I knew I had made a huge mistake when the tailor at the department store turned me around so I could take a look at myself in the mirror. You see, it had been six months since I graduated from The College of New Jersey and I finally landed a job interview for this coming Friday. And since you can’t go on a job interview wearing comfortable clothes, my parents took me to the department store to get a couple of interview suits; one gray and one blue. Corporate asshole colors.

“Peter, you look so handsome,” my mother said immediately. “Doesn’t he, Frank?”

“Nice,” my father said as he walked away to look at one of the millions of tie racks. My father was not one to have too much to say unless you pissed him off, which was kind of second nature for me.

“Peter, what do you think?” my mother asked in a very energetic tone. She really was very proud of me, which made me feel even more upset and extremely guilty.

I wanted to tell the truth and state that I looked like a fucking tool but I knew better. My dad could probably turn a tie into a noose very quickly. “Pretty good,” I answered as I looked at myself in the mirror. “I guess anyway.” Boy did I look and feel like a fucking tool. All sweaty and stuffed into some gray wool suit that some business asshole would wear on his way to screw over a customer. That’s what I was going to be. A dumbass businessman. Four and a half years of college under my belt just to dress up like a tool and sit in an office with other tools who look at computer screens all day and run their fingers over their phones every other second. What the hell was I thinking?

“The pants look like they fit very nicely, but we’ll have to hem them,” said the tailor, a little old lady wearing thick glasses and armed with pins and a tape measure. She immediately got on one knee and began buzzing around my crotch like a swarm of bees. She was the crotch master and I was her subject. “Would you like cuffs when we hem these or do you prefer regular hems?” she mumbled with a mouthful of pins.

Before I could say a word, my father came back with a few ties he picked out. “Cuffs,” he answered for me. “Cuffs are classy.” My father, Frank Rabbia, lived for this shit. He worked on Wall Street for most of his life and he really loved it. He said it made him feel like a big shot. It made him feel important to dress up really nice and commute to Manhattan and work for some large bank in a swanky skyscraper.

But that was him, not me. He grew up in Queens, New York and always worked in Manhattan. We moved to Hazlet, New Jersey when I was eleven so I wasn’t used to city life. It didn’t call me like it called my father. Instead of the land of milk and honey, I saw it as the land of tools and bullshit artists. And here I am getting all geared up to become a tool myself. Boy, did I just want to run out of that department store and hide at the beach for a few days. Screw the interview and screw being a tool! Just give me my bodyboard and some nice waves.

“I picked out a few ties,” my father continued. “I got a red one, a yellow one, and a blue one. Power colors.”

“Those are nice,” I lied. Frankly, I didn’t care what color the ties were. All I knew is that wearing them was going to make me feel like I was being sent to the gallows like the leader of some third world country.

After a few more pokes and prods, the little old crotch master painstakingly got off her knees and checked the fit of the jacket. She was happy to announce that no alterations were needed so I was free to head over to the changing room and dress back into my normal clothes, which consisted of a tee-shirt, cargo shorts, and a pair of Vans, although I did not know how to skateboard.

My father paid the bill and we left the gray and blue suits at the store to be altered. My mother proudly carried my new ties, as well as a pair of shiny black shoes, several pairs of socks, and a shiny black belt with a gold buckle.

“The suits will be ready on Wednesday,” the crotch master reminded us. I couldn’t be less thrilled.

By the time we got home it was around six o’clock and I was pretty hungry. I didn’t feel like eating with my parents and my younger sister so I called Miller Broer to come and pick me up. Miller and I had been best friends since seventh grade when my family and I first moved to Jersey. Back then, he was the only kid at school who didn’t make fun of my New York accent and pick on me because of my weight. I’m not a fat-ass, mind you, but when I was a kid my mother used to shop for me in the husky section. Husky is what I am. At least now they don’t call it husky clothing. It’s athletic fit. Too fucking funny. Either way, Miller and I hit it off right away. We had the same interests in movies, comics, music, and sports. We weren’t bad kids or trouble makers, but we liked to do stupid shit like steal pens from the teachers’ desks and put pins through our pencil erasers and try to whack each other in the hallways. Even though we didn’t go to the same high school after eighth grade (my parents put me in Catholic school), we saw each other pretty much every day; spending time riding bikes, taking the bus to the beach, or playing Dungeons & Dragons for hours on end with a few of our friends. When I went away to school full-time, Miller did a semester at the local community college before dropping out. Since he didn’t have a lot going on, he would come and visit me a few weekends a month or we would hang out when I would come home for any breaks or long weekends when there was nothing going on at campus.

