Who Wants To Live Like That?

It was time to go back to school. I had enrolled at the new university in my own home town since I would be under doctor's care for a while still. But the college was not much of a place, a few big buildings and a giant reflecting pond carved out of a southern pine forest. New buildings and a series of parking lots. It was uninspiring.

I was required to attend an orientation before the term began. There were a series of them, and for some reason, I picked a Saturday afternoon. I filed into a large auditorium with a host of other mostly unlikely-looking students and found a seat in the rear near an exit door. And then I heard a familiar voice.

"Hey, asshole, what are you doing here?"

It was Steve. I hadn't seen him since he had gotten married and enlisted in the service. He was out now and living in town.

"I played football in the service," he told me. "I was a running back and got my knee torn up so bad that I couldn't play any more. Now they are paying me for a disability and sending me to college."

He looked much the same as when I'd last saw him a couple years ago, but something was different.

"You still playing music," I asked him?

"Sure. Why don't you come out to my house for dinner. I have a music room set up in the house."

My gut told me that I didn't want to go. I could feel the old sinking in my chest, the hopeless despair of growing up around miscreants and criminals. But hell, I thought, maybe he'd changed. I mean, he was going to go to college. He'd been in the service and had been married for years now. Things might be different. So I agreed.

I asked Sherri if she would like to go to dinner with me at an old friend's house who was going to the university this term. She liked that. It seemed more significant to me after I saw her reaction, the gleam and glow that accompanied the "yes." I just hoped everything would be OK.

And so the following week, we drove to a part of town I had never really explored, on the far reaches of the city. He lived in an average looking neighborhood with little block houses and carports and medium sized yards. It didn't look much different from where we grew up. Groups of kids were playing in the street. A worn mother was calling for her kid to come home. I felt an uneasy nostalgia as we drove the curb-less roads looking for the address Steve had given me. And then we were there, a sloppy looking house painted brown with dark brown trim. The yard was mostly sand. It wasn't his house, of course. He was a renter.

His wife greeted us at the door, her voice the same as I remembered, high and cartoon-like. But she was different now, a married woman, a woman who'd lived in service housing, who had socialized with the wives of servicemen. She looked nervous and worried.

"Come in, come in, I have dinner cooking. STEVE, COME OUT HERE! Come in, sit down, I have to check on the chicken."

The inside of the house looked much like the outside. The floors were uncovered Terrazzo, hard and cold. Some mismatched furniture littered a small living room. There was nothing on the walls, nothing you would call decoration. Before we sat, Steve came charging down the short hallway smoking a cigarette and grinning.

"Steve, this is my girlfriend, Sherri," I offered. He looked at her extended hand. He put his cigarette in his mouth and left it between his lips as he shook it. Sherri had a smile on her face, but I could tell by her eyes that she was disoriented. "Hello," Steve said. "Nice to meet you."

Dinner wasn't much. There were a few pieces of chicken and some mashed potatoes and green beans. There wasn't enough chicken for four people and the beans were from a can. Steve gave me a piece of meat that was all bone and fat and gristle. But Sherri sat tall and kept smiling while Steve's wife explained that they were not really moved in yet. Every word she spoke sounded like a distress signal. I noticed she kept shooting furtive glances quickly at Steve as if she were checking something. Things didn't look right between them. Then I realized that this was the first time I'd ever sat down to a dinner prepared by one of my friends. Tommy was married, but we'd never sat down to eat a formal meal. I'd never thought about it before. I felt like my parents, like I was starting on that same, stilted path. But before I could really be overcome by the heebeejeebees, dinner was obviously over. We all sat rigidly silent until Steve said, "C'mon, let's go into the music room." Sherri insisted on staying to help clean up.

Steve took me to a small bedroom crammed with amplifiers and guitars and a reel to reel recorder. He lit up a cigarette and stuck it between his lips and plugged in a six string Rickenbacker. "Here," he said, handing the guitar to me. I strummed a few chords while he picked up his old Hoffner bass. "What do you want to play?" I asked him. He named some song I didn't know. He told me the progression and we began playing, but I kept making mistakes that annoyed him. "Do you know any Crosby, Stills, and Nash" I asked him? He told me to play and he would follow along. Our musical tastes had obviously diverged in the years since we'd played in a band together. Our playing was awkward and unsatisfactory and soon we fell to riffing instead of playing songs. And then Steve broke out a joint. He lit up and took a hit and handed it over to me, but I held up my hand in polite refusal. "No, no thanks, that's OK," I said, "I don't smoke any more." He looked at me as if I were a Martian. He couldn't understand the language, it seemed.

"What?"

"No, really, I don't want any." And with that, Steve took a hit with a vengeance and put down his bass. Just then Sherri walked in and Steve offered her the joint. Sherri looked at me as if she were wondering if it was expected of her. I gave two slight shakes of my head and looked to the floor.

"Oh, no thanks," she said.

It was dark when we got into the car. It had been a dreadful night. "Did you have a good time?" I asked Sherri.

"Yes, they were very nice."

"No they aren't," I said. "Steve is not nice. He's never been nice. And his wife's a nut. I don't ever want to go back there again."

"Well, the night was a little odd," she said.

"Odd? What the fuck was for dinner? They gave me a chicken asshole to eat. Did you see that?"

She was laughing now and it sounded good. The further we got away from the house, the better I began to feel. Ghosts and hobgoblins. That was all. I didn't have to go back. I wouldn't. I was in the car with Sherri who had never lived like that before. She smelled sweet. Her voice was untroubled. We would go back and lie on my bed and turn on the little black and white t.v. We would laugh and snuggle. Poor Steve, I thought. But I didn't really care.