The Good Luck of Right Now(25)

“Oh,” I said.

“Same time next week?”

Max blew air through his teeth, adjusted his big glasses, and then jumped up into a standing position. I stood, and Arnie walked us to the door. “It was a very good session, boys. I feel like we made great progress tonight. Be kind to yourselves this week. Grieve bravely and openly. Embrace the process. Good night.”

Max and I walked down the steps and into the alley. I followed him to Walnut Street.

“Max?” I said.

“What the f*ck, hey?”

“Do you say that to everyone—all the time?”

“What?”

“‘What the f*ck, hey’?”

He nodded. “Except when I’m f*cking working. They’d fire me. I just keep my f*cking mouth shut and rip tickets at work.”

“Could your cat really speak with her mind?”

“Fuck, yeah, she could! Arnie doesn’t know. Arnie doesn’t understand. He doesn’t f*cking believe me, but it’s true. We used to talk all the f*cking time—Alice and me.”

“I believe you.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pink circle of plastic. “This was her f*cking collar.” Max held it out to me. I took it.

There was a silver heart-shaped tag.


ALICE


“It’s a very nice tag,” I said.

Max took the collar back, wiped his eyes, and mumbled, “What the f*ck, hey?”

We stood there looking at our shoelaces for a few minutes.

Then Max said, “Do you want to have a f*cking beer somewhere?”

“Like—at a bar?”

“Fuck bars! Bars are where douche bags try to f*ck each other. At a pub. A f*cking beer at a proper f*cking pub.”

I thought about my goal of having a beer at a bar with an age-appropriate friend and decided a pub was even better, because I really didn’t want to be near douche bags trying to copulate.

“How old are you?” I asked Max.

“I’m thirty-f*cking-nine. Do you want a f*cking beer or what?”

I am also thirty-nine, as you already know, Richard Gere.

Jung’s synchronicity.

Unus mundus.

Unus mundus!

“Yes, I would very much like to have a beer at a pub with you.”

“Okay, then. Fucking follow me.”

Max walked very quickly and I trailed for maybe six or seven blocks before we entered a dark pub with railings around the bar and pictures of Ireland all over the walls.

We sat on stools and put our feet on brass rungs, just like on TV.

It was amazing.

The bartender was a frowning fat man. “What’ll it be?”

“Two f*cking beers,” Max said.

The bartender tilted his head to one side, and his eyes narrowed. “What f*cking kind?”

“What the f*ck kind of beer do you like?” Max asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said, because I didn’t often drink beer.

“Two f*cking Guinness,” Max said.

“O-f*cking-kay,” the bartender said and tossed two small cardboard circles onto the bar in front of us.

A TV hung over the shelved bottles of alcohol, and on it was some show where people had to run through an obstacle course. A foot-wide path separated a pool from a huge wall, out of which boxing gloves would pop and knock people into the water below if they weren’t careful. We watched a few people try to cross and they were all knocked in. Every time someone fell, there were cartoon noises that sounded like springs being plucked or high-pitched whistles being blown. Then a giant of a woman shimmied across with her arms and legs spread wide like a spider and everyone in the bar cheered.

“Twelve-f*cking-fifty,” the bartender said when he placed the dark beers in front of us on the little cardboard circles.

“You owe him seven dollars,” Max said. “This ain’t a f*cking date, hey.”

I pulled out my wallet and gave the man seven dollars.

Max and I clinked our glasses, sipped our creamy beers, and watched men and women try to run across twelve or so balls that were floating on water—the goal being to end up on a platform of sorts. Every time someone fell into the lake, there were more cartoon noises, everyone in the pub would cheer and groan, and Max would snicker, raise his beer in the air, and yell, “What the f*ck, hey?”

We didn’t talk at all, which was okay with me. I was happy just to check off one of my life goals.

When he finished his beer, he said, “Bottoms f*cking up. I have to go home and make sure my sister’s okay.”

I finished my beer and said, “Is there something wrong with your sister?”

“Nah,” Max said. “Except she f*cking doesn’t miss Alice as much as I do. She’s sort of f*cking weird, but she’s family.”

Ask him, How is your sister weird? you, Richard Gere, whispered into my ear, so I did.

“Ah, she always has her f*cking hair in her face. She works at the f*cking library. She pretends to be real skittish, and she had some bad shit happen to her a few years ago. But she’s okay now. Just a little f*cking off. And she worries if she doesn’t know where I am. I didn’t tell her about having a beer with you because I didn’t even know who the f*ck you were before tonight.”