I dial the number. Busy signal. I dial again. Busy signal. (sigh.) I open a beer: Modelo. Why not?
I dial again. It rings. It rings again. Then...
Arnie's Mortuary. You stab 'em, we slab 'em.
I hang up. Signal sent. I sip on my cold Modelo. It needs the lime. I find one and take care of that. I taste it. It tastes like Modelo. The phone rings.
It rings again.
I pick it up, touch the screen, and say, "Arnie's Gynecology. You pork 'em, we stork 'em."
Click.
I hang up. (Signal received.) I sip on my Modelo and lime. It takes time. The phone rings again. I answer after the first one.
I say, "Arnie's... G'day, Mick."
What's going on, man.
It used to freak me out a little, talking to my dead friend, but we get along now just as well as we did when he was alive - incredibly alive.
I tell him that I reckon he knows what's going on. Let's not waste this precious time we have together playing Gnip Gnop or whatever. He knows what's on my mind, of course, and assures me. My Dad made it to the other side, and is currently perusing the Library of All Libraries.
I pour it out to him, my old friend who has been dead for seven and a half years now. My Dad had the fairy tale life with the storybook ending. (He knows.) My Dad never emitted the slightest of whimpers. (He knows.) My Dad slipped out the door on his own terms, into the good company of those who went before him.
(He knows.)
Don't worry so much, Mick says. You worried all this time for nothing.
It occurs to me that Mick and I don't have much to talk about anymore, and might not, for a while... It depends. I look at the lime resting at the bottom of my empty Modelo bottle.
"You got this?" I ask, semi-necessarily.
Mick says, Run with the ball, Paul, which is something that my friend said to me quite often when he was alive.
Run with the ball.
So, knowing we will talk again later, I hang up the phone...
And I run.
pH 7.27.23
***
