Meeting Someone after Fifty Years

They don't teach you how to do this in school. 

My friend Gary and I attended grammar school together in Skokie, Illinois, a northern Chicago suburb. We attended two years of high school at Notre Dame High School in Niles, played football together, then enlisted in the Marines and completed boot camp together.

Then fell out of touch.

A few days ago we met for the first time in 48 years. (Fifty sounds better for a title.)

Body builder and super athlete, Gary had taken a health beating the last ten years. This included a brain embolism with subsequent induced coma and, a few years later, a massive stroke and heart attack. The general outline of Gary remained the same, but his once muscular frame had shrunk.

(Not that I'm any beauty. )

I stayed at his place in Phoenix. We watched the Masters and traded gruesome health tales, talked of our families, and our plans, and, of course, the past. But the key element was that the old days were not the focal point. In other words, our friendship had survived the decades. We were comfortable discussing the present and future. It doesn't always go like that. 

We'd been roughed up by the decades. But, in some ways, we'd never ceased being who we'd been.  

And it's hot in Phoenix. But I already knew that.

From left to right: Gary, myself and two other guys at Camp Pendleton.

Story Du Jour #21

All Story Du Jour tales are available online and free! A small offering in these trying times.

Steve Powers

"Premium Harmony" - by Stephen King

Approx. 4K words

At a convenience store, a man confronts issues of life, death, and tobacco. 

Here's a sample of the writing:


"Ray looks at the gas gauge and sees it’s down to half. He could turn off the motor and roll down the windows, but then he’d really bake. Sitting here in the sun, waiting for her to buy a purple plastic kickball for ninety-nine cents when he knows they could get one for seventy-nine cents at Wal-Mart. Only that one might be yellow or red. Not good enough for Tallie. Only purple for the princess.

 He sits there and Mary doesn’t come back. “Christ on a pony!” he says. Cool air trickles from the vents. He thinks again about turning off the engine, saving some gas, then thinks, Fuck it. She won’t weaken and bring him the smokes, either. Not even the cheap off-brand. This he knows. He had to make that remark about the Little Debbies.

 He sees a young woman in the rearview mirror. She’s jogging toward the car. She’s even heavier than Mary; great big tits shuffle back and forth under her blue smock. Biz sees her coming and starts to bark."

A King tale from a decade ago. The man is not afraid to reference his own works.

Note: a fine non-fiction book review for the Google Archipelago inbound early next week.