Ted told me it was over, for good, he was driving to his sister’s for Thanksgiving.
I accepted the sister’s house part, refused to believe the other part. He’d be back.
I started to obsess on when and how he’d come back.
Talked myself out of that, took a drive.
Dollar Store Patrick was by the Dollar Store, a deck of playing cards next to him. He used to dabble, poorly, in 3 Card Monte, but mostly just bummed change and smokes.
I told myself I’d see him on the way back home, give him a couple bucks.
Patrick always told the same story, over and over. He pulled a guy from a burning car at Schaefer and 6 Mile. The guy gave him 500 bucks, he started smoking rocks.
He was better now. He needed a dollar, and a menthol, if ya got one.
Turned up Fort St to go to the casino, saw Steemy by the Sombrero taco truck that sold way more gordas than tacos.
Steemy was on the curb, had one shoe off, looked like he might have been in a fight.
I pulled over.
Steemy was furious, said the Sombrero guy handed him the wrong order, and the guy whose order it was got mad at him, took both bags of food.
Steemy had a lot of stories. Crazy stories. Said he spent the night talking to a sea creature over by Zug Island, said when he lived in New York he helped a guy climb the Empire State Building.
I offered to buy Steemy a gorda, but he was mad at the truck, was never eating there again. His voice got this whine like it was gonna run out of air to make the words, reminded me of Ted.
Reminded me I had everything to make Thanksgiving dinner in the fridge and Ted wasn’t coming.
Asked Steemy if he wanted to have dinner at my house.
He looked at me kinda funny , then said “shit yeah.”
I asked him if he got along with Dollar Store Patrick.
He said “Burning car Patrick? That dude is boring, but I don’t hate him or nothing.”
Picked up Patrick, who seemed hesitant when I told him he couldn’t smoke in the house.
We went to the party store, which was insanely busy, of course it was, night before Thanksgiving and I let them pick out whatever they wanted to drink.
Steemy got a pint of Courvoisier and Dollar Store Patrick got a six pack of High Life and three energy drinks.
When I paid for both of them, Georgie Vape behind the ballistic glass kinda sneered, shook his head.
We went to my house and ate spiral ham, mashed potatoes that Patrick, jacked up on caffeine, whipped with cream and butter until they were the consistency of mayonnaise. Steemy sauteed asparagus and portabella mushrooms, (overdone but what the heck) with Irish Mint ice cream for dessert.
Patrick smoked cigarettes, mostly outside the side door, and listened intently while Steemy told stories of how the nuclear submarine he served on in the Navy could make tadpoles into real mermaids.
About halfway through ice cream and halfway through Patrick repeating the car story, this time with even higher flames, Ted called.
Patrick and Steemy kept talking, because I didn’t think to ask them to stop.
Ted heard their voices. Whatever he had called to say was replaced with a barrage of angry, and I must say, creative epithets aimed at me.
My only real regret is that he wouldn’t let me interject to tell him who the voices belonged to before he hung up.
When Patrick went out to smoke the last of his smokes, the breeze that blew in could have refrozen the tiny puddle of green melted ice cream that was left in my bowl.
I couldn’t just drop them off back outside.
I found a pack of cards, and we played gin rummy. The winner between Patrick and Steemy got the guest room, the other got the sofa in the den. Patrick, full of energy drink, probably wasn’t going to sleep much anyway.
Steemy won, and told a story about meeting David Copperfield in a Holiday Inn in Akron, Copperfield making him disappear for five hours so he could get away from the police.
On Thanksgiving morning, we went Downtown and watched the parade, then they both made their way to St. Francis for early Thanksgiving dinner.
I went home and ate leftovers, watched football, and thanked every God I ever read about that Ted didn’t decide to drop by the night before.
***
Really, really good.
Excellent.