Miller pulled up in the Gray Ghost in what seemed like 10 seconds after I hung up the phone. I loved the Gray Ghost. For his first car, Miller’s parents gave him their big ass Ford Crown Victoria. It was so old that the paint had worn off and just the dull gray primer was left. But even if it looked like crap from the outside…well, it kind of looked like crap on the inside too. But it had the most comfortable seats you could ask for. It also had the world’s coldest air conditioning, which is important to husky guys.

“What’s up, dude?” Miller said as I opened the door and jumped in. “Wanna go to Jim’s Burger Haven?”

“That works,” I said as I buckled up and grabbed the holy shit handle on the ceiling. You see, the Gray Ghost also had a big V-8 engine in it and Miller was always good for going 900 miles per hour wherever we had to go. The mall twenty minutes away? Miller got us there in ten. Chest high sets coming in at the beach? Miller got us there before anyone else even knew about it. R.A. Salvatore just put out a new Forgotten Realms book? We were there helping the tools at the book store open the boxes.

“How’s the Falcon doing?” Miller asked as he turned a corner so fast I thought we were on two wheels. “Chewy still working on it?”

“Yeah, still in the shop,” I said. The Falcon was my shit-mobile of a car. When I was a senior in high school, my parents bought me a used, but very nice looking, Buick Regal. It was love at first sight. It was a huge, dark blue coupe that had power everything and even a sunroof. It was the Gran Sport edition too, whatever the hell that meant. I begged my parents for it and they made a deal with the salesman. The honeymoon with the car ended before it even began, however, when I picked it up a few days later and drove it off the lot. My first destination, of course, was Miller’s house to pick him up and go for a quick cruise to show off my new wheels.

“Sounds loud,” he said as we left his house. He was right too. The car sounded a lot louder than it did when I was test driving it with my mother and father.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s a Gran Sport. It’s probably supposed to be loud.” By the way, I know shit about cars. After a quick drive around the neighborhood, I brought Miller home and went back to my house where my father was sitting on the front steps having a cigarette. He was very proud of the fact that he was able to buy me my first car. When I honked the horn, my mother came running out with a camera. “Such a sharp looking car,” she said. “Don’t you think, Frank?”

“Sounds like shit,” my father announced, completely killing the moment. “What happened?” He stomped over muttering a few profanities under his breath while skillfully keeping the cigarette in his mouth.

“I didn’t do anything,” I explained defensively. “I just took Miller for a drive and came back here.” My father had the knack to make anyone feel guilty about anything that went wrong in life. A meteor could hit the house and I would feel the need to say, “It wasn’t my fault.”

“Just get back in there, pop the hood, and turn it on.”

I shut my mouth and did as I was instructed. After a few minutes of revving the engine, I was driving back to the dealer while my father followed me in his tan Buick LeSabre. After their mechanic looked it over and after my father threatened to “drive the car through the fucking window,” we were told there was a crack in the manifold and the car would be fixed up at no charge and ready in a few days. I had owned my first car for approximately two hours before it broke down. Hilarious, right?

Over the course of the next several years, the Falcon, named after the infamous starship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs, needed two new transmissions, a new radiator and water pump, new exhaust system, and several other minor repairs. It had also stranded me approximately five times at various locations throughout the tri-state area. At least I was wise enough to invest in a killer sound system that was probably worth more than the car itself. The problem with that is, if I play music too loudly, the horn goes off. No shit. The horn will just go off and I have to lower the volume and punch the steering wheel to stop it from blaring. Today, with its rotting sheet metal, Star Wars stickers plastered all over the front dash, and staples holding up the sagging headliner (leaky sunroof), the Falcon is in the shop yet again. Recently, it decided to start belching smoke and hop from side to side until it warms up. A true babe magnet.

“What’s the matter with you, dude?” Miller asked with his easy smile and chill voice. “Everything alright?”

“What? No, nothing’s wrong. I’m just thinking about stuff, that’s all.”

“I can tell you’re in a bad mood, bro. You look pissed off about something.”

