Hugging a Stranger

Chapter 8

Sunday morning I woke up with every reason to be in a great mood. I had a beautiful new girlfriend, the apartment to myself, a job with some security, and a whole day in front of me with nothing to do. But it was the nothing-to-do part that was bumming me out. It made me feel like the old Ray, the one who used to roam around all day depressed with no one to talk to. I tried to shake it off and get busy: there were plenty of projects I could work on in my apartment. So I painted one wall, refinished my coffee table, and was in the middle of building a bookshelf out of scrap wood when my phone rang. I expected my dad, but it was Carlos.

"Hey, man! 'Bout time you called me back!" I greeted him.

"Me? You fuckin' don't call me for a whole fuckin' year, then expect me to fuckin' call you right back? Fuck you."

Whoa, I thought. That was a lot of f-bombs. Carlos is pissed.

"Yeah, you're right. I've sort of had my head up my ass this past year."

"What's your fuckin' problem? Have you been pissed at me since I left after we got fired?" He was unloading on me, hard and heavy.

"Naw, man, that wasn't it at all. I probably would have left too, if I had a nice home to go back to." I sat down on my futon. "Remember how I let that guy Thomas move in? Well, he brought this other guy in and the two of them went crazy doing drugs and things got pretty bad around here with them stealing my shit, bringing hookers and junkies home, and all kinds of weird stuff goin' on in this tiny place."

"Shit, man, you didn't do drugs with 'em, did you?"

"Hell no!"

"You could've at least called and said what was goin' on, stupid motherfucker. You want me to come help you evict those motherfuckers or somethin'?"

"They're both gone now. One's in jail, one's in rehab."

"Sounds like a good place for 'em. How're you doin' now?"

"Better. Much better. How 'bout you?"

"Got me a new job and a new girl," Carlos laughed in that cocky way of his. Carlos could swagger with nothing more than the tone of his voice.

The rest of our dialogue slid into our old familiar pattern, just like we used to, except we had a lot of catching up to do. He laughed about how I got my new job and of course about how I met my new girlfriend.

"She came up and hugged you, just because you asked?"

"Yeah... well, I guess I helped her out one time when she dropped a bunch of stuff, but she definitely surprised me. She's still surprising me." I was thinking about how Alicia told me to bring condoms, but I didn't tell Carlos that part. I surprised myself because that was the kind of stuff I would normally tell him.

"Well I hope she ain't no 'false advertiser'," Carlos joked.

I laughed, "Nope, definitely not. She's super-hot, but really sweet too. Hey, Marcus is asking about you all the time."

"Ah, really? That's cool. I should come out for soccer and bring my new girl and meet yours too."

"That'd be cool, 'cept I'm gonna' be working the next few Saturdays. I'm gonna play with a few of the same guys on Tuesdays for a while instead."