for that. 

“So how are things going? You good?” He asked, inquisitively looking me in the eye. He’d asked me that earlier, but this time was different. This time he was really asking me.

Am I good? I wasn’t really sure how to answer. Why hadn’t I prepared for that question? The truth of it wasn’t all that simple. On paper you could say things were going well. I had a pretty decent job now. The bills were getting paid on time and the fridge was more or less always full. I was doing well at work too. I had climbed my way up to a management position, just like Bucky had. People looked up to me there and I felt like an important part of the team. I also had a serious girlfriend now. We’d been dating for the last couple of years and had just moved in together. We enjoyed each other's company and she had helped me out a lot finding this new job. We were talking about getting married next year. 

Why didn’t I just say that, any of that? The other side of the coin was that a large part of me still felt empty, unfulfilled, lost. See, what I hadn’t told Bucky – what I hadn’t told anyone – was that what I really wanted was to be a writer. I wanted to write and tell stories. For the past year and a half I had felt this creative fire building inside of me trying to get out. I had taught myself to stifle that fire over time, partly out of fear of failure. What makes me think I can write? I had never written anything that wasn’t assigned to me in school, and even then I usually blew it off. Also, I wasn’t sure I was ready to share this part of me with anyone else. What happens when I tell everyone “Hey, I wrote this thing, what do you think?” and they tell me how awful it is? Or worse yet, they tell me they “liked it”, but their eyes say something different?

But what if I did share this dream with those people? What if I did share this last bit of my whole – they would understand right? I mean, they loved me didn’t they? Even if whatever I wrote was shit, that doesn’t mean they think I’m shit. “I’ve been thinking of writing a little. Nothing crazy, just for fun”. How come I can’t say it?

”Yea man, I’m good” I replied, not even sure I would have convinced the soggy coaster underneath my glass, let alone Bucky. “Got a promotion at work. I’m a supervisor now.”

“That’s great Mike” he said, that half smile reemerging from the right side of his mouth. “You were always good at things you set your mind to.”

I downed the rest of my beer. “Well it’s getting late, I better take off”. I stood up, trying not to trip as I slid off the tall chair. Bucky stood up with me.

”It was good seeing you Mike. I’m glad things are going well.” I could see on his face that he knew there was more I wasn’t sharing with him, but he wouldn’t push me to do so.

”You too Buck. Let’s do this again.”

”I’ll be around,” he said, his smile growing just ever so slightly larger.

We hugged again, this time that third pat on the back lingering just a bit longer than it had earlier. I snaked my way towards the door and outside into the gray cold. Turning back I could see Bucky giving me a wave. I tipped my chin and threw a wave back as my glasses filled with fog again.

When I woke up my watch read 4:50 AM. It was nearly pitch black in my room. I could feel my girlfriend asleep in bed next to me but I could barely see her. I slowly slipped out from under the blanket and swung my feet around the side of the bed onto the cold floor. I rubbed my face and then inched open the bedside table drawer, fumbling for my cell phone in the dark. My little trick to keep from snoozing the alarm in my sleep.

I felt my fingers jostle the prayer card inside the drawer. Why did I still hang onto that? He’d been gone almost four years at this point, and I certainly wasn’t a believer. Neither was he as far as I could remember. I think his wife’s family were the ones who had pushed for the whole Catholic mass thing in the first place. 

“You were always good at things you set your mind to”. I thought about this as I sat on the side of the bed, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Bucky had always been weirdly supportive of me, despite how far off the rails it seemed my life was heading. For most guys of our age, the only propping up you did for a buddy was trying to keep his face out of the gutter on the way home from the bar. Not a whole lot of genuine positive affirmation going around back then – or since. 

I stood up from the bed, my eyes now able to focus through the blue early morning light slowly filling the apartment. I walked to the refrigerator, past the kitchen table where my laptop sat quietly. I saw the small blinking white light emanating from its side, a reminder to me that it was there should I ever feel the urge to have a seat and actually write something. How many times I had pictured myself at that table, face lit by the glowing hue of the laptop’s stark white screen, banging away at the keys as I soared through my first novel, unable to stop myself. 

I continued across the kitchen and opened the door of the refrigerator – staring into it, listening to its dull humming – tapping my fingers on the door handle as I searched for something to wash the early morning taste from my mouth. Dissatisfied I closed the door and spun myself around, leaning now with my back against the refrigerator. I scratched at my elbow as I stared across the room at that blinking white light. I thought of a pilot circling overhead, searching for a runway in an otherwise black abyss. “You were always good at things you set your mind to”.

I ran my hands quickly through my hair and started across the room. Sitting at the table I slowly opened the laptop, my face bathed in that glowing hue. I stared intently at the blinking cursor, like a lonely buoy bobbing in a vast empty white ocean. 

I exhaled deeply –a wry smile lifting from the right side of my mouth – and began to type.