Off the Record

I wonder who he’s married to and why he’s not with her. Are they fighting? Is she out of town on business? Out with girlfriends? Studying? Or is she sitting at home wondering the same thing I’m wondering?

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I inadvertently chose the glasses that looked most like yours. I didn’t even know you then, but I knew you sat outside a lot on your Mac and drank at least two cups of strong coffee in one visit. Sometimes you wrote on a legal pad or talked on the phone–your very large and out-of-date phone. You made me watch you trade out a five dollar bill for five ones. You trusted me. You trusted me that I wouldn’t tell on your independence. You defended a girl who was your friend but not your girlfriend who didn’t pay for her beer before she left that night. You said your girlfriends can’t use your tab. It’s not fair. It’s not independent. Then you rambled on about sub-prime lending and how the Bush administration is up to no good. Your independence bored me for that moment. We knew the same people, it turned out, but you were not a “scenester,” just some guy who owned just the business (not the building) and had been interviewed by so and so 10 times over in the past 2 elections. “Blake Ashby” I wrote in the NAME line of the New Yorker subscription post card. I left it there for you to find.

Send it in, Ashby. Just send it in.