Hola kids.  You’re about to read one of my pieces that I refer to as “power stories.”  Not in a pretentious kinda way, mind you.  I just call them that because they are often very short and written in one sitting (two at the most) and very direct and streamlined little stories.  Anyway, there are a number of them (and more on the way…) but just thought you should know about them so you didn’t think that 1) I can’t actually write anything over two pages 2) There was more to the story that has mysteriously vanished or 3) that I’m gypping you on your allotment of monthly literary goodness…

-Joe

A Friend Better Than You

Matthew "Dirge" Dergenstein was a toad.   That was the current theory at least.

After being unceremoniously dumped on the eve of his one-year anniversary by Tonya, the girl who had just a week before dropped several hints that she wanted an engagement ring--soon.   That had been almost six months before and Dirge couldn't get another woman to so much as look him in the eyes--or at least look him in the eyes with anything other than contempt.

That was the problem, he figured.   There was some sort of secret underground network that kept every woman on the planet informed of all the others comings and goings.   That's how they knew things they shouldn't know and how, if you were blacklisted, you were pretty much doomed to a lifetime of celibacy and reheated Spaghetti-O's in your bathrobe with a couple of cats to keep you company.   It was a shitty deal and Dirge was on the flushing end of a doozy.

Spence had heard it all before.   How Tonya was the only one that Dirge had ever really loved or that the only thing he really missed was how she could get her nose to crinkle when she was really truly happy.   By the end of month two Spence probably knew every nuance and idiosyncrasy that Tonya had as well as her own mother.   The difference was Tonya's mother would eternally love and esteem Tonya just because of her position as lifegiver.   Spence on the other hand had been largely indifferent to her while she was around and none to sad to see her go if she had actually left.

Thing was she hadn't left.   Every day Dirge would morosely flop down on Spence's couch and talk in depth about a ghost that only he could see, but who he believed everyone deeply needed to know about.   Spence didn't care much if Tonya looked like she was smiling when she slept or that special way she'd curl her toes when she stretched.   The only pressing thing Spence wanted to know was when he could get his couch back.

Spence didn't even know Dirge that well.   They had worked together at a furniture store about a year before.   Things had been friendly but not close.   When Dirge announced he was moving to a new apartment one afternoon and asked his coworkers if any wanted to help, Spence hadn't thought much of it.   He showed up an hour or so late to help and discovered he was the only to actually show up.   Since that day Dirge had apparently confused his relief that someone had actually shown up with some sort of actual relationship the two had.

Spence largely ignored him--not picking up the phone when Dirge called if he didn't feel like talking to him, blowing off plans randomly.   It wasn't that he hated Dirge; he just didn't find Dirge to be all that interesting.   Without fail Dirge would still call, happy and optimistic about all things that involved him and Spence.

Spence wondered if Dirge actually had little scenarios play out in his head about what great buddies they were--if in his head they'd go fishing or hit on twins at the bar or some sort of thing that buddies did in TV shows and beer commercials.   The thought the Dirge might have actually considered Spence his sidekick in his little alternate universe wasn't out of the question, either.

In either case, Spence had been able to keep his newfound best friend at a convenient distance for the most part.   Every other weekend if nothing else was going on Spence would meet Dirge for a drink or they'd hook up for a movie or something largely informal.   Dirge thought everything was just peachy and Spence had most of his free time to devote to things he actually cared about.   At least until Tonya left.

All of sudden Dirge started showing up on his doorstep at all hours.   Sometimes he was drunk, sometimes he was just crying and sometimes he was crying about how drunk he was.   At first Spence had felt sorry for him and let him pass out on his couch.   Unfortunately, Dirge took it as a sign that he had finally found a confidant and a loyal party through his time of trial and tribulation.

It became ritual that Spence would come home from work to find his newest unwanted best friend waiting for him on the landing steps.   After that anything Spence would say or do would launch Dirge into a reminiscence or fit of self-pity that he would constantly ask Spence to validate.

It had gotten to the point where Spence would swing by the bottle shop and pick up a case before returning home from work in hopes that Dirge would drink himself into a stupor and leave him with enough time to get some peace and quiet at his own house.   In the end, the only thing it really succeeded in doing was increasing Dirge's tolerance level and drawing out his excruciatingly long and aimless reflections on life without love.

Now usually these things fade over time.   The self-pity and the pain, no matter how both are fervently held on to by the bearer, dissipate.   The immediacy of the insult and linger of the injury both become smaller in retrospect and, even though they remain to be a favorite topic of discussion, the topic can at least be changed.   But after two straight years of Dirge's drunken weeping fits in his living room at three in the morning when Spence had to work the next morning.   Spence wasn't even really sure what it felt like to sit in his own couch anymore, as it had become Dirge's official place of moping.

Spence had tried to tell Dirge not to come back.   He had changed his phone number and the locks on the door, but it hadn't mattered--Dirge never really called anyway and every day after work he'd be sitting by Spence's front door crying and then trotted in after the door was opened.   There wasn't a waking moment where Spence wasn't at work that somehow didn't involve Dirge.   The living room started to have the lingering scent of feet and stale beer and it was intolerable.

Dirge would sit, crying at Spence--who would often be in another room in an attempt to reinforce that he was uninterested in the epic tragedy that was Dirge's love life, but to no avail.   He could almost tell what time it was by the comments.   At ten o'clock it was "I just want her to be happy."   At eleven it was "We were so happy together--what could have happened?"   By midnight the self-loathing had kicked in with "How could I have thought she could've loved someone like me?"   At one it was "I wish I had never been born" and the rest of the night usually ended up being incoherent mumbles and wails.

One cool fall evening Spence had finally had enough.   He dropped a couple of sleeping pills into Dirge's open beer and waited for them to kick in.   An hour later Dirge was prematurely unconscious, spread out in a frozen flail on the couch.   Spence quickly set to work grabbing the gas can from his truck and splashing it throughout the apartment, with special attention to the living room.   Spence grabbed a couple of items he figured they'd allow him to keep in his jail cell and grabbed Dirge's lighter from the coffee table.   As he glanced across the coffee table he found himself staring directly into Dirge's glassy dilated eyes.

He managed to flop an uneasy arm onto Spence's.   He grabbed Spence's hand and gave it a little squeeze.

"I could have been a better friend than you.   I would have been better," he mumbled before rolling back over on his side and going back to sleep.

Spence slowly recoiled his hand as Dirge nestled into the couch cushions.   He wasn't sure what to say or how to react.   He wasn't even sure what it had meant.

Later as he leaned against the police cruiser watching the brilliant light from the flames and the gently dancing and cascading embers Spence wondered if he should have called Tonya to tell her what had happened.   It was too late now in either case, he thought to himself.