Fiction : John Groshalski
Going Home
“I’m really glad you were able to meet me,” Mike said, sitting down at the bar.
“It’s fine,” Paul answered. He looked around at the nearly empty bar, at the Christmas lights hanging limply above the rows of bottles. “This is an all right place.”
“I like it.”
“You come here a lot?”
“Only when Dara works nights.” Mike looked around. “Christ, let me get us a beer or something.”
He ordered two drafts with the bartender.
Paul took a pull on his beer and looked at Mike. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah...yeah, everything is fine.”
“What is it, man?”
“It’s stupid,” Mike said. He took a pull on his own beer.
“It can’t be that bad.”
“It is.”
“Come on, tell me.”
“Okay.” Mike hesitated a moment. “I’m scared to go home alone.”
“What?”
“Well, not scared. I just don’t like to. There’s no reason, really. I mean nothing happens.”
Paul took a pull on his beer, and wished he could smoke in the bar. Fucking laws. “Then what is it?”
Mike considered himself for a moment. “You have a nice place, right?”
“As nice as Sheila and I can afford here, at least I think. It’s big enough for us, and Janelle has her own room.”
“But I mean, you know, you get up, you have breakfast with the family, you go about your day, and then by the end of it you come home to a nice place, a nice wife, a cute kid, and somewhere where you feel whole and relaxed, a place where the outside world can’t touch you.”
Paul raised an eyebrow. “Yeah...I guess. Ideally.”
Mike shook his head and had some more beer. “See, I haven’t felt that way since I was younger, like when we were living in Pittsburgh and had that apartment with the guys.”
“That’s like comparing apples and oranges.” Paul had more beer. He wanted to check his cell to see if Sheila had called again, but he figured it would be inappropriate. Still, he turned it on from inside his pocket and set it to vibrate. “Those were different times, dude. Things were crazy back then. You can’t really compare it.”
“I’m not trying to,” Mike said. “I’m talking about the feeling of freedom, or being careless and young. Maybe the apartment was a bad comparison. Maybe I haven’t felt this way since I was a kid, and all I cared about in the world were comics and baseball cards, and....”
“...And mommy and daddy taking care of everything, right?” Paul added.
Mike didn’t answer.
“What’s really going on, man?”
“I just...Paul, I just can’t handle it anymore. I worry about everything. The job. The bills. The student loans, and the groceries. Dara and I can’t go out for a meal without me grilling her about what’s in the checkbook, before our appetizer arrives.”
Paul nodded, suddenly worried about his friend. He had more beer, finishing his draft. “But what’s this have to do with going home?”
Mike smiled. “Don’t you see? The apartment is the physical representation of all of these things, if you don’t mind me getting all philosophical on you. Everything that bothers me, like, manifests itself into the form of the apartment the moment I see my block in the distance.”
“Okay.”
“And it gets worse from there. Every little thing adds to it. Like if I hear the neighbor’s television through the wall, it drives me mad. I start pounding on the wall. Hell, most of the time it’s not even loud. I just hate the idea of someone intruding on this modicum of solace I’ve managed to scrape together.”
“Well, televisions can be bad things, I guess,” Paul added. He ordered them two more beers, after Mike finished his.