Conversations With Casper

"Dude. Are you serious?"

"Seth, listen. Okay hear me ou-"

"Ili! This is fucking stupid! You understand that Casper has not talked to you for what, huh? How many months!?"

I rolled my eyes while looking at the Tom Petty look alike that is my brother from another mother, he already knows he isn't talking me out of this. It is hilarious! Lets just get past this real quick and move forward.

"7 months man. Listen. . ."

"Listen! Listen! Listen! What can you possibly say that is going to make me think it is a good idea for you to show up out of nowhere and try to sweep this chick off her feet, when she doesn't even want to do you the simple kindness of telling you to 'fuck the fuck off!' We know how your brain works. We know that you do this to yourself, man."

"Okay, so you gotta understand a few things here brother. I'm not actually paying for it," I said. I hadn't told him about the money that appeared in my account. He hasn't given me the chance. I should have started this conversation differently. The plan is better thought out than how this conversation began, though, "Alright, Seth; here is what's up. So I go to check my bank account, okay?"

A coy smile crosses my face.

His brown eyes light up underneath his dusty blond hair and through the crisp black and red frames as his smile matches mine.

"It had my pay check plus a random deposit into my account of 20,000 dollars."

"What?"

I burst out in laughter.

The sound hit my ears before my face registered the pain and the heat from the blood rushing my cheek in response to being slapped as if he were my pimp and I were short on my take for the evening. . .

"You mother fucker! What was that for?"

"Listen Ili. You aren't stupid. But this is dumb. Did you call the bank?"

"Yes. I did. And they said that it was mine. Its in my account! They couldn't tell me where it came from and so long as it was deposited into my account, its mine! So I cashed the fuck out of it and here I am!" I reach into the breast pocket of my rust orange sport coat at the same time I swear and pull out a manila envelope packed with 20 crisp Benjamin Franklins. I hand it to my friend and he looks at me questioning. . .

"I don't need this, man."

"I don't give a fuck what you need, Seth. You have no idea how much you have helped me financially or socially. I have cashed out this money. I'll face the mother fucking consequences of that when the time comes. Today, that time has not yet come. Tonight we dance. As far as Casper, I do what I say I will do. Get your taxes done. I bought her this book called, Buy Yourself the F*cking Lillies, and there is this whole chapter about how important it is for women to buy an expensive bra. Like professionally fitted and all that. Anyway, she read it to me in the kitchen while I was cooking dinner and, real fucking talk, its probably the closest thing to a happy ending as I'm going to ever get. I told her that I was going to send her to Paris one day to spend $1000.00 on a bra, so I am going to do that."

I reach into my other breast pocket and pull out my little black book. The plan is detailed in here. I hand it to him.

"Look. Just read this."

That smile passes his lips again. He does that weird snort thing one does when they are genuinely. . . I don't know, delighted?

“Really? What’s with the Arabic pun?”

“She played with some Arabic words for me, it was sweet. She learned that Jadallah is the eastern version of Matthew and that they both mean Gift from God. So, ya know what? If she is the person that she appeared to be for the two years before we got romantic, she’ll laugh. If she doesn’t laugh, then she can take whomever she wants with her to go buy bras man. This isn’t about me white knighting or anything. Its about choosing to be the me that I want to be. I have 20k, well 18k. I’m spending $7,000.00 to do what I was going to do before I turned 45 anyway, now I just get to do it quicker. And without cost to me. 'The Universe speaketh.'"

“You’re a weird guy Ace.” Seth said.

“AAAAAAllllllllllrighty-then!”

We laughed. He handed my book back.

“You know you’re probably gonna end up hurt by this right?”

“I’m absolutely gonna end up hurt by this. I am well aware that getting my friend back is a pipe dream. I also know that not drinking vodka for breakfast, eating food instead of doing a gram of cocaine on my lunch break, getting caught up on my back child support, dead lifting 300 pounds and being mentally healthy enough to move to the same town as my kids were pipe dreams. . .oh, and getting a job that paid enough for me to do all of that? All of it was a pipe dream until it was reality. And you know, I can live with making the effort and wasting $7,000.00 free dollars on the off chance that I’m right. And that the connection we had was legitimate. Not romantic maybe, but legitimate. You know?”

He looked at me. Picked my navy fedora off the table and placed it on my head. He adjusted the feather matching my jacket, “Listen pimpin, we gotta go. Hannah is off work and we are going dancing before you go on your run tomorrow. You get the shirt dyed yet?”