“I am,” I admitted with my easy frown. “I have a – Dude look out!”

Miller, in his concern for my wellbeing, completely ran a red light and almost got us killed. “You ran that light!” I screamed.

“Relax, dude. It was still yellow.”

“Just pay attention to the road, okay? I’ll talk if we make it to Jim’s alive and in one piece.”

“Such a grumpy bastard,” Miller said. He was right too. I am a grumpy bastard. I come from a long line of grumpy bastards. My dad was so grumpy you wondered what the hell was wrong when he smiled. I never researched my last name, but I can only assume that Rabbia means fucking miserable in Italian.

When we got to the restaurant, we sat down in a dirty little booth by the front window and ordered some food. “Like I was saying before you almost killed us,” I continued, “I have an interview this Friday in the city.”

“Hey that’s great, Pete,” Miller said enthusiastically. “You must be really excited.”

“No, I’m not excited,” I said defensively.

“Of course not,” said Miller. “Why would you be anything other than a fucking grump about it?”

“Listen, I just feel like my entire life is being sucked into this shitty vortex and I can’t escape. It totally sucks.”

“Dude, just chill out and take it easy,” Miller replied. He and I could not be more opposite. I think that is why we get along so well; we complement each other. Where I am on the shorter side of the spectrum and husky, Miller was tall as hell and skinny as a pole. Where I was on the constant verge of having an aneurysm, Miller never got mad or upset over anything. All the girls loved Miller too. Me? Me they avoided like the plague.

“You don’t understand,” I said. “I don’t give a shit about the interview. I don’t even want to go on the stupid interview.”

“Then why are you going?”

“Because I have to,” I said. “I need a job.” It wasn’t easy trying to explain this to a guy who had been working in the same video store since his sophomore year of high school. He literally had to carry broken DVD players to and from the repair guy in the back room and was in charge of putting the movies back on the shelf. One day I went to talk to him at work and I swear to you that he was upstairs sitting on the floor of the children’s section cleaning the toy dolls that the little kids would play with while their parents browsed. What makes it even funnier is that the porn section is right next to the children’s section. I swear I’m not kidding. They just had this big black curtain that divided the two areas. Pretty messed up. “Okay honey, you play with these dollies while mommy and daddy look for Edward Penis-hands.”

“Okay, so you need a job. What’s wrong with the one you have now?”

“I’m a part-time bank teller,” I explained, as if that simple statement was all that needed to be said.

“Yeah, that’s right. You’ve been doing that for a while now. Why not ask to be full-time?”

“It’s my college job,” I stressed. “I did it between semesters to make some extra money. I’m only there now until I find something better. I don’t want to be a full-time bank teller, dude. Who the hell would?”

“Sounds like you have it all set then,” said Miller. Just then our food came and we dug in. Being husky, I had ordered a chicken Caesar salad and an unsweetened iced tea. Miller, also having a supersonic metabolism on top of his unending charm and stellar personality, ordered three cheeseburgers, large fries, and a chocolate milkshake. Sometimes I really hated him.

“No, I don’t have anything all set,” I argued as I ate some of Miller’s fries. “I really think I fucked up at school. I don’t want to be in business. It’s lame. I despise the very thought of it.”

“So why did you major in economics, dude? I always figured your family was like a Wall Street gang or something.”

“No, that’s my dad, not me. And I didn’t major in economics. I was accepted under the economics program but I changed my major after my first semester freshman year.”

“I totally forgot about that,” Miller said with a mouthful of food. “So what did you major in?”

“General business,” I confessed. “General lame-ass, boring-as-hell business.”

“Why didn’t you stick with economics?”

“Can you see me standing around with a bunch of assholes smoking a pipe and talking about the economy?”

Miller laughed. “Not one bit, Pete.”

“Well, me neither. So I switched to an even dumber major that is so generic sounding it would have been better if I majored in water freezing.”

Again, Miller laughed. I was always able to make him laugh. “I’m sorry, bro,” he said. “That sucks. Why didn’t you major in something you liked?”

“Because I don’t know what I like,” I replied as I took more fries. “I just know what I don’t like. Besides, I was always told that you should major in something that has the most job opportunities.”

“Who said that crap?” Miller asked before starting on his second burger. I swear the kid just inhaled food.

