Farewell (Pt. 1)

  By the end of 2020, I’d fallen into the daily repetition of waking up as the sun was setting, working as an office security guard overnight, and then going back home before the sun came back up. Sunlight was yet another thing I’d lost that year, and I’d been out of college for long enough by then that the few people I’d still had contact with had all gone their own ways. I only knew what day it was based on how many times I’d seen the office that week.

     I was beginning to get the itch that maybe I should do something with my life one afternoon when I was woken up by a call from a friend I hadn’t heard from in a year. I forced myself awake and answered the phone, wondering if someone had died. 

     “Hello?”

     “So. Big news. I joined the Army.”

     For context, my friend, who we’ll call Thomas, and I went to high school together and we bonded over a mutual loneliness we felt in regards to our social standings and respective family lives. Tommy was the one who got me into Green Day and Nirvana when I was still stuck in 70s arena rock and convinced me to learn an instrument. He was the only guy I’d met up to that point who played the guitar, and when I mentioned I wanted to learn it as well, he said “learn the bass. No one ever plays the bass.”

     We occasionally kept in touch after high school and in 2018, he decided to try enlisting in the Air Force as a helicopter mechanic. I even gave him a few rides to the enlistment center so he could take his physical and psychiatric evaluation. The only emergency contact he'd listed was me, so when the recruiters were done with Tommy, I'd get a call from a gruff-voiced soldier telling me to come pick up my son. 

     One day, the Air Force just stopped returning his calls and when Tommy finally got a chance to view his records, he said he’d been disqualified for (in his words quoting them) "eye fuzzies." 

     In 2019, after too many personal disasters involving unemployment in a harsh market and a few lost loves abandoning him for other men, he decided to leave Albuquerque for New York to work at his grandpa’s car dealership and I gave him a lift to the airport to send off a close friend.

     So, with all that in mind, I responded with–

     “Holy shit. The Army? Why?”

     “Man, this last year, my uncle moved in with me and my grandpa and all he does is go to work at Lowe’s and smoke pot. I saw too much of myself in that and I don’t wanna be like that. I wanna say I did something with my life, you know?”

     “Oh. Well, I can respect that. Congrats, I guess.”

     “Thanks, thanks. But, guess what? They’re letting me come spend a week in Albuquerque before I get quarantined and sent off to boot camp. I wanted to see if you wanted to hang out.”

*****

     A month later, it was Friday and I snuck in a few hours of sleep before going to pick up Tommy at his mom’s house in West Mesa where he’d be lodging for the weekend. I pulled up around 11am and texted that I was here, putting a copy of Green Day’s “Dookie” in the CD player since it was a mutual favorite of ours. 

     A few minutes later, Tommy stepped out wearing a red leather jacket and had grown out a goatee similar to Tony Stark’s. He stood in the doorway and struck a heroic pose, and I leaned on the horn before he ran over laughing telling me to shut the fuck up.

     He hopped in the passenger seat and I let go of the horn.

    I pointed at the radio and asked “Dookie?”

     “Fuck yeah.”

     I cranked the volume.

*****

     We decided the first place we’d go would be the now-defunct India Express restaurant in the rich part of town off Paseo. Tommy had worked there from ages 15-18 and he got me a job there our Senior year. I ended up quitting around the same time their building lease was expiring to focus on college and Tommy wasn’t asked to work at the new location, so we both briefly went our separate ways.

     As we’re driving there, Tommy’s telling me a story.

     “So. When you’re being recruited, you’ve got to get a physical, right?”

     “Right.”

     “So these two guys from the Army bring me to a hotel in New York City, and it’s a nice one, and they’re going to check on me. I pass everything else, but Jake, guess what?”

     “What?”

     “I’m just TWO pounds overweight.”

     “Ah, that’s not THAT bad.”

     “Exactly. So they tell me ‘okay, because you’re close enough, take this tonight and don’t eat ANYTHING, and in the morning we’ll weigh you again.’”

     “Oh my God, was it a laxative?”

     “Yyyyyup. I took it and felt nothing for a few hours, and dinner that night was this REALLY nice buffet the Army was paying for for new recruits. There was ham, mashed potatoes, vegetables, stuff like that, and I couldn’t eat any of it. It was pretty depressing, not gonna lie. Later that night, I’m in my hotel room about to go to bed, and suddenly, I FEEL it.”

     “Oh, Christ.”

     “I run to the bathroom JUST in time, and dude, I was literally on that toilet for hours. I fell asleep in there and woke up at like 3 in the morning still on the toilet.”

     I chuckled. “And did it work?”

     “I went to see the recruiters the next morning and when they weighed me again, I’d lost fifteen pounds.”

     Laughter ensued.

*****

     We pulled up to the India Express to see that in the two years since it went under, it had been converted into an optical store and they even rented out the space next to it and tore down the wall to expand.

