My good old friend, John Denardo, sent me a pretty random text on Friday, asking if I wanted to grab some lunch. John lives in center city Philadelphia with, what I would assume would be, PhD candidate Crazy Steve DeHaan.
As it turns out, John spends about two weeks every couple months in Hartford, CT for work and he drives by Mt. Kisco on his way back to Philly.
We had lunch at Aversano's in Brewster, NY. Aversano's is one of my accounts for work. It is one half pizza place, and one half fancy Italian restaurant. John and I sat at the bar,enjoying Blue Moon and some fine food (excellent food for the price). We did the classic catch-up thing, talked sports, talked about Mike Wynn's two cars, the family. I then convinced him to stay for free beer at Captain Lawrence and the Phillies.
It wasn't too hard to do.
I had to hit a few more accounts, so I tossed him my apartment key (actually, Jacqui's set, I grabbed both that morning by accident) and was on my way. John went back to 4E, showered up and watched some SVU. I texted Weber, letting her know that JD was hanging out for the night.
"But the apartment is a mess!" she said.
I got home from work, and told John that our apartment was apparently a mess, he didn't notice. We went to Captain Lawrence for a drink.
When Jacqui and her friend's finally showed up, John told Jacqui how upset he was with the state of our apartment's cleanliness.
We then made an appearance to a med school soup party. John wanted to see what all the fuss was about after all of Jacqui's girlfriend's wouldn't stop raving about the soups.
John was making friends with the soup eaters as me and a stranger snuck pinches of cookie dough from an unguarded pot.
***
John and I left Jacqui and her friends, and made it to the bar. Tired, having woke up that morning at 5AM, John ordered me a Redbull and Vodka, which helped. We watched the game and left the bar drunker than when we walked in. We walked in confident, we left numb. Not since 2007 have we not made it to the NLCS, Philly sports is starting to feel like it did when I was growing up: perpetual letdowns.
As we stumbled along the sidewalks, using parking meters as walking sticks, not saying a word, a car rolled up on us, the girls were yelling to us, so we yelled back.
It took us a minute to realize it was Jacqui, Shannon, and Craig, trying to give us a ride home.
I finally fell asleep when we got home. John and Jacqui went back out and probably had one of those "So, who are you?" conversations.
When I woke up in the morning, they were both gone. I went to work, texted John, telling him that we should do it all again sometime.
***
And as for those Uncollected Works from the last post, I decided I'll be posting one per month for the next six months or so. Some of them are pretty funny and entertaining, some are dark and depressing, some are deeply personal, and most all are, although based on true events, completely fictitious.
I'd like to thank you all for not encouraging me to write any more poems than I absolutely have to, and I sure as hell don't want to force it. I only write them when I need to. I'm far from an addict. I wouldn't even call it a social habit since I don't go to the writers group anymore. Just occasionally, I need to take a hit.
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