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John went through the small doorway behind the bar, entering the room that housed the pool table.  Gabe was there already, shooting a solitary practice game.  Two others sat in the room, old men watching Gabe play, quietly nursing drinks that would last them most of the evening.  John had been introduced to both, but couldn’t remember their names.  He always got the impression they weren’t happy with him, as though his relative youth was an automatic sin that could be neither denied nor absolved. 

He nodded to them.  They nodded back, reluctantly.  John usually smiled when they did that, hearing a Pa Kettle chorus of voices hollering "Whippersnapper" at him in his mind, which always struck him as amusing.  But this time he didn’t smile, just went to the pool table.

As always, John’s stocky friend didn’t look up or make eye contact as he started conversation.  He also had a habit of beginning his conversations with sentences that sounded as though he was already in the middle of the story, as though the listener hadn’t paid attention and was guilty of missing the first half of the action.

Gabe held true to form today.

"So I’m wrestling this kid," he said, simultaneously smacking the cue ball into the two and sending it on a sharp bank that ended in dead center of the side pocket, "and I nailed him.  Really got him locked up."

"Gabe, John said, "I –"

"And then you know what he did?"

"I want to ask you something, Gabe."

Gabe sent another ball to pool heaven, pausing not a moment in his speech or his playing. 

"He called me a butthole.  Now, that never bothered me before, but in a sudden flash of insight I realized that 'butthole' is probably the worst thing you can call someone."

Gabe sent another ball into the corner pocket and rounded the table to set up his next shot.  John put a little more force in his voice as he said, "I need to ask you –"

Gabe held up a beefy hand, stifling John’s reluctant query.  "Think about it, John.  ‘Butthole.’  You are a piece of void surrounded on all sides by stinking flesh.  You are so low a piece of nothing that not even your butt wants to be a part of you."

Gabe grinned widely, proud of his personal epiphany.  No doubt the movie rights were already sold:
I Was a Teenage Butthole
.

"Did you have a new kid in any of your classes today?"

Gabe appeared astonished by John’s apparent lack of awe at the invaluable insight being lavished upon him.  "Did you hear what I just said?" he asked, finally pausing in his game.

John surprised himself by slamming his beer down on the end of the pool table.  Liquid splashed out of the open neck, sending a few drops onto the green velvet of the table.

"This is important, Gabe!"

Gabe jerked at the noise, surprised at John’s sudden action.  "Sorry.  No, no new kids at all.  Why?"

John released his death grip on the beer.  He took a few more deep breaths, concentrating on all the reasons why he shouldn’t be so upset, not doing a good job convincing himself.

"It’s just that...forget it."

The two men locked eyes for a moment, and John expected Gabe to pry, to ask what happened? why did you go rocketing off like a QB whose girlfriend has said he’ll get laid if he makes a touchdown? how come you almost creamed me in the parking lot? and a million other questions.

For a moment it looked like he would, too.  Would ask all the questions that John couldn’t answer.

Then John saw Gabe’s eyes drop back to the table, as though dismissing the day from his thoughts.  He put the last two balls away in a pair of straight shots, then began drawing the balls from the pockets and racking them for the next game.  He handed John a cue stick, motioning for him to break.  John did, after selecting a better stick.  Gabe was probably his best friend in the whole world, but John knew that he’d more than happily give his buddy a crappy stick for that little advantage in the game.

The cue ball shattered the tight triangle of ivory spheres, sending them out in a nova explosion of color.  Two of the balls fell into pockets, a solid and a stripe.  John surveyed the lay of the table and called stripes, then set for his next shot.

"So I have this second cousin once removed.  From California," said Gabe.

John smiled, the familiar regularity of the game calming his nerves.  "Congratulations.  The government finally allowed your family to reproduce?"

He missed his shot and Gabe lined up, chuckling.  "Only the distant relatives.  But seriously, this gal is hot.  I mean, if I was from the South, I’d be all over her, and two-headed kids be damned."

"Thanks for the secret and disgusting insight into your life."

"But wait, there’s more," said Gabe.

"Really?"
"Oh, yeah.  See, her husband died a year ago, and she decided to move recently.  Got a job teaching at a school.  Guess where."

