"Just kill me and get it over with," I thought as the pounding echoed again. I blinked a couple times, rousing myself awake enough to realize that the pounding was not in my head. I looked at the clock, thinking, "Who the fuck pounds on a man's door at one-thirty in the morning?"
I dragged my ass out of bed and shuffled down the hall toward the front door. Staggering, I hopped to my left as a sharp pain jolted up my leg. "Ow! Shit!" I hobbled to the couch, propping myself against the arm as I grabbed my big toe. "Damn bar chairs!" It was my own damn fault. I should have turned on the light.
The pounding became a bit erratic.
"Yeah, yeah! I'm coming," I yelled, cross the rest of the living room far more awake than I wanted to be at this hour. I yanked open the door. "What?!?"
Dave's bloodshot, blurred, swollen eyes looked back at me from under an unruly mat of auburn hair. His breath stank of a mixture of too many alcohols. "She threw me out..."
That was the only really intelligible sentence he managed until morning. The hour between when he arrived and when he passed out on the couch was a mishmash of blubbering, tears, slurred speech, and a couple return trips of the scotch, gin and vodka he'd had earlier. I sat, listening to my best friend snore, and wondered what the hell I was going to do. "She" must have been Rebecca, his wife. The question that kept me up, waiting for Dave to sleep off the binge was, "why?"
I didn't really get any solid answers when Dave woke up, even after the aspirin had kicked in. Dave was never very good with expressing his emotions. He was also basically clueless about anything that wasn't "in his face obvious." All I knew for sure was that Rebecca had informed him that it was over, was spending the weekend with her mother, and told him that his stuff had better be out of the apartment when she got back. Dave handled it like he'd handled any other emotional upheaval in his life since he turned eighteen; he got drunk.
While Dave tried to shower off the remainder of his hangover, I found Rebecca's mother's phone number in his cell and called. After a few moments, an unfamiliar female voice came on the line.
"Hello?"
"Mrs. Johnson? This is James Andrews. Is Rebecca there?"
There was a pause, and then she seemed to remember me. I didn't expect her to remember who the best man was at her daughter's wedding, but it didn't matter. I wanted to talk to her daughter. "Oh, yes. Just a moment."
I listened to the sound of the shower water, hoping Rebecca would get on the line before Dave got done. After a moment, she picked up the phone. "Hi, Jim."
"Uhm... I've got a hung over man in my shower who seems to think his marriage is over. Could you clarify this for me?"
"Sure."
Ten minutes later, I knew more intimate details of their married life, or lack there of, than I'd ever wanted to know. I heard the shower turn off, and I interrupted Rebecca in mid-rant about Dave's lack of feelings and neglect. "Okay, I get the picture. What stuff do you call 'his'?"
"The clothes, his Xbox, and his school stuff. I'll worry about who get's what of the furniture when I get back."
"Yeah, okay," I grumbled. God she was a bitch. "Thanks." I hung up. Rebecca hadn't always been a bitch, though I'd never liked her. It wasn't her fault we never clicked. I think, unlike Dave, she knew that I was in the closet, and hopelessly in love with my best friend. There was an unspoken kind of adversarial truce between us from the day Dave proposed to her: he belonged to her, but I could be his friend as long as I kept out of their marriage. I did, and stayed in the closet too. At twenty-eight, I was a gay virgin with no prospects for changing that status.
Dave didn't say much on the way to the apartment. I was lucky to get some concrete indication as to what stuff was his and what wasn't as we boxed up or bagged up his clothes, his video system, some of his books, and such. I thought about Rebecca's rant earlier that day, and about Dave, and decided that it was still none of my business. That didn't stop me from looking at what I knew, and coming to my own conclusions. He loved her, or at least had when they got married; but Rebecca was a high-maintenance person, and Dave had always been a "hands off" guy. My guess was he expected a marriage to be sort of like rooming with someone where you shared the same bed and had sex. I didn't know; I was likely never to find out, and I really didn't care. I never thought they were right for each other anyway.
Suffice it to say, I offered him temporary residence on the sofa bed in the spare room. It made using my computer problematic, but I solved that by bringing home my laptop from work and setting up on the bar. Wireless routers made it easy to stay connected. He spent the week in a funk, but then he did the "Dave thing"; he got practical. I arrived home from work on Friday to see him boxing and labeling his stuff.
"Need help," I asked as I hung my coat on the hook near the door.
"Nah," he replied, taping closed a box of books. "Can I use your computer to hunt for a new apartment?"
"Sure," I answered as I patted my briefcase. "I've got the laptop for things I need. Just let me transfer a few files and the desktop is yours."
He smiled at me for a moment, and then turned back to his repacking. "Thanks."
That was it; discussion over. I could see how that would turn off Rebecca; hell, almost any woman was my guess. Most women wanted to discuss things, share in the decision making process, and pay attention to the details. It was a "together thing" and showed that they cared. Guys like Dave didn't work that way. Ask the question, get the answer, and move on; that was his modus operandi. Dave wasn't compatible with "let's discuss everything."
Dave started looking for a place to stay that night. His needs were simple: a comfortable place, one bedroom, in town, with resident parking, and not in a questionable neighborhood. He also needed it to be priced such that he didn't require a roommate.
I just left the computer to him; it wasn't like I had anything important to do on it anyway. I worked on computers all day, so I really found no enjoyment in them at home; all I ever used mine for was to surf porn and email. I didn't even enjoy instant messaging.
Dave went to see a few places during the weekend and the following week. I met him at the gym after he'd visited the latest place on Thursday.
"How's it going," I asked as I pulled on my sweatpants.
"There are a few I like," Dave commented as he pulled his workout clothes out of his bag, "But none of the places I can afford have anything available until March."
"That's okay. You can stay as long as you need, Dave." I pulled on my sweatshirt. "Really." I smiled at him before heading for the cardio area. "I'm enjoying the company."