“I did. Outfit prepared. I have been running for months now so I think I am ready. You driving?”

He nods, “You gonna tell Hannah?”

“No man. I got enough of a lecture from you, your wife would probably actually be able to talk me out of it. And think, if this goes south; my son comes to me and says, ‘Dad, so there’s this girl that hasn’t talked to me in 7 months so I was thinking about doing something really wasteful with my money that will make me look ridiculous, what do you think I should do?’ And I can say, ‘Well son. . . this one time. . .”

We laughed. We went and picked Hannah up from her call center job. As I looked out the window of my midwestern home town, that pang of bullshit loneliness hits me while Bright Eyes sings, “Gotta keep on going like it a’int the end, gotta change your life like its dependent on it.”

Its kind of his fault that I have this infatuation, I think. See, he knew his wife for a few years and they always got along real well. And then Hannah suddenly found herself single and, after hanging out everyday for two weeks, they decided to get hitched. Just like that. Poof. Friends found love in each other. I haven’t seen them apart for longer than a shift at work since.

We just seemed to vibe man. Casper and I, that’s who I mean. Maybe this is my attempt to claim some validity in this whole scenario. She was going through some shit, I tried to be a friend, she made it pretty clear she had lustful interests, she made rules, we ate mushrooms, I said something that. . . look, it was three trains of thoughts that crossed on the way out of my mouth.

1. She said she likes to talk while tripping, she isn’t talking, why isn’t she talking, is it because she can’t string a sentence together like I can’t string a sentence together? I should come up with something to talk about so that we can talk about SOMETHING cause I am getting anxious which makes me act weird. Can we please fast forward through this peak so I can speak a coherent sentence?

2. It has been 15 years since I have done this. This isn’t quite as fun as I remembered. I felt better before I did this. Why did we do 2 and a half grams each? This is a lot Oh my gosh! I can’t stand this. Can she please talk about something so we can talk about SOMETHING?

3. Ancient Greeks are interesting. We can discuss that! Or them! They have vomitoriums and gladiators and shit. They have 7 different types of love! Oooooh. . .we could talk about Eros. Do you know what Eros is muh fuckah?!?! YEAAAAAAA! We finally gonna have sex with a hot bitch while doing drugs! This is a dream come true! (I am aware of how juvenile a dream this happens to be. The dream did not come true, by the way.)

Shaking my head to myself, I mutter the stupid fucking sentence under my breath as these two loving, loved and in love fucks sing their hearts out in the front seat to Ingrid Michaelson, “Lets get rich and buy our parents home in the south of France, lets get rich and give everybody nice sweaters and teach them how to dance,” in annoyingly beautiful harmony.

“I can’t wait until we can fast forward and say I love you.”

I am so stupid. I wasn’t even in love. Is that true? Maybe. . . I don’t really believe there is an “in love.” You know? That is lust. That's what everybody calls the “honeymoon” period or whatever. I think that love is an action. A choice. Perhaps she didn’t choose to be so interested in me, she just was. It isn’t her fault that she is the first person that seemed to respect me as an adult. Its fucking weird man. She didn’t know me when I was a degenerate and so maybe that’s it? She got to know and experience what was, at the time, the ideal me. Ha! Ideal-ili. Ideally? Get it? Nevermind. . . The closest to ideal Ili (heh) that has ever existed, and she ran. She looked me in my teary eyes, holding my hand as I shared some personal fucking shit and she goes, “I don’t run.”

And she didn’t. She disappeared. I am right to do this. I am moving to my kids town in 6 months. Its kind of now or never. Once I’m gone man, I’m gone.

We pull to a stop in a parking space outside the club. My friends get out in their neatly matching black and red motif, her feather boa and his scarf intertwine as they saunter off - the streetlight turning their shadows into silhouettes against the purple night of the brick wall.

I love my friends. Casper still is my friend. I have no idea how creepy this will be to her, but I like stories. Maybe she's gotten married and didn't want to deal with telling me cause. . .what? I don't know. This could be real bad. But. . . well, by God, this will certainly be a story to tell. Perhaps I’ll get my friend back. That's the dream. Perhaps I will just set a new personal record and have a story to share over a beer down the river.

We’ll find out tomorrow. Right now, lets go dance. . .