Oh hey, Scruff’ We're going to come over.
Fletch here has the demented idea that Fletch the
cal mirrors his life in some way. We're going lo look for him so
Fletch can see into his future. We'll meet you on the corner in ten?

We walked to Scrufl’s house like we had done one
thousand times or more. It felt eerie, surreal even, as if
we were about to get hit by a bus or something.

Do you feel any different? Lasked. I expected you to say no,
because that was what you always said when we hadn’t
seen each other for a while.

Actually, yes, you said. All those times before, nothing ever
changed. But now, for the firSt time, no one has time for me.
They're all too busy with their own lives. No one’s got time for
ol” Lush anymore.

It felt like a profound remark. I thought I should say
something equally important but I couldn’t think of
anything. We met Scruff on the corner. Dependable old
Scruff. Scruff the city worker, the union representative,
the co-signer on the mortgage of the house that he grew
up in where his father and older brother Still lived. ScrufT
who once had blue hair and shot me between the eyes
with a BB gun.

The three of us half-heartedly looked for the cat. We
were more intereSted in the new fence around Jason
Earthy’s house, the cedar hedges that had been cut down
in the park, Mrs. Kelly’s sudden and tragic illness. We
told Scruff to meet us at nine at Smith’s.

We don’t have cell phones, you said, so_you have to be there
on time. It was finally four o'clock and time for the game.
Debbie watched it with us. She liked Bautista. We told
her BautiSta was no good. There were a lot of ads and
we enjoyed moSt of them but there was one ad for RBC
that made us sick. It seemed too similar to our own lives,

and all of a sudden everything

1 we had been working towards

We walked to Scruff's seemed like a parody, some-

house like we had done thing that could be predicted

one thousand times or and packaged up and sold
back to us.

more. It felt eerie, surreal Your grandmother

even, as if we were about arrived wearing a purple
i

to get hit by a bus or
something.

40

velour jumpsuit. She looked fantastic.
Tread your Master’s thesis, she said.
You shouldn't have, you said.

Joel and I, said your grandmother to the room,
have this thing about split infinitives.

What’s a split infinitwe? someone asked. I was
glad I didn’t have to.

When a sentence places an adverb between to and a
verb, you explained. For example, “To boldly go...”

It’s poor grammar, your grandmother said.

Nah, nah, that rule went out in the thirties!

Tloved it. I never heard people talk like this.

It made me appreciate that you were back. But
it was time to go. You and your family were
going for dinner at JJ’s Wonton Noodle House

and I was to walk downtown and meet you

and Scruff at Smith’s at nine.

Don’t be late, you said.

Twill, I said. As I walked downtown, I

felt a wave of manic energy passing over me.
It muSt have been the lavender blooming in
the late fall; it made me feel wonderful about
everything. A pizza delivery vehicle seemed
to follow me. I saw deer and tried to talk to
them. I let myself into our friend’s place on
St. Charles Street and wrote a poem for them
and left it in their microwave.

I smoked a single cigarette and it made

me nauseous. /t’s a dumb habit, I said to myself.
I considered throwing away the pack but
couldn’t bring myself to do it, so I compro-
mised and left them on top of a garbage can
outside the courthouse.

You and Scruff were already at Smith’s. You
said you were “beside yourself”; Scruff was
drinking a beer made out of apricots. Then
Isaw why. The server had on a backless shirt
and we could see all the way down to her tail-
bone. She came to take my order. I juSt pointed
at the first thing I saw luckily it was your beer,
not Scrull’s. We were all beside ourselves: our past,