“Who else? My dad.”

“Sounds like something Mr. Rabbia would say.” Miller actually loved my family. They cracked him the hell up. As a matter of fact, they can make anyone crack up who doesn’t have to live with them. “How are Frank and Gloria doing anyway?”

“The same,” I said as I flung some salad into my mouth and washed it down with iced tea. “They can’t stand each other. If they aren’t fighting, they’re sleeping.”

“That sucks, dude. Hey, is your dad still trying out for a job at Carvel?”

“Very fucking funny,” I said. Miller was ripping on me for one of the more humiliating incidents of my young adult life. Last summer, my parents had some old friends over who used to live near us in Queens. My dad had been on a diet, as he too is forever husky, all week and was even more miserable than usual. Anyway, that night I came downstairs and saw my dad digging an ice cream scoop into a tub of vanilla ice cream. My mother was at the sink and their two friends were at the kitchen table.

“I thought you were on a diet?” I asked loudly and quite sarcastically. I even sounded out the word ‘diet’ as slowly as I could. More like, “I thought you were on a diiiiiiiiiiet?”

Well you would have thought that I set my mother on fire. My father, in his moment of pure rage, did not say a word. He simply snapped his head in my direction and reached down for the carton of vanilla ice cream. Knowing exactly what was about to happen, I spun around and tried to run back up the stairs but my white socks slid on the tile floor and slowed my panicked retreat. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the black carton of ice cream sail across the kitchen in slow motion. It then made perfect contact with the side of my head as I fell sideways into the wrought iron railing. Thank God it must have been out of the freezer for a while because the carton molded perfectly around my skull and did no physical damage. However, I was coated in vanilla ice cream, as were the stairs and the walls.

Suffering from total shock, and probably brain freeze, I went up to the bathroom and cleaned myself off before heading back downstairs and storming out the front door. Our yellow Labrador Retriever, Bogart, was eagerly cleaning the walls and the floor with his long tongue. My mother was calling out to ask where I was going but I didn’t give a shit. I slammed the door shut and sped away in the Falcon, which was still running back then. I was leaving to go and talk to my best friend. Of course when I got to Miller’s house the mood completely changed.

“Pete, what’s up?” he asked looking surprised to see me.

“I hate my fucking dad, that’s what’s up,” I said.

“Dude, what did he do now?”

“He got mad at me and hit me in the head with a gallon of ice cream.” It seemed like a logical complaint to me. Miller just began laughing his skinny ass off.

“It’s not funny, dude!” I said. “He’s an asshole!”

Miller got it together and eventually we hopped in the Gray Ghost and drove down to Seaside to play some games on the boardwalk and get something to eat.

“You have work tomorrow?” Miller asked as I was waxing poetic about my deranged family. “There’s supposed to be some waves. There’s a small low making its way up the coast.”

“I have work tomorrow,” I said. “But I’m off Wednesday.”

“That’s cool,” said Miller. “I’m off until Thursday so I’m going to hit the beach tomorrow anyway. If there are still waves Wednesday, we can go together.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “You can drive me to the mall on Wednesday to pick up my interview suits.”

“No problem.”

For the rest of the meal, we talked about stuff that was far more important to me than interviews, my parents, or school. We talked about why the Star Wars prequels were total shit; why surfers didn’t give us bodyboarders any respect; where the best place to go was in case a zombie outbreak occurred, which is Costco by-the-way; when we thought George R. R. Martin would finish the next book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series; and anything else that came to mind. To me, this is important shit. Who gives a crap about the stock market? It’s a fucking game played by a bunch of rich assholes to make themselves even more money. It goes up for no good reason and it crashes for no good reason. Shit, you have companies today that don’t even make or sell a product that are worth billions of dollars. Nothing makes sense. As long as regular people keep getting screwed by rich tools, all is right in America.

“What’s going on tonight?” Miler asked as we got back in his car.

“I don’t know, I said. I don’t really feel like doing anything. I might just chill out in the back yard and read.”

“Did you call Laura yet?”

“You know I didn’t” I said in an agitated tone.

“Why not, dude?” Miller pulled out of the parking lot doing Mach 10 and cut off about three cars and a bus. “You should call her.”

