The Important Things

We fucked. We married, we fucked again. We had a kid, I got a job, and I’d had enough of all of that, so I left. I woke up one night and it was three AM and I left. I never thought about them again.

I’d like to say that I had been a badass, a bruiser tough guy twisting the handles on a motorcycle I’d built myself. I’d like to say that I put on goggles and let my long hair flow behind me, running thirty miles above the speed limit, I put on the radio and there’s Muddy Waters and he’s still Hard, damn he’s always been Hard, and just as the radio comes on he pulls one note on the guitar and holds it and yells as loud as he can and I rev the engine and go a little faster and yell as loud as I can into the dusty void lit by the Arizona sun. I’d like to say that, but none of it was true.

I could never build a motorcycle and I didn’t have long hair. I didn’t live in Arizona besides. But I was going to do something about it. I yelled my best blues yell as I climbed up the grass hill towards the highway, going quiet halfway through because it wasn’t very good.

There was no way that someone would pick up a hitchhiker at three AM and so I turned right and started walking. I couldn’t stay.

I walked and looked down and it was dark. I saw the tarred road I was walking on and looked at how black it was and thought how during the day it was just black but now at night with everything around it black as well it shone and reflected and what it shone and reflected was even more black. It stood out and reminded the trees and the road markers what real black was. So drivers could see better, I told myself, it must have been intentional.

The asphalt black didn’t seem so Important anymore and I looked up and it was six AM. I had been walking, I knew, and when the road became just black again it told me that the sun was coming up. A truck pulled over in front of me. I could tell that it was waiting for me to get in.

I climbed up two metal stairs to the door and I opened it and sat down. I said hello to the driver and he grinned at me and said hello and I fell asleep.

There was the sound first and then the smell, which is what you wake up to when you wake up to someone eating food. The driver rattled his empty soda cup, which wasn’t empty but had a lot of ice in it and nothing else. That’s close enough to empty. He had been eating french fries. There was half of a cheap hamburger sitting on its paper and I heard the paper slide over the pleather seats as we went around a bend. It reminded me of waking up in a tent sticky from dew. I always hated that. I was sticky from sweat, the truck was only one degree too hot. Then I opened my eyes and it was eleven AM.

“Ha! Well look who’s up.”

“These are nice seats”

“Well thank you! You know this truck didn’t come with these seats.”

He told me a story about his seats, and I nodded.

“So you married? You on your way home?” He pointed to my finger, which had a gold ring on it.

“No,” I said, and took the ring off. “It’s not mine.” I didn’t want him to ask about my ring. I didn’t like that I had to lie. I had already wanted the conversation to be over, and then he asked about my ring. I wanted to get out of the truck.

“Oh,” he said. “Well,” he told me a story about his truck, and I nodded.
My wife’s name was Allie. We met at a high school dance and I wanted to leave and to my surprise she did too. I took off her bra in the back of her father’s sedan which she had been allowed to borrow. I smiled at her and it was midnight. I kissed her and then we were married. It was one PM and I looked at her and I stepped down from the altar holding her hand and we walked to the door and there was Gregory. It was two AM and she was on a table and yelling her best blues yell and our baby boy Gregory fell into my hands. That was it. That was all that had happened. It was three AM and I was sitting in my bed and I looked at my hands where Gregory had been born. Gregory was asleep in his room and I’d had enough of all that, and so I left.
I looked at the ring which I was flipping back and forth between two fingers. I put it in my left pocket. I would sell it at a pawn shop. I would never think about them again.

I asked the driver to let me out in Willits. He stopped at a gas station.
“Oh, almost forgot to mention! My name’s Steve. See you ‘round,” he told me.
The truck gassed up and drove off and it was noon. I had already forgotten the driver’s name. I looked down to see what I had with me. In my pocket I had my wallet and my ring and on my wrist I had my watch of course. I had to find a phone and a phone book to call Mike. I’d heard that Mike lived in Willits.

I sat down at a table in the diner and Mike sat down across from me. We ordered coffee and we looked at each other. He was happy to see me. On the phone Mike had picked up the receiver and had said hello and he was contented when he said it and he was firm and I saw him through the receiver and he was seven feet tall with two days of stubble and one cocked eyebrow. Mike had taught me things, a long time ago. We never sat down and he never stopped talking and he never said anything that wasn’t Important. He told me that some things were Important, and that nothing else was worth the time. He bought me a beer. He bought me a ticket to a show. He brought me to the mall, and bought me the time to steal the watch behind the counter. It was my first watch. It was three PM.

Our coffee came and we looked at each other. I leaned forward over my coffee, looking into his eyes, ready for him to speak because I knew that I had to listen. He was going to tell me how I had done the right thing, and then I was never going to think about them again. We were going to remember all the Important things that had happened, and we were going to grin. I looked at Mike. He was five foot nine like he had always been and he was wearing a jacket. He smiled and he sipped his coffee and then he looked at me and saw my eyes asking at him and he did not smile.

