I pulled the cork and filled both glasses. We clinked them together and drank. Gene studied his glass while I closed my eyes and savored the orange and toffee liqueur caressing my palate.
“That’s what kills the ghost that haunts us all,” I sighed.
“Not bad. Been a while since I’ve had this.”
“My favorite.”
He nodded. “I’m going drinking tonight. You interested?”
“You really think I’d say no?”
He laughed. We sat through a long silence while we smoked and drank.
“Where in the hell have you been, anyway?” I asked after a time.
He took a drink and kept his eyes closed. “Sometimes a man has to get lost.”
“Fair enough,” I said, leaving it at that, though finding it peculiar all the same. Gene had literally vanished, and while he’d been gone a good part of my own sanity had done the same. Regardless of our difference in years, perhaps he and I weren’t all that dissimilar.
2
We had finished half the bottle before leaving. It was after eight. I had a good buzz and assumed the same for Gene by the amused glint in his upturned eyes. The street was lined with Christmas decorations and an inch of freshly fallen snow covered the sidewalk. We passed a building that blared “Jingle Bells” from an open window. Christmas was a week and a half away.
“You heading home for the holidays?” Gene asked.
“Nope,” I said. “You?”
“I’ll be here, probably cook a nice dinner. You’re more than welcome to join.”
I nodded. “Yeah, definitely.”
He lit a new cigarette with the dying embers of the one he had just finished. He kept it pursed between his lips, squinting through the smoke.
“You sure do smoke a lot for a military man.”
“Show me a man without vice and I’ll show you one without virtue,” he said, then nudged me and grinned.
The wind howled and I walked sideways for a time to minimize its effect, shuffling my feet to keep from tripping.
“What the hell are you doing?” Gene asked.
“What do you mean? It’s freezing out.”
He shook his head and chuckled.
It was a small, obscure place, and had there not been a neon sign in the window, I would have never guessed it was a bar. Above the door, in white letters painted by an uncertain hand, a sign read THE LAMPLIGHTER.