“Yeah, and you should watch where you’re going.” Laura Geduld and I became friends at college. She lived below me in one of the new townhouses that were built on campus the year before. It was just four guys on the third floor and four girls on the second floor. Some tool and his buddy lived on the first floor. They were responsible for the house and acted as complete buzzkills anytime we were being too loud or having too much fun. Laura and I seemed to hit it off right away. She was cute too; my height with long brown hair, greenish-brown eyes, and really cute nerd glasses. She also loved to wear men’s flat caps, which I thought looked very nice on her. Laura was an art education major and had such amazing talent. She could draw, paint, sculpt, weave, and build anything. Her art projects were simply beautiful. She also had a great sense of humor and I seemed to make her laugh a lot at my jokes and at my drawings, which were piss poor and I knew it. Since I was a dumbass and took an extra semester to graduate, I only got to know Laura for a few months before I had to leave. She was only a junior when we met and still has all of next year left before she graduates. We exchanged phone numbers but I decided to just send her e-mails a few times a week to see how things were going. Talking on the phone requires the ability to have a conversation and feel comfortable with yourself and the person on the other end of the line. E-mails are far less personal and you can bang one out in just a few minutes. Throw in a few dumbass emoticons and you’re set. When I e-mail Laura, I also attach these silly short stories that I write when I’m bored and she seems to think they are pretty funny. At least that is what she tells me anyway.

“There’s something wrong with you, dude,” Miller said as he cut through a parking lot in order to avoid stopping at a red light. “I think she likes you. When I came down to visit you that time she really seemed like she was in to you.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Anytime I get close to a girl and decide to ask her out I get some bullshit answer like, ‘Peter, I see you as a brother’ or ‘I don’t want to ruin our friendship.’ It would be easier if they just simply told me that they hated me and I should just fuck off.”

Miller laughed again as he weaved back onto the highway, cutting off several more cars and getting the middle finger from some geriatric male driving a Cadillac. “Nobody hates you, Pete. Why do you say shit like that? Everyone I know loves you. You’re a great guy.”

“I’m just not meant to be with a woman,” I replied. “It’s a lot of work and I just don’t seem to have any luck with them.”

“So be with a guy.”

“That’s not what I meant, dumbass.” A few years ago, after yet another rejection from yet another girl at yet another frat party, I announced to everyone in earshot that I was asexual. There is a good chance that I might have had a few too many beers that night because everyone I told laughed their asses off. I didn’t see what was so funny until I Googled asexual when I got back to my room that night. After a few seconds of research, and based on the used socks in my hamper, I decided that maybe I was not asexual after all. Still, I delved deeper into my research by going on WebMD where, after typing in what was wrong with me, I was told that there was a chance I had an aortic aneurysm or cancer and should immediately go to my healthcare professional. Instead, I got a clean sock and went to my go-to porn site to finish the evening off in style.

“Then call her already! You’re going to wait too long and she is going to have a boyfriend and then you will have another reason to be a miserable bastard.”

I was getting a little agitated. “Why don’t you call her, Mill? Oh wait, I forgot. She’s not your type. She doesn’t give lap dances.” We all have our weaknesses. I love chocolate and beer and George R. R. Martin’s literary work. Miller, well, he loves strippers and vodka and George R. R. Martin’s literary work. Every guy I know who goes to strip clubs falls in love with a stripper and thinks that they actually have a chance of having a relationship with them. One of our good friends, Stuart Mernok, can be found dishing out dollars every weekend at one of several local strip joints. And every weekend he falls in love with a new stripper from Russia who just adores him. Of course it ends terribly and we try to inform him that they are just out for his money but that does not stop him from wasting his time and money each and every weekend. Miller is different though. He walks in to a strip club and the strippers flock to him like seagulls fighting over a scrap of food. And to top it all off, he doesn’t even take out any money! They just fawn all over him and tell him how tall he is, as if he isn’t aware of his height advantage over us husky guys.

“That’s true, Pete. If she gave lap dances, I’d have called her months ago.” Again, Miller just laughed me off. He never got angry at anything, not even me and my big mouth. “But she doesn’t. She’s a smart girl who is really talented and really pretty. And she’s into you, not me. Besides, didn’t you take her out on a date?”

“It wasn’t a date,” I said. “We just went to see a movie.”

“That’s a date, dummy.”

“No. There was supposed to be a bunch of us going but everyone cancelled at the last minute and it was just the two of us left. That’s not a date. That’s circumstance.”

