“Hey,” he said, “It’s great seeing you.
“Let’s get a cup of coffee so we can catch up on things; we have some time before I have to get going and it’s been forever. I’ve missed seeing you since we went our separate ways,” And then he started in, hardly taking a breath.
“How about those Cards; here we are going for the BCS, then losing to Kentucky and Syracuse in football, go figure. I can’t wait for basketball season to start. I wonder what Coach has up his sleeve for this year. Do you have tickets? I didn’t renew mine.
“You know, there’s always a lot going on around me, but thank goodness most of it is either good or irrelevant.
“I’ll be sixty-six on Xmas Eve, and I found out recently that was a Sunday in 1939. Yeah, and I came across a little poem that says, in effect, that the child born on Sunday is special; everything goes good for him or her.
“Well, that’s my life. Almost everything I do turns out to be more than just right, I mean it turns out really good and I’m being objective. I’ve spent a lot of time working on being objective about myself and I am. It’s difficult to do when you are the subject but I’ve been able to get around that and you can take me at my word, it’s always goes good for me.
“My job is going great. I’ve been doing training for the Yves Corporation now for the past several years. My bosses’ job is a rotator; so they regularly move on to another job with more responsibility. I get along just fine with them as they come and go, even if they are French and you know how difficult a French boss can be sometimes. If Martha didn’t need so much money to live on after our divorce there would have been enough set aside for me to retire way before now but I can’t, not yet.
“Yeah, I still have the house and it’s for sale. If you know of anyone who’d be interested, tell them to call. It’s just too big for the three of us. It needs some work but the right person could put it back in apple pie order in no time at all. What made me realize that it’s too much for me are the looks I get as the neighbors drive by. They haven’t said anything yet but it won’t be long.
“Oops, that’s my cell phone. Let me turn it off.
“Oh sorry, I have to answer it.
Here he had to pause while he took the phone call.
“Sorry again, that was my wife and it took a little longer than I thought but I had to talk to her. When she calls she seems to know when I have it on but don’t answer, and when that happens, she really gets ticked. She says some terrible things. I hope you understand. I just had to talk to her. I’ll turn it off now and we won’t be disturbed anymore.
"Yes, it’s interesting how I got tied up with her. We met on one of those bus tours to Branson, she was younger and pretty and we’ve been married for a little less than five years. But now I’m sort of stuck.
"She lies and tries to cover it up, but I keep on finding out, and nothing I do to changes it. Every time I try to hold the line, I give in to her pleading. We make resolutions, make promises, make plans, and make-up, and then before long, I find another credit card.
"It all started when I found this credit card bill that she’d carelessly left out. It had a balance on it that had been rolled; you know, she got another card to pay off the first one. She promised it would never happen again but it has, lots of times. The balance finally got so big we couldn’t deal with it. Don’t ask me how or for how long.
"After her mother bailed us out. When we made up after that one, the make-up was one for the books, really great. Her mother has had to bail us out three times now and reminds us, a lot.
“My mom wore out her welcome at assisted living. They said she had to go; there were too many complaints about her. It seems that she became something of a pariah but I don’t understand it, she’s fine when she’s with me and she’s been with us now for just over four years. We do well together.
“Mom never brings up anything about her and I don’t share a lot with her about mom. Mom sleeps as late as she wants, I get her breakfast and dinner but she still fixes her own lunch. It’d be nice if she paid a little something to help with expenses but then, what the heck.
“It’s funny how things work out. She talks about her how her grandmother lived with her father and mother and now she’s living with us. It was okay for her to leave when I was twelve; left me with a father who only wanted to justify himself for treating her so badly.
“My dad and I got along okay because I never bucked him. He would rant and rave for hours and I let it roll off of me like water off a duck’s back. He’d blow his top about her in the truck as we drove to the shop; I was a captive audience for about forty-five minutes. He was 90 when he died and now she’s with me. She’s irritable and moody at times, but I don’t mind. It’s good to finally have her here.
“Yeah, Martha and I became history a little more than six years ago. She said she wanted a degree in sociology and when she got it, she left to work in Saint Louis.
“That’s where we grew up you know, but you’d never recognize the place now. We left there a long time ago and she never seemed to get over that. I tried to tell her what people say, that you can’t go back, but she did.
“I think she has taken up with a guy she went to high school with, I even think he called her a few times when we were married. I suppose she’s happy. I never hear from her.
“On Thursday, I have to go to Eddyville to pick up my son. He’s been good, good enough to get some time off for good behavior.
“I still think those guys he was hanging around with framed him. He just isn’t the kind of man who would do that sort of thing. Anyway, that’s all behind him now and he’ll be coming back to town after just seven years.
“That whole thing was devastating for the family, especially my ex-wife, but I got over it quickly because I’m holding on to the truth. He didn’t do it. He is our only boy and I think there’s still time for him to find a nice girl, get married and have a family. He’s forty-two and has lots of good years in ahead of him.
"The girls are doing fine, the only time I hear from them they are asking for money. Since I don’t have any to give them, I haven’t heard from them for a long time. I suppose they’re busy.
“Oh yeah, I ran into Marty Garrison the other day and did he unload on me. It seems that his life is going so badly that he couldn’t wait to tell me all about it.
“He just kept going on and on about how unhappy he is. He didn’t come up for air for about 15 minutes. I’m glad that things always go so well for me; it wouldn’t be much fun for things to be going that badly all the time.
"So, how are things with you?”
What could I say?
End
