More Often

Evan calls from the airport to say that he has arrived, and Jerome says, “I had forgotten you were coming.” Evan laughs, because he thinks it's a joke. They've seen each other maybe three times since high school, when they were best friends.

Jerome says, “Turns out, it's a bad time. My father is dying. Can you take a taxi? I was just on my way to see him.” “I can take a taxi. But I'd like to see him, too.”

There's no point, Jerome tells him. His father isn't conscious. It's almost over. But Evan insists that it will be all right, that he wants to come. He remembers Jerome's father as a big man with grease-stained fingernails, a mechanic at the Ford dealership. In the pale green room, on the bed with pale blue sheets, Jerome's father is pale, too, and small. His fingers look slender. His nails are yellow, but clean. For a while, Evan and Jerome just stand looking at the old man and listening to the pneumonia rattling in his lungs. “Don't feel like you need to be here,” Jerome says. Evan says, “Remember the go kart?”

Jerome makes his voice low, makes himself taller. “I'm impressed,” he says. “But you boys are going to impress me even more by putting this engine back in the lawn mower. And if you don't, then I'm going to be the one making an impression.” Evan laughs.

Jerome tells a story Evan hadn't heard before. His dad hated the smell of cat urine on his front porch, but nothing he tried would keep the tomcats from spraying. Then Old Man Gerstel across the street said to him, What you do is, you fight fire with fire. Mark the territory yourself. Piss in a bottle, and when the cats pee, pour pee in the same place. It sounded like a good plan to Jerome's dad. But Old Man Gerstel knocked on the door a few days later and told him that Mrs. Gerstel had happened to get up in the middle of the night. She had happened to look out the window. I said you've got to pour pee! More stories follow. There's no particular order to them. Some are funny. Some are not, such as the Sunday afternoon when Jerome's father buried his wedding ring in the back yard under the apple tree.

Jerome uses a sponge to moisten his father's lips.

Evan almost says—then is careful not to say, We should do this more often.