Friday, March 24th 2023. 

I wake up, these last few days I haven’t really been up to much. Just generally looking around the area with Nicole and getting in that California sunshine and fresh air and enjoying the nature around us, although it’s been a bit colder up here compared to LA. Me and Nicole layering up a bit more when going out. I honestly forget I’m up here to really think about what I really wanna do with my career and the like. Something I don’t remember until I wake up this morning, one of the first thoughts that pop up in my head. I think about where my dad was at my age, thirty six going on thirty seven. Successful 80’s Baltimore Lawyer and me, successful but not as fulfilled as he was, at least I imagined. I was always one of the high scoring kids in school, honors classes in high school and pretty much A’s and B’s in classes and whatever, without even trying. I didn’t really act like a hotshot or a “egghead” or whatever you wanna say, but I feel like my parents wanted me to take more pride in my school work and grades than acting pretty much nonchalantly about it and treating it as if it was no big deal. I guess this attitude of not really caring about decisions like school and just doing it to do it lead into my college years and the fact I became a lawyer because dad was and it makes good money and it’s a great career and I’m a smart kid and blah blah blah, stuff my parents told me throughout my school years at least since middle school. I guess I’ve finally realized that I’ve been kinda coasting on that and not really making too many major decisions for myself that involves my career, and I guess that’s something I didn’t really realize until Thanksgiving of last year.

That Thanksgiving being about fourteen years since I got drunk at Thanksgiving, something that my mom brought up to me once Alexis was out of the room, I remember feeling super embarrassed about that, and Nicole thought it was funny more than anything, something I actually have never told her about. Me hitting the Jack Daniels pretty hard that day and just straight up drinking out the bottle and my dad and my brother telling me to slow down on it for today since it’s Thanksgiving. Day Drinking and all. I’ll admit, I drank a little bit more that year to curb my feelings about the breakup I had earlier that year with Molly. Who I guess you could call my High School sweetheart and we’d been together all through high school and pretty much all of college. My first and pretty much only girlfriend and we were together about eight years. And the reason we broke up was mostly due to me, becoming really career focused in the last few months before graduation and not really staying in touch with Molly and having her always initiate conversations, whether that be calling me or conversing with me through Facebook, something we had just got during that time. And she called me out on it one day on the phone about a week before graduation and it got ugly and I wished I didn’t get so defensive about it, and we ended things over it. Something I really started to regret doing about three months into it, that following August not too long after coming back to Charlotte after graduation.  And this led to me around dinner time at 2pm getting super drunk and dialing her number and wishing her a happy Thanksgiving, my mom being furious, my dad and uncles and my brother finding it kinda funny but pretty sad as told by my younger brother later on. I realized I had a problem and slowly started sobering up, it was a little easier  for me since I wasn’t that heavily alcohol dependent plus I’ve only been doing it for a few months. 

I realize I’m super deep in thought and I’m still in bed, I slouch up, putting my warm back against the kinda cold backboard of my bed. My spine hurts a little laying on the wooden backboard.

I notice Nicole is still sleeping, but it’s light out outside. I grab my phone and take it off of the charger, it buzzes and shows that it’s 100% fully charged. The time is 8:47am, about thirteen minutes to 9. I put my phone down, and do a pretty big loud-ish yawn. I wonder what Nicole wants to do today, I guess just go on another nature walk but I’m kinda starting to regret making Big Bear our little getaway. I’m more of a fan of the beaches like I used to go to with friends in Orange County and little bit in L.A. proper than forest areas and just a huge lake. No snow anyways, it seems like that’s something that might have made this trip a bit more interesting with the ski-slopes and stuff you see around the area, but it’s out of season plus the surprise snow that Southern California had gotten not too long ago had all dried up. All to clear my mind anyways.

I get out of bed, and to the bathroom and do my business and take a shower and brush my teeth. As I shower I hear Nicole get up as well, judging by the sound of the TV turning on and her ripping ass, seemingly her stomach is still bothered by that Chinese food we had yesterday that upset her stomach a little bit. I crack up a little at this, she usually tries to hide that from me. I remember one time, when she was pregnant with Alexis she was craving Krystal burgers a lot, seemingly the south’s answer to White Castle. I think there was a few in Charlotte at one point, but they all closed down.  And I’d remember she’d eat like, 20 cheese sliders out of a 24 pack in one sitting and belch up a storm and was all gassy. Which I found kinda amusing since she was the type of girl to not really do that type of stuff around me, which I didn’t care much either way since we were well beyond past that part of “being uncomfortable to do bodily functions around my significant other” part anyways, being married a few years and all.  I’ll get them every now and then and if Nicole is up for it I’ll get a 24 pack for the family. I’m not a huge slider guy, I didn’t really enjoy White Castle that much either when I was on the east coast whenever she’d take me there or eat out there with her friends. My daughter doesn’t seem to like it very much either, she’s more of a Bojangles girl when it comes down to fast food. Which is something I joke about that she gets from me. 