Miller flew through a four-way stop and turned down my block. “Did you get anything to eat beforehand?”

“No, we went to a diner after the movie.”

“That’s a date! A movie and a bite to eat is a date!”

“Dude, if that’s a date then the two of us have been going steady since seventh grade.”

Miller and I both had a good laugh at that. “What movie did you see again?” he asked. “The Hobbit, right?”

“Yeah, we saw The Hobbit and Laura made fun of it for weeks.” If Laura had any negatives, it’s that she was not a fan of fantasy or science fiction. “She even mocks the Lord of the Rings trilogy!”

“How can anyone make fun of those movies?” Miller asked in disbelief. “They were great.”

“I know,” I said. “Laura said they’re just hours and hours on end of a bunch of midgets giving each other fuck-me eyes while they wander around the wilderness with a perverted old man and his staff. Can you believe that shit?” Like I said, Laura has a really great personality.

“That’s messed up, dude.”

“Tell me about it. And, like every other non-reader, she keeps saying that the eagles should have just flown them to the stupid volcano right away and save everyone some grief.”

Miller pulled up to my house and put the Gray Ghost in park. “Well, did you hook up with her after the date?” he pressed.

“No. I told you, it wasn’t a real date. Besides, I was too humiliated to even try anything.”

“What happened? You didn’t say anything stupid, did you?”

“No, nothing like that at all,” I said. “You know the parking garage on campus, right?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“When we came back from the diner, I put down my window so I could swipe my student ID to open the gate.”

“Okay. And then what?”

“Well, once I got in the garage and tried to put the window back up, the switch broke off the door. It was so embarrassing. Laura was cool about it and tried not to laugh but I couldn’t figure out how to get my window back up.”

Miller was dying. “So what happened, dude? Did you get the window back up?”

“I did. I looted the glove box and found a spoon. I was able to jam the handle of the spoon into the hole where the switch was and get the window back up. It was actually pretty amazing on my part.”

“That’s awesome, dude. I can imagine you running around like a gorilla trying to fix the window.”

“It was pretty funny,” I admitted. “Laura cracked up over that for days.”

“See? I told you she likes you, dude. Give her a call, you ass.”

“We’ll see,” I said. Maybe Miller was right? “Maybe I’ll give her a call tonight. Nothing else going on anyway. Besides, how many more times can I read A Dance With Dragons, right?”

Miller snorted as I got out of the car. “That’s bullshit, dude. When you read it five times, then you can call me.”

“Five times is too much,” I said. “I already have it memorized. And everyone knows that John Snow is a Targaryen.”

“Nope,” Miller replied. “He’s all Stark. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, dude.”

“Later, Mill,” I said as I closed the door and shook my head in disapproval as he peeled off into the warm and muggy night.

When I walked into the house, everyone was in their respective positions. My mother was downstairs sleeping on the couch with the television on while my father was in the back porch watching one of his shows on another television. Shirley, my sister, was upstairs locked away in her bedroom probably texting her high school friends and taking selfies. It was the American dream. At least Bogart came running up the stairs to greet me. He was so huge that I fell back into the door when he jumped on me. “What’s up, Bogart?” I asked him as I scratched behind his ears and fell to the ground with him. He loved to roughhouse and thankfully he was large enough not to care if you clobbered him too hard. After a few minutes wrestling with the dog, I got off the floor, wiped off most of the slobber and yellow hairs that covered my body, and went upstairs to my room.

After changing into my pajamas, I decided to take Miller’s advice and give Laura a call so I closed my door, came up with a few topics to talk about, and dialed her number. If I was lucky, she would miss the call and I could just leave a message.

“Hello?”

Shit! Time to talk. “Hey, Laura. It’s Peter.” I began pacing the floor like koala bear whose habitat was destroyed.

“Hey, Peter. I was just thinking about you today. It’s been a while since we spoke.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I’ve been kind of busy.” Lying already.

“No biggie,” Laura said. “What’s up? How’s life been at the bank?”

“Life at the bank is the same,” I said. “I get yelled at by old people all day because the interest rate on their savings accounts are too low. And the people at the drive-up actually think that the drive-up is supposed to go faster than going through the lobby. Like we’re cyborgs because we speak through a microphone.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Laura said in a funny tone. “Anyone put rolls of coins through the tubes lately?”

