The Social Contract

Epilogue

Abraham Foellinger and I are still not friends. It's a good thing, too, because I haven't heard from him in about four months, and I'd feel pretty guilty if we were friends. I'm decent like that. I'd probably have to call him up once in awhile and wish him a happy belated birthday, which is a pretty pointless sentiment when you think about it, unless you happen to have The Mail Chute to Last Tuesday, or psychic friends.

But Abraham isn't. My friend, I mean – I guess he could be psychic. It'd be just like him to have been psychic this whole time and not have told me. I guess after all this time, there's still a lot I don't know about the guy.

It's okay, though. I've got more friends than you could shake a stick at. I've never wanted for school friends or work friends. I am no stranger to drinking buddies, extracurricular activity associates, online guild mates, or next-door-sort-of-acquaintances. Come Saturday morning, I've nodded many a genial nod across the classroom to the other dads in Little World Shakers, the daddy-and-me hippie fest which runs my young family a small fortune. Hell, I've even made peace with the awkwardly confidential in-laws with whom I've passed a month of overdone funerals. I expect if I had to list the number of ways a person can know another person, complete with those infernal Venn diagrams, I'd give up halfway through and invite them all around for Labor Day.

I remember the last time I saw Abraham. I'd returned home, to my own home, mind you, around nine in the evening, to find Abraham brazenly chatting up my wife. Blake was playing his usual game of touch-n-poke near Abraham's knees. Most likely he'd assumed Abraham was an uncle of some kind, because my wife's got about four billion brothers and none of them call ahead of time.

"Look who turned up!" said Rosemary cheerfully.

Now, there were definitely times when my wife's hereditary lack of jealous bone came in handy, but unfortunately it worked both ways. She expected me to view the world with the same pair of innocence glasses she did. How did she even remember meeting Abraham? I couldn't recall one single face from the enthusiastic game of musical chairs that was our wedding.

Abraham seemed to have picked up on my discomfort. "Hi. I ... I got locked out of my apartment," he apologized.

"Your apartment in Anton View?" I said, trying to arch an eyebrow.

"Yeah. I mean ... Rosemary let me in, obviously."

Obviously. Blake couldn't even reach the doorknob yet.

"Someone gummed the locks," Rosemary added. "Jerks."

"What?"

"Yeah," said Abraham, "I snapped the key right in two trying to get in."

“What does that even mean, 'gummed the locks'? Is that an actual thing people do?”

“Well yeah,” said Rosemary. “Kids. Used to do it all the time in my neighborhood. Where you put gum in someone's lock, and then it dries?” And she looked at me as if to question whether I'd even had a childhood, or perhaps simply emerged one day, fluorescent wings a-fluttering, from my upper-middle-class cocoon.

“So of course I told Abraham he could stay the night.”

"Locksmiths," I said evenly. "This city contains locksmiths. More than one, I'd guess. They're pretty helpful in times like these."

But I knew it wouldn't do any good. Because Abraham had that look on his face, as if to say, 'Remember?'

And I did remember. So I simply held up four fingers and went to pour myself something tall and alcoholic.

"How've you been?" I asked as gamely as I could.

Abraham shrugged. "Not great. I missed half my meetings today. Notes were all in my apartment."

It wasn't an ideal situation. Few are in my life. But after a few shots, the three of us were chatting like family.