Story Hour: Part One

"Sometimes I just think it would be easier if I just had someone to blame."

H___ sat back and exhaled. The smoke from his cigarette curled lazily in a grey curlicue that wasn't much disturbed by the gusts of what passed for wind in this place. The night was warm, and in between the semi persistent honking of someone who had the misfortune to be parked on the wrong side of a double parked car and the sub-audible drone of the other patrons at the establishment, there wasn't much else to listen to.

"Well, you could blame yourself, you know," I said. "I mean, if you're counting yourself as a someone."

He greeted this remark with a laugh. "You know what, suddenly I remember why I drove all the way here to meet you in the first place," he replied. "All these years, and you're still pretty much you underneath all that, er, sophistication," he said, dragging out the last word knowing as well as I did there was no way in hell I'd be half as sophisticated as he was. I let the bait flop, however. I'd known H__ for about two years in secondary school, and by known I mean I knew of him and talked to him a couple times (about the same frequency I talked to girls back then). We were pretty much on opposite sides of the tracks, him being the rich spoilt brat who was always in trouble, and me being the deer in the big city nerd with the big glasses and the RPG fan club.

Yup, it doesn't get any more opposite than that. So you can bet I was surprised when all of a sudden this gravelly voice calls me up on my mobile, says he's been trying to get in touch with me and would I be kind enough to turn up at the C_____ in T____ at sometime after eight. My curiosity stoked (and the promise of a free coffee sounding very intriguing) I drove myself to the appointed place and met a ghost from my past, 10 years aged, but pretty much the same ghost.

I'd had no idea what he'd gotten up to in the past decade (especially since when I saw him last it was on the receiving end of an "official" school reprimand) but apparently he'd done well for himself, bearing most of society's accepted marks of prosperity, except that this was one man with a lot on his mind, and with only one person he could talk to (or so he said).

"So let me get this straight," I said, after taking a long suck out of the branded iced coffee, and clearing my throat. "You got screwed over by a girl, are in danger of committing strange acts of insanity and so you decide you need to talk to me? Man you're more screwed than I thought."

He actually guffawed at this, drawing the attention of the couple seated behind him, and the old lecherous-looking man with the liver spots on my right. That's it, grandad, I managed to think. Look at how young we are, and maybe tonight you'll need some more of whatever herbal pills you ordered from Amazon. I have a mean streak, sometimes.

"Man, I think, in order for you to fully appreciate the beauty of how I got screwed, I'm gonna have to borrow your time for a couple hours." H__ had lit another cigarette while saying this, and as he puffed the stick to life I could see some of the lines on his forehead that seemed a tad out of place on someone only a year older than I was. He was dressed simply, in a dark blue collared tee that didn't really hide the fact that he was getting soft in the middle and a pair of jeans that looked worn, but reeked suspiciously of being expensive. His hair was slicked back, the jaw was still well defined, and he had that overall skin tone of someone who put in his time on the golf course and tennis courts. In short, I was looking at what success would look like.

I grimaced (inwardly, of course) since I knew I'd be forfeiting my TV time that evening, but I acquiesced. He took another couple long drags on the cigarette before continuing. "I guess the reason why I'm telling you of all people is because I heard you have an audience on the net, or something, and there's a certain breed of woman out there who not only damages your sanity, but takes a bite out your life as well, and people have to know, you know?"

I nodded, and gestured H__ to go on. "The amazing thing about this is that I didn't see it coming at all. Normally all kinds of alarm bells would go off in my head, but this one just slipped under the radar. She had all the trimmings: good family background, well to-do, been abroad, in short everything my family would have loved in an in law to be. What we all didn't count on was the fact that she was a scheming bitch who'd wreck my personal life as well."

And so H__ went on with his story that night. I reproduce it here with some edits, but this is mostly what passed through his lips, and into my ears. The story will continue, and maybe more than one of us can learn a few things from H__.

to be continued...