     Tommy and I stepped inside to see the walls that were once saffron-yellow had been painted a sterile white and racks of glasses and Seeing Eye charts had been affixed to the walls. They even added carpet.

     A bespectacled 30-something in a lab coat that reeked of middle management approached us as a female clerk sat behind a counter and typed away.

     “Hello, gentlemen! Is there anything I can help you two with?”

     I spoke up. “Well, we actually used to work here when this was an Indian restaurant a few years back. We happened to be in town and just wanted to see how the building is.”

     “Oh! Well, feel free to have a look around and let us know if you need anything!”

     “Thank you!”

     The manager went back to his station as Tommy and I walked around to investigate the latest shape of the store. I stood in a very specific spot that happened to be right next to the manager’s desk and said “Hey, Tommy! This is where I got reprimanded by Olivia that one time for mixing up the milk with the cream!”

     The staff didn’t seem to find that one very amusing.

*****

     Since the last time I’d seen him, Tommy had become an ardent fan of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and was insistent that, if possible, we find a Jojo-themed wallet in town since he happened to need a new one. Well, shit, I dunno where else to get one, so let’s try the mall.

     The actual trip in the mall wasn’t too eventful other than every time we walked into a store, Tommy said “Jojo, I need Jojo,” which became our mantra for the weekend. Wallet-less, we made our way back to the car and I told Tommy “hey, I gotta call in for my shift tonight, gimme one second.”

     So I dial up my supervisor, and as the phone rings I affix my best sick voice in a nasal drawal.

     The phone rings once…

     Twice…

     Three times…

     Four times…

     “Highland Security, this is Bill speaking. How can I help you?”

     “Hey, Bill. It’s Jake. Hey, I’m not really feeling that good today. I think I came down with a bad case of food poisoning.”

     Bill audibly sighed. “Well, Jake, you’ll be working near toilets all night, so how about you call me when you feel better in an hour?”

     Damn, he got me. “All right, I’ll try to come in tonight.”

     I hung up. Tommy spoke up. “He sounds like a dick.”

     “He is, but I can’t really blame him this time.”

     “Do you need to go home and sleep?”

     I thought about it for a moment. “Nah, fuck it.”

*****

     We went to the Cottonwood Mall out near Rio Rancho and while we’re walking around examining the endless line of clothing stores, Tommy gets a text.

     “Hey, Martin wanted to see if we want to get dinner with him and Iggy.”

     “Martin? Sure, why not. You two still talk?”

     “Yeah, we still talk sometimes. He wants to meet at Lindo’s at 5.”

*****

     It’s 5:30 and Martin still isn’t here. Neither is Iggy, but that can be chalked up to Martin being his ride. The time spent waiting gave me plenty of time to observe my familiar surroundings. 

     I’d never been to Lindo’s before and it seemed like a classy joint. The logo was written high on the walls in black cursive and the architecture resembled an adobe structure made with stucco. One corner was painted yellow, another red, another tan. It juxtaposed strangely with the street corner of Central and Louisiana, since right next door was a CVS that’d been abandoned for years that a drummer of mine once stole liquor from and across from that, a vacant lot that had to be fenced in to keep the homeless from setting up tents. Nearby, a casino and racetrack.

     As we waited, I thought about Martin and Iggy and how long it’d been since I’d last seen them. Without mincing words, Martin was a bit of a loser in high school. He was a skinny dork who was always dating Freshman girls and other than joining the school volleyball team, no one ever thought he’d really amount to much. Martin and I got along just fine with minimal interaction, but not much to maintain a friendship over.

     Ignacio, who we nicknamed Iggy, has been Tommy’s best friend since middle school and was a big guy, a few feet shorter than me but built twice as broad. He was a witty silent-type that immigrated here from Mexico with his family and, last I’d heard, he was making decent money doing construction. Specifically, what I’d heard was a funny story about Iggy dropping his hammer off a roof he was shingling and it almost fell on someone’s head, and we called that “The Thor’s Hammer Incident.”

     Anyways, having not seen Martin since high school, I was still expecting a scrawny dork to greet me when a mint-condition 2019 cherry red Hyundai Elantra pulled up next to me and out stepped Iggy from the passenger seat and in the driver’s seat was someone I didn’t recognize. He had Martin’s face, but he was muscular and far better dressed than the Martin I knew. If it weren’t for him wearing the same frame of glasses he did in high school, I almost wouldn’t believe it was him.

     He came in for a handshake. “Hey! What’s up?”

     We all ushered inside where the architecture further leaned into the adobe presentation, with a twelve-foot tall bouquet of flowers sitting in the middle of the building and wooden carvings of Mariachis perched on arches below the ceiling to silently and motionlessly perform for us.

     We were seated in the corner by a life-size statue of Michael Myers in a sombrero (it WAS October, after all) and shot the shit as we looked over the menus. I was mostly wondering what the hell Martin had been up to to look so different.

