Hypothetically, I suppose I do.
It doesn’t have to be hypothetical, Art. I mean, look at me. Who am I? I’m your friend Cal, and most people looking on would say: What a lousy life that guy lives. Chrissakes, I’m a grown man, and I’m still living in my mom’s house. Sounds horrible, don’t it? And yet I’ve learned how to be happy under the conditions, and for this I’m grateful. I’ve certainly got it better than your hypothetical prisoner. What’s more, I love my ma. I love taking care of her. It makes me feel worthwhile. It gives me something to do, and what’s more she’s an interesting person, full of surprises.
Such as?
Do you know she collects Nazi paraphernalia? I take her around to flea markets and estate sales in search of the stuff. It’s like a major thing I do for her. She owns a Third Reich flag signed by Joseph Goebbels. Her grandfather, Otto, who fought for Germany in WWI, later became a high-ranking official in the Reich. Oh, and…well I don’t have to tell you this. But she also collects all things Elvis.
And so it went, part of the circus that paraded itself as a conversation between Cal and myself.
Cal and I had so many conversations, so many of which were forgettable. I mean the details of the conversations we had were usually eminently forgettable, so we usually found ourselves endlessly repeating ourselves, with small variations. It was always so forgettable what we talked about, but the emotion that I was left with after the conversation, that’s what I always seemed to remember, it was like conversation was this thing that two people did. The end of conversation wasn’t to arrive at anything, but simply to make the simple music conversation had to offer. Conversation was like being a performer in a musical duet. You spoke back and forth with your instruments, but what was it you really said? Talking with my friends, what few friends I had, we always seemed to loop around in circles, or if not in circles, in long digressive tangents that led you ever further away from where you had started. The end result of such conversations was we never knew what we had accomplished, and we had forgotten what had gotten us going in the first place, but we were always filled with an emotion that we had solved the riddles of the universe.
?
Adeleine was always mystified by my choice in friends. For instance, she always wondered why I spent so much time hanging around with Cal.
I think you’ve outgrown Cal years ago, haven’t you, honey?
It wasn’t that Adeleine didn’t like Cal—she thought he was a nice enough guy. Harmless, really. She just didn’t understand why we spent so much time together.
You’re opposites. Don’t you see? she liked to point out. He lives a lonely life with his mom, whereas you have a family and your own business.
We’re friends from way back, I would point out. No use abandoning ship now.
You’re too loyal.
It’s loyalty that’s kept me with you.
Not love?
Love too, my love. And Cal. He feeds my need to have a friend. That’s all. Flawed as he is. I like him. I like our conversations.
Your conversations? What is it you and he sit around and talk about?
This and that.
Is it that personal you can’t tell me?
No. I just can’t really remember. It’s banter really. We banter. Back and forth like a couple of schoolkids.
And that satisfies your need for friendship?
I suppose it does.
Two grown men talking like schoolkids. What does he do all day, anyways?
I don’t know.
How could you not know?
I’ve never asked him.
You’ve known him all your life and you’ve never asked him what he does all day at home with his mom?
If he wanted to tell me, I suppose he would. Otherwise I try not to pry. We respect each other’s privacy. That’s what I like about him. I don’t need to explain anything. Just say it and leave it like it is.
I don’t understand men, I suppose.
You understand me.
Do I Art? How do you know I understand you?
Now you’re getting philosophical.
Well, seriously. I sometimes feel I don’t understand you at all.
What don’t you understand about me? You get everything there is to get about me. That’s why I love you.
Getting you and understanding who you are are two different things, don’t you think?
I don’t know, are they?
We live with each other, sleep in the same bed night after night, and share many of the same concerns, but there are things about you I still find inscrutable.
Nobody has ever called me inscrutable before.
Sometimes I think you just drift without really having any direction. I don’t understand that aspect of you.
What do you mean?
You drift into things, Art. You sometimes don’t seem focused. I still don’t know why you became a detective. And what’s more, I don’t think you know why you became a detective. It was an idea you had out of the blue, and then you just pursued it as if it were some great career you were destined for. But as far as I can tell, you don’t particularly like the work, and judging from how little money you make from the business, and how much it’s costing our family to pay for office rent downtown on Wabash Avenue, and to pay for that woman you hired, it doesn’t seem like you’re very good at it, either. So yeah…that’s what I mean. You drift into things, but you don’t seem guided. Your friendship with Cal is another example. You’ve sustained your friendship to him because, according to you, you have known him so long that there’s ‘no use jumping ship now.’ And yet staying in a friendship just because you have always stayed in a friendship seems a little circular to me. Like drifting.
The same could be said about any relationship that lasts. We stick with it for no other reason than because we always have.
Are you kidding me?
Yes. I’m kidding you.
Another thing…
Yes…
Don’t think that I’m not a little irked about how much your business is costing us.
OK. I hear you.
So there is a real price for drifting.
OK. I hear you.
But it’s not just the money. I’m irked that you’re not doing something more with your life.
I am doing something more.
Of course you’re not. Your job as a ‘Private Detective’ is a joke, and don’t think I don’t know it.
What brought this on all of a sudden?
I’m just thinking about your laziness. I wish you weren’t so lazy.
I’m not lazy. Trust me.
Oh, you’re lazy. I love you, but you’re lazy. And that’s just the beginning of your problems.
Where do they end?
They end—‘they’ being your problems—they end, ultimately, when you stop being lazy and you start being truthful and you finally figure out who you are.
I am truthful.
Hmmph. I don’t know about that. As you say, you’re a man who likes his relationships built on routines, but sometimes routines can blind you to the truth of your relationships.
They don’t blind me to the truth of our relationship, if that’s what you’re saying.