Page 4 of Goodbye Days

“No, but I just come across them. Through life.”

Tears stream down Mars’s face. “ ‘Through life.’ Blade said ‘through life.’ Oh my God. Oh my God.”

Get it? Carver? Blade? Blake had come up with the nickname. It’s funny because I dress like a guy who wants to be a writer and whose older sister works at Anthropologie and helps dress him. Guys who meet this description don’t generally go by “Blade.”

“Okay, guys. Ferrets. Ferrets are long cats,” Eli says.

“I’ve seen a trained ferret, so you can definitely train a ferret,” Blake says.

“To use a human toilet?” Mars asks.

“I didn’t know there were ferret toilets,” Blake says.

“If it’s true that you can train a ferret, then I take back what I said, because ferrets are definitely cats,” Eli says.

“Okay, seals,” I say.

“Mmmmm, cat,” Mars says, staring off thoughtfully.

Eli looks incredulous. “Wait, what?”

“You can for sure train a seal, bro,” Blake says.

“No, hang on,” Eli says. “I think Mars is implicitly saying seals look like cats to him.”

Mars pounds the table, rattling our trays. “They do. They have catfaces. Also they love fish. Cats love fish. Seals are watercats.”

We’re getting dirty looks from other diners. We couldn’t care less. Remember? Young. Alive. Friday night in spring. A feast of junk food spread before us. Best friends. We feel like lords. Everything seems limitless.

Blake stands and finishes his drink with a rattling slurp. “Gentlemen, I need to”—he makes air quotes—“urinate, as it were. If y’all will excuse me. When I return, I expect to have some resolution of the seal-cat issue.”

Mars slaps me on the back. “Better go with him so you can film it.”

“You don’t understand, man,” I say. “I’m only into cats that way.” Peals of laughter from Mars and Eli.

We’re well into our discussion of whether grasshoppers, jellyfish, and snakes are dogs or cats when we realize it’s been a while since we’ve seen Blake.

“Yo, fam, check it out.” Mars points at the children’s playground adjacent to the McDonald’s. Blake is pitching back and forth on one of those rocking horses mounted on a thick spring. He’s waving furiously at us, like a little kid, and whooping.

“Look at that asshole,” Eli murmurs.

“He shame,” Mars says.

“Wait, what?” I ask. “He shame? That’s not a thing people say. You’re missing like three words in that sentence, including a linking verb.”

“I’m making it a thing. Someone does something stupid? He shame. You do something stupid? You shame.”

I shake my head. “That will never be a thing.”

Eli gathers unopened packets of Blake’s chicken nugget sauce and hands a couple to Mars. “Come on, we gotta blast him.”

I hurry to keep up as they dash outside.

“Blade, you film,” Eli says. I also throw like a guy who wants to be a writer.

Blake rocks, whooping, laughing maniacally, whipping around an invisible cowboy hat and waving at us.

We grin and wave—Eli and Mars waving with one hand, handfuls of sauce packets behind their backs—watching him for a second while I film on my phone.