"Hmmm...."

"Here!"  Gabriel was so excited at the prospect that he was no longer shooting.  John didn’t mind.  The game was half for playing and half just an excuse to jaw for an hour.  Besides, he always lost.  The football coach was a surprisingly methodical and canny player.

"So she’s coming on Sunday," Gabe continued, "and she doesn’t know anyone but me, so I figured –"

"No.  Forget it.  Absolutely not."

"Come on, John.  It’s been two years."

"I know how long it’s been."

"What, do you want to spend the rest of your weekends doing nothing but playing pool with a dried up coach whose teams are never big enough to even qualify for league play?  Who hasn’t ever seen one of his teams go on a road trip?  Ever?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Well, I don’t like it."

"This isn’t about you."

"It sure as hell
is
about me.  You know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to go on a date?  I’m always stuck playing with you.  You’re cute and all, but I’d like to go out with someone I could perhaps have sex with at the end of the date."

"You saying I’m not pretty enough to have sex with?"         

Gabe stifled a grin.  "Serious, John.  You’ve gotta –"

"No.  I mean it."  John leaned across the table, doing his best to wilt Gabe.  "I will tell you when I’m ready."

"No you won’t.  You’ll just sit there and mope and be a lonely piece of crap.  And that’s definitely not what Annie would have wanted for you."

John closed his eyes.  He didn’t want to talk about it, but he knew his friend wouldn’t let up.  What was worse, he knew his friend was right.  But over the last two years grief had become a comfort, a safe and secure place.  He had lost himself in the fact that when you grieve over something, it’s impossible to be hurt by anything new.  He didn’t have the capacity for two heartbreaks at once.  Especially not when he mourned something as important as his wife.

Gabriel’s tone softened.  He came around the table and spoke in a low tone, laying a comforting hand on John’s shoulder.  "Look, John, I love you, you know that?  I don’t want you to miss your whole life.  It’s too damn short."  He took a deep breath.  "She’s a good girl, and she really does need to meet some people.  And she lost her husband.  You’re kinda in the same boat, you know?"

John waited a moment, but the decision was already made.  Gabe had been right: this wasn’t the way Annie would have wanted him to remember her.  "When does she come in?"

"Sunday morning."

"I’ll show her around Sunday night.  If she’s interested."

Gabe let out a whoop, forgetting in his excitement that the two old timers would frown on such an interruption of their treasured silence. 

John looked at them as Gabe threw his hands in the air and did a mini-war dance around the table.  Sure enough, their eyebrows were bunched so close around their eyes that it seemed their heads were imploding.  Disdain practically oozed from them. 

John seized the moment.  He knew what he was about to do might get him killed, but it was worth the risk.  Gabe passed by him, and as he did, John grabbed him in a massive hug.  "It’s all right," he yelled at the two old men, who almost fell off their chairs at what was to them no doubt verged on a sign of the Apocalypse: two men hugging.  "It’s all right," John reiterated.  "The test turned out negative!"

He turned to Gabe then, who stared at him in complete mystification, and did the most daring and dangerous thing he’d ever done. 

He kissed Coach Gabe Harding right square on the lips.  Gabe stiffened, and John thought he saw one of the old-timers clutch his chest.  He separated and looked at Gabe tenderly.  "My friend is going to be all right.  I love you, Gabe."

The old-timers hurried out, no doubt anxious to escape before they too were infected by contagious homosexuality.  John didn’t know what was funnier: their reaction or Gabe’s.  John didn’t know how a man could be so completely homophobic, but Gabe had probably never even shaken his father’s hand.

After a moment, Gabe came partway back from whatever place his psyche ran to during the brief contact.  Looking like he was unsure whether to laugh, cry, or just go comatose, he said, "That was a crappy thing to do, John.  I don’t care if you
were
a Ranger way back when.  Do that again and I’ll kick your butt."

"Green Beret."

"Whatever."

Gabe went back to the game.

"Just one thing, Gabe.  If things don’t work out Sunday night...."

"Yeah?"

"What are
you
doing next weekend?  You’re a great kisser."

