Sixth Meeting with Pedro

Our last meeting.

Our last chance.

I was struck by how fond I’d grown of Pedro. How quickly he and I had related, how lucky I was to have someone in my age group as opposed to someone who was 50 and just wanted to talk about the good old days. Perhaps most importantly, how he and I had grown close. We cared now, about each other’s well-being. Where we’d go, who we’d be friends with. If you asked me why, I couldn’t really tell you. But I did. Friendships, in my experience, are like gems: they’re formed by time and pressure, and they might start out crude but they end up beautiful.

So it was, so it is, so it goes.

Pedro and I sat down, both of us with smiles pasted onto our faces. I could tell he was dreading this as much as I was. He seemed weary. I seemed weary. If you’d asked me how I’d felt at that moment, I’d have told you that I was an empty sack of potatoes, or the clothes that someone died in. I wasn’t dead, nor was I giving the appearance of such. But I was drained. There wasn’t enough time left. Vaguely, the Twilight Zone episode popped into the projector screen inside my forehead. “But there was time now!” the little man wailed, and I couldn’t help but feel the resignation he felt. J. Alfred Prufrock talked about how there will be time, time to turn back and descend the stair. There was no time anymore. L’esprit d’escalier had already washed over me, flooded like the banks of the Nile in irrigation season. I was overcome by all the things I could have said, should have said. I should have been someone different.

I barely registered Pedro talking, and I leaned in to focus. He spoke about how he was applying to a bunch of Texas colleges, and that his ACT was next week. I was worried for him, and I expressed worry. He quickly told me he’d be fine – I caught his insecurity behind his eyes but I let it go. It wasn’t something I could fix anymore. I wasn’t tasked with it anyway.

He asked me what my plans were for summer. I told him I was studying abroad in Japan and he started talking for a few minutes about how he loved Japanese animation and how a kid in his English class was from Japan but went back after a couple of months. He asked me to say something in Japanese. I came back with “Koko suwatteiru hito wa shinsetsu de atatakakute kiree desu.” He asked me what I’d said. I lied and told him it was about the weather.

I’d really just complimented him, several times over. But guys don’t say that kind of stuff to each other.

Why was I getting this sentimental? Wasn’t it only temporary? I didn’t know. I still don’t. But as the clock ticked closer to the time that he’d told me he needed to leave, I kept hearing Eliot’s bartender in The Waste Land calling to me, matter-of-factly but with a tinge of irritation.

Tick. HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME

Tick. HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME

Tick. HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S

HURRY UP PLEASE

HURRY UP

HURRY

“Well, my ride is here.” Pedro said. I snapped back into focus.

“Are you sure?” I asked. I was gripping the armrest so hard my knuckles were white.

“Yeah. I have to…” he trailed off. I nodded, staring at the floor.

HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME

He gave me a handshake. And then he vanished.