I walk out of the bathroom after showering and freshening up, with a pair of boxers on, feeling water droplets on my back and chest and it getting intertwined with my chest hair. 

“I can hear that General Tso is seemingly winning the battle in there” I joke, pointing towards her slouched toned stomach as she lays on the head rest a little, you can kinda see the definition of her slight abs a little in the skinny sheet. 

“Tell me about it” she says, hiccuping and then turning on her side. 

I begin to get dressed, putting on a pair of blue jeans and a “The 1975” t-shirt. My wife jokes that band tees and concert tees is how I’ve been dressing in my free-time the entire time she’s known me. Which she wouldn’t be wrong, and a few long time friends like Jon and Richie and my younger brother Nate have picked up on this as well too. I mean, it’s my style. 

“So, do you wanna do anything this morning or you wanna lay in bed all day. It’s (I pull my my phone out of my pocket to see the time) 9:24 right now. I feel like maybe going and getting some pancakes, there’s a Denny’s not too far from us” I say.

“I’m not feeling too (she stifles a burp, seemingly able to control it this time) good, I don't know what was in that General Tso but whatever it was set my stomach off. You don’t have to get me anything if you go out to get something to eat. I’ll call you if I want something’” she says as she starts to lay flat in the bed, pulling the sheets over her head a little bit.

“Alright then, you want me to bring you back some 7-up or some Alka-Seltzer tablets or something. Or you don’t think it’s not that serious  I say, as I begin to walk over to my nightstand and grab my car keys off of it.

Nicole’s stomach gurgles pretty loudly under the sheets, sounding like a rushing gurgling sound a little, sounding as if the contents of her stomach had started to empty into her intestines. Hearing that sound makes me feel like I’m flashbacked to when I was eighteen and stuck inside the belly of a 30 year old German women. I’ve never told anybody besides Alex and the people that knew I was shrunk and everything back then about my experience, not even my wife or kid or any family. 

“So uh, I’m guessing that’s a yes?” I say.

“No, I’m fine Matt. That didn’t hurt or anything. Again, I’ll call you if I need something” she says.

“Alright, suit yourself. Love you” I say, as I make my way towards the door.

I go out the door and into the hallway, I hum “Brimful of Asha”  by Cornershop. A song I remember being introduced to by Alex over Myspace way back when. Another British song that I didn't really know about until Alex introduced me to him. 

“Everybody Needs a Bosom for a Pillow, everybody needs a Bosom” I say one of the lyrics to myself as I walk down the hallway, a little too loud I quickly realize and I quickly go quiet. 

I get to where the elevator is and I press the button and the door opens, and I quickly walk in.

I notice the song “Quiet Little Voices” by We Were Promised Jetpacks is playing faintly inside, I almost whip out my phone to Shazam it but I realize it last minute what it is. One of the many late 2000s Indie bands that I’ve forgotten about over time, like Black Kids and Hot Hot Heat. I feel a little bit nostalgic for that time, despite the breakup and how I handled that. Being fresh out of college and the thrill of never having to go to school ever again for real this time, plus discovering bands like I’ve just mentioned and going to concerts and being single for the first time in awhile and getting back in touch and hanging out with friends from my school years in Baltimore that I only talked to on Myspace rarely. And of course, first meeting my wife.

I get to the bottom floor and walk through the lobby and out into the parking lot, getting out to my car. The hotel mostly consists of tourists from Southern California judging by the license plate holders from car dealerships in Temecula or San Diego or Glendale, not really too many out of staters I’ve noticed, besides those from nearby states like Nevada or Arizona. 

