On Me

I texted Matt and Sam that I’d made partner and wanted to celebrate, so we met in Central Square at that dive bar that didn’t card back in the day, and Matt got us shots of Jameson, and we yelled, “eating is cheating,” and when we stepped outside to leave, he slapped my back and Sam said, “it’s fucking freezing,” then we trudged through the slush to the twenty-seat sushi joint that used to be a Dunkin, and I said, “they don’t take reservations but I talked to the owner,” so we sat by the window with a tasting menu and a bottle of sake, and poked at the fish, and drank to my promotion, to Sam’s baby on the way, and to Matt’s MFA; Matt stopped talking when I ordered another bottle, glancing at Sam, who picked up the menu and said, “There aren’t even prices,” then closed it, so I smiled and replied, “trust me, it’s better we don’t know,” and he opened his mouth like he wanted to speak, but Matt elbowed him, then showed Sam something on his phone, tilted just out of my sight; they laughed and talked about adjunct gigs, students and the price of diapers, until we finished our drinks and all we had left was a sea urchin dish we were too scared to eat, so I waved over the waiter, held up my card, and said, “I got this,” and Sam looked at Matt, who stared into his glass, and through the window, the snow fell and fell, so I called an Uber, and we walked into the cold, hands in our pockets, until we got to the sign that had once said “Dunkin,” but as the Uber pulled up, they said they’d take the T, so we made our goodbyes, shivering on the sidewalk; I rolled down the window to ask one more time if they wanted a ride, but they’d already turned and started walking away, not towards the station but back to the bar that never used to card, back in the day.

Robert Loomis is from Massachusetts and lives in Ankara, Turkey, where he teaches English language and composition. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Ellipsis Zine, Bright Flash Literary Review, Flash Frontier, Litbreak Magazine, and elsewhere.

A Song for Robert