The coach framed his response with Shakespearean elocution and delivery: "Butthole."

John laughed.  Gabe missed his shot, and John took a turn, somehow forgetting how odd it was that his best friend hadn’t asked more questions about John’s radically altered behavior earlier in the afternoon.

He didn’t dwell on it, though.  Not even for a moment.  Not until much later, and by then, of course, it was too late, and his friend was already dead.

ATTN: DOM#67B

LOSTON, COLORADO

AD 1999

6:00 PM FRIDAY

***STATUS CHANGE TO DOM#67A***

Fran got in that evening.  She was supposed to arrive Sunday - that was what she’d told Gabe she was doing - but she wanted to get there early, to get the feel of the area.

She looked at her new home as the cab pulled into her front yard.  The house was small, but clean.  A single-story place with two bedrooms, one and a half baths, living room, dining room, den.

In Los Angeles it would have cost her an arm and a leg and everything in between.  In Loston, she’d be able to afford it easily on her teacher’s salary.  Not for the first time, she wondered if the world hadn’t gone a little crazy.  Droves of people put themselves on two year waiting lists to pay five million dollars for a condo in California that they’d most likely lose to the bank anyway, while hardly anyone was moving to places like Loston.  It just didn’t make sense to her.

She shook her head as the cab drove into her driveway.  At least such cultural insanity could benefit her.  The fact that no one wanted to live here made it easy and affordable for her to move into her new home.

She’d never seen the place - all her transactions had been negotiated online with a broker, with her cousin okaying the place as well - so she experienced the double thrill of seeing the house for the first time and knowing it was hers.  All hers, with no one else in between.  When Nate died, he left her with a broken heart and a sizable life insurance policy that allowed her to pay for the house.

The cabby stifled a yawn.  No such thing as a gregarious cabby in Colorado, she decided.  She’d fallen asleep right outside the Denver airport and hadn’t awakened until they passed a sign that said "Welcome to Loston" with an absurdly tiny population recorded below.  And when she woke, there was no "Did you sleep all right?" or "Almost there," or even "This is cash, right?" to greet her return to wakefulness.  Indeed, her cabby seemed quiet to the point of strangeness.

The cab stopped, and she got out, bringing her overnight bag with her.  The cabby went to the trunk and opened it, revealing a medium-sized suitcase.  Fran had sent on the rest of her possessions earlier in the week, and the two bags were all that remained.  The cabby bent to lift her luggage.

"I can get it," she said, yanking the case out of the trunk.  She set it down and looked at the house again, enjoying the lawn, the whiteness of the walls, the small picket fence that pretended to mark the boundaries of her tiny domain.  She inhaled, and smelled something...something wonderful....

"No smog," she said to herself, and giggled.  You always heard about it in Los Angeles; when friends went to the mountains it was inevitably the first thing they said when they returned.  But to actually
smell
it....

A sound cut her giggle off in mid-laugh.  The dry crunch of tires on gravel sounded as the cab pulled out of her driveway.  It was in the street in a flash, already pulling into gear and drawing away.

"Wait," she cried out, hurrying after the rapidly proceeding vehicle, "I didn’t pay!"

The car continued driving.  Fran ran after it for half a block, waving her arms back and forth, shouting at the top of her lungs (and marveling that in half a block there were only
two
houses!)  The cab paid no heed, speeding off and rounding a corner.

Fran dropped her arms.  Oh, well.  She’d call the company when she got in the house.  The phone should be connected.

She returned to her driveway, picked up her bags, and removed the key from her pocket.  It turned smoothly in the lock, and she entered. 

She didn’t call the cab company, though.  Instead she moved from room to room, enjoying the feel of a place that was truly hers.  She had owned her last home, too, but this was different.  That had been a joint venture with Nate.  This time she was on her own. 

The thought made her sad for a moment, uncharacteristically so.  She shook off her melancholy.  "Chin up," she seemed to hear Nate say.  "Keep your chin up."

So she did, raising her chin to an absurd height, stretching her neck out as she went from room to room, pretending she was a snobby Victorian heiress surveying her cottage in the country.