I hear him coming…

 

Jan. 17, 1977

 

My best friend knocks at my door and I pretend that I am not at home.

This is a routine the whole gang engages in.

While we love Hank, we hate how he always just “hangs around.”

He lives perpetually in “the good old days,” a time the rest of us have already outgrown.

Pauly is better at this than I am, hard-hearted enough put down the pleading which eventually comes with Hank’s pounding on the door: “Come on, I know you’re in there, I just want to see you for a little while,” and the like.

Time has no meaning for Hank.

A little while often equates to eight hours as well as a trip to a local strip club where he can oogle dancers as I pretend to have come in with someone else.

Garrick, who has a bum ear that got him out of the draft, has a better excuse than I do, even when Hank yells “I know you’re in there,” because we left a light on inadvertently.

Each verbal assault hits me in the heart as effectively as a bullet, making me feel so guilty for ignoring him that I edge towards the door, and undo the locks, and let Hank flow in with in endless pointless tales of the old days we all know already by heart, but which he distorts into new versions to reflect who he is today.

I always fight the urge, of course, gripping my hands into fists at my side, hoping to keep them from doing what I know in the end they will do despite all my efforts not to let him in.

But inevitably, inch by inch, my fingers rise and reach for the door handle and the locks, opening the door, where I am greeted by Hank’s grinning face and his upbeat statement: “I knew you were home…”