HALF

“I want to get married,” I told him.

“I don’t,” he said, and I died.

The clatter of plates and the chatter of patrons buried me in the mundane. It was the year when men wore their collars turned up to look cool. He wore a sweatshirt and did not own a shirt with a collar.

I wanted to run, to have air breathe over my face, to go. But our beers were still half full on the table. I must have sat back because he looked at me then. The pub lights showed his face and his eyes.

What was the old Southern saw? – oh yeah: “Honey, if a man says he doesn’t want to get married, it means he just doesn’t want to marry you.”

“Sure,” he said. “Some day there will be the station wagon.”

“What.”

“And the dog and the kids…”

“And what else?” I asked.

“Oh,” he reached. “The cat, I guess. A cat.”

“And what else?” I asked again, falling into a dank and endless dark.

“What else is there?” he asked.

The wife, I didn’t say. It went without saying. He missed it.

“I want to go to New York,” he said, a phrase uttered by every other actor in the Atlanta theatre scene. New York cast us into shadow with all its bright lights. He took a gulp of his half-empty beer.

“Some day.”

I looked around at the men.