“You want to look for a place to buy or rent out here? I never pegged you for anything but a big city guy,” I said.
Eddie replied, “Yeah, well, I never pegged you for a country-bumkin, either.” He had me on that. If Anna hadn’t died, I’d still be running on the hamster wheel back in the city, thinking that was all there was.
“It’s a huge adjustment Eddie. You sure?” There was a hesitation from Eddie and I continued, “Anyway, come out and visit a few days and see what you think. It’s not for everyone. I’ve come to like it but I volunteered to throw myself into the darkest hole I could find.”
Eddie was quiet for a few moments and then he said, “I know man. The whole thing was awful. You needed to get away before your friends killed you.” We both laughed. “Anyway, I have your address from Frankie so my GPS will find the way. I’m leaving soon and I’ll stop somewhere for lunch so we can just drink and visit when I get there. See you in a few, Bro.” He didn’t even wait for my acknowledgment before he hung up.
Eddie had always called me “Bro”. He told everyone that we were brothers from different mothers. We had been best friends since grade school. We were basically two peas in a pod. We were the same height and weight all the way through school and we played all the sports. At six foot two, we both started as forwards on our basketball team. We did okay and made the playoffs our senior year. I smiled as I remembered that Eddie had a crush on Janet but he was just a kid to her and she was into men.
Eddie gave me the nickname, “Jack-O”, when we were twelve. Eddie had caught me masturbating to a polaroid photo that I had secretly taken of Janet in her underwear. I risked life and limb to take that photo. When Eddie saw it, he went nuts and grabbed it from me. We sat there on my bed jerking ourselves off as we passed the photo back and forth. Even our dicks were basically the same size. I was pissed off at him because he kept the photo. His justification was that I could always take another one. Anyway, because my name was Jack, my nickname became “Jack-O” which was short for ‘Jack-Off’. From that moment on, I became Jack-O to Eddie. He was the only person that called me that.
I checked my refrigerator to see how my beer stock was doing. Jacob and I had put a major dent in it. I pulled a tee shirt and sandals on and drove down to the corner store to get more. A lot more. Eddie had been a big drinker back in high school. He was totally wasted at my wedding. He passed out before he could give the best-man’s toast. He even got drunk at Anna’s wake, but fuck, so did I. It was the only thing that lessened the pain. I assumed he was still a big drinker.