I press the unlock button on my key fob, and I open my car door and get in. I press the start button and the car starts up, and I quickly go from the radio to my Bluetooth settings, some local pop station playing “Closer” by The Chainsmokers, not bad for a modern pop song I’d say and was all over the airwaves in 2016, that much I do remember when I did hear a little bit of it. I haven’t really relied on the radio as my main source of music when out and about, since probably 2005. When I went to some car audio installer place out in Northridge up in the San Fernando Valley that one of my classmates told me about, saying I could get a CD player installed for cheap. I didn’t wanna mess around with the hassle of cassette tapes and rewinding and all that shit  and finding cassette tapes for newer bands that didn’t really seemingly have any. So I mainly listened to the radio then.

I connect my Spotify to it, and it automatically turns on my playlist. It’s simply called “Melloncollie and The Evergrowing Playlist”, a name I made for it during the pandemic, after it being called simply just “music” for about six years by that point. I’ve got about well over a thousand songs on it, mostly from rock bands of mostly the indie/alternative genre that I’ve always loved or discovered throughout the years. With some more rap or R&B songs by Tupac or Biggie or A Tribe Called Quest or TLC or Destiny's Child from the nineties that my wife put me on and plus a few songs I’ve heard over the years and have grown to like like OutKasts’s music and Terror Squad, Nas and a few Eminem songs and N.E.R.D. I used to kinda like Kanye’s work in the mid and late 2000s but he’s gone off the deep end wayy too much as a person for me to enjoy it anymore, especially in recent times. There’s a few rappers like Kendrick Lamar or Tyler The Creator or Donald Glover that have gotten big in this past decade as well that have songs I do like and have been introduced to by Richie, giving me recommendations through Instagram. Kid Cudi is probably my favorite rap artist and has the most songs from various albums that I do like scattered around on my playlist. Hearing Day N Nite way back in 2009 when he first got big and being hooked on it. Probably the only Rap album that I’ve ever bought, Man on The Moon: End of Day. Around the same time that Molly went missing, and not too long after the album’s release. There’s a few nu-metal songs I’ve grown to like by bands like Linkin Park or Alien Ant Farm, being introduced to them via my younger brother. Alien Ant Farm especially, I feel like they’re not as screamy and I can get down to them. There’s pop songs that have grown on me, like Taylor Swift’s earlier stuff that was coming out in 2009-2014 or the Spice Girls, although most of the pop stuff are mostly guilty pleasures, my wife teases me about this occasionally when she hears it. I don’t really care much for the Soundcloud and Trap House, Emo rap stuff all the kids seem to be into these days these past few years. 

The song starts up, it being “Walking on a Dream” by Empire of the Sun. I smile to myself, another indie song from the late 2000s. I pull out my phone and look up directions to Denny’s, and I quickly realize it’s only a 10 minute drive roughly down the street, all the restaurants and stuff being pretty centralized in this kinda tourist town. I back out of my space and get out of the parking lot and turn onto the road, it seemingly empty enough for me to cut across a few lanes of traffic to get to the opposite lane without trying to wait for traffic to pass. 

The song ends and then switches to No Tomorrow by Olson, a song by a rock band I heard at a college party back in 2006 at UCLA, the band being more of a hit in the UK despite being American.This I’ve been told by Alex when I showed him this song back in 2006, the same party I brought Jon to when he visited me during college, him really digging Los Angeles and everything and actually thinking that he wanted to move to the area. He visited me that September, wanting that January but couldn’t make it due to something going on in his family, I think someone was moving in his family.

I drive down the street and head into town, shops and restaurants and more people in this little mountain town. Ads are now playing, I’ve been pretty much been using free Spotify for years, I don’t really care about getting premium or whatever,  even though it feels like Spotify wants me to, judging by all the ads I get for it during the ad breaks. I see the Denny’s and I turn into it’s parking lot. It seems kinda busy, it’s only 9:45 in the morning and I guess everyone’s hungry to get something to eat with the family before starting their day off or their last meal before they head back to wherever they came from, usually somewhere in Southern California.

I reverse park into a spot and stop and turn the car off. The song “Take Me Home” by Phil Collins starting up. A song they played at his funeral that he requested while on his deathbed. Dad was a huge Phill Collins and Genesis fan, I remember hearing a lot of his songs growing up due to dad playing them around the house or in the car. A feeling of sadness comes over me once I realize this but I focus my mind on the fact I’m back in California after all these years away.  I do reverse park more now in recent years due to backup cameras being much more prominent even in newer cars these days. Before I got a car with a backup camera in it I usually only did it if I had a clear shot of doing it, enough space to do so cleanly and not too many cars around. 