“I thought we would just be having coffee,” he said. “We would catch up. I was happy to see you.”

“We are, aren’t we? That’s what we’re doing.”

“Oh, well, yes. Good.”

He smiled again. Something was wrong.

“So what did you ever end up doing? You were always pretty good at the lumber yard during the summer. You’re not still there, though, right?”

“I… well, I… no, I’m not.” I wasn’t sure how to respond.

“That’s good, it’s nothing you want to do for too long. Too many splinters over the years can’t be fun. I opened a coffee shop around the corner with my cousin a few years back. It’s doing pretty well. Ha! Hope nobody sees me in here drinking this stuff.”

“But Mike, this is small talk.”

“I guess, but we’re catching up, right?”

“Didn’t you always… you’d always say that small talk wasn’t Important.”

“Small talk isn’t important?” Mike looked at me sideways, and then remembered. “Oh! Oh, wow, you got quite a memory on you! Haven’t thought about that in years. Man, we would spend hours talking about what was Important and what wasn’t. What a great time.”

“You haven’t thought about it in years? But haven’t you been doing Important things? You were going to go on television. You were going to buy a motorcycle!”

“Well I opened up my coffee shop, that’s pretty important to me. I’m enjoying myself. I just don’t go around all day deciding whether things are Important or not, that’s all.”

We looked at each other and he looked down and he told me a story about his coffee shop and I nodded and my eyes were red around the edges and my hands began to shake and it was one PM. He finished his story.

“Mike I can’t believe you. I come to see you and you’re running some coffee shop and you’re making small talk and you don’t care what’s Important and what’s not. Mike, anything that’s not Important isn’t worth the time,” I bit at him.

“Come on, that was a long time ago, you don’t expect me to still think that way.”

“Mike, it’s hard, I know. I let myself slip, but I kept thinking about what was Important and I realized that nothing Important was happening. It wasn’t worth the time, Mike. I left.”

“You left what?”

“I got married, Mike, I had a kid. But nothing was happening. Nothing.”

Mike’s eyes opened wide. I could see that he was going to remember. He was going to tell me I’d done the right thing and he was going to sell his coffee shop and we were going to leave. We would go and we would give our best blues yells and every bone in our bodies would anticipate the next Important thing that would happen, because we knew it would come. I began to smile.

“You left your wife and kid? Just like that?”

“It was three AM and I left.”

“What the hell were you thinking? Does she even know where you are?”

“Well, no, of course not.” I was shaken. He didn’t understand yet. “Mike, nothing Important was going to happen.”

Mike dug his eyes into mine and lowered his voice. “Nothing ‘Important’ was going to happen? You believe in that shit? I was barely old enough to fake an ID and you think I had some sort of grand philosophical statement to make? Even I knew I was bullshitting. You left your God damn wife and child and you come to me and I haven’t seen you in years. You think you can explain yourself with this kid shit? How immature are you?”

I couldn’t say anything. Mike stood up and pointed and hissed at me. The volume besides, each word was thunder.

“Tell me! Tell me what things you think are Important! Huh? Give me a list.”

I wanted to tell him, to think of my list and tell him what it was, but I just looked at my coffee. Mike’s shoes clipped on the tile as he stomped towards the door. “I can’t believe you grew up to be such scum,” one of us said. He abandoned me and the bell over the door rang and it was just past one PM. I paid for the coffee.

I was glad the conversation was over because he had been making small talk. Small talk wasn’t Important. Nothing Important was going to happen if I had stayed and why couldn’t he understand that? He had told me, he must have known.

The rental car was green and I was angry and I was going very fast and it was five PM. I had made an Important decision to go South. Willits was to the North and very soon my wife and my kid would be too, but I wasn’t thinking about them. I would never think about them again. I felt the ring still in my pocket with my wallet.

I recognized the trees and knew that I was close to my wife and my kid and I was thinking about them. I couldn’t help thinking about them. I pulled the ring from my pocket and threw it out the window. No! I needed to sell it in a pawn shop, that was what I was going to do. I needed to sell it in a pawn shop, and so I pulled the car over. I was not thinking about them.

I walked back to where I had thrown the ring and it reflected the last parts of the sun and I saw it and picked it up. I was very close to my wife and my kid. I sat down on the grass hill next to the highway and looked at our house. I wasn’t thinking about them, I was tired.

If I went back inside Allie would be mad and she would cry and I would want the conversation to be over and Gregory would graduate high school and I would get promoted and Gregory would fuck and get married and I would have a grandchild and I would be old and that would be all. I would be so old. I would be old and that would be all.

A twig snapped and I jumped and turned my head. Another twig snapped and I could feel the hairs rising on my neck. I gave my best blues yell and I could not hold the ring and it fell on the ground and I was back in the car and it was six PM and the car started. I never thought about them again.