     “Damn, dude. Have you been hitting the gym?”

     “Nah, brother. I enlisted in the Army.”

     “Shit, you too?”

     “Yep! Enlisted in the reserves right out of high school. We basically have to set aside one weekend out of every month to go on assignments. Last week, I was sent to Georgia to build a well.”

     “God-DAMN! Does it pay well?”

     “Eh. I mainly do security for an office in Uptown. Twenty five an hour.”

     “Jesus, twenty five? Are you armed?”

     “Nope! They just pay well for Military, especially since I already have a security clearance from enlisting.”

     “Shit, I’m only making ten fifty an hour as a grave shift at the Plaza downtown…”

     “You work graves?”

     “Yeah…”

     “Props to ya, brother. I couldn’t do graves.” He turned his attention to the new recruit. “Hey, Thomas. You wanna know what basic’s gonna be like?”

     I looked around the table as we waited to order. Martin was telling the table a story about how during basic training, the drill sergeant caught him chewing gum during roll call and the Sarge forced the rest of the soldiers to do push-ups while he had Martin chew the gum as loud as possible, but I was lost in thought. 

     Christ, here I am, a security guard, still living with my parents making half of what Martin is while doing the exact same job, Iggy’s making decent money with blue collar work, and Tommy’s about to enlist and make a career at whatever he chooses. I was proud of Martin for being able to break out of the person he was in high school, but I couldn’t help but wonder “Did I do something wrong?”

     I snapped back long enough to tell the waiter I’d like to order the Tilapia Frita and for Martin to tell me about one gal he met in basic named Alyssa. He then showed me a picture of Alyssa wearing nothing but an American flag and I could feel my patriotism rising.

     “What do you think?”

     “Damn. Do you think she’s into guys that still live with their parents?”

     Martin chuckled and we all went back to bantering while waiting for the food. The food comes out and between bites, Martin is giving Tommy unsolicited advice on being in the Military.

     At one point, Martin speaks up with an offer.

     “Hey, me and Iggy are going to the haunted drive-thru at the pumpkin patch tonight. You two wanna go with us?”

     Tommy nodded in approval, I looked down at my tilapia.

     “Nah, I can’t. I’ve got work tonight.”

     “You gonna be good? Have you slept?”

     “Nah, but I know where in the stairwell I can nap.”

     The table chuckled at that and we finished our meals, Martin even being so kind as to pay for all four of us.

     We went outside, I shook hands with Iggy and Martin, Tommy hopped in the backseat of Martin’s shiny new Hyundai Elantra, and I went home to change and go to work.

     I got in bits of sleep where I could in the stairwell, and when I came home the following morning, I stayed awake just long enough to tear off my uniform and pass out on my bed.

*****

     Five hours later, it’s the afternoon and I’m awoken by a call from Tommy.

     “Hey, you up?”

     “Mm.”

     “We’re uh, doing lunch at BJ’s. You wanna tag along?”

     “Yeah, yeah. Be there in like thirty.”

     So I threw myself into a cold shower, screamed myself awake, drank a leftover pot of coffee my mom had made, and headed to Uptown Albuquerque to meet the trio at BJ’s.

     It was my turn to be 35 minutes late as I pulled up to the faux brick-and-mortar brewhouse off Louisiana and Americas Parkway in the high-dollar shopping district. Tommy, Martin, and Iggy stood outside that cherry red beauty as I pulled up next to it.

     We ushered inside, got a booth for 4, and sat down. I’d never eaten at a brewhouse before and was confused when the waiter didn’t bring us any menus. I asked Martin about this and he pointed at a QR code on the table. I scanned it and wondered how much further I’d have to climb out from under my rock before I saw daylight.

     The waiter came by, got our orders, and we shot the shit. I can’t remember for the life of me what I ordered, but Martin ordered a baked chicken ziti, that he consistently and erroneously referred to as “Zita.” Tommy and Iggy chat about what was free on XBOX Gold that month while I spoke with Martin about whatever happened to our graduating class.

     “So, how’s the rest of the class been?”

     “Oh, man. Do you remember Logan and Taylor?”

     High school power couple. Logan was a narcissistic drama kid that would actively sabotage other classmates so he could get the leading roles in plays and film projects and Taylor was his girlfriend. They met at a Dramafest and Taylor transferred to our school to be with Logan. They fought a lot, sometimes in front of me.

     “Yeah, dunno how I could forget them.”

     “Logan’s not good for her.”

     “Shocker.”

     “No, he’s REALLY bad for her. They got married right after she graduated–-”

     “--they talked about that a lot--”

     “--yeah, but he can’t hold down a job and is working minimum wage retail jobs while taking out loans to buy things he doesn’t need like a house and a motorcycle.”