I get out and walk towards the restaurant, the cool breeze outside making me feel chilly on my arms as I walk.  Plus the earthy smell of the trees and grass and outside in general just filling my senses, the sounds of cars rushing by is also something that really stands out in my mind. 

I open the door, a Hispanic family walks out and I hold the door open for them as they are walking out, the adults thank me, the kids seem pretty focused on their phone to say anything. I ignore this. I walk in and see there’s a bit of a line, and I figure I’ll just stay. I sit on the waiting seats. There’s a middle aged man and wife ahead of me, the man is wearing a leather jacket and some cargo pants and those generic “dad shoes” you see men of his age wearing all the time. Some Nike Air Maxes. His wife is in a puffy green  Nike jacket and leggings, it seems.

“Nice shirt. My son loves that band” he says, smiling at me.

“Thanks, I’ve been following them for a few years now” I say, giving a weak smile back.

“Yeah, I’ve been trying to keep up with music these few years. I kinda lost interest some time back in the 90s after Cobain offed himself, nearly thirty years ago, crazily” the man says.

“Yeah, I remember being in school when that happened, I mean I was like eight, so 3rd grade or so. But yeah” I say.

“Ha, you barely remember it then. I was roughly twenty two when that all went down” He says, chuckling a little after that. It annoys me a little when he says this, but I let it slide. 

“I guess so” I say, a little sharply.

“So, are you from the area?  Or are you vacationing just like me and my wife are” the man says, his wife looks up from her phone a little when he says “wife” and then she goes back to looking at it.

“No, I’m from Atlanta. I’m visiting from out here with my wife. She wasn’t feeling too good so she stayed at the hotel, not really in the mood for eating she said. I lived in LA during my college years and I had a bit of longing for southern California, even though it’s changed a bit since I left in 2008” I say.

“Y’know I went to Atlanta once back in '95, stopping there for the night once when I moved back up to Grand Rapid. Big city, bad traffic even back then. You don’t really sound southern, but granted this younger generation doesn’t really have accents like in the past” he says.

“Well, I’m originally from Baltimore, I spent my high school years in Charlotte. So I’m southern-ish, I’d say. Besides, how young do you think I am? I’m 36 going on 37, dude” I say, and he laughs a little at this.

“Well when you’re my age, fifty one you’ll see how young thirty seven seems. The 1975 shirt and the lack of facial hair made me think you were like, only thirty or something. You’ll age well , at least. Unless this piece of shit you’re staring at right, it’s like everyday I’m finding a grey hair whenever I comb” he says, scratching his beard a bit.

“Language, Tony” his wife says, still not looking up from her phone.

Before Tony can say anything, a server comes up to them and asks them how many people is in their party.

“Uhhh, (he looks back at me). You wanna join us, I’ll pay for your food. Me and my wife don’t mind having a little company” Tony says.

“Yeah, sure” I say without missing a beat, because hey, free food is free food. 

“Party of three” He says, and the waitress leads us through the restaurant.

We get a booth side, and the restaurant is pretty lively with people and couples and families and friends and tour groups and conversations and stories being told and laughter going on as we walk through all the commotion. 

The waitress sits us down at a booth near a window, Tony saying something about wanting to see his car as he eats. She starts us off with drinks, Tony and his wife getting Coffee and I get water. 

“So, what’s your name?” Tony says, reaching out his hand.

“Matt, Matt Poindexter” I say, reaching out mine and we shake. I feel a little weird shaking his hand, not like I’ve been infected with a sickness but more like, there’s something running through the both of us, we both react a little.

“Damn, I think we shocked each other” me and him and his wife laugh a little about this.

“Yeah something like that. I know your name is Tony…” I say before he finishes it.

“Smith, Smith’s my last name” He says.

“Yeah, yeah and how about you miss” I say, and I take a sip of my Ice water.

“Erica, I’m Erica” she says, with a warm and welcoming smile.

“Nice meeting both of you guys” I say.

About thirty seconds of silence comes between us and I decide to fill the air with conversation again.

“Denny’s, I haven’t been in here in awhile” I say. 

“Y’know, I run a Denny’s franchise out in Michigan, Been doing it for a little over twenty years now” he says.

“A bit of a Busman’s Holiday eating here huh?” I say, smiling.

