Just a few years ago

This will be the last Boys' Night Out that my family will ever have with all of us within driving distance. Dan will be moving to Texas, taking with him the boys who might someday earn years enough that they could be appropriate company in establishments that serve craft beer samplers.

Dan hates New York, both because of the left-leaning influence of New York City infusing northward and the onerous taxes that affect small business owners (and large homeowners). I cannot say that I blame him. I, who cannot find a house that isn't two hundred thousand more than it ought to be but for cidiots buying up houses over asking so they can have somewhere to weekend and open up as an Airbnb, do see the flaws. This is particularly exacerbated by working for the state, giving me an insider's view of its perpetual and sometimes performative dysfunction.

I don't recall when this tradition of Boy's Nights Out started. I am sure it occurred during my tenure writing this journal, and I could look, but I won't. It must have come from my father, who wanted to better connect with his sons outside one drunken night a year on vacation. My father has individual connections with us. He and Dan were always technical together, and Bryan tried. Bryan is still his weekly dinner guest (and depends on these meals for his food through the week.) My father could have more profound, philosophical conversations with me -- or complain about my mother, which he has promised to keep to a minimum this night. However, as a unit, we did not have a connection. I would argue that we still don't, but at least we can have fun as they drink. We acknowledged one another with nod and friendliness; we have not feuded since our teens. Still, our greatest interaction daily is a group text which Dan peppers with vaccine skepticism, and I dot with inappropriate memes. My mother updates us on the failing health of older family members. It seems like a sound system to me.

Aside from it being the last one we will have with Dan as a New Yorker -- or possibly at all -- the secondary purpose of Boys' Night Out has eroded. Bryan is a heavier drinker, but my father and Dan seem not to be too extreme any longer. I never was, even before my medication made clear that alcohol was forbidden if I didn't want to endure an overdose, which would be something of a mood-killer for the evening. Instead, we eat at a slightly upscale restaurant and hold a conversation. There is a suggestion that we might go to a comedy club after, but I don't know if that is anything more than a suggestion. As the designated driver, I cannot reconcile how to make the time work without getting fast food or eating there.

There will be two more months of saying goodbye to Dan. He is moving to Texas days before the New Year. He will be here through Christmas, but all gifts to his family will be in the form of gift cards to make them no less portable. As we pull wrapping paper from presents, I do not expect my mother to permit this final holiday to go unremarked upon.

When I arrive to pick the others up, my mother is hand feeding a struggling leopard gecko a cricket.

"It's the only way the bastard will eat," she assures me, then asks if I know anyone who wants a leopard gecko.

I do not.

We choose the Double O Grille. In the past, it has been more about brewpubs, but we care more about the fare now. People pack the restaurant beyond what I imagine prudent in a county worried about rising COVID cases. Three of us are vaccinated -- not Dan, of course -- and I am not too concerned. There are Plexiglas barriers between the tables, as though the virus can be deceived by something open on every side. I prefer things a little roomier when I am unpacking supposed years of distance.

They drink something autumnal, grated cinnamon atop. I do not ask for details or a sip -- I doubt I would like it enough to warrant that -- but I know it is alcoholic and, therefore, not for me. I keep to the caffeinated soft drinks, as I have been awake since 5 AM, and hope to stay conscious until at least an hour after I drop them all back.

My father points out that there is no reason that this would be the final Boy's Night Out. Yes, it will be markedly less convenient, but Dan will visit, and we could do with some masculine reconnection when he does. It may be optimistic to assume that we will, but we certainly could.

My father analogizes Dan's leaving to death by cancer. My mother's grief would be intense and crushing if Dan left with little preamble, like dying in a car accident. With so long to process, like withering death, she has been permitted her time to cope. This does not suggest that she wouldn't have a crippled rest of the winter -- I would be shocked if she makes it to Easter without breaking down on the phone with me a few times -- but that it will perhaps be fractionally less devastating. Still, her grandkids are a large part of her week. I can think of nothing else in her life that comes close to bringing her this purpose -- not her pets and surely not her job. When she retires -- a date which looms large -- I don't know what she will do with herself. Her hobby, beyond the pets, is shopping online, which is not overly tenable.

I suspect that she will never forgive Dan for taking the kids to Texas though he envisions a far better life for them there. They will be five minutes from their school; he will be five minutes from work. I've seen pictures of the house and must concede that it is nicer than his current one.

My father pauses after the appetizers. He notes that he is so proud of all of us for where we are in our lives, Dan with his job and gaggle of children, me with my books, Bryan with his nursing and schooling. He then points out all the times in our lives when he was concerned that we would never establish ourselves. Dan was a wild child holding raves in their backyard. I lingered as a starving artist. Bryan persisted in being Bryan an unusually long time.

Dinner ends. I envision an earlier end to the evening, already imagining the following morning.

Standing in the parking lot, my father says that he would like to go to a bar and have just *one* drink. How can I refuse them much on Boys' Night Out?

We end up at a barcade in Beacon, which is more arcade than bar. I marvel at some vintage cabinets -- The Simpsons, Gattaca, Revolution-X -- but I do not feel much impulse to play. I would not refuse if it were offered as a Boys' Night Out component, but it would seem beyond the point. My father asks me if I want anything but, having just come from a restaurant that has provided me leftovers of both dinner and dessert, I assure him that I am well-satisfied.

I am impressed that this business exists and cannot recall what filled this space before. I envy those who visit my home town now. Beacon was far less welcoming in my teens and early twenties.

"This used to be where the drug dealers hung out," Dan notes. Yes, that seems right. I would not have been here past dark then long enough to know this, but the drug dealers were his friends and competition.

Most people around us are in costume, the majority of the women and some of the men leaning on the "Sexy Noun" archetype that doesn't suit the chill of this late October evening. There is even a sexy banana with a wig requiring scaffolding and careful posture. I envy too not merely that they get to see this new face of Beacon but that they get to do it as attractive urbanites and not forty-year-old teacher-writers who want to be in bed by eleven on a Friday. When I was them -- their ages and demeanors, a starving artist -- this playground was far worse.

Inside, people sing karaoke. Most about as well as they could, but the host murders "Hamilton" anew by singing "Satisfied" with the most nasal, grating voice he could. Even my hatred of him is novel, as though this were a scene in a movie rather than something happening organically.

I've missed even the possibility of doing things like this. I suspect that the close contact of crowding strangers -- a surprising number of costumed, snotty children after nine -- would make Amber itchy. When texting her about the barcade, she says that she would not sing karaoke in public, which seems to be the activity's point.

The night ends after that. I am not sure that my father feels resolved that our connection has been significant, and much more has been revealed tonight than would be during any other encounter, but it was a good night.

last watched: People of Earth
reading: The Orchid Thief