     “Jesus…”

     “Yeah. I think he’s emotionally abusing her, too. She’s gotten a lot skinnier and pale in recent photos. You know the worst part?”

     “It gets worse?”

     “Look at this.”

     Martin held up his phone and showed a post they made announcing Taylor was pregnant with their first child.

     “Jesus...”

     “Yeah.”

     The waiter brought our food out, Martin made sure to take a picture of his to post on Snapchat, and we ate and shot the shit.

     We finished our meal, stepped outside, and Martin said “hey, I gotta stop by the mall real quick. I wanna give my girlfriend my leftovers. She works in a clothing store.” We shrugged and went along with it since we had nothing better to do and headed to our cars. Tommy is about to get in my car with me when Martin speaks up and says “Hey, Tommy. You wanna drive my car over there?” Tommy says “sure” and hops in the Elantra with them. I raise an eyebrow and follow them over.

     The mall was just across the street, making for a short journey. Tommy pulled the Elantra against the curb outside the clothing store, Martin ran out with his to-go container to dash inside the store, and Tommy and I pulled into nearby parking spaces to wait for Martin. Tommy and Iggy get out of Martin’s car while I get out of mine and we lean against our respective vehicles to discuss what to do with the rest of the day. Iggy, as is custom for him, stood there and quietly observed.

     “So. It’s only 3. Anything you wanna do?” I asked

     “Not that I can think of, no.” Replied Tommy.

     “We could try the drive-thru haunted house.”

     “We already did that last night.”

     “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh Cliff’s?”

     Tommy playfully hit Iggy on the shoulder to get his attention. “You hear that, Iggy? Man just suggested we go to a theme park in October.”

     We all laughed at my buffoonery as Martin walked back up to us.

     “What’s so funny?”

     “Ah, I’m being an idiot. Hey, do you have any idea what to do?”

     We thought about it and realized bars were out of the question since we were all only 20 (not to mention, Iggy’s straight edge), all of the movie theaters were shut down due to Covid, any event we found online required us to be 21 due to alcohol being served at said event, any classmate we thought about hanging out with had either fallen off the face of the Earth or went to New England for college, etc. We all leaned against our cars before Iggy spoke up.

     “We could go to Hobby Lobby.”

*****

     We wandered around the beige warehouse we all know and love off Montgomery and Eubank walking as slowly as possible to kill time. Iggy hovered near Martin, who had picked up a tin sign with the US Army emblem on it muttering “oh, that’d look great on my door…” while I hovered near Tommy, who was looking up-and-down the aisles chanting “Jojo, I need Jojo.” For some reason, I couldn’t stop humming “Entrance of the Gladiators.”

     When we walked out of the Hobby Lobby, we somehow managed to kill an hour. Martin walked out having purchased the tin Army sign and I bought a few candies from a rack near the register.

     I walked next to Tommy back to our cars and broke into a pack of Nik-L-Nips.

     “Want a Nik-L-Nip?”

     “What’s that?”

     “It’s like a wax soda bottle filled with juice you bite into.”

     “That looks pretty gross, not gonna lie.”

     I shrugged. “More for me.” I bit off the head of a bottle and drank down the blue syrup.

     We walked back to our cars, threw our newly purchased belongings in the backseat of our respective vehicles, and were all at a loss for what to do once again.

     “So. Anyone have any idea what to do now?”

     We all fell silent.

     Then, Iggy spoke up.

     “We could go to Target.”

*****

     We wandered around the red warehouse we all know and love just up the street off Montgomery and Wyoming. Once again, Iggy hovered near Martin and I hovered near Tommy as we wandered past the toy aisle, Tommy muttering “Jojo, I need Jojo.” Iggy spotted something on a shelf and grabbed it for us to see as I went to examine something nearby.

     “Do you guys want to play Candy Land?”

     We ignored Iggy as Tommy grabbed a deck of Uno cards off the same rack.

     “Uno?”

     Iggy and Martin muttered in approval while I was an aisle over looking at the records for sale. I leaned over to see what Tommy had picked up while I was examining a vinyl pressing of Green Day’s “Father of All.”

     “Huh?”

     “Uno.”

     “Yeah, sure.”

     So we wandered to the checkouts, Tommy got a deck of Uno cards, I bought a record and a box of TicTacs, and stepped outside to see the sun was beginning to set. Seems we’d killed enough time.

     As we walked back to our cars, Iggy had an idea.

     “Hey, let’s go get my Switch from my house and play Smash Bros.”

     Martin said we could play at his house, all we’d have to do is get the Switch and meet him there. Tommy and I said we’ll race them there and dashed to my car. I tossed my record in the backseat and fired up the ignition as I reached for the volume knob.

     “Dookie?”

     “Fuck yeah.”

     I cranked the volume and we took turns singing along to our favorite record all the way to Iggy’s house.