“That’s more of a British term, but yeah. I guess so, besides California is the home of Denny’s anyways. My wife and I always wanted to come more out west, really only going to Orlando with the kids for Disney World as they were growing up and trips to Dallas to meet my adopted family, and most of our kids are out the house we figured why not, originally we wanted to go in 2020 but the pandemic ruined all that. We didn’t really go much anywhere else really besides Chicago or Detroit either which neither wasn’t really that far away and was more of a weekend trip to go do something sort of deal. My youngest one is 17 and he’s visiting his girlfriend’s extended family in Columbus on her mom’s side for spring break. Erica went to California back in the eighties to San Francisco with her family as a teen, but that was so long ago ” he says, and our waitress comes back and asks us if we’re ready to order. 

We order our food, I get a Grand Slam and Tony gets a cheeseburger with a side of fries and a small stack of pancakes, his wife gets a ham and cheese omelet. And then we continue our conversation.

"So, what do you do?” Tony says to me, as our waitress goes off with our orders.

“Lawyer. I’m a Lawyer. Although, I’m thinking of a career change though, I will say. Long story short, dad was a lawyer, kinda got groomed to be a lawyer, became a lawyer, dad died in 2021, 15 years in now and I’m starting to wonder if this is something I really wanna do with my life, and what career should I take up instead. Which is why I’m out here to really reflect on my life and what choices I should make and stuff. I think nature is a good way to kinda get in touch with thoughts like that, and I wanted to come back to California and I remember a few people talking about Big Bear when I lived out in L.A. and that came back to me when I when I started putting things into motion to come out here, and here I am right now” I say.

“I see what you mean. I went through a similar thing around the time I turned thirty and Erica was pregnant with my oldest daughter, Francine.  Although this wasn’t as deep and present throughout my life as yours is. Mostly about me feeling like I should be doing more at that age than I currently was, even though I was running a restaurant and making decent money doing so, plus with my wife being a decently paid nurse and everything we were making good money, even back in like 2001-2002 when prices were a bit cheaper than they are today. I hope you find your answer, I remember bringing this up to Roger. This retired Navy Line cook I used to hang out with during those years, was like in his sixties then. And I remember he told me that 30 is still pretty young and that I’ve got a long ways to go, and he told me to reflect on my life, doing better for someone who was orphaned at  a young age and now has a place to stay, a good job and a crew that appreciates and respects me, and a wife that loves me. And I guess his advice stuck with me a little. I’m not too sure what to tell you, but I hope you find your answer after this trip” Tony says, his wife smiling and nodding as well too.

“You see that Camaro out there?” He says, pointing towards the window, into the parking lot.

I look out the booth window, and I see a dark blue newer Camaro parked near the back and I see a younger black couple in their twenties getting into it, laughing it up and smiling and talking about this Kayaking mishap that happened yesterday, although it’s a bit muffled through the window glass.

“Yeah, what about it?” I say, wondering where this conversation might lead. 

“I’ve got that exact same model back in Michigan. 2022 LT1, ruby red convertible that I bought right off of the showroom floor. Thought I’d finance one for turning the big 5-0, last year. Before that I had a jet black 2008 Ford Mustang V6 coupe that I bought new and had for about 14 years. I gave that one to my youngest son, who got his license not long after I got the Camaro.  My wife really knows this but back around the time I was going through that “crisis” we’ll say that I told you a little earlier about, I started thinking about getting a new car. I had a ‘86 Firebird before I had this Toyota, and I haven't had the Toyota for long either. And I started thinking about the nineties and how I felt more, “free” we’ll say. And I felt like getting another Firebird would maybe help my feelings out since they were still making them then and Ponitac was still around, this was in 2002 . Erica heavily convinced me not to, since we wanted to save up for the house and Francine was a baby and it wouldn’t be a good financial decision at this point, and she was right and I didn’t go through with anything. I remember driving past a Ford Dealership in town on my way to Roger’s house to hang out and I remember seeing this line of brand new Mustangs on the lot, this bright yellow brand new 2003 Ford Mustang on that captured my heart for a bit. Didn’t get it though, and I already told you about the 2008 since even with the kids our finances had gotten a bit better and my pay was steadily increasing and her pay as a nurse was a bit better and it’s been slowly increasing over the years. But yeah, since then I’ve been a bit into muscle cars since they represent a more fun time in my life looking back” he says.

