I pour more coffee but skip the milk this time, because I need to leave this kitchen before I make the situation worse.
“Understood,” I say, then leave the room before Porter can respond.
Back in the dorm room I’m sharing with three other guys, I consider not fixing the door at all, just to prove to Porter that he can’t force me to do anything.When I was twenty, I’d probably have done just that.
It’s awonderI made it out of the military with an honorable discharge.
I pull on clothes, gulping down my coffee.No matter what Porter thinks, Iamactually mature enough to know what needs to be done, and I’m grown enough to fucking do it without being told.
I leave the house through the side door so I don’t have to see his face again.
Forty-five minutes later,I’m standing in front of the busted door frame with Phil.He’s balding, double-chinned, and might be the slowest talker I’ve ever met.
I grew up on a ranch.I’ve known some slow, serious talkers, but none of them ever managed toannoyme like this guy does, standing there with his hands on his hips, his unsmiling face looking at the door.
“Well,” he says, for at least the fourth time.“You sure did do quite the number on this here frame.”
“Sorry about that,” I say, doing my best to sound sincere and not irritated.
“Cracked the wood right off there,” he says.
Then he pauses.
“Yup.Clean off.”
I take a deep breath.
“I’ll probably need to replace the whole jamb,” I say, running one hand up the inside of the door.“I could glue it back together, but that wouldn’t?—”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t glue it if I were you,” Phil says, interrupting me.
I just fucking said that, I think.
“I don’t think that would be very sturdy at all,” he goes on.“Not.At.All.”
“No.That’s why I’d prefer to replace to whole jamb,” I say, starting to feel like I’m talking in circles.
He nods.
“You ought to replace the whole door jamb,” he says, like he thought of it himself.
I don’t answer, because clearly, it’s pointless.
“There’s a hardware store a little ways down Fishfawn Road,” he says.“A little closer to the interstate, but before you get to Goldfield Crossroads.It’s right across from the McDonald’s where that little bar-bee-cue joint used to be...”
He gives me long directions to the hardware store, based mostly on landmarks that used to be there.Slowly, he shows me to a closet that’s got some tools in it, also in the basement of the Methodist church.He reiterates his opinion that I should replace the whole doorjamb, instead of gluing it back together.He gives me more directions.
By the end, I’m beginning to worry that Phil has brain damage or something.At last, he walks off to go talk slowly at someone else, and I take a deep breath of relief.
Then I go borrow a truck and head to the hardware store.The one across from where the barbecue joint used to be.
The good thingabout listening to Phil’s endless slow talk was that it kept me from thinking about Clem.But now, driving this borrowed truck down the winding, two-lane road, there’s not a lotelseto think about.
Here’s the thing: I’ve thought about what would happen if I saw her again.I’ve thought about it alot; I still live part-time in the town where we grew up, where I think her parents still live.I went to our high school reunion three years ago, because it happened to be between tours of Afghanistan.
I keep thinking I’m going to see her, but I don’t.I kept looking for her, out of curiosity if nothing else, but she’s not even on Facebook.
And then she showed up in a little town, presenting a plaque, and it was nothing like I thought it’d be.I’d imagined it being strange and awkward.I imagined her being engaged or married.
