Friday Night

 I went to dinner with my friend Jay and his wife on Friday night--Buddy's Pizza, their favorite. I arrived five minutes late. Summer construction has made driving the area miserable despite the fact many of us are still working from home.

Though he is five years younger and technically a GenXer, Jay acts more like a Baby-Boomer than I. His wife is even my age. They are well off. They have a $500,000 house here in Michigan that is paid off and just bought a $330,000 second home in Fort Meyers for cash. A questionable decision if you ask me, but definitely not stain to their finances. 

I wouldn't describe the pair as a happy couple thought they would probably disagree. This is a second marriage for both of them. I would describe it as a solid financial merger. They both make good money, and she more than he. 

They tend to bicker when we go out. I don't remember ever bickering with Billie that way. Jay's wife admitting to sleeping in separate rooms on occasion. I would not stand for that. My parents did that as they got older. I enjoy sleeping next to someone. Even at my age, I would not consider living with someone that slept in the spare room.

Jay and I started talking about work. It set him off. He doesn't have the patience to deal with people and feels everyone is incompetent. He will make a very angry old man with too much time on his hands. He has not developed any hobbies. The closest thing he has to a hobby is he likes to fix up homes. Though this new home does not look like it needs much fixing, and it is too far away to be convenient. An eighteen-hour drive is too long to be in a car with him.

His wife cut the after-dinner talk short and started nudging Jay out of the booth. I guess we had run out of news and were rehashing old ground.

On the drive home, I sent Firefly a text. She had been bugging me for a few days about wanting to pick up a few things she left behind, and she had a few packages that came for her in the mail. Oddly, she didn't know what was in them. Either because someone bought them for her off her wish list or because she made the purchases while very high.

Bathwater: Are you around?

Firefly: Yeah, why?

Bathwater: Why don't you come over and pick up this stuff.

Firefly: I just stepped out of the shower. Give me a few.

She has been living back with her parents. That is where she belongs, if you ask me. They live about twenty minutes away, but a few turned into two hours later.

She was wearing a grey long sleeve crop top and grey leggings. She had make-up on, but she looked like hell when she arrived. Her arms look like spindles. I looked back at pictures from our vacation in December to see if it was my imagination. It wasn't. Back then, there was still meat on her bones. She wasn't in the house for two minutes before running off to the bathroom because she felt sick. 

She had her car keys hanging around her neck on a dongle like a neckless, but I could hear the roar of her car still come from the garage. "How is your car still running?"

"That is just the fan. It has been doing that for the last two days."

"That's not good," I told her. "It means you are probably low on antifreeze."

Firefly couldn't stop bouncing around the kitchen. She had been smoking crack. I didn't engage in a long conversation or ask any questions. Helped her load the articles and the bag of clothes into her car and told her to pop the hood. Immediately I saw a puddle of antifreeze forming drip by drip on the drivers.  Her antifreeze overflow was empty.

I looked around the garage but didn't have any antifreeze fluid. I grabbed a bottle of water from the shelf and pour it into the overflow. I told her to turn on the engine, waited a few minutes, and repeated the process. I added four or five bottles before I got tired of the process. 

"This will hold you over, but it's going to burn off quickly. It is leaking pretty good." 

Using my phone as a flashlight, I search for the source of the leak but could not determine it. The engine compartment was packed. It would be a nightmare to work on that car and probably not cheap to get work done.

"Great, I have no money," she complained. 

I checked my wallet. I only had eight dollars. I was reluctant to hand it over, and she knew better than to ask. Firefly called her boyfriend to tell him of her situation. I only heard snippets of the conversation. I decided I didn't need to be involved. She could make it home or to his house. If she decided to go anywhere else-- she indicated she plans. That was on her.

The next morning I saw I had received a text from her boyfriend.

Dumbass (this is what he is labeled in my phone): Did Firefly seem like she's back on drugs when you saw her today?

Obviously, she did not go to see him. To me, she looked like she never stopped doing drugs.

Bathwater: Dude, you need to convince her to go to rehab. She is not clean, and she is not healthy. She looks like she is about to collapse.

Dumbass: Did she end up going home?  She lies about everything when she's using, so I never know when she tells the truth.

In my head, I am thinking, he has never known her when she is not using. The closest was when she came home from our road trip, and they immediately went out and ruined that.

Bathwater: The best thing you can do for her is talk her into going to rehab. The best thing you can do for yourself is to distance yourself.

I doubt he will take my advice. 

Dumbass: I'll try to convince her today.

I sent Firefly's mom the same advice. Saying, I heard she is back home. She is not clean and not healthy Try to convince her to go back to rehab. I m concerned for her. I never heard back from the mom. Firefly probably told her lies and not to talk to me—that fine. I did my part.