“Yeah I had a friend in High School in Charlotte, Richie. Guy was a Military Brat. I remember he had a bright red 1999 Mustang, he worked up for one and bought it when he was 17 and had money saved up from cutting lawns in the neighborhood and stuff saving up for one even back in middle school ,with his parents helping out a little as well since these cars were still kinda new then. He would give me and my friend Jon rides in it occasionally if we were hanging out, Jon was in the back seat since he was shorter, he would always complain that he was cramped, since these cars aren’t really for people moving. He still has the same exact Mustang too, it’s got about 130k miles on it now, which is pretty good for a little over twenty years of ownership. He brought it with him to Germany when got deployed and back and everything. I think he has a 2014 GT he bought brand new with the money he got while being in the Army once he came back to Charlotte after getting Honorably Discharged after” I say, and I notice that there’s our waitress lady coming out with our food.

She gives our food and we start to eat, it’s pretty good and we enjoy our meal. I notice that Tony and Erica pray over their food first before eating it, and I join in too just to be polite. I’m not really religious but my wife is to some extent and we’ll go to church with our daughter occasionally on Sunday and the like. 

We finish our food in about 30 minutes, all of us seemingly pretty hungry. No-one has any leftovers I noticed.

“Y’know, I guess I’m as still into music like you’re into cars. I always into alt-rock bands growing up, The Smashing Pumpkins being my gateway band and seeing the “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”music video on MTV and that opening up a whole new world of music to me, besides the Phill Collins stuff that my dad would listen to and the pop stuff I’d hear. I had a friend a few years older than me, Alex. Who’s still my friend and we first met online in the early 2000s when I was in my teen years, in a AIM chatroom for The Strokes and then we started talking on Myspace when that started to pop off a bit more. And he was from England and I went to visit him the summer after I graduated in 2004 and I was eighteen and everything. Some stuff happened there and I became a lot closer to him and all the people I knew there, like his sister Emily and her friends, especially Sarah. The friends I had, during that time and whom I’m still in contact with, Jon and Richie. Jon being into the whole mall punk scene and Richie being a huge hiphop head and everything, and I guess music brought us together in that since as well” I say.

“Where are all these people these days, if you don’t mind me asking, since this was a little bit ago it seems” Erica says, seemingly finally joining in the conversation, she’s been mostly quiet between my interactions with Tony.

“Well, I’ll start off with Richie, who I'd argue is doing pretty good. He lives in Charlotte, and has no desire to leave. He’s a car salesman at a local Toyota dealership and makes well over six figures, he’s always had that charisma and was pretty good with people. He doesn’t have much of a life though, we’ll talk every now and then via Instagram, his wife and my wife are pretty good friends since they met back in 2009 when I brought her down to meet my parents and my high school friends. They talk more than me and Richie do I feel. He doesn’t have any kids or anything. Jon was always kinda a floater in life after high school, being into the biggest trends and shit like that, he got a job at UPS a later on or something that he made good money at and that kept him satisfied for a bit. He got into a bad wreck around Christmas time in 2011. Drunk driver T-boned him at an intersection going 30 over the limit. He recovered fully eventually  although he broke a lot of bones from all the debris flying around plus his car flipped a few times and landed in a nearby Burger King parking lot. Became a born again Christian during his recovery, met a girl at some church he started going to about five years later, got married, and how he’s a doting dad with a couple of toddlers and a youth pastor at a local church in the city. Alex, he married a Japanese lady he met online and moved to Japan in 2005. It was good for a few years, but things didn’t work out and he was back in the UK by 2010. He lives a pretty quiet life now, he lives in London now and has some sort of corporate office job, he doesn’t have kids or a wife or anything. He says he enjoys the bachelor life. He’s still into music and we’ll talk occasionally. I haven’t visited him since he moved back in 2010, my wife then at the time girlfriend didn’t go since he was afraid to fly, especially overseas. So she sat that one out, but I had a proper visit abroad that time.  His sister Emily is a stay at home mom now, and has been for awhile. Her then boyfriend now husband Jamie seemingly smartened up at finding out that she was pregnant and getting a job in the trades, a plumber I think. They make decent money and they still live in Manchester, their daughter’s in college now I think. I think she’s eighteen now and they finish school a little earlier over there. Now, Sarah, the friend and her husband Jonas. I do know they still live in Germany, and I do know Jonas is a engineer and they make good money and they have a 7 year old son. I haven’t really talked to them in thirteen years when I was in England and they came to visit. Most of this I’m taking off of Alex’s word from the last time I talked ” I say, and I notice the waitress comes by to seemingly take our plates away.

