Living Up: Friends

“You’re moving where?”

Sean Olson lit up another clove cigarette upon hearing the news.  He rolled down the window of his sleek, black pick-up and exhaled.  He never smoked cloves until he had met me three years before this most awkward and devastating of conversations.

“Come on, man,” I almost pleaded.  I cracked my window as well to catch a draft of fresh air.  I enjoyed the smell of the burning, but too much smoke made me gag.  “My sister and her husband live in South Carolina.  They have a kid now, too.”

“So what?” he replied without looking at me.  Behind a pair of dark-tinted shades he stared at the oncoming road, the brown cigarette held gently between his lips.  “Let them move up here.”  The cigarette bounced with each word, but stayed cleverly balanced throughout the conversation.  I always envied his talent; it just looked so damn cool.

“I know.  But…”  I didn’t really have an answer.  The swirling grey smoke was beginning to make me sick.  I let the window down all the way to let a rush of April, New England air into the cab.

Sean continued to navigate the truck through winding suburban streets, thickly settled but thickly wooded.  Each home sat close to the street, bordered by juniper shrubs and uneven sidewalks.  Behind them, sprawling yards remained brown-yellow from a long winter, while towering black pines appeared brilliantly green next to the bear slender arms of oaks, maples, and walnuts.

He tossed the last half of his cigarette out the window and said with no uncertainty, “You’re not going to move.”

“I think it will be good for Sally and I,” I said.  What an idiot.

“What are you going to do for work?” he challenged.  Still his eyes remained fixed on the road.

“My sister got me a job at a school down there.  From what I hear it’s a great program.  A real career-type deal.”  God, was I an idiot.

“What about all your friends?”

“We’ll miss them, of course.  But I’m sure we’ll meet some cool people down there to hang out with.”  Did I mention I was an…

“Idiot,” he muttered, shaking his head.  By now the sun had begun to sink behind the tree line and Sean took off his glasses, flinging them haphazardly upon the dash.  He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger before pasting them to the pavement once more.

“I’m sorry,” I said in a way that expressed inevitability as opposed to true contrition.

He reached into the center console for another clove.  He smoked too much, now.  A year prior, the two of us had sat on my porch, cursing out the Boston Bruins’ latest failure and drinking too heavily for a Thursday night.  We talked about everything on our minds – marriage, God, movies – for three straight hours.  We had been hanging out steadily for about a month or two, but that night we actually became friends.  I offered him a clove cigarette.  He said he didn’t smoke.  I said I didn’t either, unless I was drinking.  He accepted, lit, inhaled, coughed twice, and threw it over the railing.  Since that night he’s purchased three packs a week from the corner store near my old apartment.  He thinks his wife doesn’t know.  I can’t look her in the eye to this day.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he declared with another exhale of the sweet, grey carcinogen.  “As far as I’m concerned, you’re not moving.”

“We’re leaving in…”

“I said I don’t want to know!” he yelled.  “Don’t tell me anything.  I don’t wanna know when, where, or why.  And I’m not helping you pack.”  He added the last sentence with a slight grin to soften the overall mood.  At last he looked at me with reddened eyes.  “You’re here until you’re gone.”