“Not lately,” I said laughing as I remembered the time some idiot decided to put five rolls of pennies in the drive-up tube to deposit into his account. “The tube’s not a black hole, sir,” I said through the microphone as he cursed at me for working at a bank that did not have proper suction. “They aren’t strong enough for rolls of coins.” After several minutes of pushing the return button, the container eventually popped back out and the dork was able to grab his fortune and peel away in disgust.

“Any job leads? I know how much you can’t wait to be a corporate tool, as you like to say.”

A funny thing happened when I began to talk to Laura. I found myself feeling very comfortable. Almost as comfortable as when I am talking to Miller or any one of my other close friends. I forgot how much fun the two of us had at school, even if it was only for a few months. “Yeah, I have an interview Friday with some company in the city.”

“That’s good news,” Laura said. “Congratulations, Peter. Are you nervous? What kind of company is it?”

“I don’t know,” I said as I stopped pacing and plopped down on my bed. “Some government contractor, I think. Or a financial house or something.”

“Interesting,” Laura said in a dead tone. “What’s its name?”

“Ameri-Tech,” I think. “Maybe Finan-Tech or Tool-Tech or Jerk-Wads R Us. Something stupid and unimaginative like that.”

“Sounds like you’re really putting in a full effort with this.”

I had to laugh. “Yeah, I’m so excited. My dreams are coming to fruition.”

“Do you even know what the job is?” Laura asked.

“That I do know,” I said triumphantly. “Financial analyst.”

“Okay. What’s a financial analyst?”

“It’s very complicated, Laura,” I explained. “Do you know what an accountant is?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what an auditor is?”

“Yeah.”

“What about a broker? Do you know what a broker does?”

“Yeah, what’s your point?”

“Well, a financial analyst is none of those things. It’s a title given to a job function that nobody really knows what else to call it. It’s as generic as you can get.”

Laura started cracking up. “Amazing. You are so learned about these things, Peter. You have such a head for knowing.”

“Don’t make fun of my dreams, woman,” I joked. “Ever since I was a wee boy I always dreamed of being a generic tool in a gray suit.”

“You’re insane,” Laura said.

“So what’s going on with you?” I wanted to get off the topic of my interview at all costs. “How’s your summer break going?”

“Pretty good,” Laura replied. “My mother got me a job at the borough hall again.”

Laura’s mother was the borough clerk for Ramsey, where they lived in northern New Jersey. Her father was the head of the service department for an Audi dealership. “That’s cool,” I lied. “What do you do there?”

“Mostly answering the phones, putting files away, and talking to the old people who work there.”

“Too bad your dad couldn’t get you a job for Audi.”

“He works for Volvo.”

Shit! “That’s right; Volvo. I knew it was some sort of European car company. My bad.”

Laura laughed again. “Don’t sweat it. At least you remembered he worked for a car dealership. You can’t even remember the name of the company you’re interviewing with this week.”

“Well, I don’t want to remember the name of the company I’m going to interview with this week, you see? It’s not important to me.” What was I doing? I just basically said that Laura was important to me.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, Peter” she replied. “So what’s your plan for the rest of the week?”

“I have work tomorrow. Hopefully I can hit the beach Wednesday with Miller and maybe Stuart if he’s around. I’m thinking of taking off Thursday to go mountain biking or something like that.”

“Or maybe you should do a little research on the company you are going to see Friday,” Laura said. “Maybe even write down a few questions to ask to person interviewing you.”

“Or not,” I cracked back. “I’d rather forget Friday is even happening. It’s like waiting for an operation. What are you doing this week?”

“I’m actually working all week,” Laura said while yawning. “Sorry about that. I’m getting sleepy.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said. Okay, this is silly. Miller would smack me if I didn’t make plans with her. “What are you doing Friday night?” Instinctively, I got off of my bed and began pacing the floor again.

“Nothing that I know if,” Laura said. “You want to hang out or something?”

“I was thinking that if the interview goes well, I can hop on a train and we can go out and celebrate. Would you be up for that? We can hit some place in Ramsey.”

“I’d like that, Peter. I can pick you up at the train station in town. Why aren’t you taking the Falcon?”

“It’s in the shop,” I said. “I think it’s finally on its deathbed.”