“Yeah, I get that. The girl I used to live with, which is my sister I guess, adopted family stuff. Kate, I keep in contact with her every now and then. And her kids grew up with my kids and etc and we’d visit each other every other summer if either of us weren’t doing anything. She’s a realtor in Dallas now, been one for about twenty years now. She got a divorce with her Husband in 2020 since their kids were well into their teen years and could handle it. I feel like her ex boyfriend before she was married that I was acquaintances with I guess we could say, I knew him for a bit. Brian, he’s actually the reason why I have a Camaro now since I remembered he had a IROC-Z back in the day and I started to fall in love with the new models that were coming out these days as well too. He lives in India now, and we got back in contact via Facebook over the pandemic and the last time I saw him was around Easter of 2001 when he randomly came to visit me passing through the area. How he got my address or knew I lived up here, I don’t know. I don’t think he was talking to Kate or anything. But yeah he’s the co-owner of a hostel, the main owner an older Australian man who’d been there since the nineties that he met on one of his journeys. This is in India somewhere in New Delhi and he seems content there. He spent most of the 2000s and a good chunk of the 2010s partying and having one night stands whenever he wasn’t doing dentist work, kinda losing control over his life. A lifestyle he slowly tapped into after being single for so long and he couldn’t control it after awhile. He looked at himself in the mirror one night and realized he looked horrible, compared to how he looked in the nineties. And that caused him to reevaluate his life and made him take trips to India, and he got into all this Buddhist and Hinduism stuff and it seemed like it made a difference in his life. And right before the pandemic hit, he sold all of his belongings and moved over there. He told me all of this on Facebook” He says, shifting around in his seat a little.

“Wow, that’s interesting” I say, before I take a last big swig of my water before I finish it off. 

Tony offers to give me his phone number, saying I seem like a cool guy and he would like to keep in touch with me. We exchange numbers, I notice he has an Android, they both have Samsungs Tony and Erica.

We get up, Tony leaves a tip and he goes up and pays for all of our meals, and we go our separate ways.

I drive back to the hotel, feeling good about the interaction I had today. I start to think if I might have over shared a bit, but nah. I don’t think so, it isn’t like I gave out their housing addresses or any of their personal issues.

I go back to the hotel and chill a bit, Nicole still laying in bed, she says she feels a little better but she’s not too hungry either. I pretty much just watch TV for a few hours, mostly movies though. Licorice Pizza is something that I wanted to see in theaters and I catch that on Showtime. I've been a huge fan of the A24 films that have been coming out these last few years, like Uncut Gems and Mid90s. The theaters have been mostly Marvel dominated and just superhero movies in general since 2016 I feel. My wife is a bigger fan of these Marvel movies than I am, they’re good but I would like more variety at the theaters. Although I’m noticing it’s starting to slow up with movies like Cocaine Bear and Air getting heavily advertised with their trailers, it seems like the movie companies are starting to trend back to more movies focused on normal movies instead of superhero blockbusters. 

Around 3 or so, I get a text from Tony if I wanna come hang out with him by the lake and he sends me the address. I text him back with a yeah. Usually I don’t hang out with people I just met too quickly, but he did seem like a nice and caring older guy,  and he seems like he’s lived an interesting life. 

I tell my wife that I’m going out to hang out with a friend I made while at Denny’s and she sounds a little confused at first, but she says okay. Saying something about how I usually don’t hang out with people I just met too quickly, but if I feel like I’ll be fine then it’s alright.

I drive down to the lake, and it’s a little crowded, but not too crowded I notice. I joke to myself if he wanted to kill me he sure as hell didn’t care about witnesses. 

I waves, he’s dressed in a long sleeve shirt and some shorts, and I walk towards him.

He says he wants to continue the conversation we had at Denny’s, his wife gone back at the hotel to take a nap after eating her food.

And we go to a place that is not as crowded, but there’s people around the beach laughing and talking and walking, and we sit in a some beach chairs and we talk a little. Mostly about the pandemic and how it sucked being inside all day and that it’s good to be out among people again. Politics comes up a little bit, with the Trump stuff coming up a bit more in the news but we don’t really have a full scale discussion and turn the conversation topic to something else. And a guy joins us, about thirty he says, and we shake hands with him. His name is Dave and he’s from San Francisco, a newly wed guy that’s up here for his honeymoon. 

As soon as my hand touches Dave’s hand, we all randomly shrink and, and it all feels like a blur before any of us can react. 

“Here We Go Again” Tony says, and we all look at each other with shock and surprise.