Jeff and I passed the rest of the walk in silence. I studied the wares displayed in the storefront windows while feigning deep concentration to keep from feeling uneasy. I was growing tired, somewhat down, a little uncomfortable at the prospect of socializing with a group of guys I didn’t know, of impersonating a friendship with Jeff whom I hardly knew any better in the years that had passed since we were kids; it was obvious that we had become two different people.

It was on a whim that I had searched for him online. After finding him on Facebook and seeing that he was in Chicago, I wrote and explained my wanting to move, that I was thinking of the Windy City based on the fact that I had never been before while being mostly honest about just how dire my situation had become. He said it was a great place and that I should come and could even stay with him on a short-term basis if I needed to. I attributed his offering the place so willingly to pure nostalgia for the simpler days of youth, the friendship between the kids we once were back in Ohio, for who doesn’t occasionally crave those times and connections? Needing a fresh start in the worst way and unable to afford any other alternative, I didn’t think twice about taking him up on it.

4

The bar was a chic place full of suits and skirts and knee-high boots. Everything silver and black, shiny, the bartenders rouged and powdered. The dance floor at the rear was empty though the tables at the front and sides were filled. It had been a long time since I’d been in a place like this, and I never liked them much to begin with. I immediately felt underdressed, wearing sneakers, jeans, and a black thermal with the sleeves pulled to my elbows. Jeff ’s friends were in a booth against the left wall. There were three of them, all men around the age of thirty, and each still wore his workday suit with loosened tie, and for some reason this presented them in a far greater light of formality than had the ties been tight around their collars. Before the introductions were made, I could tell I was going to have a rough go of it by the air of superiority with which they eyed me. I immediately felt like a kid at a table full of adults, and I only remember the name of the guy across from me, Frank, a strikingly handsome man who oozed confidence and possessed the toned, slender look of a movie star.