It was raining, and Billy came over smelling like wet wool. The apartment was new, the aftermath of my recent divorce, and Billy hadn’t been, so after we hugged, he stood inside the door looking around.
“Nice,” he said.
I knew he didn’t mean it, but it was better than hearing the truth.
“It reminds me of the place we had in Baumholder.”
To me it couldn’t have felt more different. But he was right in some ways. The walls were bare, there wasn’t much furniture. I’d only taken time to stock up on booze.
Billy’s face was drawn and he hadn’t shaved in days. He’d just had his first kid a month ago. A son. My daughter Willa, ten, was with her mother, and this was the first time Billy and I were going to hang out, just the two of us, in what felt like years. It might have been less; after Willa was born, my sense of time had never been restored.
The wool smell was Billy’s peacoat. He’d had it since we were lieutenants together in Germany. Better days, I often thought.
“There’s a closet behind that door.”
“I’m still a little chilly.”
“You smell like a dead dog.”
When Billy slid off the coat, I saw a ring of new fat around his belly button. I didn’t make fun of him for it, though I wanted to for old times’ sake.
We drank in the kitchen. He sat at the counter on the one Walmart stool I’d bothered to put together. I opened four beers, gave him two, and leaned against the refrigerator.
“How’s dad life?”
“I can’t believe Ginny wants to do this again.”
“It gets easier. Then harder. Then easier, again.”
“You’ve only got one.”
“They say having another helps.”
“Do they? My guess is they’re kidding themselves.”
He yawned. I’d thought we could go to a bar, have a night like when we were the most important people in each other’s lives, but he wasn’t going to make it past dinner. My face must have betrayed what I was thinking. He laughed through the end of the yawn.
“I’ll suck it up.”
The blinds were shut on the balcony door, but the rain sounded intense. It splashed and clattered against the glass.
“You like it here?”
“Not really.”
Billy balanced his bottle on the bottom edge and rolled it in a circle. I could tell he wanted to say something uncomfortable. I assumed his idiosyncrasies hadn’t changed all that much.
“I haven’t felt it yet,” he said. “The thing people say you’re supposed to feel.”
“What thing?” He looked away. “Which people?”
“It’s just—Look, when I say I love him, it doesn’t feel like a lie. But it also doesn’t feel like the right word.”
I thought I understood.
“Have you been able to make him smile yet?”
He shook his head. From the bar cart near the balcony door, he retrieved a bottle of vodka. I got two glasses and filled them with ice. He poured too much, but I drank knowing I’d finish it. With this rain, we’d need a cab anyway.
“He’s only a month old. When you do, that’ll be the start of it.”
“I don’t know.”
Then I remembered something that convinced me I was right. The memories of Willa’s early days had been blended into a vague feeling, but I recalled something I used to say. It made my ex-wife furious, but it was a clarifying truth, I thought it was what Billy needed to hear.
“After I made Willa smile, I stopped loving Otis.”
Billy paused his glass short of his lips. He swirled the glass so the ice clinked and looked at Otis’s bed in the corner of the living room. It was empty save for a tennis ball and a few tufts of white fur. Willa had taken him to her mother’s for the week.
“You don’t love your dog?”
“Not anymore. Or I realized I never loved him.”
We drank more vodka. I felt the pleasant blurriness of a head buzz. I wondered if Billy was already drunk—when Willa was a newborn, I’d been a lightweight.
“Why don’t you get rid of him?”
“Willa thinks she loves him. Probably she does. Anyway, I can’t make him someone else’s problem. I’d feel worse than I already do.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. I didn’t feel like talking about it anymore.
“You shouldn’t tell people that.” Billy seemed like he was joking, but not entirely.
“I’m not telling people, I’m telling you.”
He grunted, drank more. He went to the coat closet, wiping condensation from his hand on his pants. He returned with a pack of Reds, still sealed in cellophane.
We took a while trying to find fire portable enough to take onto the balcony. I knew I didn’t have a lighter anymore, and somehow no matches had made it to the apartment. We settled on holding our faces close to the range, inhaling the blue flame with the cigarettes dangling from our lips. We dashed across the carpet and out the sliding door.
Rain soaked my socks while we smoked. The street below was surprisingly alive. Cars, yes, but pedestrians, too, trudging forward under umbrellas, wrapped in yellow slickers. The nicotine loosened me. I began to sway. Billy held his cigarette between his thumb and pointer finger like a novice, but he looked happy.
“You really don’t love your dog?”
“Come on, man.”
He blew a cloud of smoke into the air. “People never let on that love might be a limited resource. People only ever write songs saying the opposite.”
“Billy—” I put my hands wide and looked around. “Who the fuck are people?”
He shrugged. I took another pull before tossing the cigarette into the potted plant I’d never bothered to water. The cherry ember snuffed in a puddle.
Inside, I got a pair of dry socks from a box I hadn’t unpacked. When I came back into the living room, Billy had on his peacoat.
“We gotta get a cab,” I said.
He took out his phone to order one, and I knelt to put on my shoes. He put his phone in his pocket and stretched his arms. His face twisted up. He leaned into his collar and sniffed.
“You’re right. This coat does stink.”
The scent of cigarettes had overpowered the smell of wet wool, but I agreed.
***
Favorite Drink: To make a Brenne Daquiri, you’ll have to get your hands on Brenne French whisky, but you really should do that anyway. Once you do, just use classic daquiri ratios. I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite cocktail, but I’d be game to fist fight Hemingway about this variation.
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R. B. Miner is a New York City native, West Point graduate, and occupational dilettante. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in, among others, J Journal, New World Writing, The Dodge, and Identity Theory. He lives in Kansas City with his wife, kids, and dog, but you can find him (begrudgingly) on Twitter @rbminerauthor and Instagram @rbminer.
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image: “Sambuca in Capri, Italy:” Ellen Sollinger Walker, the daughter of world explorers, is a retired classical pianist, university music professor, and clinical psychologist. She holds an MFA from Carnegie-Mellon University and an MS from Eastern Michigan University. An emerging writer, Ellen’s published work may be found in a range of online and print literary journals including Storytellers Refrain, Change Seven Literary Magazine, Papers Publishing and upcoming in an anthology published by Tolsun Books. Ellen was personally invited to attend The Writer’s Hotel (TWH) Annual Writer’s Conference in Boothbay Harbor, ME (May 2023) as a Teacher’s Assistant. She has been invited back in 2024 as a Director’s Assistant.
Rejection Letters 