Some Bar Off The Fulton Stop 2

The hand of an unknown individual. Taken around sunset on 12/31/16.

I’m worried about my friend because it seems like he’s going through a lot. And the last time I saw him he seemed to be kind of depressed. It was at a bar - where else do you socialize? - and he didn’t really say anything all night. He sat at the table and nodded along to my other friends’ stories but it seemed like he had nothing really to contribute, which is not like him. He used to be impossible to shut up!

Last New Years Eve he posted on Twitter: “2019 is going to be the year of change and self improvement #Blessed!"

He stopped smoking cigarettes in May but went out into the cold because his friend Max wanted to smoke, and I followed them. Normally I would have tried to get him on his own to ask such a sensitive question, but Max is kind of a piece of shit anyway, so I just blurted it out: “You okay, man?”

“Yeah! I’m great. What do you mean?”

Choose your words carefully. “You seem kind of quiet. Not your normal self. Just wondering if everything is okay.”

“Everything’s great! Couldn’t be better honestly.”

“She giving you a hard time, kid?” said Max, shitty, true to form. “You don’t smoke. What’re you even doing out here?”

“He doesn’t smoke either,” I said.

“Yeah, but I asked him to come out here,” said Max. “Didn’t ask you.”

“You seem weird,” I said, ignoring Max. I had been drinking so I was about to be honest: “You’ve seemed weird for a while. Seriously, what’s wrong?"

“Nothing!” he said. “Meet you inside, Max.”

“Well done,” said Max, clapping slowly.

“I had to say something,” I said. Along with being a shitty person, Max was also an idiot so I didn’t expect him to understand. “He is being weird, though, right?”

“Oh for sure,” said Max. "But you can’t tell him that.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, I can’t tell him that either. He’s on a journey. Maybe he’ll get where he’s going. Maybe he’ll come back. Maybe he’ll come some other place. The point is I don’t think that any of us can really do anything about it. Other than sit back and watch and see what happens.”

“‘Asshole," I said.

“You know I’m right, though,” said Max as the door swung shut on the cold air and his cigarette smoke.

I decided to play it cool the rest of the night. I drank heavily and sang and danced whenever a song that I liked came over the bar’s PA. I like a lot of songs so I was soon hoarse. And he didn’t do anything. He just sat there, sipping on what I hoped was a gin and tonic or a vodka soda (something other than a seltzer with lime), and stared blankly at all of us, as if he had been sent here to study us and was coming to some staggering conclusions.

At 11:45 he got up and said he was leaving. He didn’t come and tell me. He didn’t come and tell anyone. He ran into Max as Max was coming back from the bathroom. I saw him mouth ‘Hey man, it was real, have a good night.’ They hugged. He put on his coat, and headed to the door. The bars windows had frosted up. Someone had written ‘poop’ on one of them. I got up and, more nimbly than I ought to have given the innumerable whiskey sodas I had downed, followed him outside.

“Hey,” I said. “Aren’t you gonna say goodbye.”

“Where’s your coat?” he said.

“I’m not the one going home,” I said.

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“Why, though?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you going home?”

“Do you need an answer, Sam? I’m tired.”

I shivered. “Why, though?”

“Look, Sam, I’m sorry that you don’t feel like we’re as close as we used to be.” Had I actually said that? Jesus Christ! “Really, I am. It’s been eating me up all night. Like, it’s all that I can fucking think about.”

“Did I say that?” I said.

“You did. And maybe you’re not wrong. But like I guess that’s life or whatever. I’m not going to stay the same just because you want me to.”

“Why not?” I pulled on the lapels of his coat. An invitation to comfort me.

“Stop. You’re drunk and you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“You’re drunk!”

“I’m not. Actually fairly sober. Goodnight, Samantha.”

I watched him walk away knowing that I would not feel the full brunt of this rejection until tomorrow morning, or tomorrow afternoon, or whenever the hang over wore off. I would dance and drink and dance and drink and then the bar would miraculously close and I would go home and fall into bed and the sheets would be cold.

I dunno. I’ve always hated New Years Eve. Why should this one be any different?