“That’s so sad,” Laura said. “I’ll miss that car. Would a spoon fix it?”

Again, we laughed. “I think it needs more than a spoon this time. It needs an entire set of silverware.”

“I’m sure,” she said. “So what do you want to do for Friday?”

“My interview is at nine o’clock,” I said. “I should be out of there in an hour or so. How about I call you when it’s over?”

“That’s fine with me but I don’t get out of work until two.”

“Not a problem,” I said as an amazing idea burrowed into my brain. “I’ll call you after the interview and let you know what train I’ll be on. Then I’ll spend the day in the city and hit the HBO store and pick up some Game of Thrones shirts and stuff.”

“God, I almost forgot what a dork you are,” Laura said. Then she gave me her best British accent and said, “Mr. Gandalf, sir. Do you want to touch me and Bilbo? Do you, Gandalf? Do you want to treat me like a bad little hobbit?” It was pure, unadulterated blasphemy.

“Dude, Gandalf and hobbits are in Middle-earth,” I explained to the novice on the other line. “Game of Thrones is in Westeros and Essos.”

“Interesting.”

“And it’s not Game of Thrones, either. It’s A Song of Ice and Fire.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you, great master of the geeks,” mocked my date for Friday.

I can’t believe I made a date. And it was pretty painless too. “Don’t worry about it,” I said trying to be cool. “Us Grand Maesters are more forgiving than most people know.” Man, am I a total dork or what?

“Okay then,” said Laura. “Hey, have you written any new stories lately? P.P. Pirate was hysterical. I read it to my little cousins and they cracked up the whole time.”

P.P. Pirate was a short story I wrote about a notorious pirate who was captured because he had to take a piss during a huge naval battle. “No, nothing since P.P. Pirate,” I said. “I haven’t really felt all that creative lately. Nothing has really inspired me to write.” Ever since I was a little kid, I always enjoyed writing silly stories to make myself laugh. I actually had over a dozen little tales saved on my laptop but I never showed them to anyone until I met Laura. Hell, I never even showed them to Miller. I think because Laura was so creative she made me want to be creative too. At school she would show me all of her artwork that she made in class and during her free time. I really appreciated that because it was really personal. So, to return the favor, I decided to let her read a few of my stories. I was very nervous about it at first but it was a lot of fun watching her crack up.

“Well, you should keep writing,” said Laura. “You’re really good at it. Every story you showed me has been really funny and so creative.

“Really?” I asked. “Even Wee Billy Bunyan?” Billy was Paul’s twin brother. But instead of being gigantic and popular and cheerful, Billy was miniscule and unknown and amazingly bitter.

Laura began to laugh again. She had a pretty nice laugh too. “Especially Billy Bunyan,” she said. “I think that one is my second favorite after P.P. Pirate.”

“I’m glad you seem to enjoy my genius,” I said jokingly. Laura yawned again in response. “Am I boring you?”

“No, I’m just tired,” she said. “It’s getting late and I have work tomorrow. I really should be getting to bed.”

I didn’t want to overstay my welcome, especially since I was doing so well. “Okay, then. I’ll let you get some sleep.”

“Alright then, Peter. Have fun at work tomorrow. I know I will.”

“Not likely,” I said. “I’ll call you on Friday after the interview.”

“Okay,” Laura said. “Good luck with that. And cheer up about it. I am sure you’ll have some good news to tell me afterwards.”

“We’ll see, Laura. Go get some sleep. I’ll talk to you Friday.”

“Goodnight, Peter.”

“Goodnight, Laura.” And that was it. We had a really nice conversation and I made a date for Friday on top of it all. And I didn’t pass out or throw up or say anything too stupid. After a long yawn and a good scratching of various parts of my body, I decided to end the day on a high note. I went to the bathroom to take my anti-anxiety pills that I’m pretty sure don’t work and then brushed my teeth.

“Good night, Shirley,” I said as I tapped my sister’s door on the way back to my room. I assumed she was still in there.

“Good night, loser.” Yes, she was still in there.

I closed the door of my bedroom behind me and got into bed. After a little while of self-reflection, I turned on my side and closed my eyes. I tried my best to get the interview out of my head but the more I tried, the more I thought about it; and the more I thought about it, the harder it was to fall asleep.

Next Chapter: Tuesday