“Are you awake?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry I called you a hippo.”
“That’s okay. I’m sorry that you’re emotionally paralyzed by insensitivity.”
“Thanks.”
“Okay. Sleep time.”
“Okay.”
**
“What do you want to do?”
“I thought ice skating might be fun. Do you want to go ice skate down on the Midway?”
“Not really. It’s seven degrees out and my long johns are in the laundry.”
“Oh. Right. I guess I hadn’t really considered that. Well we could watch a movie and drink some wine or something.”
“That sounds nice. Do you want me to order something to eat?”
**
“Have you heard anything?”
“No. I don’t think there’s anything to say anything about yet. They’re still not exactly sure about the situation”
“Okay, well, when are they going to know something?”
“I don’t know. I called Laura last night, but they said that he’s still unconscious, and that they’re not going to be able to tell anything until the CAT scan shows up a little better. They said that they did it wrong the last time they took pictures.”
“They what? They did it wrong?”
“They did it wrong and the pictures came out fuzzy. Or something.”
“I guess I never knew that pictures of the brain could come out fuzzy. Like poloroids or something. Like something straight out of the Seventies.”
“Maybe they didn’t have the flash on.”
“I wonder if we could get his CAT scans and tag them on Facebook.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“No. Probably not.”
**
“This one time, Sam hit a screaming drive about 350 yards. Just killed it, you know? Right over this water hazard that we used to call THE OCEAN in these ominous tones, you know? Well so he’s walking with his chest puffed out and gets up to his ball with a wedge to knock the sucker onto the green, and I’m standing there with Nicole and we’re snickering about his ego and him blowing it. And then, thwack he shanks it into the reeds and this enormous GRAAABLACKkAAAAAACK comes out. Ha! Ha! Can you believe that? He nailed a goose with a screaming wedge that he just totally mishit. So Sam turns to me and Nicole and we’re already rolling around in the fairway pissing ourselves we’re laughing so hard and he just says, Oh my God, do you think it’s dead? Totally and utterly shocked. The goose still just screaming in the background. You know? I mean. Wow. And it was after this absolute monster drive. We had never seen anything like that before.”
**
“Pizza then?”
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I dunno. What do you think about Chinese?”
“Chinese is good. Lo mein or something?”
“Actually, pizza. Pizza is perfect. Let’s get some veggie pizza.”
“Veggie pizza?”
“Yeah. What?
“No, no. That’s fine, it’s just. We can get like, meat on it though right? Because, you know, I’d like to not be hungry when I go to bed.”
“Do we have to get meat on everything? Honestly, I think you would eat meat on ice cream.”
“Oh there’s no doubt about that.”
**
“And I said, no. I’m sorry. I wish I was, but. Well. I’m not.”
“Jeez. How did he take it?”
**
“It’s beautiful here in the morning.”
“I know. I can hardly sleep past nine o’clock when I’m out here. I love coming out and just staring at the mountains.”
“Do you want some more coffee?”
“No. That’s okay.”
“Look. I don’t know what you’re thinking about what’s going on here, but. You know. I get that you’re worried this is moving too fast.”
“That’s what you get?”
**
“I just feel like I wasted six good months. Six months that I can’t get back and that I waited for you to catch up. And now, it’s like I should have known the whole time that you were somewhere else.”
**
“Did the goose survive?”
“Survive? Hell no. Sam knocked it dead pretty fucking sure as day. I’m getting another beer, you want one?”
**
“So do you work here in town?”
“Sorry?”
“I said, DO YOU WORK HERE IN TOWN?”
“Oh. Yes, at the Art Institute. I’m a curatorial intern.”
“Sounds fancy.”
“Huh?”
“FANCY! SOUNDS IMPORTANT!”
“It’s not.”
“Wow. I’m sorry to hear that you’re having a miserable time.”
“I’m sorry, I’m really having trouble hearing you.”
**
“I think it would be a fantastic idea for us to start making out now. Then pause, and see what we both think. And then if things are weird, then we stop.”
“And if things are not weird?”
“Well clearly, we have sex.”
“Ah.”
“Does that sound like a fair arrangement to you?”
“Well. Let’s put it this way.”
“Shoot.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Fair. That’s totally fair. I understand your objects almost without hearing them. So let me just put it a different way too.”
“Okay.”
“You are. So beautiful.”
“Goodnight Andrew.”
“No dice eh?”
“There’s towels in the closet if you want to brush your teeth before you go to sleep.”
“It was a nice try. Give me that.”
“It was a very nice try. See you in the morning.”
**
“But then, I woke up, with my head against the train window and we were in the middle of North Dakota and the sun was just coming up, you know? Over the alfalfa fields and the harvested corn with these like wilted stalks just falling. And you could hear the whistle of the train from the front because there was absolutely no noise. Mostly everyone in the car was still asleep.”
“Did you take a picture?”
“A picture?”
“Yeah. Like, you know. A pho-to-graph?”
“No. Didn’t even think it would come out. Are you getting what I’m saying though?”
“You know to be honest I think I’m missing something.”
“The scene itself. It hit me. Time stopped for me and I felt like I somehow saw the entire country out there over the plain. Like the whole thing, sitting there in front of my eyes, existed just for me to see it.”
