A faithful husband consoles his friend who is jilted by a girl he himself fantasizes about.

DON'T MAKE ME SQUEAL

All I wanted this holiday eve was to be with my wife in front of a roaring fire, but Bill March begged me to meet him at a local dive bar called The Plow & Stars. It was on my way home from work, one of these dim places with lots of rough-hewn wood, sawdust and peanut shells strewn over the floor as decor. Bill’s fiancée just gave him the ax and his severed head rolled all the way down into this dump. I gathered the rest of him hadn’t eaten for days. His pants were falling off. He had periods where his head bobbed and there was day-old brown saliva in the corners of his mouth from drinking Guinness Stouts.

          Fragrant laurel and Christmas garlands adorned the walls. Everyone in the pub had a smile except Bill. 

          “My condolences,” I told him.

          “I’m beyond consoling,” he replied with a sucking noise. I wasn’t sure if he misunderstood me, or he was being insulting. “I’m beyond ‘consolences’—whatever that word was.”

          I knew Bill and his girlfriend through my wife Kathy. We went out a few times and they seemed like a solid couple. Now they were just another yank on the chain of long, sad experience.

Something I liked about Bill was that he quit smoking as I had, but spending time with him on one of the most important family evenings of the year was questionable. I prayed he wasn’t angling for our help to get his girl back. He must have alienated everyone else he knew, and he did beg me. Besides that, the only reasons I could think of for being here were selfish ones. Everyone had to experience their share of suffering in life, but I preferred to experience mine through others. I often visited people in hospitals, went to wakes, funerals and trials, as if doing so protected me from those things. It was a strange superstition of mine that hadn’t been disproved. I also took time to learn from the mistakes of others. And I was sure Bill had some to share. His suffering made me appreicate my own satisfaction when I thought of Kathy and our long marriage. I was proud of us.

“It was such a habit, thinking of loving her,” Bill seemed to say to himself. “Then, I realize, it’s gone. Gone. I’ve been sick in my stomach. I see double. Her? She knows it’s the only thing too.”